What potion had he brewed? Wait a minute-a potion?!
In a flash of inspiration, Zhang Xiao said admiringly:
"Professor, you're amazing. I did use my cauldron to brew something before term started. It's a recipe passed down in the East. Since it's very beginner-friendly, I thought I'd give it a try."
Professor Snape's expression softened a little more. He studied the ingredients revealed by Scarpin's Revelaspell, then suddenly asked:
"What does this potion do?"
"Well..." Zhang Xiao racked his brains and began making things up. "Professor, this potion has several effects, but none of them are particularly strong."
Snape gave a nasal grunt, and Zhang Xiao continued inventing. "Its main effect is to lift people's spirits and give them a feeling of happiness. It also makes them feel warm all over..."
"It sounds rather similar to the Invigoration Draught... What is this potion called?"
"Happiness Soup!" Zhang Xiao blurted out without batting an eye.
Snape rubbed his chin and slowly nodded. The name Happiness Soup did seem to fit its effects.
He wanted to ask for more details. After all, both the brewing method and the assortment of utterly bizarre ingredients had been eye-opening.
So there was another way of approaching potion-making?
But remembering that class was still in progress, he had to set the thought aside. With a sweep of his cloak, he returned to his desk, leaving them with one final remark:
"One point from Slytherin. I hope Zhang will remember to clean his cauldron thoroughly after brewing a potion, or it may affect the next potion he makes!"
Zhang Xiao secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Good thing he was in Slytherin. If it had been Harry, Gryffindor might have ended up owing points! If Snape knew he'd been using his cauldron to cook hot pot, he'd probably go mad!
Snape stared darkly at the young witches and wizards below him and said slowly:
"How pathetic. Looking at you, I have to wonder whether I'm teaching a pack of trolls. Must someone tell you that a statement is important before you think to write it down?"
As though they had all been lashed with a whip, the students hurriedly opened their notebooks and used their quills to jot down the First Rule of Potions: always clean your cauldron thoroughly.
Fortunately, after that interruption, Snape stopped picking on Harry. Young Harry secretly breathed a sigh of relief, though he soon regretted relaxing too early.
Snape declared that in a subject as sophisticated as potions, rote learning alone was useless. Even Mr. Potter, who knew absolutely nothing, could read the words in a textbook aloud. What mattered more in potions was practical ability.
As he spoke, his gaze kept drifting toward Hermione. But Hermione withstood the pressure and performed brilliantly, successfully brewing the Cure for Boils Potion.
Snape acted as though he hadn't seen it, however, and instead turned to praise how perfectly Malfoy and Zhang Xiao had stewed their slugs.
Harry felt utterly wretched. Snape kept pacing around him, his long black cloak trailing behind him and his eyes constantly returning to Harry's face.
At the slightest deviation from proper procedure, he mocked Harry in endlessly inventive ways, using that infuriating drawl. Was Snape a stand-up comedian? Harry thought angrily. (Note 1) How did he know so many ways to ridicule people?
Just then, a cloud of acrid green smoke suddenly rose in the dungeon classroom, followed by an explosion and a loud hissing sound.
Seamus's face was completely blackened and his hair was a mess. He tried to say something, but the moment he opened his mouth, a puff of black smoke emerged. Beside him, Neville stared miserably at the scorched wreck of the cauldron in front of him.
The potion spilled across the stone floor, burning holes in the students' shoes. Within seconds, the entire class was standing on their stools. When the cauldron overturned, Neville had been drenched in potion. Angry red boils now covered his arms and legs, and he howled in pain.
"Idiot!" Snape roared, waving his wand to clear away all the spilled potion.
"I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire, didn't you?"
Neville began sobbing, and a rash of boils suddenly sprouted even on his nose.
"And you! What on earth did you do to make the simplest of potions explode?" Snape snapped at Seamus.
"I don't know, Professor!" Seamus answered, puffing out smoke rings.
"Shut up! I wasn't asking for an answer. Both of you, get to the Hospital Wing!" Snape turned away and looked at Harry with an expression of disgust.
"Potter, why didn't you tell him not to add the porcupine quills? Did you think his mistake would make you look good? Gryffindor has lost another point because of you."
Harry almost threw his potion in Snape's face, but Ron tugged desperately at his clothes. He had no choice but to give up, swallow his anger, and keep brewing.
Malfoy sneered and said to Zhang Xiao:
"That Seamus is a half-blood, isn't he? You might not want to admit it, but a half-blood is a half-blood."
Zhang Xiao said nothing and pointed behind them. Malfoy looked back, and his face immediately flushed bright red. Crabbe and Goyle looked like a pair of trolls clumsily stirring their dinner.
A disgusting, sludge-like substance bubbled in their cauldron, as though someone had brought a swamp to the boil. It was slightly better than Seamus and Neville's effort, but not by much.
Yet Snape seemed blind to it. Even though he walked past them several times, he never once glanced their way.
Zhang Xiao suspected that Snape was afraid he wouldn't be able to restrain himself if he looked.
"Clean this up. Don't help this time. I'll brew a potion on my own." Zhang Xiao patted Malfoy's shoulder and returned his attention to the potion.
Before actually trying it himself, Zhang Xiao had thought potion-making was incredibly simple. Wasn't it just adding things in order? As long as you were careful and didn't add the wrong thing, wouldn't it be fine?
Only after getting hands-on experience did he realize how foolish and naive he'd been.
It was like watching someone cook. It looked simple: chop the vegetables, put them in the pan, stir-fry them, add seasoning, and serve. Yet the "a little," "to taste," and "some" in recipes left countless people scratching their heads.
The real difficulty in potion-making lay in judging precisely how much of each ingredient to add, and when.
If you got the timing or quantities wrong when cooking, the worst you'd end up with was something unappetizing. Get them wrong in a potion, and at best you'd ruin it and have to start over. At worst, the cauldron could explode and kill someone!
In other words, potions was a subject that relied heavily on talent. In her second year, Hermione Granger had brewed Polyjuice Potion, which took an entire month and involved nearly twenty ingredients, including supplementary ones. It required all sorts of techniques, from advance preparation, grinding, and fine processing to stirring and drying. And she had actually succeeded!
A true academic genius certainly lived up to her reputation.
The Cure for Boils really was an introductory potion. Perhaps because he'd often cooked in his previous life, Zhang Xiao felt that his own grasp of timing and quantities was quite precise.
He couldn't help wondering: If some lab rat from my previous life came here, would they instantly become a Potions Master? Or would they go straight to automation?
Harry finally made it to the end of class. He found Zhang Xiao, complained about Snape for a while, then said:
"Do you remember Hagrid, the one I told you about at the start of term? The really big man. He's invited me over, and he said I could bring friends.
"Do you want to come?"
Hagrid? Zhang Xiao's interest was instantly piqued, and he happily accepted.
Before you continue