Hogwarts: I am Snape

Chapter 120 Two roads diverged in the yellow woods

What's the most important thing at Hogwarts? Attending classes, of course.

Whether it's the Slytherin basilisk petrifying students everywhere, or the most wanted criminal who blows up a street of Muggles wandering around the castle, the students still have to attend classes as usual.

A deep, resonant bell rang across the damp grounds from the castle, announcing the end of the herbalism class.

A rustling sound suddenly filled the greenhouse as the seventh-grade students put down their mud-covered tools and walked out of the greenhouse in twos and threes.

Following the gently sloping lawn, Snape and his companions headed toward Hagrid's hut at the edge of the Forbidden Forest for their lesson on protecting magical creatures.

“What do you think today’s class on protecting magical creatures will be about?” Abbott asked. “Professor Kettleburn said last week there would be a ‘surprise’.”

“Seven years,” Snape couldn’t help but scoff. “Are you still expecting a surprise from him? It’s a miracle he hasn’t lost a single limb in these seven years.”

Pandora chuckled softly, "I actually quite like his classes."

As they approached Hagrid's hut, a strange crackling sound reached their ears, occasionally interspersed with faint popping sounds.

Professor Kettleburn sat in his specially made magical wheelchair, with his assistant Hagrid standing beside him.

The elderly conservationist was wearing a strikingly bright orange hat, a stark contrast to his missing left arm. Hagrid held a small black puppy on a leash. Several wooden crates, nailed together, lay at their feet.

The puppy in Hagrid's arms was whimpering and struggling against its collar, seemingly trying to examine the contents of the box more closely.

"Toothie, don't go over there." Hagrid tugged hard on the chain, and the puppy was suddenly thrown into the air. He hurriedly took two steps forward, caught Toothie, and rubbed his stubble-covered face against its little body.

"Good morning, Professor Kettleburn, Hagrid." Snape waved to them, but his gaze lingered on the struggling puppy. "Hagrid, is this your new pet?"

“That’s right!” Hagrid’s face lit up immediately. “Its name is Tooth, and it’s a cute little beagle. Although it’s small now,” he added proudly, “it will grow to over three hundred pounds! By then it will be—”

“It will be even cuter, won’t it?” Snape interrupted him. “Your definition of ‘cute’ is always…so unique.”

"Hehe," Hagrid chuckled twice, holding up Tooth to show them. "Tooth is a brave little dog. Look, it's always full of curiosity." With that, he put Tooth on the ground.

“Really?” Snape asked with some skepticism. He vaguely remembered that in some future that hadn’t yet happened, when Harry and Draco were locked up in the Forbidden Forest, Aww saw Voldemort’s cloaked figure and his first reaction was exactly the same as Draco’s—to run away as fast as he could.

After being put back on the ground, Tooth unexpectedly wagged its tail and ran to Snape's feet, enthusiastically licking the hem of his robe. Saliva quickly soaked into a large patch on his black robe.

“It seems it likes you very much!” Hagrid said happily. “Tooth doesn’t have many friends yet. I saw that Filch has a cat named Mrs. Lorris in the castle. I really want to introduce her to Tooth someday, but Filch doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“That’s easy.” Snape raised an eyebrow. “I know Mrs. Lorris. Give me Tooth another day, and I’ll introduce them to you.”

"Really?" Hagrid's bright black eyes welled up with tears. "That's wonderful! I hope they can become friends."

At this moment, Professor Kettleburn patted the armrest of his wheelchair and beckoned the students who had gathered around.

"Alright, everyone's here, let's begin! Today's surprise is—" an excited smile spread across his scarred face, "...the Sphinx with a human head and a scorpion tail!"

A few uneasy gasps rose from the crowd. Snape turned his head and noticed that the wooden crates on the ground were vibrating slightly and then cracking louder.

“The man-headed lion-bodied scorpion,” Professor Kettleburn continued, his voice trembling slightly with excitement, “was an extremely dangerous animal from Greece. They had the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion. They were as dangerous and as rare as the chimera, and were famous for the soft humming they made when they devoured their prey.”

"As far as we know, the skin of a manticore repels almost all known spells. Note that anyone stung by it will die instantly. Therefore, they are classified at the highest level, the fifth level, by the Ministry of Magic. This means they are extremely lethal, known to kill wizards, and impossible to tame or domesticate."

Snape's thoughts immediately drifted to the diary hidden in his pocket. If the skin of the sphinx could truly resist almost all magic... perhaps it could be used...

"Are you sure you want to teach this on-site about such a dangerous creature?" Mary asked nervously, her eyes drifting towards the creaking wooden box.

“Don’t worry.” Professor Kettleburn smiled mysteriously, then nodded to Hagrid. “Open it.”

Hagrid picked up a shovel from the side and began to pry open the lids of the wooden crates. As soon as the first crate was opened, a gasp immediately erupted from the crowd.

"Disgusting!" someone screamed and jumped back a few steps.

Snape, enduring the strange smell, leaned closer to examine it. The word "disgusting" perfectly described his first impression of this bizarre creature.

Inside the box was some kind of deformed, shelled lobster, white-gray and slimy, with many legs sticking out haphazardly, but its head was nowhere to be seen.

As Hagrid opened all the wooden crates, the students saw that each crate contained about a hundred six-inch-long creatures piled on top of each other, crawling dazedly and bumping into the crate walls.

A very strong stench of rotten fish and shrimp gradually filled the air. Most strangely, every few seconds, a spark would shoot out from the tail of a creature, and with a soft 'pop,' it would propel itself forward a few inches.

“They’ve only just hatched,” Professor Kettleburn proudly announced. “You can raise them yourselves! This will bring us unprecedented new knowledge.”

"Is that a man-headed lion-bodied scorpion-tailed beast?" a Hufflepuff student asked skeptically.

“Well… not entirely.” Professor Kettleburn chuckled. “That thing is too dangerous. You see, in Scotland, in 1296 a man-headed lion-bodied scorpion attacked a wizard, but was eventually released—oh—no—not because it was legal, but simply because no one dared to approach it.”

"What are these?" Pandora asked curiously as she walked forward amidst the continuous explosions.

“I call them 'exploding tail snails',” Professor Kettleburn said. “What do you think of them?”

“They’re so cute,” Pandora said sincerely. “Are they the product of hybridization?”

“Yes,” Professor Kettleburn looked at her appreciatively, “a hybrid of a man-headed lion-bodied scorpion and a fire crab.”

"I was inspired by your paper on hybrid magical creatures, which is why I asked a friend in Greece to help me breed it. Although the Ministry of Magic prohibits the import of sphinxes, blast-tailed snails are not under their control."

“This seems to be a serious violation of the Animal Breeding Experimentation Act passed by the Ministry of Magic in 1965?” Bertram Aubrey pointed out sharply. “And why should we raise them? Will the NEWT exam test this?” “The laws of the British Ministry of Magic don’t apply to Greek wizards,” Professor Kettleburn winked at him. “As for exams… children, knowledge shouldn’t serve only exams. You are among the best students in all of Britain; there’s no point in just passing exams.”

“Alright, your task today is to try feeding them.” He casually waved his severed limb. “You’ll have to try feeding them a few different things—I’m not sure what they like to eat—I’ve prepared giant grubs, ant eggs, frog livers, and green snakes—try a little of each and see if they’ll eat them. That’s the magic of magic!”

Snape put on his dragon-skin gloves and grabbed a handful of slippery ant eggs, placing them in the box. But the blast-tailed snails seemed uninterested in this food, instead beginning to attack each other. The weaker individuals were blasted apart by their companions and quickly devoured.

"Professor!" Hagrid exclaimed, "They're cannibalizing each other!"

Professor Kettleburn quickly ordered the students to step back and directed Hagrid to separate the Bombtails into more boxes. In the chaos, Aubrey suddenly screamed.

"Ouch! It hurts!"

“Oh, don’t worry,” Professor Kettleburn said calmly. “They are not man-headed lions with scorpion tails. Being stung by one won’t kill you. The Greek wizards have already proven that.”

“Its tail exploded!” Aubrey angrily showed the burn marks on his hands.

“I think that’s why we call them blast-tailed snails,” Hagrid said gruffly, going over to check the wound on his hand. “Hurry to the school hospital, or the wound will heal.”

Before leaving, Snape walked up to the professor and asked, "Professor, are there any manticores with heads, bodies, and tails in England now?"

“Apart from Greece, they should be gone,” Professor Kettleburn replied. “The German Ministry of Magic used them as prison guards decades ago, but those creatures should have been disposed of after the Ekstadt prison was abandoned.”

"About the fact that their skin can repel spells?" Snape asked tentatively. Urxstadt was where Newt had rescued his brother Theseus.

“That has to be an adult,” Professor Kettleburn said. “To be precise, the more mature the individual, the better. I’ve also heard that the magic resistance of a manticore is directly proportional to the number of wizards it devours.”

“Alright,” Snape said with a shrug. “Goodbye, Professor.”

On the way back to the castle, he finally had time to consider another dangerous plan: how to use that long, thin fairy-made dagger to deal with the basilisk, let it absorb the basilisk's venom, and use it as a weapon to destroy the Horcrux.

The thought lingered in his mind until Pandora whispered at the dinner table, "The lab is ready. I've already contacted Myrtle."

“Oh, okay.” Snape nodded. “Let’s go over there in a bit.” Making the necessary preparations in the Room of Requirement was a good option.

In the foyer, he was about to go upstairs when he saw Lily coming down the stairs.

“Severus,” Lily said excitedly, her green eyes lighting up the moment she saw him, “how did your shopping trip to the Muggle store go?”

Snape then remembered the matter of mass-producing the wolfsbane potion.

At that moment, he had just stepped onto the stairs when he was caught between two girls.

“I’ve bought everything for Muggles,” he said dryly. “I have flasks, droppers, and all that. But I still don’t have all the materials. I only managed to get blood from an Australian tadpole; bird snake eggs are sold out everywhere.”

Pandora took a step forward and stood next to Snape.

“I was worried about this before you left.” Lily’s expression had returned to calm. She slowly took a cloth bag out of her robe. “I know that bird-snake eggs are very rare in the West, so I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to buy them.”

“At Professor Dumbledore’s behest, I wrote a letter to Mr. Newt Scamander, the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” she continued, her green eyes sweeping lightly over the two of them, “telling him of our plans.”

"Fortunately, Mr. Scamander replied that, based on his knowledge of birds and snakes, the real active ingredient in the wolfsbane medicine was the eggshell, not the yolk or the albumen."

“He sent us a lot of eggshells,” Lily said, shaking the bag in her hand. “Now we have all the ingredients. Shall we brew some potions together?”

Snape felt a fine layer of cold sweat trickling down his back. Should he go to the Room of Requirement with Pandora, or go with Lily to make the wolfsbane potion?

He couldn't help but think of a mixed-up line of poetry: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, one leading to a dead end, the other to a dead end.

Just as he stood frozen in place, Pandora suddenly spoke up: "You want to brew potions, Severus? Wouldn't it be great if we went to that place together? You know, it has all the magical tools you need."

"What's so good about it?" Snape muttered to himself. "Do you expect me to put you two under the same roof?"

"What place are you talking about?" Lily looked at Pandora and asked calmly.

“Oh, a perfect place to brew potions.” Pandora took a few more steps up to Lily’s side. “We’ve been doing our experiments there.”

“Are there any other people?” Lily asked.

“Hmm…” Pandora gave a strange look. “There’s no one else here.”

“Let’s go together then,” Lily said, smiling at her.

“Okay, follow me.” Pandora nodded and went upstairs first.

Lily quickened her pace and walked alongside her.

“Um…” Snape stammered from behind, feeling like a Galleon being targeted by two Nifflers, ready to be torn in two at any moment, “I’m feeling a little unwell…”

The two of them turned their heads together and looked at him silently.

“Oh, it’s nothing, let’s keep going,” he finally said, following heavily behind them.

He thought it would be easier to deal with the basilisk and the man-headed lion-tailed scorpion.

　Thank you to Reading Don't Take It Seriously, Semisanctu, When the Warmth Returns, Magpie and Crow Walk, and Book Friend 20240324163441368 for the monthly tickets.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)