Slughorn's Attitude

Harry felt a little panicked.

Before this, he had successfully fashioned himself into a potions genius in front of Slughorn with the Advanced Potion-Making textbook left behind by the Half-Blood Prince.

But in reality, his true skill was nowhere near as impressive as he had made it seem. He simply had not been exposed yet.

But that book could not help him in this lesson.

To brew an antidote, they first had to understand the principles behind the mixed poison in the bottle—and the mixed poison was something Slughorn had concocted at random, making it impossible to take any shortcuts.

Silvan poured the potion from the bottle into his cauldron. Seeing Harry angrily flipping through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making, he leaned over curiously to take a look.

Golpalott's Third Law was in there too, but there were no annotations whatsoever.

Obviously, Snape considered it as simple as casting Lumos with a wand, something that did not need any explanation.

Were there really students in the advanced sixth-year Potions class who could not understand Golpalott's Third Law?

That was what Snape had thought.

Then Harry proved to him that there were—not just one, but two.

Silvan truly could not stand watching any longer. He cleared his throat, picked up his wand, and gave the cauldron a light flick.

"Revelio!"

Harry and Ron's eyes lit up, and they immediately pulled out their wands and copied him.

"Hey, Silvan, you shouldn't have reminded them." Hermione shot Silvan a displeased look.

"They should have done it themselves. Then Harry would have learned that he couldn't rely on that Prince forever."

"Actually, I think you're worrying too much," Silvan said quietly.

Hermione was about to say more when she saw Silvan point at Harry's cauldron.

She instinctively looked over—and was hit by a stench