Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 455 Potions Class

Outside the professor of Charms' office, Franklin was waiting alone for Mike in the office. As for Clark, he went to study.

The sixth and seventh grade students at Hogwarts have a lot of free time. Part of the reason for this is that many students are disqualified from taking elective courses due to their grades, but more of the reason is that the NWET courses are too difficult. Most professors have taken the initiative to reduce the course density and teaching progress so that students can have more time to absorb and digest the current knowledge.

Many students with poor self-control begin to act recklessly after gaining so much free time. Their attention shifts from studying to novels, shopping, wizard chess and even love, especially love. The ratio of couples among sixth and seventh grade students in Hogwarts is frighteningly high. Unlike the Muggle society where couples break up after graduation, due to the particularity and closed nature of the wizarding society, most of these student couples can enter the marriage hall.

In fact, a considerable number of couples in the wizarding community met on campus, such as Harry's parents, and Neville and Ron's parents.

Mike even suspected that this might be a conspiracy by the Ministry of Magic to increase the birth rate. After all, young people of this age have basically nothing to do except dating once they have free time.

Moreover, they are mentally immature at this age, so boys and girls do not know how to exercise restraint and take safety measures, and it is easy for them to cause death. In the end, they can only become parents early (abortion is illegal in the wizarding world!).

But there are also a small number of students who always focus on their studies. It may be because of family pressure or because of their amazing self-control, but no matter what, they are the future of the wizarding world.

Clark is one of these people. In fact, it is very rare for him to save time to interact with Mike, considering that he is about to graduate this year.

Clark's departure also made Franklin a little bored. He had been waiting here for almost half an hour. He really couldn't understand what was going on between Mike and Professor Flitwick that required so much time to talk.

Franklin leaned against the wall, staring blankly at the office door.

The next moment, the door was suddenly pushed open. Franklin's spirits perked up, and just as his pupils had just refocused, he saw Professor Flitwick rushing out of the door at such a terrifying speed that he almost turned into an afterimage. He ignored Franklin at the door and rushed directly to the stairs.

Then Mike also came out with a smile. Seeing Franklin looking at Professor Flitwick's back in surprise, he explained first:

"Professor Flitwick he's going to be late for class."

Franklin looked stiffly at the clock hanging on the wall and murmured:
"He seems to be late?"

"Oh, is that so? That's really bad."

"It's pretty bad. It's always been students who are late for class. This is the first time I've heard of a professor being late."

Mike was amused by Franklin and chuckled a few times. When he calmed down a little, he took Franklin back to the Ravenclaw common room.

Since both of them had dropped a lot of elective courses, they had no classes to attend the entire morning.

Mike naturally would not waste such a long period of free time. After returning to the Ravenclaw common room, he went directly to the Masonic Secret Realm and began further training on spells in the spell practice square.

As for Franklin, he went to the Quidditch field for training.

Because the previous captain finally graduated, the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team has now become Cedric's fiancée Qiu Zhang. However, Qiu Zhang, who is already in seventh grade this year, is obviously more willing to focus on her studies. She has delegated a lot of power in the team, including the selection of team members.

The reason why Franklin went there today was to discuss with other senior team members how to select new team members this year.

It was not until noon that the two returned to Hogwarts for lunch.

During this time, Franklin talked to Mike about their schedule for this year and claimed that they would definitely be able to regain the Quidditch trophy this year.

This made Mike speechless. He smiled and shook his head, but he saw that the classmates around him were all talking to each other happily. Some lower grade students were even using sausages as swords to duel with each other on the dining table. The whole restaurant was filled with laughter.

This scene made Mike feel a little emotional.

Now the entire wizarding world is terrified by the return of Voldemort, but Hogwarts protects these students firmly inside like a protective spell, allowing their lives to be undisturbed.

It would be a shame if a place like this were destroyed.

Mike thought so.

……

After lunch, Mike finally had his first class of the new semester - Potions.

The teaching location of this course is still the basement near Slytherin College. When Mike and Franklin came to the corridor in front of the basement, they found that there were already more than a dozen people gathered there, talking and laughing.

The arrival of Mike and Franklin quickly attracted their attention, and several Ravenclaw students came up and greeted Mike excitedly.

After greeting them, Mike looked at the crowd again and found the three saviors in a corner near the wall.

Harry looked much better than yesterday. At least he had a smile on his face now. Hermione, on the other hand, was flipping through his Potions textbook, mumbling something to herself as she read. From time to time, she would close the book, look up, close her eyes, and mutter to herself, seemingly reciting the text.

As for Ron, he still looked heartless. At the moment, he was chatting excitedly with a short-haired black boy next to him. Mike guessed that their topic must be Quidditch.

"Hey, Harry."

Mike walked up to him and greeted him with a smile. The latter was stunned at first, then an even brighter smile broke out on his face.

"Mike! You also chose the Advanced Potions Class? Oh! Look at what I said, you will definitely choose it."

"I also guessed that you would definitely choose Potions after the admission standards for the advanced Potions class were lowered." Mike said with a smile, "I also guessed that you definitely didn't prepare the textbooks."

"Well, that's right. Although you reminded me during the summer vacation, I still didn't think that I could continue to take the Potions class, so... But don't worry, Professor McGonagall said I can borrow it from Professor Slughorn temporarily." "I think you may not need to borrow it from him." Mike took out a wrinkled book "Advanced Potion Making" and a brand new scale from his pocket and handed it over, "This is a second-hand book I picked up a few years ago. I think you can use it."

"Thank you...thank you."

Harry took the book, but his smile was a little stiff.

Looking at the torn pages that were almost falling apart (they were not so torn originally, but became like this after being flipped through by the Freemasons), Mike quickly realized that Harry had misunderstood, and quickly explained:
"Oh, sorry Harry. I hope you don't misunderstand me. I gave you the old book because it has a lot of notes from a senior. I think it should be helpful to you. I have no other intention. Um, or you can use it for a while, and then write to Flourish and Blotts to order a new book."

The expression on Harry's face relaxed immediately, and he said with some guilt and embarrassment:
"I'm sorry Mike, you know that's not what I meant."

"It's ok."

Mike and Harry smiled at each other, and Ron came over at this time. He looked a little lost because he didn't have a textbook either, but it was obvious that Mike didn't prepare any for him.

After a long while, he took a deep breath and asked:

"Mike, are you saying that you have already got this book? But... why? I mean, hasn't this year's Potions class started yet? You don't have to..."

Before he finished speaking, Hermione, who was reciting the text beside him, burst out laughing. She glanced at Ron with the eyes of a slug and said disdainfully:
"That's why you can't get an A in Potions, because you never try to preview what you haven't learned yet."

Ron's face turned red, but he didn't dare to get angry here. He could only stare at Hermione with his big round eyes. Hermione was also staring at him, neither of them blinking, as if whoever blinked first would lose. Harry, who was standing next to him, also looked a little embarrassed, because he was the same as Ron.

At this time, someone shouted that class was about to start. Hermione and Ron guessed that the staring challenge was over. They rubbed their dry eyes and followed the crowd into the dungeon classroom.

As soon as he entered the basement, Mike saw a big round belly. He looked closely and found that it was Slughorn. He was standing at the door of the classroom enthusiastically, welcoming every student who came to class.

He seemed very happy as he watched the students returning his greetings one by one.

Especially when Mike and Harry greeted him, his walrus mustaches were shaking with laughter.

The Potions classroom at this time had changed a lot compared to before. Originally, it should have been dark and gloomy. Snape forbade students to light open flames in the classroom like a light-fearing bat. Even if they really needed to light up, they had to use extremely low-temperature magic flames. The light emitted by those pale green flames was cold, and combined with the glass jar specimens placed on the surrounding shelves, the Potions classroom was turned into a medieval horrific cemetery laboratory of a necromancer.

But now it was different. Slughorn's taste was obviously different from Snape's. He not only removed the shelves, but also placed many magic lamps emitting warm yellow light around the classroom, making the whole classroom warm. And at this time, the potion classroom was filled with a lot of steam. If it weren't for the various strange smells in the air, Mike would definitely think of this place as a large bathroom.

He looked carefully and found that there were several crucibles in the classroom that were bubbling. The strange smell and steam in the classroom came from them.

There were already a few Slytherins sitting in the classroom at this time. It was obvious that they had taken advantage of the geographical location to arrive here first.

Unlike ordinary courses in the past, NEWT Potions classes are taught by the four major colleges together, because Potions is too difficult and requires too many gold Galleons. Not to mention the past Snape era, even if Slughorn took the initiative to lower the admission standards for the NEWT Potions course, not many people are willing to come to class.

Mike, Franklin and others quickly walked into the classroom. They passed by a cauldron, but when they passed a golden cauldron near the Gryffindor table, everyone stopped.

Because the smell in the crucible was so good, Mike even smelled the scent of an unlit Cuban cigar in it, which made him, who had quit smoking for a long time, couldn't help but take two deep puffs.

The expressions of the others were similar, all of them looked intoxicated. Harry and Ron even closed their eyes and tilted their heads back to inhale deeply.

This immediately made Mike alert. After all, these people were not addicted to smoking, so there was no reason for them to be addicted to the smell of cigars.

He then looked at the golden crucible, and when he saw the white steam spiraling up above the crucible, Mike showed an expression of sudden enlightenment.

What is brewing in this crucible is a love potion!
Mike swallowed, took a final deep breath of the intoxicating aroma, then forced Franklin, who was still reluctant to leave, to come to the Ravenclaw table.

"Hey! Mike, what are you doing? I want to smell it for a while longer."

Franklin complained unhappily, but Mike rolled his eyes and asked with a strange smile:

"Really? What did you smell just now?"

"What kind of question are you asking? Isn't that the question of Potterby's Magic Softener?"

Mike said in confusion:
"Why do you smell the scent of hair softener? And how do you remember the smell when you don't even need hair softener?"

"This is because Krillin..."

Franklin stopped talking halfway, but Mike still understood what he meant. He looked at Franklin with a teasing expression, and the latter's dark face also showed a rare blush.

At this time, everyone else had taken their seats. Harry, Ron and the others, who were close to the golden cauldron, sat directly next to the golden cauldron. As for the others, they could only reluctantly return to their seats in their respective colleges.

Seeing that everyone was in their seats, Professor Slughorn returned to the podium with a smile.

"Alright, alright," Slughorn said to everyone through the steam, "Students, please take out your scales, medicine bags, and your Advanced Potion-Making... Oh! By the way, Harry, Professor McGonagall told me before that you didn't seem to have a textbook. Don't worry, kid, don't worry at all. You can use the ingredients in the cupboard today, and the scales and old books can be lent to you."

"Um, thank you for your kindness." Harry stammered, "But I already have the textbook. Mike lent it to me. But Ron doesn't have it yet. Can you lend it to him?"

"Is that so?" Slughorn looked a little disappointed. He glanced at Ron with his eyes slanted, and then said in a calm tone, "Well, Romy, go get it quickly. The locker is over there."

(End of this chapter)