Don't know much?

Just ask casually when you happen to meet it?

Hmph╭(╯^╰)╮This is not a random question.

Whether it's the "testimony" of the drugstore manager in Diagon Alley, or the thick and heavy "Elementary Potions", these are not easy to find, at least Elena can be sure that the book is not on the shelves of the Blotted bookstore.

It seems that this little beaver came prepared.

Elena's gaze collided with Hermione's defiant gaze, and she raised an eyebrow in some understanding.

I see, the little beaver has brewed a holiday counterattack waiting for her here?

Due to her presence in this world, Hermione Granger was not isolated as in the original book, but she also did not experience a thrilling escape from death by a giant monster with a big stick in the women's bathroom.

Perhaps partly influenced by her, Hermione is now less stingy at school.

But on the contrary, the stubbornness and unyielding nature of this little beaver did not disappear because of this, but gradually converged and condensed into a bunch, from the original aggressiveness towards everyone, to an obsession only for Elena.

When they left the Hogwarts Express last semester, the white-haired Dango and Little Beaver, witnessed by Hannah and Luna, re-signed a "new hundred" gambling agreement for the next school year - as long as Hermione can win the first place in the grade in more than one-third of the class, even if the little wings succeed in challenging the white-haired Great Devil.

"Tsk, it's surprising that you haven't given up on Potions?"

A hint of surprise flashed in Elena's eyes, she had thought that the little beaver would not challenge her in the field of potions.

After all, compared to other disciplines, Potions is almost her strongest position, and the gap between ordinary students and Potions teaching assistants is too big, and the gap between the two in the extra points and final assessment can almost make people desperate.

Human energy is limited, and even a genius little witch like Hermione can't "go to war" in all areas.

In Elena's previous prediction, Hermione's wisest course of action would have been to avoid her strong subjects and attack Elena's weaker subjects - avoiding her edge, which was the tactical choice with the highest success rate.

Therefore, encountering a backstab from a little beaver in Potions class caught Elena a little off guard for a while.

Obviously, the "one hundred" punishment game did not make Elena get her wish, but to some extent stimulated Hermione Granger's desire to win - compared to the other two girls with slightly softer personalities, the Minister of Magic's unyielding personality in the original book has not changed in the slightest because of the butterfly effect.

And the most important thing is -

As a fairy queen who has a lot of opportunities and hundreds of millions of dollars every minute, Elena did not put too much energy into the preparation of potions during the summer vacation that had just ended, and she paid more attention to the more important areas of "the introduction of talents from the former Soviet Union", "the operation of the SCP Foundation", and "the urban construction of Hogwarts House".

Compared to the well-read Hermione Compute Granger, she is really weak in the subdivision of Potions.

This time, Hermione was more competitive than she had imagined.

Merely......

Elena shook her head quietly in her heart, this kind of cleverness is not the right time.

You know, she's not alone in the fight right now.

If it were in Professor Snape's Potions class, with that cold-faced and tsundere personality, he would probably leave her alone, and let her feel a little frustration by the way, but Horace Slughorn is not that kind of "bad person".

Slughorn would hardly refuse such an opportunity to raise his face in front of the children if asked.

"Huh, would fresh nettles be better to use? ”

Glancing at Hermione, Elena turned her head without hesitation and asked for help from the old wizard standing at the edge of the lectern.

"Professor Slughorn, this seems to be a point of knowledge that was not written in Magic Potions and Potions, is there any wonderful Potions principle in it, or is it a limitation in the actual functioning of society?"

Anyway, according to the previous agreement, what the two are fighting for is not the dominance of the classroom.

Even if Elena can't maintain her dominance in a class for the time being, as long as Hermione doesn't succeed in taking her place, then according to the contract full of loopholes, the cunning three generations of the Dark Lord can still easily reap the spoils.

"Here...... Theoretically, fresh nettle grass can enhance the effect of a little swelling elixir. ”

Slughorn took over the conversation very naturally, raised his finger and shook it, and explained with a smile.

"As Miss Caslana has previously explained, the presence of stinging hairs on the stems and leaves of nettles can cause irritation on the exposed skin of humans or animals, and if you look at the way the swelling potion works, you will see that the two actually have a very similar effect - the only difference is that the magic causes the potion to take effect the moment it touches the skin. ”

The old wizard paused slightly, looked at the classroom for a few seconds, and said meaningfully.

"But fresh nettle grass is not suitable for teaching. In addition to safety reasons, this is actually more based on the difference between the two qualities of materials in the final presentation and formulation of the drug. So, I'd like to ask you to guess why it's the more expensive dried nettles that appear in the classroom, rather than the fresh nettles that are theoretically more responsive. ”

Hermione was stunned, lowered her head and flipped through her extracurricular books a few times.

She hadn't thought of this at all, neither in the mouth of the store manager nor in the Elementary Potions Encyclopedia, except for mentioning the optimization effect of fresh nettles in potion reactions, there was nothing else written about it.

Needless to say, this is another knowledge blind spot that is not recorded in the books.

"Oh, don't worry about answering the wrong answer, you can follow the principle of the swelling potion and make a bold guess. ”

Slughorn grinned, looking at the classroom that had fallen silent for a while.

I have to admit that Elena's narration mode just now has provided him with a new idea - anyway, there is still more than half an hour before the second potion reaction time, and it would be great if he could spend it like this until the end of time.

This trade-off, based on the principles of potions, is not something that can be answered by chance, or by reading a few more potions-related books.

Even some potions geniuses with keen intuition have to go through many attempts to compare before they can vaguely understand the subtle differences between those potions.

This is also due to the fact that all of the potions in previous attempts are perfectly formulated to accurately target the potion properties due to a small number of potion material changes.

At that moment, Harry suddenly raised his right hand cautiously.

"Because dried nettle grass will make the potion reaction more stable?" he said, "Fresh nettle grass will make the potion take effect faster, but because of the magic of the potion itself, the improvement it brings is not so obvious?"

As he spoke, Harry Potter swept over the old Magic Potions and Potions at hand.

The margins of the pages of the swollen potion description are now covered with notes in black as the place where the potion is printed, and many of the contents of the textbook are evaluated and revised.

At this time, next to the handwriting on the page with the nettle grass pattern, there was also a note:

[Dried nettle after treatment can improve the stability of the agent, and the reaction efficiency improved by fresh nettle is negligible]

This book is not the Potions textbook for the new semester that Harry Potter bought from the Blotstag.

Yesterday afternoon, Harry was in Snape's office during a routine make-up class, because of a sudden sleepiness, accidentally knocked over the potion bottle next to the professor's desk, although Professor Snape controlled the flow of potions in time, but Harry's newly bought textbook was also damaged by the professor's spell, and it seemed that he could not continue to use it.

Harry had thought he was going to be scolded severely, but who knew that Professor Snape seemed to be in a good mood that day.

In addition to a few words of advice to rest well, Severus Snape did not reprimand too harshly, but ended the make-up class early for the first time, and gave Harry early to take a break to go back to adjust his mental condition.

On the other hand, in order not to affect Harry's subsequent lessons.

Before leaving the Potions Professor's office, Snape picked up a few old books from the clutter pile that the students had left out in the classroom from previous years, and asked Harry to pick one out of them and deal with it for the rest of the Potions class.

However, Harry didn't expect the above note to be related to Professor Slughorn's question.

"Exactly, I can't explain it more accurately!"

Slughorn blinked in surprise, looked at Harry in surprise, and continued.

"Most of the swelling agents that are qualified are effective within one to two seconds when they come into contact with bare skin. Fresh nettle grass does speed things up, but it's not too useful - in addition to this, fresh nettle is not only inexpensive, but also has a rich juice that makes it more active in potions. ”

"This means," Slughorn said, his gaze sweeping away the young faces in the classroom, "that when we use nettles in our teaching, the fresher the nettles, the more obvious the drawbacks." Mr. Potter, I think you understand the reason for this malaise, right?"

Hermione's eyes lit up, and her hand was raised again.

With Slughorn's prompting, she finally figured out the key to this.

It's just that, in this situation, poor Arithmetic has to wait until Harry can't continue to answer Slughorn's questions, which is obviously a bit ...... Difficulty.

"Well—because of stability, being active will make our reaction time shorter, which is not conducive to learning. Is that so?"

"Not bad at all. ”

Slughorn said happily, and Hermione lowered her hand, looking a little disappointed.

"In the introductory stages of Potions, the most important thing is to reduce accidents. The rarer the element, the easier it is for you to control and understand, and the easier it is to find problems. And when you have grown to a certain stage, you can start to try to sacrifice stability for efficiency, and look for some surprises beyond the set results. ”

"So, the role of nettle in this potion is actually to give it a way to take effect?"

Elena tapped her lips thoughtfully, muttering quietly.

Compared to the other disciplines, Potions was by far the most difficult for her to understand, because it was not alchemy in the strict sense of the word—it did not follow the equivalent exchange of matter, nor did it follow chemical reactions.

Severus Snape, however, was clearly better suited as a researcher than a mere teacher.

Professionalism and teaching ability are two different dimensions of judging - in terms of the integration of civilizations between the non-magical world and the magical world, Horace Slughorn is more suitable in terms of knowledge and ease of understanding.

"That is to be understood, Miss Caslana. But there's some magic involved—"

Hearing Elena's whisper, Slughorn's eyes flashed with surprise, and he nodded uncertainly.

If Harry Potter's answer was still in the realm of the Potions Master, then the little silver-haired witch beside him had just begun to smack to the heart of some discussion about the nature of potions.

"So by analogy, the effect of the puffer fish eye should be the core form of the effect of the swelling potion?"

Elena's eyes narrowed, her mind racing.

When threatened, wild pufferfish can quickly draw water or air into their elastic stomach, expanding to more than two to three times their original size in a short period of time, and the pupil is also the most susceptible organ in the organism to become larger.

You must know that when normal humans are excited, the first organ to become larger is the pupil.

When most creatures are excited, or when they are excited, their pupils will become larger, and this amplitude can usually reach about five to ten times, that is, ...... In a sense, puffer fish eyes are equivalent to "swelling".

Elena looked closely at the board book on the blackboard and paused for a moment on the "puffer fish eyes".

Puffers are a general term that includes more than 200 species of fish genera from various genera of bony fishes, pufferfishes, and pufferfishes, which covers even more extensive than the owls represented by the "round-faced fat chicken".

"In other words, the puffer fish eye was chosen without specifying the species because it pointed to a species that expands itself, rather than some more refined, specific classification, and to use the organ with the most significant stretching effect and ratio in its body, rather than from a biological or chemical point of view......"

And reasoning along this rule, if the function of the puffer fish eyes is to give the entry "inflated".

So......

"Bat...... What are you?"

Elena's gaze lingered on the last remaining ingredient of the swelling potion for a few seconds, and her eyes suddenly lit up.

"Wait! I get it all, I see-"

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