Questions and Answers

Gemini propped his chin on one hand while deftly twirling a ballpoint pen with the other—he still had not learned how to use a quill...

Quills were far too messy. His hands got covered in ink every time, and after using one twice, Gemini had tossed it into a corner to gather dust.

"Potter!"

From the podium, Snape suddenly spoke. "What would I get if I added powdered asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

At the back of the classroom, Harry froze when Snape suddenly called on him. Hermione, sitting beside him, immediately raised her hand, but Snape turned a blind eye to it.

"I don't know, sir." After hesitating for several seconds, Harry resigned himself to answering.

"Tsk, tsk... It seems fame does not represent everything." Snape curled his lip disdainfully.

Gemini rested his chin on his hand and quietly watched the show.

Powdered asphodel added to an infusion of wormwood made Draught of Living Death, a powerful sleeping potion—so powerful that, if mishandled, it could even make the drinker sleep forever.

He had seen this scene more than twenty times in the books in his previous life, and more than a dozen times in the films.

The book had said powdered root of asphodel, while Snape's original words had been asphodelos—asphodel.

In his previous life, there had been quite a bit of discussion about Snape's question.

At the time, asphodel had still belonged to the lily family, and "root of asphodel" had actually been a mistranslation.

Thus, some people believed Snape's words concealed another meaning.

Asphodel was a type of lily, closely associated in Western countries with grief—the sorrow caused by someone's death. It meant "remembered beyond the tomb" and "my regrets follow you to the grave."

Wormwood usually implied regret, bitterness, and remorse. Its overall meaning was, "I deeply regret your mother's death."

So, from the perspective of literary symbolism, the meaning should have been:

'The lily falls into bitter grief. I deeply regret your mother's death, and from then on, I live a bleak, hellish life.'

It perfectly matched the properties of Draught of Living Death.

Of course, some people said that was overinterpretation.

But Gemini felt that even setting aside the fact that the author herself loved hidden meanings, given Snape's personality—too proud to admit anything until death—the possibility was still quite high.

After all, the man before him had been a Potions genius who had thoroughly optimized the sixth-year Potions textbook while still in school.

As for their current first-year Potions textbook, A Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, Gemini suspected Snape could recite the entire thing from memory and perhaps casually correct it along the way.

For a Potions master like him, slipping in an obscure flower-language reference was effortless.

Of course, whether Snape's words truly contained those metaphors was not important.

What mattered was that Gemini had noticed Snape's gaze had never left Harry's eyes throughout the questioning.

That reminded him of something.

Before the term "simp" appeared, people had always called it "deep affection."

"Let us try again, Potter."

Snape continued from the podium. "If I asked you to fetch me a bezoar, where would you look?"

Beside Harry, Hermione had her hand raised so high she was practically about to stand up from her stool, while Harry still looked utterly lost.

"I don't know, sir."

"I suppose... you did not open a single book before school began, did you, Potter..."

Snape sneered and glanced in Gemini's direction. "Both are first-year students. One enjoys his fame yet accomplishes nothing, while another has no one to rely on, yet independently mastered all of first through fifth-year Defense Against the Dark Arts within a single month—"

Draco stared at Gemini in astonishment. He knew himself well enough to understand that Snape's glance had definitely not been directed at him.

Other than the monster sitting beside him, probably no one else could earn a second look from the high-minded Snape.

Harry's face reddened. He was not afraid of Snape mocking him, because anyone could see that Snape disliked him.

What he feared was Snape comparing him to other students. That made him seem useless.

"Tsk... Look at that unwilling little glare." Snape mocked, "One final question, Potter. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"I don't know," Harry said quietly. "But I think Hermione knows the answer. Why don't you ask her?"

Several students laughed, but Gemini did not find it funny at all.

From his position as an observer, he only found it rather regrettable.

Snape was mocking Harry, true, but was he not also hoping Harry would know these things?

In the Half-Blood Prince storyline, when Ron accidentally drank poisoned wine, Harry had saved his life with a bezoar.

A bezoar could neutralize the toxicity of most poisons. Generally speaking, if you did not know what poison someone had taken but the situation was urgent, swallowing a bezoar was never wrong. At the very least, it could temporarily keep you alive!

That was the description of bezoars in A Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.

Beside Harry, Hermione was still obliviously holding up her hand.

"Sit down! You stupid girl!" Snape snapped at Hermione.

"Let me tell you, Potter! Powdered asphodel and an infusion of wormwood together make a powerful sleeping potion—a Draught of Living Death; a bezoar is a stone taken from a goat's stomach and has extremely strong antidotal properties; and monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, both also known as aconite... Understand?!"

As Snape spoke, his eyes finally left Harry's, and he swept his gaze around the room. "Why... are none of you writing this down?"

A rustling sound filled the classroom as everyone scrambled for quills and parchment.

"Mr. Fox, have you been struck deaf by an Ear-Sealing Charm?" Snape's gloomy gaze turned toward Gemini. Clearly, he was not in a good mood and seemed a little crazed.

"I have mostly memorized the key points, and I have already written them down, Professor." Gemini spread open a small notebook, densely packed with notes.

Snape's gaze swept across the notebook, and he slowly asked, "Then, in the absence of a bezoar, what can serve as a substitute to some degree?"

"Ox gallstone, Professor."

"What is the proper dosage for Draught of Living Death?"

"Less than one ounce."

"Is the cry of a mandrake pleasant?"

"Everyone who hears it dies, Professor."

"How can it be distinguished from poison mandrake?"

"There is no need to distinguish them. They are the same species; poison mandrake is another name for mandrake."

"What are the main ingredients of a Calming Draught?"

"Powdered moonstone and syrup of hellebore."

"What is Gillyweed used for?"

"To treat all kinds of bruises and sprains."

"Clearly—there are some people whose reputation is not entirely undeserved..."

At last, Snape stopped questioning him. A smile appeared on his face for the first time, though it was somewhat stiff and rather ugly.

"Five points to Slytherin. As for you, Potter, five points from Gryffindor for talking back to a teacher."

In the Potions classroom, a group of Slytherin students immediately burst into applause. For the first time, they cheered for this menace from their own House.

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