Afternoon

In the afternoon, warm sunlight slanted across the corridors of Hogwarts Castle.

Pandora walked briskly, leading Snape toward her laboratory.

Along the way, patches of light shifted through the stained-glass windows, spilling colors across the stone floor.

She needed to make some preparations in the lab before going to examine that unusual protective magic.

"Pandora, what kind of experiments do you do?"

"Lately I've been working on a special project—combining spells with plants. If you cast certain charms on plants, sometimes you get surprisingly dramatic results.

"For example, if you cast 'Stupe-Tergeo' on mistletoe, its crown releases a captivating fragrance that draws people in unconsciously. After sniffing it for a while, you'll fall into a coma and have a warm, beautiful dream.

"Last time, I missed several days of class because of that. Luckily, no one came looking for me. By the time I went back, it was like nothing had happened."

"..."

Snape didn't know what to say after hearing that.

A strange feeling welled up in his chest—he found these antics endearing, yet at the same time, he felt sorry for her.

"What is 'Stupe-Tergeo'?" he asked softly.

"It's a spell I invented. I combined 'Stupefy' and 'Tergeo' to make 'Stupe-Tergeo.'"

They chatted as they walked, and before they knew it, they had climbed to the Eighth Floor of the castle.

Snape looked up and saw the Troll in Tutu Tapestry before him.

He couldn't help raising an eyebrow: Were Hogwarts' ancient hidden spots this lively now?

"Wait for me a moment." Pandora glanced around and said to Snape.

She paced back and forth along the corridor, muttering under her breath: "I need to do experiments, I need to do experiments..."

Before long, Snape saw the smooth door appear on the white wall again.

He stepped forward first, pulled the door open, and held it for Pandora to enter.

It was a circular room, much smaller than the place where he had once hidden something.

Several large round tables stood inside, holding glassware of various shapes and some papers. Near the window wall, a dozen or so colorful plants were growing.

"Isn't it amazing?" she said. "The castle actually has a dedicated lab like this, and I'm the only one using it."

"Yes, amazing." Snape didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm, so he agreed.

His eyes swept across the room and suddenly noticed that the papers on the table were several copies of the Daily Prophet.

"Why do you have the Daily Prophet here?"

"I use them to wrap dragon dung." Pandora replied nonchalantly while organizing the glassware on the table.

"Fair enough," Snape said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "By the way, how did you find this place?"

"They wouldn't let me do these experiments in the dormitory—said it was too dangerous," Pandora said. "So I thought I'd find an empty classroom in the castle to use as a lab. But the professors didn't really approve of me using those rooms either, so I had to keep changing locations. Once, Peeves even smashed all the experimental materials I'd been saving up.

"Of course, after I found this place, everything was fine. No one bothers me anymore."

She picked up a glittering crystal ball and said to Snape, "Look, this is a 'Revealing Resonance Crystal.' If you tap it with your wand, you can see invisible things around you, like Screechsnaps or whatever.

"But be careful—using it for too long will make your brain slow down, like it's about to solidify..."

Pandora excitedly showed Snape around her lab. Many of the things here were beyond his imagination; he had no idea how she had made them.

"Alright, I need to prepare for a special explosion."

She struggled to lift a plain little bag from the floor, pulled out several sets of bottles and jars and a brass scale, and began her preparations amid a cloud of smoke.

"Pandora, did you make this bag yourself?"

Snape noticed the bag's clearly unnatural storage capacity, which reminded him of the spatial artifact Hermione had prepared for the trio's wandering life.

"What?" Pandora looked up, her hands still moving. "Oh, you mean this. Yes, I made it with an Undetectable Extension Charm. Without it, moving the lab would be a nightmare."

"Um, I was wondering... could I trouble you to make something similar for me?"

Snape picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet from the table and said, his face a little warm.

He suddenly felt the room temperature was a bit high.

"Sure," Pandora said without hesitation, quickly. "But this charm is really tricky. It took me many tries to make this bag. I don't know when I'll be able to make another one for you."

"That's fine. No rush, no rush." Snape said cheerfully. "Whenever you have time."

Then he leaned against the corner of the wall, unfolded the newspaper, and stopped disturbing Pandora's work.

It was an April issue, with nothing noteworthy in it.

Some Ministry of Magic updates and gossip columns filled almost every page. The entire paper contained no magical theory whatsoever, showing that the author's mind had no trace of it.

After reading it, Snape concluded that the Daily Prophet was hardly a first-rate newspaper. Using it to wrap dragon dung was actually putting it to good use.

Suddenly, in a small corner of the last page, he noticed the words "Muggle Prime Minister"—

<Minister of Magic Successfully Meets New Muggle Prime Minister>:

"Recently, Minister of Magic Harold Minchum has completed a friendly and in-depth meeting with the new Muggle Prime Minister, James Hacker... The two sides engaged in thorough exchanges on several topics of mutual concern... During the meeting, both parties particularly emphasized the importance of harmonious coexistence between wizards and Muggles... We believe that the current difficulties are temporary, and with the joint efforts of both sides, a new world full of harmony and prosperity..."

"Wait, James Hacker..."

Snape picked up the newspaper he had been about to set down, staring intently at this common English name that shared Potter's surname, along with the moving image below it.

"James... Jim... Jim Hacker..."

"Bloody hell!" He couldn't restrain the force in his hand; with a "rip," he tore the page in two.

Half of the new Muggle Prime Minister's face still smiled stiffly from the paper.

"What's wrong with you, Severus?" Pandora asked.

"Nothing, nothing," Snape folded the torn page and tucked it into his pocket. "What a strange world this is..."

"Yes, I think so too." Pandora continued mixing her colorful reagents without looking up.

Long afterward, Snape still clearly remembered this autumn afternoon in 1976, in the Room of Requirement, with Pandora tinkering with her experimental apparatus while he flipped through the Daily Prophet—not a single worry, not a shadow of gloom in his heart.

In the years that followed, he rushed about without rest, never again knowing such an afternoon.