“Impedimenta! Scourgify!” Will quickly cast two spells, sweeping away the spilled Potion.
What Neville had concocted was a genuine Scabies Potion; touching it would cause large patches of scabies to appear.
“Idiot!” Professor Snape roared.
“I suppose you didn’t take the cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quills, did you?”
Neville started to cry, sniffling, and suddenly many scabies appeared on his nose.
“Take him to the hospital wing upstairs,” Professor Snape snapped at Seamus.
“Potter. Why didn’t you tell him not to add the porcupine quills? Do you think it makes you look good when he makes a mistake? Gryffindor loses another point because of you.” Professor Snape found another opportunity to deduct a point from Harry and redirected his animosity towards Will.
“Why don’t you learn from Behrens, hmm? Learn from him, guiding his classmates and handling accidents promptly. Slytherin gains two points for Behrens’s excellent performance.”
Will suddenly felt a bit bored—he hadn’t gained much experience the entire class; in fact, the Potion Class at this stage wasn’t even as rewarding as helping Professor Snape process Potion ingredients.
He couldn’t help but lower his evaluation of this class.
When Potion Class ended, Will left the classroom and unintentionally overheard Ron muttering to Harry about him: “Look at that Behrens, I bet he’s Professor Snape’s little Dark Wizard, specifically used against you. Professor Snape really likes him, doesn’t he?”
Will couldn’t be bothered to respond to him.
Sylvia leaned in beside Will: “What are you planning to do this weekend?”
“Read, study spells, and go to detention tonight.” Will just wanted to grind for experience!
“You’re so boring.”
“Boring? Professor Snape’s six-inch-long (about 15 cm) essay on Scabies Potion is quite interesting, though,” Will reminded her.
“I don’t think he’ll lower his expectations for you just because you’re a Slytherin.”
Sylvia made a sour face: “Oh dear, we still have Charms, Transfiguration, and History of Magic assignments to write.”
“Then you’ll probably be spending the weekend buried in books. I’m going to the library now, do you want to come along?”
Sylvia thought for a moment: “Of course, but I want to see how you write your essay.”
…
Hogwarts’s library is located on the west side of the Castle.
The space here is many times larger than it appears from the outside, due to the space-expanding magic.
Inside the multi-storied library, hundreds of thousands of bookshelves crisscrossed, interspersed with many brown desks and young Wizards who were reading; automatically moving ladders glided between the bookshelves, and thousands of magic books were stacked on the shelves; the Restricted Section at the furthest end was cordoned off, dangerous and mysterious.
Perhaps because it was Friday, there weren’t many people in the library, making it feel a bit deserted; Will greeted Madam Pince, the librarian, who warned him not to damage the books; then Will and Sylvia began to search for the books they needed.
“Sylvia, you’re here too.”
“Hello, Hermione.”
When Will returned to his chosen seat with a large stack of books, he found that Hermione had also come to the library. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
He wasn’t surprised, after all, Hermione was a veteran overachiever.
“Can you finish reading all these books?” Hermione was astonished that Will had borrowed over a dozen books, ranging from Transfiguration to Charms, from Potions to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
The breadth of these books was considerable.
“I don’t understand anything, so of course I need to learn more.” Although Will’s words were humble, to Sylvia and Hermione, they sounded like pure humblebragging.
You call yourself not understanding anything?
In classes these past few days, who was it that became a point-scoring machine, answering every single one of the teachers’ questions?
Will waved his hand; he really didn’t understand anything.
His skills and experience weren’t maxed out yet, and Lord Voldemort would be making a comeback in a few years.
What would he do if he didn’t become a great Wizard?
Didn’t they understand his fear of insufficient strength?
Looking at the two young Witches’ resentful gazes, Will buried his head behind the stack of books and began to write the essay Professor Snape had assigned, while also flipping through reference materials.
[You have acquired new Potions knowledge, your Potions experience +1]
[You have analyzed some Potions knowledge, your Potions experience +2]
…It wasn’t until the sun set and the candles in the library lit up automatically that Will put down his quill, rubbing his sore eyes.
He had spent the entire afternoon finishing the essay Professor Snape had assigned.
Beside him, Sylvia kept peeking over, “borrowing” from Will’s homework.
“Hey, homework isn’t for you to copy. You only gain knowledge by doing it yourself.” Will flicked Sylvia’s forehead.
“You don’t understand, I’m extracting knowledge from the knowledge you’ve extracted. These are all the essentials.” Sylvia rubbed her head, speaking with conviction.
Will held his forehead.
The first time he met her, he thought Sylvia was an arrogant, snobbish pure-blood family young Witch; he never expected her to be completely different from her usual aloof demeanor.
“Will is right, Sylvia, you can’t copy his essay anymore, it won’t do you any good.” Hermione had also written most of hers.
“You’re right.” Sylvia nodded.
“Then I’ll look at yours.”
“You two continue writing here, my detention time is almost up.” Will gathered his books and put away his essay.
He was going to consult Professor Snape personally later.
“Detention? You got detention? How is that possible?” Hermione didn’t know about the incident in the Slytherin common room yet.
The Slytherin students had kept the news under wraps.
People always thought Gryffindor was the House that violated school rules the most, but in reality, every House violated school rules, and Slytherin students violated school rules no less than Gryffindor students. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
It’s just that Gryffindor students got caught more often.
Don’t actually believe that this group of young Wizards from Slytherin, composed of the “pure-bloods” of the magic world, would be well-behaved.
Many of their families relied on improper means to plunder wealth, and their family education would not raise their children to be sheep.
In fact, Slytherin often had “fights” internally, but everyone tacitly kept these matters confined within Slytherin.
Situations like Will’s group fight were not uncommon within Slytherin, and the reason Will was given detention was because he used large-scale destructive spells.
“Oh, Hermione, it’s like this.” Sylvia quietly explained to Hermione.
“Bloodline discrimination has always existed. Pure-bloods discriminate against half-bloods, and half-bloods discriminate against Muggles; this is the norm in the magic world.” Sylvia recounted the problems of the magic world to the naive Hermione.
Hermione listened with a face full of indignation: “How can these people be like this? Can they bully others just because of their noble status? Doesn’t the Ministry of Magic do anything about it?”
After all, she was still young and didn’t understand the harshness of society.
“But you’re also a pure-blood, and you don’t discriminate against anyone.”
“The Lestrange Family is different.
We are internally divided into three branches, and our branch doesn’t really care about bloodline theories.
In fact, my maternal grandfather was even a Muggle; the Lestrange Family even produced a Death Eater, but our relationship is already very distant, only distant relatives.” Sylvia paused, then continued: “And I was originally going to Beauxbatons, my grandmother wanted me to go to Durmstrang.
She said that as long as I wrote a letter, I could receive the best treatment at Durmstrang; but I really wanted to come to Hogwarts, and my father supported me, so the family had no choice but to let me study here.”
…”So that’s how it is.” Sylvia’s words left little Hermione greatly shocked.
Could one really choose schools so freely?
“Then why did you want to come to Hogwarts?”
“Well, that’s a secret. I’ll tell you later, but if you’re willing to let me see your essay, maybe I’ll tell you a bit earlier.” Sylvia giggled and went to look at Hermione’s essay…
Let’s not discuss the situation there for now.
Meanwhile, in the office, Will stared at Professor Snape: “So you mean Headmaster Dumbledore wants to see me?”
“That’s right, the Headmaster’s office is on the eighth floor of the Castle, and the entrance is guarded by a gargoyle statue; the password is ‘Lemon Drop’.” Professor Snape held Will’s essay in his hand.
He was also a little surprised, not expecting Will to have completed the essay in just one afternoon.
This attitude was good.
As for Will’s Potions talent, he would need to observe him further.
Will left Professor Snape’s office, a bit bewildered.
Had he attracted Dumbledore’s attention so quickly?