Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 217 Come on, taste the flavor of despair.

However, Snape was faster than Murphy this time.

He used only a few ingredients, his lips moved as he muttered a few incantations, and soon a pot of pitch-black potion appeared in his crucible.

It resembled viscous asphalt or ink. Strangely, when Snape poured the potion from the crucible into the crystal bottle, not a single drop of the entire potion spilled into the small crystal bottle.

At this moment, the potion appeared to have changed from pitch black to a grayish-white yet transparent color.

Before Murphy's third potion was finished, Snape placed it on Murphy's table.

"Come on, taste the flavor of despair."

Despair Potion.

This is a recipe that Snape learned when he was working for Voldemort.

It can plunge one into the deepest despair, as if experiencing the darkest moment of one's life.

This potion was extremely potent, almost the most terrifying of all the magical potions he knew, because it targeted the mind, not the body.

Previously, his potion of life and death was broken by Murphy in a strange way. Snape suspected that it was not an antidote, but a means of transferring the potion's damage to the body.

But this time, the effects of the despair potion cannot be transferred; the user must bear them alone.

No one could withstand such despair, not even Dumbledore.

"despair?"

Murphy frowned. The materials Snape had just used were all hallucinogenic. Could it be that he was creating a despairing hallucination in this way?

He had never seen this kind of potion before.

So how do we make the antidote?

Aphrodisiac?

The euphoric drug can give people a feeling of pleasure, similar to the stimulants used by Muggles. However, the pleasure from the euphoric drug is illusory, and it can also make people easily believe the orders of others. What if that was Snape's purpose?

After all, he had never seen that potion before. Judging from its use of hallucinogenic ingredients, it should be able to induce hallucinations. If it were combined with euphoria, it would be a question of whether he could still control his own mind.

After some thought, Murphy ultimately gave up on creating the antidote.

Speaking of which, something similar seems to have appeared in the original books. It was a potion that Voldemort used to protect his Horcrux—the Slytherin pendant. Even Dumbledore didn't know how to counteract this potion, so it's unlikely that he could counteract it within ten minutes.

He waved his wand, summoning the exact same materials that Snape had used, and added them to the beaker following the same steps and order.

Snape frowned. What was he planning to do?

A replica of the Despair Potion?

But he didn't know the incantation at all, so it was impossible for him to successfully replicate it.

However, he saw Murphy bring six different magic power testing devices and place them next to the bottle of Despair Potion. Then he fixed a stand next to the beaker and placed six magic power testing devices there as well.

Then, while observing the six magic testing devices next to the beaker, he stirred the potion in the air with his wand.

"Tom, what is Professor Murphy doing?" Harry asked, somewhat confused.

"It seems like the teacher is monitoring the changes in the magical properties of potions..." Hermione said. Through wand experiments, she was already quite familiar with the magic testing device, which Murphy often used to test the distribution of magical properties.

"Could it be that the teacher is trying to replicate the potion by controlling its magical properties?" Tom suddenly asked.

The theory of magical dimensions was originally used to decompose and understand spells. Different spells have different magical properties, and spells with the same magical properties have basically the same effect. If the essence of a potion is similar to that of a spell, then giving it the same magical properties might allow the potion to have the same effect.

But, "why replicate this potion?"

While observing the changes in the magic power testing device, Murphy carefully poured different basic spells into the beaker to add different types of magic power to the potion.

At the same time, he recalled the lip movements of Snape when he made the potion, used a full memory on himself, and brought up the subtle sounds that he had heard but had not been noticed or analyzed by his brain, and found the sound of Snape chanting the spell.

"Cinis animae, putrida vota, irrita desideria, amor et separatio, indignatio et ira, ad imum barathrum descendunt et in lutum nigerrimum convertunt..."

He recited the incantation aloud.

The solution in the beaker gradually turned into a muddy black, and then into an ashes-like grayish-white.

Snape stared in astonishment at the scene before him; he had actually succeeded in replicating it!

Although it doesn't look perfect, he only looked at the one he made!

How did he do that?

And how did he know the spell?

At this moment, Murphy poured out the third potion, which had also been brewed in another beaker, and mixed it with the Despair Potion, then put it into a crystal bottle.

Then, he picked up the bottle of Despair Potion that Snape had placed on his desk, clinked the two bottles together, and placed the bottle he had made on Snape's desk.

"Come on, taste the flavor of despair," he said.

He looked at Snape, his eyes half-provocative, half-playful, and also with a kind of chilling determination.

This is exactly the same statement Snape made before.

"Professor Snape, I'll drink first."

After Murphy finished speaking, he drank the bottle of potion in one gulp.

Then she closed her eyes.

Tom understood. "That potion was incurable, so the teacher brewed an identical one and had Snape drink it too. That way, the two of them would compete to see who had a stronger resistance to the potion."

Snape frowned as he looked at the potion bottle on his desk.

Murphy's Despair Potion wasn't perfectly formulated, but he added another ingredient—based on his observations, it should be a "Memory Potion."

Despair potion plus memory potion.

Snape could probably guess what he would face if he drank it.

He looked at Murphy, wondering if this guy wasn't afraid.

Did he never experience moments of regret and despair in his life?

Once such a moment has occurred, the Despair Potion can amplify it several times over, plunging a person into unparalleled suffering, as if casting them into an abyss and draining away all their strength to escape, causing them to sink deeper and deeper until their heart is completely dead.

How dare he?

"Professor, you can wait ten minutes before drinking this potion," Professor Sprout advised. "If Professor Murphy collapses or loses consciousness during this time, you will win the bet."

As longtime colleagues and fellow deans, Professor Sprout, though she didn't like Snape's personality, still hoped he would win more than Murphy.

But Snape gave her a blank look.

Yes, that's the smartest way.

But... the look in Murphy's eyes before he drank the potion stung him like a needle.

What is he laughing at?

Do you think I wouldn't dare?

Are you afraid to face those terrible memories?

Are you afraid to face your own weaknesses?

I can't face... Lily?

Ah, yes, I've always been a coward...

I don't dare say I like you, because I'm afraid of rejection.

I dare not get close to them, for fear of being isolated.

I huddled in my corner, thinking that as long as I mastered more spells and climbed to a higher position, I would be worthy of her.

I don't even dare to really get to know her.

Because that would burn me.

I'm a coward.

However... his hand trembled as he reached for the potion and gripped it tightly.

"But memories are the only way I can see you now."

(End of this chapter)