Brewing Potions

Merlin, this was too unfair!

Hearing that Li Wei had lost points, the students of both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff cried out those words inwardly.

But no one dared to actually say them aloud in front of Snape!

Li Wei had expected this. He was even glad he had not lost points because of a mistake while brewing a potion.

Professor Snape did not care about the anger brewing among the young wizards below the podium. He swept his cold gaze across the classroom and demanded in the tone teachers often used:

"Why didn't you write down what Wickens just said?"

"Do I have to remind you? Pathetic!"

The young wizards beneath the podium snapped out of their daze and hurriedly began writing.

"Fine, let's begin class!"

"This lesson will begin with identifying herbs, preparing herbs, and brewing a Cure for Boils Potion..."

As Professor Snape spoke, a piece of chalk flew from the chalk box and landed on the blackboard behind him, where it began scratching away.

Li Wei listened and took notes in his notebook as well.

He noticed that Snape's methods of processing ingredients and brewing potions differed slightly from those in the textbook.

Li Wei did not know whether Professor Snape or the textbook's author, Arsenius Jigger, was the greater Potions master.

But Severus Snape's talent for Potions was such that even Dumbledore sought his help when dealing with cursed injuries and illnesses!

Besides, if you attended someone's class, you followed that person's instructions. The choice between the two Potions masters was obvious!

After the theoretical instruction ended, the latter half of the lesson moved into the practical portion Li Wei had been most worried about.

Professor Snape split the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students into pairs. Li Wei was assigned to a group with his dormmate, the rigorous and conscientious Anthony Goldstein.

"Excellent answer," Anthony quietly praised Li Wei, then lowered his voice even further.

"I heard from the older students that he's just that kind of person. Don't take it to heart. Ravenclaw has plenty of ways to earn those points back!"

Li Wei nodded. He truly had not taken it to heart. He had long expected what Professor Snape would be like.

Rather than feeling upset over the lost points, he was focused on brewing the potion. "I'll prepare the ingredients, and you can add them. All right?"

"No problem," Anthony said confidently. He had already written down the brewing steps Professor Snape had explained.

"That's good." Li Wei let out a quiet sigh of relief inwardly.

While Li Wei and Anthony discussed their work, the other groups chattered nonstop as well.

"I told you to brew potions, not talk!"

Professor Snape once again spat out a classic teacher's line, instantly silencing the classroom.

Brewing a Cure for Boils Potion required four ingredients: snake fangs, dried nettles, horned slugs, and porcupine quills.

The first ingredient Li Wei prepared was the snake fangs. What needed to be noted was that they had to be venomous snake fangs to count as snake fangs!

It sounded like a pointless statement, but in practice, Li Wei had to pick out genuine venomous fangs from a small box full of assorted snake teeth.

They could not be ordinary teeth from venomous snakes, much less teeth from nonvenomous snakes. Using python teeth would be even more foolish!

Grind six venomous snake fangs into a fine powder, then take four measures of it and place them into the cauldron to boil.

Li Wei carefully used the mortar and pestle to grind the fangs into an extremely fine powder. There were no visible grains, only fine dust.

Even if Snape, that old bat, had stood behind him and silently watched for a while, he would not have been able to find fault with Li Wei's technique.

But taking four measures from it was what left Li Wei scratching his head.

From that pile of powdered snake fangs, he simply could not understand how much four measures was supposed to be!

Yet his dormmate Anthony quite naturally scooped out four spoonfuls with a potion spoon and put them into the cauldron.

Li Wei firmly committed that action to memory, without asking why Anthony was so certain that those four spoonfuls counted as four measures.

Don't ask. The answer was magic.

He could already guess how Anthony would answer him:

That's four measures. What else would it be?

Magic in the world of Harry Potter depended heavily on emotions and willpower.

Potion brewing was the same!

Li Wei felt that as long as the brewer firmly believed he had added four measures of ingredients, even if he had only put in three spoonfuls, the ingredient would probably still work normally.

As before, don't ask. The answer was magic!

Next, Li Wei began weighing the dried nettles. There was nothing much to say about this step; it relied entirely on equipment to achieve an accurate amount.

The last ingredient that needed preparation was the horned slugs. They absolutely had to be "horned" slugs. Any without horns were completely useless and could not be added to a potion.

Li Wei set up a small pot beside him and casually cast Aguamenti, then put the prepared horned slugs inside to boil.

"Anthony, help me keep an eye on the heat!"

He said it casually, but his attention remained tightly fixed on Anthony's movements.

Even without magical inspiration to help him brew potions, he would precisely memorize every correct step and use that to replicate other people's brewing process.

Since I, Li Wei, don't have that talent for Potions, I'll become a master copier and use copies of other people's talent.

"Sure," Anthony replied casually as he stirred the cauldron, glancing at the small pot in front of Li Wei.

Li Wei began selecting porcupine quills. Fortunately, they required no preparation and only needed to be added to the potion after it was removed from the heat.

But that did not mean selecting porcupine quills involved no challenge at all.

Choosing the proper ingredients and preparing them correctly were also important parts of Potions class.

Just like the box in front of Li Wei now: porcupine quills, hedgehog spines, and spines from animals no one even knew were all mixed together.

If one could not identify the ingredients correctly, the potion still could not be brewed. Worse, using the wrong ingredient might cause an explosion.

After preparing the ingredients, Li Wei carefully observed Anthony brewing the potion and listened to Snape scolding other students.

He actually understood Professor Snape a little now!

There were only four ingredients, and they merely had to be brewed into a potion according to the steps.

As long as you memorized the knowledge and followed the instructions strictly, it was basically no different from cooking instant noodles.

But even so, those eleven-year-old little brats could still cause Professor Snape all kinds of trouble.

They were not quite as bad as Neville, who added porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the heat, but the small mistakes never stopped.

For example, someone would spend ages grinding ordinary snake teeth before realizing it at the very end.

Someone used the wrong weights to measure dried nettles and ended up with a huge pile.

A hornless slug got mixed in with the horned slugs.

Some could not tell porcupine quills from hedgehog spines at all.

Even Li Wei, whose Potions talent could only be described as troll-like, was left speechless!

No wonder Professor Snape was always so sharp-tongued in Potions class. Anyone facing this bunch of troublesome little devils would be furious enough to make their scalp tingle!

Wearing dragon-hide gloves, Li Wei lifted the cauldron off the fire and calculated how long Anthony waited for the potion to cool.

Then he watched Anthony add the porcupine quills, stir clockwise five times, and wave his wand to finish.

Inside the still-warm cauldron, the Cure for Boils Potion that Li Wei and Anthony had brewed in perfect cooperation was the clear blue required by the textbook.

Pink smoke drifted from the potion, and a faint herbal fragrance spread through the air.

Professor Snape fanned the scent toward his nose with one hand, nodded, and floated away like a great bat without saying a word.

Li Wei and Anthony exchanged a glance and immediately smiled.