days at Hogwarts

Chapter 635 New School Year Course

Monday, April 9th.

Auditorium, morning.

"Herbology, very good. Professor Sprout will surely be happy to see you back, Longbottom..."

"Your Defense Against the Dark Arts score is "good". You are very lucky. Professor Bagshot wanted to raise the standard, but was persuaded by Headmaster Dumbledore..."

"I got a 'good' grade in Transfiguration. I think that's enough for the project report..."

"Hmm...why didn't you choose Charms?"

"Your grandmother thinks Charms is an easy task?"

"It seems that I wrote a letter to remind Augusta that she should not reject this subject just because she failed the Charms exam. Your grades are much better than your grandmother's back then..."

Professor McGonagall tapped the blank timetable on the table with the tip of her wand, and neat ink marks quietly emerged. After she put her wand away, she saw that it was already filled in with details of the courses he would take this semester.

Because the formal classes need to confirm the class schedule for this school year, after breakfast, the sixth grade students still sat in their seats, waiting for the four deans to come down from the guest of honor seats and walk around the long tables of the college to choose courses based on their grades and personal wishes.

After all, Loren and Hermione had excellent grades in all subjects, so Professor McGonagall simply looked through the course schedule and didn't find any time conflicts, so she confirmed it.

"Let me see... Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbs, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Arithmancy... Professor Binns and Hagrid were ruthlessly abandoned."

"You can choose another subject. Anyway, I have one more ancient magic subject than you."

"Forget it." Loren shook his head at the schedule and asked, "When is the Ancient Magic Rune class every week?"

"Monday morning!"

"Isn't that now?"

"!!"

Seeing the little witch put away her schedule and hurriedly walked towards the door, Loren followed slowly behind her, walking towards the stairs and said, "Don't worry, you are definitely not the only sixth grader who has chosen to take Ancient Magic Runes. There are many people who haven't confirmed their schedules yet. Even if you go to the classroom now, Professor Babel can't teach you alone."

"It seems so..." Hermione's pace gradually slowed down, turned her head and asked in confusion, "You don't have class in the first period, why did you catch up?"

"While Professor Slughorn is arranging the class schedule, I'm going to the Potions classroom to dig for treasure."

"?"

The ancient runes classroom was upstairs, and the potions classroom was in the basement. After parting with Hermione at the stairs, Loren walked through the underground corridor with ease, came to the door of the potions classroom, and entered with a single "Alaho".

The lights in the basement classroom were dim. The crucible was quietly placed on the table, and other common tools for processing medicinal materials were neatly arranged. It was obvious that the house-elves had cleaned it before the start of the school year. Perhaps because it had not been put into use this semester, there was no strange smell.

"The lockers at the back of the classroom..."

Loren muttered to himself as he walked to the corner and opened several locker doors one by one. The smell was not so pleasant now. There were a lot of miscellaneous items inside, including a broken crucible, dried vines, and damaged bat livers...

Opening the locker where old books were stored, Loren glanced at the scattered stacks of old textbooks with his eyes slightly closed.

When he opened his eyes again, the colors in his vision faded away quietly. In the monotonous world of black, white and gray, an old textbook with a slightly damaged cover caught his attention, and the blue-black magic as rich as ink quietly bloomed.

Loren raised a faint smile, took out an old textbook, shook off the dust, and sat down next to the desk.

In the dim and silent underground classroom, Loren put on the protection of brain occlusion and gently opened the book "Advanced Potion Making".

After all, it is Professor Snape's Horcrux, so you have to take good care of it. You can't get compensation if you break it.

The title on the cover was a little faded, and there were a few faint creases. When I opened the title page, there was no signature. It was just like other textbooks, with a boring table of contents and preface, and then some methods of brewing advanced potions.

Professor Snape was obviously not a quiet person when he was a student. He scribbled in the blank spaces between paragraphs and his notes were everywhere, making the blank spaces as black as other places. Carefully identifying the alterations in some of the step diagrams, you can see that this gifted student is constantly exploring the field of potions.

Most of the handwriting is crooked and difficult to decipher. The first half of the book contains notes describing some tips in the brewing process.

In the blank space in the second half, I randomly wrote down many creative spells. At first, they were just small evil spells, such as making toes grow wildly, hanging upside down with a golden hook, blocking the throat or blocking the ears. Later, they gradually began to involve the field of black magic...

The Shenfeng Wuying recorded in the book was different from what he had seen at the beginning. It was sharper and left no room for maneuver.

This was of little use to Loren, as the people who had perfected these steps had already demonstrated them in person over the past few years.

Occasionally, one or two lines of neat and beautiful handwriting appeared, and Loren had a vague guess about the owner of these words.

Loren had no intention of prying into the youthful distress that Professor Snape experienced during his student days. Those inferiority, regret and remorse were the soul fragments that led to this Horcrux textbook.

When I closed the book and flipped through the pages, I finally saw the signature at the bottom of the back cover. It was written in a tiny, dense handwriting: "This book belongs to the Half-Blood Prince."

Loren thought for a moment, his eyes gradually brightened, he took the feather pen on the table, dipped it in ink, and wrote a line on the blank space on the title page:
"Hello, Half-Blood Prince, I am Harry Potter."

There was no wave of Legilimency, nor any consciousness that reached into the mind to search for memories. Under Loren's expectant gaze, the ink on the diary seeped into the paper and began to reassemble.

A few seconds later, another paragraph of text quietly emerged.

"Homework for Loren Morgan: Analyze the principles of all the potions in this book, try to optimize and improve the brewing steps of at least 5 potions, and summarize them into papers. Each paper should be no less than 15 inches."

Bang!
Loren snapped the book shut.

It’s so scary, this Horcrux can actually simulate the fear deep in my heart!

I must remind Professor Snape next time we meet.

slip away.

……

Excluding miscellaneous courses like History of Magic and Divination, Loren's schedule became much cleaner. He had no classes in the first period, and the second period was Defense Against the Dark Arts.

After coming out of the underground classroom, I went to the library to catch up with Madam Pince and talk about the old books I borrowed during the holidays. I went back to the common room to listen to Ron talk about the construction of the new team. Soon it was time for class.

When I went downstairs to the classroom, Hermione was already waiting at the door, holding a large book in her arms, with a sad face, as if she had been abused.

Seeing Loren approaching, Hermione lowered her head and bumped his shoulder with it, again and again: "There's a lot of homework for the Magical Writing class, a 15-inch long article, two translations, and I have to finish reading so many books before Wednesday!"

Loren chuckled and said, "It's just a big book. It's not a problem for Miss Know-It-All. Not to mention reading it, she can even memorize it."

Hermione said in a sad and angry tone: "There is more than one book. I can't take it down. There are several more in the locket!"

"It's okay, take your time..." After comforting the lost little witch, the door of the classroom opened and Grindelwald came to the door: "Come in."

His thin cheeks had filled out a little, and there was finally some flesh on his bones. He looked like the former Professor Lupin, with a gentle and polite smile. With such an expression and at such an age, he could be called kind.

Before the class bell rang, a classmate greeted the professor and he responded with a smile.

Perhaps because he had stayed in Nurmengard for too long, he was used to opening all the windows, allowing the bright sunlight to pour in, making the light from the candles seem insignificant.

The bell rang, and Grindelwald knocked on the desk, drawing the students' attention away from the stickers. "Before the advanced class begins, I would like to congratulate you all on passing the OWLs exam for this course."

There was a mixed response from below.

"So far, you have had seven different teachers for this course. Needless to say, each professor has his or her own teaching style and focus. I can imagine that the chaotic teaching mode has caused your learning difficulty to increase exponentially... You need to be mentally prepared, as the next courses will be even more difficult."

Grindelwald paused for a moment, "Don't spit on or hate the Dark Arts. You are about to become adults, and you should learn to look at the Dark Arts independently. Not just the Dark Arts, but the entire world... touch it, understand it, and delve into it...

"So that we can better protect ourselves."

The students seemed to sense some emotion from his words and gradually quieted down.

Grindelwald lowered his head and flipped open his notes. He shook his head helplessly and smiled, "Sorry, I was actually planning to start the first lesson of the advanced class with curses, but Dumbledore switched my lesson plan."

There was cheerful laughter from the audience, and the tension that had just been aroused disappeared unconsciously.

"Then let's start with the silent spell."

Grindelwald smiled and said, "Not reciting the spell out loud when casting magic can achieve an unexpected effect. This requires high concentration, a deep understanding of the spell, and sufficient magic power..."

The old professor stood on the stage and lectured slowly. Loren vaguely thought he saw Dumbledore.

But his jokes are much funnier than the old principal's jokes.

……

The next afternoon, the long-awaited advanced potions class began.

The students filed into the classroom. Professor Slughorn stood at the door, with a big belly and a walrus-like beard trembling on his smiling mouth. He seemed particularly enthusiastic when greeting some of the students.

"Ah... Harry, Loren and Hermione, I was just thinking about you!" Slughorn said in a high voice, his eyes moved to the right, his eyebrows slightly wrinkled in confusion, "And this familiar friend!"

"Great, you forgot about me in just one summer vacation..." Ron muttered softly, and then he smiled brightly, "Ron Weasley, Professor, I may not be able to keep up with the teaching of the advanced class, maybe I should drop out -"

"Don't talk nonsense. I can teach you. Harry's friends are my friends. Take out your textbooks and take your seats."

Harry said quickly, "I'm sorry Professor, we haven't received the textbooks yet, and the owl from Flourish and Blotts won't arrive until Friday."

"It's okay, just go to the cabinet and get one."

"Okay professor!"

Harry and Ron came to the locker in the corner, opened the dusty cabinet, and saw two books on "Advanced Potion-Making" inside.

A book used by a poor student, it is 90% new and in better condition than the ones sold in second-hand bookstores.

A damaged hardcover edition of a book by a top student, so worn out that it's about to fall apart.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, pondered for a few seconds, and then simultaneously pounced on the 90% new book, fighting for it and refusing to give up an inch.

Finally, Ron used his basic goalkeeping skills and pushed to the side with his waist and horse combined.

Harry suddenly lost his balance and stumbled. After he stood firm, he had lost the qualification to snatch the book. Harry sighed helplessly and picked up the completely damaged book.

"..."

Hermione shook her head and sighed, then pulled Loren, who had a strange smile on his face, into the classroom.

The difference from yesterday was that the underground classroom was already filled with steam and all kinds of strange smells. On the podium were large bubbling cauldrons containing various high-level potions.

The advanced class was taught by four colleges together, but the number of students was small and it didn't seem crowded. Four Slytherin students sat at one table, four Ravenclaw students, and besides the four of them, there were Neville and Parvaty in Gryffindor, but there were not enough Hufflepuffs to get four students.

The two chose a table closest to a golden cauldron, from which a fragrant aroma emanated.

"Polyjuice Potion, Veritaserum..." Hermione sniffed with interest, looked at the crucible next to the golden crucible, sniffed, and rolled her eyes, "What kind of potion is that? Loren, smell it, I can't smell it."

Most potions can be easily distinguished by their smell, color, consistency, and shape of steam. The one that is colorless and odorless like water and is exceptionally clear when boiling is truth serum, while the one that is thick like mud, slowly bubbles, and smells like lacewings is polyjuice potion...

And the kind of question Hermione asked...

Loren looked at the white liquid in the crucible, which had a mother-of-pearl sheen and steam that rose in spirals.

"Well, I can't tell..." He dragged out a long tone, holding back his laughter, "I got caught in the rain when school started, and I caught a cold. My nose is a little dull. Can you describe the smell for me?"

"..."

Hermione turned to look at him, her eyes sparkling. "The smell is quite complex. I can smell freshly cut grass, brand new parchment, ink from the Men of Letters, and orange peels."

Loren was stunned for a moment, then he rubbed his nose with a smile and took a deep breath: "What I smelled was roasted cumin, the air after the rain, and Miss Granger's hair."

"you!"

Hermione's fair face flushed slightly. She could look him in the eye calmly just now, but now she was a little flustered and quickly turned her head to look at the last pot of potion.

What kind of potion is so magical?
Parvati closed her eyes and sniffed, sniffing the wafting scent of the white potion. Although she could smell some pleasant odors, she couldn't make out anything like mowed grass or the air after the rain, which made her feel a little strange.

Parvati turned her head, looked around, and poked Padma, her twin sister, who was studying next door at Ravenclaw with excellent grades.

"What kind of potion is that? It's so magical?"

"Love potion."

"..."

Parvati lowered her head, feeling doubly insulted by both her grades and her love.

(End of this chapter)