Hogwarts: A little lion in the skin of the Eagle School

"What's wrong, Mr. Merrick? Weren't you just questioning my course?"

Seeing that John was beginning to hesitate, Snape continued to press John in a low voice.

John looked helpless. He hadn't expected that Professor Snape would notice his questioning expression and target him.

But there's nothing we can do about it; it's his own fault for not studying the textbook beforehand.

Deserve it.

He took a deep breath and reached out to examine the two piles of materials, and Professor Snape did not stop him.

Upon closer inspection, some differences can still be discerned.

The pile of materials on the left, although crushed into powder, still shows some incompletely crushed flakes, and has a slightly prickly texture, which is more in line with the characteristics of herbs.

The pile of materials on the right feels like dried fish that has been crushed, with some particles sticking together. Compared to the texture on the left, it has a slightly sticky feel.

"The one on the left is dried nettle, and the one on the right is a pufferfish eye."

After confirming, John gave his answer.

After giving his answer, Professor Snape straightened up and looked down at John.

"Oh? Is that so? Then I hope you won't put the wrong ingredients when you're making the potion."

After speaking, Professor Snape did not answer whether it was right or wrong, but instead gave a mysterious and enigmatic answer, then took back the two cans of materials and returned to the podium.

After Professor Snape left, John opened his textbook again, eager to see if there were any correct answers.

He didn't want to make a mistake during the actual experiment, causing the potion to fail.

Well, according to the book, he is probably, should, likely, possibly... correct.

Snape then explained the difference between the two materials to everyone, confirming John's earlier observations and proving him correct.

This also proves Snape's aloofness and arrogance.

Although there is only one class in the afternoon, the potion class is significantly longer than regular classes.

After Professor Snape explained and demonstrated how to make the scabies potion, he immediately asked the young wizards to make it themselves.

He only explains almost all the knowledge points once.

He only demonstrated the preparation of scabies medicine once.

Although scabies medicine only requires four simple ingredients, very few people can remember the techniques of crucible temperature, the timing of adding ingredients, and the amount of ingredients used.

He could only try it himself while looking at the book and recalling Professor Snape's teachings.

John picked up the scale, poured in the snake tooth powder, and adjusted the amount little by little to the standard dosage before setting it aside.

Following the same pattern, he also prepared pufferfish eye scraps, dried nettle crumbs, and porcupine quills.

Just like cooking, prepare the ingredients in advance next to the stove so that you can use them whenever you want.

However, this action did not earn Professor Snape's praise as he passed by; instead, he received a cold laugh.

John had no idea what Professor Snape was laughing at; he figured he must have done something wrong.

However, after comparing it repeatedly with the textbook, it seemed there was no problem. The amount and ingredients were correct. As long as he grasped the timing and technique when turning on the fire to heat the pot, it should be fine.

Let's get started. The simplest way to find shortcomings is to make mistakes.

So John wasn't worried about failing at all; on the contrary, he was worried that he might have succeeded by accident, and the key was that he didn't even know how he had succeeded.

The blue portion of the flame can only be controlled to be one-third of the way across the crucible; it cannot be too large or too small, nor can a higher-temperature orange flame appear.

As soon as the liquid in the pot begins to bubble, add the snake tooth powder and stir clockwise three times.

Next, when the liquid has boiled completely, add the pufferfish eyes, stir clockwise three times, and then stir counterclockwise two times.

After stirring for 30 seconds, once the ingredients are fully combined, add the dried nettles and stir twice.

After boiling for 30 seconds, turn off the heat and stop boiling. Then add the porcupine quills and stir clockwise three times.

Everything was going smoothly until John was surprised by something.

When he put the pufferfish eyes into the container, he noticed that the prepared pufferfish eyes turned slightly green and became stickier, whether due to visual complementary color effect or some other reason.

But by the time John discovered it, there was no time to think about the reasons, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue refining.

Now that the refining process is finally complete, he has a furrowed brow.

The scabies medicine in the pot should have been light blue, but it has turned light green.

"Very good, Mr. Merrick, you have successfully completed a giant snot."

"No, perhaps even troll snot is ten times more valuable than this pot of liquid."

Professor Snape had somehow appeared beside John's crucible, sneering at John's work.

However, John ignored Snape's sarcasm and instead stroked his chin, reflecting on what had just happened.

The biggest problem was obviously the pufferfish eyes that had been prepared in advance; they were originally dry, brown, granular.

However, when he used it, it turned into a light green, viscous granular substance.

"These magical materials may seem simple, but they also have different properties and can produce extremely fast 'deterioration' reactions. Perhaps just an unintentional action of yours can turn your entire pot of potions into garbage."

"Don't think of yourself as a genius. Do you think only you can think of that? Can't others think of it too?"

Seeing John still deep in thought, Snape spoke coldly, words that immediately snapped John out of his reverie.

He was subtly implying that his earlier act of being clever and preparing materials in advance was a self-serving move.

John immediately turned back to the second page of his textbook and found some of the material properties of the necessary ingredients for scabies medicine.

The eyes of pufferfish must be kept in a dry and cool environment.

If the temperature gets too high, the material will quickly deteriorate and secrete a thick, light green liquid.

In the Potions classroom, the containers for storing materials are specially treated and always kept under the most suitable storage conditions.

His actions were equivalent to taking the materials out of the "cold storage room" and placing them next to a high-temperature crucible, thus accelerating the deterioration of the materials.

John took a deep breath: "I understand, Professor."

Although he said he understood, he still didn't get a second chance.

With so many students in the school, if everyone had to write several documents, the school would have gone bankrupt long ago.

Therefore, achieving excellent results with limited educational resources is also a challenge for this subject.

In this last lesson, John was the first to finish the refining process, but he was also the only student to get a zero.

John's overconfidence led to his premature failure before he even began concocting the potion.

So even if someone doesn't distinguish between pufferfish eyes and dried nettles, or throws in porcupine quills before turning off the heat, almost causing an explosion.

But they also scored at least 20 or 30 points.

Perhaps Professor Snape wanted him to remember this lesson.

In short, although his first Potions class was quite fruitful, it was also a complete mess.