Chapter 11: Potions
At the mention of Slytherin, the faces of several people darkened, and Harry suddenly remembered that Ning An had been assigned to Slytherin. But on second thought, what about Slytherin, didn't the Sorting Hat still think about sorting him out of Slytherin.
So he didn't bother anymore, and pulled Ning An to sit down at the long table in Gryffindor, and kept talking about his strange things these days.
Listening to Harry talk about the ghost of Gryffindor from the chocolate frog, Ning An was also a little hungry, and when he turned his head, he saw that Daphne had already picked up a plate of puff pastry pie and ate it, so he unceremoniously picked up a piece of grilled steak and ate it.
Ron and Hermione were still a little restrained at first, but as the food gradually went down, their bodies seemed to relax, and they joined in the conversation from time to time.
It wasn't until lunchtime was over that they realized that the next class was actually a Potions class with Gryffindor and Slytherin.
"Looks like you and that Gryffindor front tooth have a common language." On the way to the Potions classroom, Daphne leaned over to Ning An and sneered quietly.
"Miss Granger is really talented in magic, and she says a lot of things that I accidentally overlooked in the books." Ning An said seriously, he really admires Hermione now, there are answers to many of the questions discussed just now, but they are very inconspicuous, so he didn't find them, as for the front teeth... Ning An didn't find it ugly.
While the two of them were muttering, the three of them were talking.
"I don't trust him anyway, Harry, you don't live in the wizarding world, so you haven't heard of the name of Slytherin, eighty percent of the dark wizards are from Slytherin." This is Ron
"But that's not all, isn't it, Ron, I think Mr. Ning'an is a lot more mindful of magic than you two." This is Hermione.
"You don't know, Slytherin has always been a pure-blood, but he just said that his parents were not wizards, this must not be true, he must be hiding something, he is lying." Ron retorted
"Enough is Ron." Harry suddenly said, "Not all Slytherins are bad, Nyan is my friend, don't say that again." β
Hearing Harry say this, Ron could only swallow the words that had just come to his lips helplessly, muttering in a low voice, "You don't believe me, my instincts in this regard are very accurate..."
The five of them arrived in the Potions classroom underground, an eerie and cold place, with glass jars along the walls soaked in many creepy taxidermy.
Several people walked to the desks of their own colleges, waiting for the arrival of the teacher, Ning An saw Malfoy, they didn't say hello, but Malfoy no longer avoided him, but calmly glanced at him and ignored it, Ning An was also happy.
After a while, Snape walked in with a cold face like a black crow, dressed in a black cloak, and without saying a word, he began to roll out names, stopping at the mention of Harry's name, and taunting Harry. Harry then deliberately asked questions that Harry wouldn't have embarrassed, and Hermione kept raising her arms in the air, as if gesturing Snape for her to answer.
Daphne leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Snape looks like he hates Gryffindor." β
Ning An smiled noncommittally, he knew that Snape was just deliberately embarrassing Harry, so he simply lowered his head and looked at the primary potions crafting. After a while, Snape, who had humiliated Harry, began to ask everyone to make potions in pairs, and Ning An was naturally in a group with Daphne.
However, Ning An found that Caridora seemed to be a little embarrassed, because no one wanted to be in a group with her, and they all tried their best to avoid her, and Ning An also recalled that she had been alone all this time, and it seemed that she had not made a friend yet.
"Caridora is so arrogant, she has offended a lot of people during this time, so now everyone doesn't like her." Daphne whispered.
Ning An turned her head to look at Daphne and asked, "Aren't you quite familiar with her?" β
"We did play together when we were kids." Daphne had a look of remembrance on her face, "But as she grew up, her personality seemed to have changed, and she has developed such a bad temper until now." β
Eventually, under Snape's forced assignment, Caridora was assigned to Pansy? Parkinson's girl, Pansy's face was full of reluctance, and her eyes kept glaring at Caridora, and Carlidora also raised her face to the sky, and did not look at Parkinson.
The fate of this two-person group can be imagined, except for a few Gryffindors in the class, it is this group that is scolded the worst on Slytherin's side.
When Ning An was making potions, he suddenly found that he seemed to be a little in love with these wonderful places that were slowly simmered in a cauldron, emitting white smoke, and wafting bursts of fragrance. The tips that I had memorized in the books came to mind.
Ning An used to be a person who liked to cook on the earth, and slowly completing a beautiful dish step by step always brought him an incomparable sense of achievement.
And at the moment of boiling the potion, Ning An actually found the feeling of cooking before, he used a knife to chop the dried nettles little by little, and then put them in the medicine bowl, and gently crushed them with a medicine pestle, step by step in an orderly manner.
His heart also seemed to sound soft music, this is no longer a cold potions classroom, but has become an extremely nostalgic home kitchen, he stroked the board as if he was caressing his lover, at this moment, Daphne is completely unable to intervene, Ning An's every step is extremely accurate, just right, making her feel that if she inserts it, it will be like making trouble.
Watching Ning An steam the slugs cleanly, while quickly cutting the porcupine thorns to three-quarters of a length, and then pouring the nettle powder into the crucible and boiling it carefully, he controlled the amount of fire under the pot, while always paying attention to the cooking situation of the slugs, after a few slugs suddenly straightened their antennae, and finally struggled, Ning An picked them up with tweezers, and put them into the dry pot that had already emitted aroma in the blink of an eye, and a few "beep beep" explosions came out, and the aroma in the pot suddenly became more intense.
Daphne was completely stunned, and it wasn't until Ning An finished the last step that she found Snape standing in front of them with a gloomy face, and she subconsciously screamed in her heart that it was not good, she had done nothing in this class, and it seemed that she was going to be severely criticized.
Snape ignored her, but slowly opened his mouth and let out a deep voice, "Oh, Ning'anβI remember you on the first day of school." His tone was calm, and he couldn't hear the joy or anger, but said gloomily:
"Looks done? Confident? β
Ning An felt as if he had run a 10,000-meter race, extremely tired, he had just devoted himself to the production of potions, and he didn't even care about Daphne, who couldn't get his hands on. At this time, he heard someone ask him, "Done?" So he subconsciously replied:
"Not yet, the fragrance is a little too strong, maybe you should add a sprig of peppermint halfway."
After saying that, he suddenly looked up, only to see Snape looking at him with some surprise, as if he did not expect his final answer.
Snape lifted the lid slightly, revealing a wisp of fragrance, his nose twitched slightly, and he looked down at Ning An, who was a little uneasy.
Ning An looked at Snape's indifferent expression, and felt that he might be 80% likely to be scolded by him, who knew that he would look at him so coldly but didn't speak for a while.
Just after Ning An felt that a whole class had passed, he suddenly heard Snape say in a low tone as if he was suppressing his voice:
"Peppermint leaves are good."
Then he lowered his body, suddenly approached Ning An, looked at him levelly and said:
"But I don't want to hear that you're getting in trouble in the future, Mr. Ning'an."
He bit the pronunciation of the word "Ning'an" heavily, as if he wanted to eat these two words.
Then Snape straightened up and shouted, "Slytherin plus two points, Ning'an made a perfect scabies treatment, and the peppermint leaves at the end are a stroke of genius, in comparison, let's look at Potter again?" Isn't it? You've messed up again, Potter? He continued to laugh at Harry.
Ning An felt a cold sweat on his back, looked at Daphne on the other side, and looked at him blankly, when he faced Snape before, he hadn't felt such a strong pressure, it seemed that Snape did it intentionally this time.
Ning An felt that Snape was a little unkind to him, but in any case, it still didn't reach the level of hatred for Harry. At best, he may feel that he is in trouble on the first day of school, which makes him a little uncomfortable, Ning An thinks so.
"Oh my God, it scared me to death, I thought he was going to humiliate me." Daphne patted her chest and said nervously, it seemed that she was also a little scared of Snape.
Relieved, Ning An felt that his spirit was suddenly very tired, he sat down in his chair, and motioned for Daphne to continue making potions, while he thought silently.
Snape is not only very good at potions and dark arts, but he is also a powerful dementor, and a brain occlusion that can even resist Voldemort's dementoring.
This also made Ning An add another point that needs to be trained in the plan, not only combat ability, but also very important to guard against the opponent's mental attack when facing such a mentally strong opponent, so it seems that he and Daphne still have to practice the Occlumency Technique.
"It's just a disguised increase in difficulty, where is this dementor going to do..."Ning An shook his head with a wry smile.