His gaze swept over the two like a venomous snake.
George and Fred immediately lowered their heads, but she keenly realized that something seemed off about Snape today because of Professor Holmes, and that he also had something against their immediate boss, Mr. Black.
"Potions is a science! An art that demands absolute concentration and precision!"
Snape paced back and forth in the middle of the classroom, his black robes dragging across the floor with a rustle, like a snake closing in on its prey.
"It is not a canvas for you to express your cheap emotions! It does not care whether you are happy or sad! It cares only about dosage! Sequence! Timing!"
"But now, certain people seem to believe,"
He stopped, his lips twisting into an utterly mocking smile.
"that simply dressing their stupidity in the shell of some profound-sounding syndrome makes the stupidity itself forgivable!"
"Sir!"
He suddenly turned his attack on a student.
"Perhaps you can tell us whether the spleen of this frog in front of you was experiencing a profound existential crisis before you so brutally crushed it?
Was it contemplating what value its life held as an ingredient in a cauldron of potion?"
The entire class fell silent.
The student flushed scarlet, the pestle in his hand suspended in midair, at a loss for what to do.
"Answer me!"
Snape roared.
"I... I don't know, Professor."
"Ten points from Gryffindor!"
Snape announced coldly.
"For those pathetic brains of yours, stuffed full of irrelevant rubbish!"
With unprecedentedly vicious words, he turned the classroom into an execution ground.
He magnified every tiny mistake beyond measure, then linked it to those "trendy, frivolous" ideas and subjected it to a merciless lashing.
The students felt more frightened than ever before.
Today, Snape was no longer merely spiteful.