Hot Pot Time!

The ominous feeling reached its peak that evening, when Harry sat in the hot pot restaurant and saw the enormous pot the waiter brought out.

But it wasn't all that bad.

The hot pot voucher her aunt had given her wouldn't cover everyone, but at least he could invite three more people besides Ron and Hermione.

Harry had resolutely chosen Professor Snape and the Weasley parents.

He had originally wanted to invite the twins, but they already had plans that evening and had to miss out, unfortunately.

Inside the restaurant, Ron stared at the pot of bubbling red oil in front of him.

The surface was crowded with chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns, and the hot, spicy aroma rushed up his nose, making him swallow.

"Merlin..." he murmured. "Can you really eat this?"

Hermione was hesitant too. She picked up her chopsticks and gently poked a red date floating in the red broth. "My parents took me out for Chinese food once, and the waiter said... you were supposed to drink the soup first? I remember them saying something about how 'the soup was lovely'..."

"Huh?" Ron said, pointing at the glaringly red broth with a twitch of his mouth. "You mean... we're supposed to drink that stuff?"

Hermione didn't nod. She wasn't sure either. "Maybe... not this soup?"

Just then, the waiter came over carrying a tray piled high with ingredients for the hot pot.

Bright red slices of beef, snowy white fish fillets, emerald green vegetables, and plate after plate of ingredients they had never seen before.

They had asked the waiter to recommend dishes when they ordered and hadn't paid much attention at the time. But now, watching him bring plate after plate to the table, they finally began to feel that something was off.

What was that? A huge skinned frog???

And what was this? Chicken feet???

What were those black, spiky pieces of rag?????

Were these things really food?!

Amid the group's silence, Snape closed his eyes, unwilling to look any longer.

After her mouth twitched several times, Harry managed to force a smile. She took a deep breath and asked the waiter, "Excuse me, how do we eat this hot pot?"

The waiter answered with a smile, "Just put the ingredients in and cook them, and they're ready to eat!"

Ron couldn't help cutting in. "Do we need to drink the soup?"

Hey, this kid had never eaten hot pot before!

The waiter's smile widened. For some reason, Harry couldn't help feeling that she could see an emotion called schadenfreude on his face.

Even so, he still had the basic professionalism expected of a waiter. "You can drink the soup if you want, but not the red one." He pointed to the milky white mushroom broth beside it. "You can drink the white broth. The red broth is too spicy; your stomach won't be able to handle it."

When he finished, he turned and went away for a while. He came back with several pamphlets and handed one to each of them. "These are reference cooking times for the ingredients. If you cook them for less time than this, they might not be done, and eating them could upset your stomach."

Arthur Weasley opened his pamphlet eagerly. Soon, he pointed at one line and looked up to ask, "This thing called 'tripe'... what does 'seven up, eight down' mean?"

The waiter mimed holding chopsticks and demonstrated the up-and-down dipping motion. "Like this. Hold the tripe, dip it in briefly, then lift it out. Repeat that eight times, and it'll be cooked."

Arthur's eyes lit up. "Wow! Thank you!"

After the waiter had gone some distance away, Ron stared at the oil dip and sesame sauce in front of him, and realization suddenly dawned. "So, according to him, you cook it, then put it in here and dip it..." He pointed at the sauce bowls. "Isn't this just... hot salad?!"

The waiter, who was eavesdropping nearby, pinched his thigh as hard as he could. "..."

He had received professional training and generally wasn't supposed to laugh, unless he couldn't help it.

The group picked up their chopsticks awkwardly. Worried they wouldn't be used to them, the waiter had also provided knives and forks for them to use.

Harry looked as serious as if she were taking an exam. Her chopsticks hovered between the red and clear broths for a few seconds before she cautiously placed the meat roll she had struggled to pick up into the milky white mushroom broth.

The boiling clear broth instantly enveloped the pink slices of meat, turning them an appetizing light brown in just a few seconds.

Arthur Weasley, who was trying it at the same time as her, was completely absorbed in the ritual of "seven up, eight down" that the waiter had described.

The chopsticks were too troublesome to use, so he simply used them to pull a piece of tripe over to his side. He tried to pierce it with his fork, but couldn't get through. Finally, the waiter, who was holding back laughter, couldn't stand watching any longer. He helped fold the tripe so that it fit snugly between the fork's prongs.

He muttered under his breath, "One up, one down... two up, two down..."

The tripe rose and fell in the red broth, gradually curling into a pretty ruffled edge. When he lifted it out for the eighth time, he copied what the waiter had taught him and rolled the perfectly cooked tripe in the garlic and sesame oil dip until it was coated all over. Then he couldn't wait to pop it into his mouth.

"Crunch!"

A startling crunch burst between his teeth. The sesame oil had both cooled the surface of the tripe and locked the flavor inside. As soon as he bit into it, a bomb of garlicky juices and spicy beef tallow exploded in his mouth.

Arthur's eyes widened.

How could this black rag taste so good?

He had never experienced a texture like this before!

When the heat belatedly rushed over him, he gulped down a mouthful of ice-cold Pumpkin Juice, only to find that he had already picked up a second piece.

Meanwhile, Harry was dipping her cooked meat roll into the thick sesame sauce.

The moment the sauce-coated lamb touched her tongue, the rich sesame aroma mingled with the meat juices, and the savory sweetness made her eyes narrow involuntarily.

The smooth texture of the sesame sauce was like cream under a Softening Charm, perfectly counteracting the fibrous texture of the meat.

This was far more impressive than the roast beef at Hogwarts!

It didn't even have the slightest strange taste!

"How is it?" Hermione asked expectantly. Harry's mouth was so full that she could only nod vigorously and give Hermione a hasty thumbs-up to show her approval of the hot pot.

Her red hair bobbed with the movement, constantly in danger of slipping into her dish. Hermione stood up and tied Harry's long hair back with her spare hair tie.

The most terrifying sight came from Snape.

When the whole bullfrog was pierced by a silver fork and dropped into the red broth, Ron, who had never gotten along with Snape, looked at him with admiration.

Professor Snape! A real man!

Even Harry felt a surge of respect for her.

"Potter," Snape said, turning to Harry, who was staring at him. "Do you have a question?"

"N-no!" Harry said hastily.

Snape snorted and turned back, watching the bullfrog bob in the pot with silent wariness.

Easterners actually eat a creature that clearly belongs in a Potions cupboard as a staple food?

He discreetly moved his chair away from Harry, determined not to let any suspicious frog meat get near her.

Staring at the bullfrog tumbling in the red broth, Snape looked even more focused than when he brewed Wolfsbane Potion.

The frog had been cooked orange-red all over, its limbs slightly curled, as though silently protesting its fate in the hot, spicy red oil.

He pierced the frog's leg precisely with his fork and lifted it out of the boiling broth. A transparent layer of red oil coated the bullfrog, and the dripping broth splashed tiny droplets of oil into the bowl. Snape frowned slightly, as though examining some unknown Potions ingredient.

He hesitated for a second, then placed the bullfrog in his specially mixed dipping sauce, a bowl of pitch-black liquid with chopped cilantro and minced garlic floating in it.

Then he slowly took a bite.

The texture was more surprising than he had imagined.

The bullfrog's flesh was exceptionally tender, falling apart almost as soon as his teeth touched it, yet retaining a subtle springiness, like eel under a Softening Charm.

The numbing heat of the red broth instantly swept over his taste buds, but close behind came the delicate sweetness of the frog meat itself, mingling with the garlic and fresh cilantro to form a peculiar balance.

Snape's eyebrows rose slightly.

His tongue began to go numb, and his throat felt as though it were being slowly roasted over a low flame, but strangely, he didn't dislike the sensation.

It tastes quite good. Five points to Gryffindor.