Seamus ran into the Great Hall holding up a copy of the Daily Prophet, shouting loudly, “Someone spotted Sirius!” The matter of Sirius Black was easily the hottest topic at the moment, and everyone turned curiously toward the newspaper in Seamus’s hand.
John looked over at the Gryffindor table and saw that Harry Potter was there as well.
The moment Harry heard Seamus mention Sirius, he immediately stood up and leaned over to look.
A brown-haired girl beside Harry snatched the newspaper from Seamus.
After reading it, she said worriedly, “Dufftown?
Isn’t that very close to here?” “He’s not coming to Hogwarts, is he?” Neville was also sitting there, looking equally worried.
After all, Sirius Black was an extremely dangerous man who had once served Lord Voldemort.
“There are Dementors everywhere around Hogwarts.
It’ll be fine.” Someone beside him tried to reassure him.
“Dementors?
He already escaped from Azkaban once, and that place was full of Dementors.” Seamus immediately argued back.
In his opinion, Dementors could not protect them at all.
Harry stared at the article in the newspaper, looking troubled.
Why was Harry Potter so worried?
John found himself a little curious.
Could Sirius Black be coming for Harry?
It did not seem impossible.
After all, Harry was the protagonist.
Major incidents usually revolved around him.
If that were the case, then John felt relieved.
Because in stories like this, the protagonist usually ended up fine, and the criminal would definitely be brought to justice in the end.
Before this, John had genuinely worried about accidentally encountering an escaped murderer, or having his family harmed by one, after seeing the news on television.
…
“John, are you really sure you don’t need our help?” After dinner, just before they parted ways, Ryan asked worriedly.
“It’s just processing some ingredients.
What’s there to worry about?
Besides, Professor Snape assigned this task to me.
If you helped and got caught, you’d probably be punished even more severely.” John patted Ryan on the shoulder as he spoke, then slowly walked toward the classroom where they had attended Potions earlier.
Ryan and the others could only watch John leave with gloomy expressions, as though he were heading off never to return.
They could not help it.
Snape’s terrifying reputation among the first-year students was simply too well known.
Many upper-year students would rather tug on the Headmaster’s beard than appear in front of Snape.
When John returned to the Potions classroom, he found that the candles were still lit, though the room looked completely empty.
Perhaps the candles at Hogwarts had some kind of automatic lighting charm.
Not bothering with such details, John walked up to the lectern and looked at the rows of bottles and jars.
Out of curiosity, he opened one of them.
The instant the lid came off, a horrible stench hit him head-on.
Urrg!
What was that smell?!
John immediately set the jar down, covered his nose, and staggered backward.
After taking just one breath of it, he nearly vomited up the dinner he had just eaten.
Suppressing the nausea, John quickly sealed the jar again and desperately fanned the air with a piece of parchment, trying to push the smell out through the basement windows.
Unfortunately, the ventilation in the dungeon classroom was terrible, and the stench refused to disappear.
Left with no other choice, John stepped out into the corridor to catch his breath.
Before leaving, however, he noticed a book titled One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi still lying on the lectern, so he picked it up and brought it outside, intending to see whether it contained anything useful.
The dim and damp dungeon corridor carried a faint musty smell, but to John, it currently felt like the freshest air imaginable.
Using the light from the wall torch beside the door, he flipped through the potion ingredient book.
In the table of contents, he found “Pufferfish Eyes” and immediately turned to the relevant page.
Before processing, pufferfish eyes needed to be soaked in a special preserving solution.
Otherwise, even a slight rise in temperature would cause them to spoil and develop green spots.
However, even when stored in preserving solution, there would occasionally be low-quality specimens, or some that had not been preserved quickly enough.
Because of this, they had to be processed as soon as possible, while also checking for any spoiled eyes mixed in among the good ones.
Otherwise, the rotten ones would contaminate the rest and accelerate the spoilage process.
So Professor Snape had assigned him this task to separate the spoiled pufferfish eyes, making the later processing easier?
Then why had he not simply thrown away the spoiled ones while processing them himself?
He was just keeping them around to disgust people, wasn’t he…
After reading the explanation, John was left speechless.
It really did seem possible.
Or perhaps Professor Snape was not in a hurry to process them, and this was simply part of a routine inspection, while also serving as punishment for students.
Whatever the reason, John sighed and found himself wishing he had asked Professor Flitwick earlier whether there was a spell that could block smells.
Now that he understood the characteristics of spoiled pufferfish eyes from the book, John knew what to do next.
He closed the book and returned to the classroom.
The smell inside had faded somewhat by now, but it was still awful.
John found some tissues in the classroom, rolled them into strips, and stuffed them into his nostrils.
At least this way he would not be overwhelmed by the stench.
Following the instructions in the book, John put on protective gloves, picked up a pair of tweezers, and began sorting through the spoiled fish eyes.
Although he could no longer smell the stench clearly, the fumes still irritated his eyes.
Squinting constantly, he carefully searched through the jars again and again before finally finding several spoiled pufferfish eyes.
Just as John was finally making progress, the classroom door suddenly opened.
John looked up and saw Professor Snape standing there, staring at him with obvious disgust.
The two rolls of tissue sticking out of John’s nose made him look like he had stuffed green onions up there.
“Uh, good evening, Professor Snape…” John froze for a moment before obediently greeting him.
Snape did not respond.
He simply walked silently to John’s side and inspected the jars John had already sorted through.
At the same time, he noticed that the copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi on the lectern had clearly been moved, though he said nothing about it.
Seeing Snape completely ignore the smell, John became a little curious.
Had the stench finally faded?
He cautiously pulled the tissues from his nose.
The next second, FAAAAAH!!
No, it was still just as horrible.
“It seems your talent for manual labor is at least better than your talent for brewing potions.” After inspecting the jars and finding no issues, Professor Snape finally gave a compliment that barely sounded like one.
John pursed his lips, ignoring the sarcasm, and lowered his head to continue sorting through the pufferfish eyes in the jars.
Professor Snape said nothing further.
He picked up a jar of pufferfish eyes that John had already sorted, then waved his hand again.
A stone bowl similar to a mortar and a wooden pestle flew out from one of the classroom cabinets.
With another casual motion, the pufferfish eyes floated out of the jar, draining away the preserving solution.
Then Professor Snape produced a jar of blue powder from somewhere and sprinkled it over the fish eyes.
Immediately afterward, he dropped the pufferfish eyes into the stone bowl.
Under Snape’s control, the wooden pestle automatically began crushing the fish eyes repeatedly.
Less than two minutes later, it stopped.
Surprisingly, the crushed pufferfish eyes had not turned into paste, but into distinct granules instead.
Remembering the blue powder Professor Snape had sprinkled on them earlier, John guessed it was responsible for the change.
The components of the pufferfish eyes had automatically wrapped themselves around the powder, forming the granulated appearance before him.
After finishing all of this, Professor Snape evenly spread the granulated pufferfish eyes across an iron tray.
“The magical properties of some ingredients are extremely weak.
Only by combining them with corresponding materials during processing can their effects be enhanced.” Looking at the ingredients spread across the tray, Professor Snape suddenly spoke.
Because it was so abrupt, John could not even tell whether Snape was talking to himself or explaining it to him.
“After you finish sorting them, process the remaining pufferfish eyes the same way I just did, then spread them onto trays and let them air dry naturally.” “And keep your damned flames away from them.” After saying that, Professor Snape left the jar of blue powder behind and swept out of the classroom with a flourish of his robes.
John remained standing there, blinking blankly.
Huh?