Hogwarts: I am Snape

Chapter 121 Only children make choices
Lily walked alongside Pandora on the way to the House of Requirement.

Because the staircase was narrow, their shoulders were very close, yet they didn't touch each other at all.

At the top of the stairs on the eighth floor, Lily instinctively wanted to continue climbing, but Pandora turned around and walked into the corridor.

"Is that place near the principal's office?" Lily asked curiously.

Pandora shook her head, said nothing, and continued leading the way with light steps, displaying the composure of a leader. Snape wisely remained silent, offering no opinion on the route.

Lily chose to follow Pandora, trailing by just half a body length.

Pandora led them straight to the tapestry on the eighth floor of the castle depicting the giant beating Barnabas with a stick.

"This is it." She stopped and faced the bare wall, her voice unusually clear in the empty corridor.

The giant in the tapestry stopped swinging its wooden club and turned to stare at Lily; this was the first time it had seen her linger here. Lily glanced at the giant but took no action, instead turning to look thoughtfully at the empty wall.

"Here? A wall?" She stood half a step away from Pandora, tilting her head and examining the empty wall.

Pandora didn't answer her question, but simply turned her head slightly, her gaze briefly sweeping over Snape's face, a particularly beautiful curve forming at the corners of her mouth.

The smile vanished in a flash, so quickly that Snape wondered if he had seen it wrong.

He quickly walked to the blank wall and tapped it rhythmically, thinking: Pandora is so clear-headed this time, which is too much of a contrast to her when she is engrossed in experiments. Fortunately, he has never told Lily about the existence of the Room of Requirement.

After the secret communication with Myrtle was completed, with a soft "creak," a half-closed wooden door slowly appeared on the white wall.

"Hurry up and go inside," Snape urged them, turning back to close the door behind him.

Behind the door was a spacious room with a long table in the center displaying various utensils, surrounded by tall bookshelves filled with all sorts of books. In one corner of the room was a small rest area with two comfortable armchairs.

The door had barely closed when a cheerful female voice rang out from inside the room, before Snape even had a chance to turn around.

"Severus, you've finally arrived. It's been so long since we last bathed together."

Stiffly turning his head, Snape saw Myrtle's translucent body hanging upside down from the ceiling, her silver-grey eyes blinking behind her round glasses, her face flushed with an eerie blush.

Pandora and Lily immediately turned to look at Snape. He felt a sudden, overwhelming sensation, as if he were being submerged in water.

“Myrtle,” he paused for two seconds before speaking, somewhat exasperated, “Don’t say things that will ruin my reputation!”

Myrtle sniffed, revealing her usual pitiful expression, tears welling up in her small, clear eyes, but not actually falling.

“Severus,” she said, her voice trembling with tears, “why did you say that to me? Last time we bathed, you said my eyes were as captivating as boiled gooseberries…”

Lily's green eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly. Pandora raised one eyebrow, her expression somewhere between shock and suppressed laughter.

"Don't talk nonsense! Last time you were the one who sneaked into the bathroom to watch me shower," Snape retorted. "How did that make it showering together!"

“But,” Myrtle floated to Snape’s side and said in a dramatic voice, “didn’t you eventually show me your body?”

"What are you looking at?" Snape felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "You—"

“Severus,” Lily interrupted him, her lips twitching slightly as if she were holding back something, “I never knew you had such a… fetish.”

“I have no fetishes,” Snape said urgently. “Don’t gang up on me to smear my innocence.”

But Lily ignored him, smiled at Pandora, and said, "So that's what you meant when you said 'there was no one else.' No wonder I felt your tone was a bit strange back then."

Pandora frowned and looked at Snape: "You bathed with Myrtle?"

"No!" Snape quickly exclaimed, feeling his reputation crumbling at lightning speed. "Myrtle, please clear my name!"

Seeing Snape's bewildered expression, Myrtle gracefully floated between the three and said, "I was just joking. I've never bathed with Severus."

“I can’t take a bath either…” She turned around and deliberately let out a sob. “That day, the person I saw taking a bath with Severus was another ‘lady’.”

Hearing the first part of what was said, Snape had already breathed a sigh of relief, but when Myrtle uttered the second part, he almost slipped and fell to the ground.

“Another lady?” He couldn’t help but raise his voice. “That’s Mrs. Lorice! And the cat!”

Pandora and Lily looked at him with pity.

“No,” he took two steps back, his back slamming against the wooden door, “that’s not what I meant, I meant—”

“Pfft,” Lily suddenly laughed, her green eyes full of amusement, “I didn’t expect you to get along so well with Mr. Filch’s kitten.”

“Alright, we will respect your choice,” Pandora said with a smile. “Although your quirks are a bit unique, we will not discriminate against you.”

“Yes, Severus.” Lily nodded in agreement. “That’s good, at least it’s much better than your old hobby.” Then she looked around. “But we don’t have anything here that we need to make potions.”

“It’s very simple,” Pandora said, closing her eyes and silently making sounds.

A moment later, with a not-so-loud roar, the Room of Requirement underwent a tremendous change:

The room expanded outwards like a folded space unfolding, and the central laboratory table widened and lengthened, displaying a clatter of various sizes of brass crucibles, a set of small crystal potion vials, and several brass balances. The books on the bookshelves automatically rearranged, with some heavy potion tomes floating to the most prominent positions.

Only then did Lily truly show a shocked expression: "This...this is..."

“The Room of Requirement.” Pandora looked at her with pleasure. “You can ask it for whatever you really need, but of course, not too much.”

Lily also tried closing her eyes.

After a slight noise, a beautiful washroom appeared in the corner of the laboratory. Its door was made of frosted glass, etched with a pattern of lilies.

In the room's original lounge area, Snape noticed a new, soft, printed cotton armchair. Pandora curiously approached the bathroom, opened the door, and peeked inside. Myrtle peered in behind her.

“Not bad, right?” Lily said to her.

“Very good,” Pandora closed the door and nodded. “This way we can stay here longer. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

“Although it’s a bit too bright and neat,” Myrtle commented, “I still like it.”

After the House of Requirement was expanded, they returned to the long table.

“Severus,” Lily said, opening her palm to Snape, “bring out the Muggle lab equipment you bought, the blood from the Australian protein-eyed man, and some other materials. It’s time to get to work.”

“Okay,” Snape said, taking all the tools and materials he could possibly buy from his small bag and placing them on the table along with their corresponding instructions. “Would you like me to show you how to use them?”

“No need,” Lily said, looking at Pandora. “Are you interested in making a wolfsbane potion?”

“Of course,” Pandora exchanged a glance with Lily, “I don’t think it’s difficult. You go ahead and do your thing, Severus.”

"What?" Snape looked at them innocently. "Are you sure?"

The two nodded firmly.

In the end, he had no choice but to go to the rest area by himself, lie down on an armchair, and take out Tom's diary and quill pen from his pocket, ready to talk to him.

Just as he was about to put pen to paper in his diary, he caught a glimpse of them trying to light a fire under a measuring bottle filled with water.

"Stop!" Snape quickly stopped them, nearly falling off his chair. "No, this is a measuring flask; you shouldn't heat it." He pointed to the glassware beside him and said, "Only flasks can be heated."

“Really?” Lily asked skeptically, pulling the instruction manual from the table. “Oh, it certainly doesn’t seem to be for this.”

“Sigh,” Snape sighed, tucking the diary into his pocket and getting up from his chair. “I’ll give you a demonstration. Hmm, a calming agent is a good option.”

This was a potion that Irene had asked him to make for Mrs. Weasley. Since he had some free time now, he might as well finish it and give it to her. Otherwise, by the time he remembered it again, the twins might already be born.

“When making the sedative, one must be extremely careful about one’s behavior.” Snape approached the long table and placed the mechanical scale, tray, measuring cup, and other items in front of him. “If the ingredients are added carelessly, the person taking the drug will fall into a deep, sometimes irreversible, drowsy state.”

“The amount of each raw material needs to be matched,” he continued, his fingers gently tracing the brand-new instruments. “These things are very helpful for us to weigh accurately, far better than a balance.”

At this moment, he seemed like a confident potions master. Apart from the fact that his hair was very different from Professor Slughorn's, his expression and movements were no different.

“A suitable amount of moonstone powder,” Snape placed some powder into the tray based on experience, then precisely adjusted it with a small spatula, “to be exact, five grams.”

After weighing all the necessary materials, Snape lit a flame under the crucible, added them one by one, and stirred them.

As the liquid neared boiling, he picked up a rather oddly shaped instrument from the table.

“This is called a bimetallic thermometer,” Snape said, inserting one end of the instrument into the flame. “It can measure the temperature of a flame.”

“As we all know, during the preparation of the modifier, the temperature of the flame when the crucible boils must be reduced to a certain standard,” he observed the scale on the dashboard and adjusted the size of the flame with his wand, “It cannot be too high or too low, and it must be maintained for a certain period of time before the last ingredient can be added.”

“Okay,” he glanced at the thermometer and stopwatch, “it’s 3,200 degrees Celsius and seven minutes.”

Finally, he picked up the dropper and dripped two drops of styrax syrup: "Use this to determine how much is a drop, not the wizard's trembling hand."

As he manipulated it, the potion emitted a faint, silvery-white vapor, which then changed from pink to turquoise blue.

“Perfect,” Snape said, looking at Pandora and Lily. “This is much better than what I made in my previous classes. We can record the best ingredients and process.”

They stared in disbelief at his potion-making process, which was anything but magical.

“You can do it like this…” Lily murmured, biting her lower lip.

After extinguishing the flames, Snape put the potion into a crystal bottle and affixed a label to the bottle that read, "Boil in a water bath for ten minutes before use."

"Do you understand now?" He looked at the two students with great enthusiasm. "This is the precise science and rigorous process of potion preparation. Now, please experiment to find the optimal process for the wolfsbane potion and record it. I will check it later."

After explaining the use of various tools to them, he returned to the rest area with his hands behind his back, comfortably reclined on the backrest, and watched them gradually get busy.

Out of concern, Snape observed them silently for a while. After noticing that they hadn't made any obvious mistakes and that Myrtle had been called over to help keep an eye on the temperature, he finally felt relieved and took out his diary.

“Hello, Riddle,” he wrote, the quill pen scratching lightly on the paper, “I was a little busy yesterday and didn’t answer your question, but I’m finally free now.”

“I remember you asked me how I found your diary,” he continued. “Well, before the start of the semester, I bought a secondhand copy of ‘The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts’ in Diagon Alley and found this diary inside. Perhaps it was left by its previous owner.”

The ink briefly smudged on the paper, then disappeared as if absorbed by a sponge. A moment later, Tom's elegant handwriting emerged:
“Hello, Spike, I see. It seems the original owner of the diary threw it away. Are you a student at Hogwarts? I used to study there.”

“Yes,” Snape wrote casually, “I am a fourth-year Slytherin student. What house are you from?”

"What a coincidence, I'm also from Slytherin. I was in fifth year when I wrote this diary. Your current headmaster—"

Tom's handwriting hadn't fully emerged when he was interrupted by Snape's question.

“Riddle,” he wrote bluntly, “why do you think girls are always so hard to understand?”

"Can you teach me how to get along well with multiple girls? I don't know if you understand, but outstanding people always face choices, but they are all my wings, and I don't want to make a choice."

The diary remained quiet for a while before a line of scribbled handwriting appeared.

　Thanks to Qi__tou, Pigs Can Fly, Dizhi, Lin'an Yuji, love Penglaishan Huiye, Qingdushanshuilanging, Haodangtiankong, Lingshi, Heluozhixin11, and Qingshuixunian for their monthly votes.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)