Until World War II, carrier pigeons were still an important means of transmitting information on the battlefield. One of them, "G.I. Joe," was a brilliant pigeon that saved thousands of people, including a large number of civilians. In 1946, Major General Charles Kitley presented G.I. Joe with the Dick Medal at the Tower of London for excellence in the war, the British government's highest honour for animals.

However, GI Joe himself may not have an idea of how much he has accomplished, and he may not know how many lives he has on his shoulders when he delivers the letter, but he is just wondering if he can get some chips from the recipient.

In the same way, when Snape walked into the classroom with his usual gloomy face, he never thought that his action would be of such a significant contribution to maintaining peace throughout Hogwarts.

Because his presence just interrupts the discussion between Neil and Ron about the vine snake.

"Quiet."

He said in a deep voice.

As soon as he stepped into the classroom, all the students in it immediately closed their mouths and sat upright, even lowering the rate of breathing, lest they make a little noise and let those cold eyes stare at him.

Snape was upset that the class was in order, and it seemed unforgivable to him that 60 seconds had passed and he hadn't found an excuse to deduct points from Gryffindor. To hide his unspeakable anger, he picked up a few papers from the podium that students had handed in.

Two papers that didn't seem to have dried in ink were placed on top, signed by Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, which made Snape's mood improve. As expected, the content of the essay is exactly what first-year students do with their first homework – that is, it sucks.

"Very good."

He sighed heartily, and then switched back to his usual yin and yang tone.

"I was glad to see that no fool had challenged my rules from the first class, and everyone turned in their homework on time." At this, Snape paused deliberately and glanced at the parchment in his hand, "Although some people have done it...... Not very ideal. ”

The one who knows you best in the world will always be your enemy. At the sight of Snape's smug expression, which seemed to be deliberately annoying, Harry almost immediately guessed what he was going to say next, clenching his fists slightly under the table.

"Let's take a look at Mr. Porter's magnum opus, On the Efficacy and Function of the Moondew Grass." Moondew is a very useful plant in potions...... What an incisive summary. ”

One of the Ravenclaw students in the last row of the classroom couldn't help but laugh. In Potions class, such behavior was usually not allowed to be done by non-Slytherin students, but Snape was extraordinarily tolerant today, and in order to reassure the laughing student, he even deliberately looked away from the direction of the other person, so as not to cause unnecessary intimidation.

"'The use of Moondew Grass in potion refining is very rich, and it can exert a variety of different effects depending on the compatibility'...... You know, Mr. Potter, I've been working at Hogwarts for ten years now, but I've never seen a second paper like this that is full of nonsense in order to make up for the space requirement, and maybe the way the mind burned by the Killing Curse is really different. ”

As he spoke, he took Ron's paper again and pretended to glance at it.

"Well, now there's a second one. It's a gathering of likes. ”

With Snape's covert encouragement, the laughter was louder than before.

Harry felt his back molars creaking, and if his ears were okay, there seemed to be a similar sound coming from Ron's side. He didn't deny that this article that he had written under the huge pressure of time was very clumsy, and there were many things that came from Ron's mutual borrowing, but it was at least a normal paper after reading through it.

This bastard deliberately only singled out the content used to make up the number of words, and was completely deliberately finding fault.

However, this was only the beginning, and with what Harry knew about Severus Snape as a person, he would not limit his abuse of power to just a few sarcastic words if he had the chance. He was waiting for someone to be provoked by the sarcasm and disrupt the classroom, and to provide him with a suitable excuse to feast on Gryffindor's precious house.

- Okay, come on, Snape, let's see who can endure more.

Faced with the provocative gaze that swept over from time to time, Harry also glared back with the same fierce eyes.

Seeing the tension between the two of them, Neil quietly reached out and tapped on Hermione's hand.

"Mr. Potter and Professor Snape don't have a good relationship, Miss Granger?"

Hermione gave him a blank look of disbelief as if she were looking at an alien, "No one can get along with Snape, Neil, at least not one outside of Slytherin." He did hate Harry though, and I don't know why. ”

"But I think...... He may not be that bad. Neil defended Snape with some flickering, and his unusual words and actions immediately aroused Hermione's suspicions, "Well, I can't hide anything from you, Miss Granger." We had just negotiated a business for twenty-five Galleons a week after the last lesson......"

“……………… What? ”

……

After that, the whole class went very smoothly.

Well, probably not so smooth either.

Harry was found to be in a position of holding a stirring stick five times when mixing the cough potion, twice he was ridiculed for being illiterate, and a total of four times before and after the act of finding fault rose to the level of questioning the tutor, and in addition to the fact that the finished product was made under great psychological pressure and was likened to a mixture of rotten persimmons, pond mud, and hippopotamus excrement...... The treatment was simply unsightly.

But even so, Harry gritted his teeth and persevered until the last moment, leaving Snape with no chance to deduct points, which also led to Snape, who had been scolding him for more than an hour at the end of class, to become the more ugly one.

And if you want to ask the trick to endure such verbal violence, it is probably to occasionally dedicate a little attention to listen to the neighbor's self-talk.

"—Ah, cough potion...... I'm not very familiar with the magical plants native to England, and hopefully there is no ephedrine in them. ”

—Crucible...... Yes, the crucible is too petty, and when it comes to England, there should be a glorious tradition of boiling medicine in a large iron pot used for the living. Of course, the Sonny Binnes are nothing more than a ghost story made up to discredit the Scots...... I hope so. ”

"Seriously, I like the feeling of boiling slowly, like making a soup, letting the active ingredients in the ingredients permeate little by little, fresh and poetic. The alchemy furnace is so efficient in this regard that it is too boring, and it is too easy to dry your mouth when you chew the pill empty! ”

It can be quite exhausting to understand every sentence of Neil's words, because the content is so numerous and jumpy, mixed with a lot of unfamiliar foreign words and purely apocryphalic anecdotes. But if you use this as background music, it will make people feel that their mood is gradually calming down.

Maybe that's a kind of white noise.

On the contrary, she couldn't suppress her curiosity and desire for knowledge, and Hermione, who always wanted to figure it out when she heard an unfamiliar term, was greatly distracted, and the quality of the finished potion was far from ideal...... Of course, for Gryffindors, even if they accomplished a great creation of the century level in Potions class, they would not be rewarded even a single point, so from a purely utilitarian point of view, there was nothing to lose by this. Snape, who was so focused on getting Harry to bite the hook, didn't even have his hands free to laugh at her.

At the end of the lesson, almost all of the students fled the classroom as fast as they fled, not wanting to stay with Snape for a second, except for Neil, who was leisurely shaking the vial like a wine tasting, sitting still and not moving. Hermione glanced back at him half worried, half annoyed before leaving the classroom, clearly undecided whether or not to tell Harry and Ron about the business he was talking to Snape, but Neil looked at her and smiled and shrugged his shoulders, saying that he didn't see it as a secret that she had to keep it, and that she could reveal it to others as she pleased.

"What were you doing with Granger?"

Perhaps still haunted by Harry's retreat, Snape's expression was unsightly, and he stepped forward to block Neil, obscuring all angles from which he looked out of the classroom door.

"Business, Professor." Neil replied without blinking an eyelid. But it is clear that no matter how cleverly disguised in demeanor, such an answer cannot be trusted by those who are suspicious by nature.

"I didn't know that the Mudbloods would be interested in your merchandise as well."

"There's so much you don't know." It sounded like a gunpowder, and if it weren't for Neil's calm demeanor when he spoke, making it difficult to conclude that he had malicious intent, a conflict might have been inevitable. Perhaps feeling a little ambiguous as well, Neil smiled and touched his nose, pulled out a rectangular oiled paper bag from the sleeve that seemed to fit anything, and shook it in front of Snape's eyes, "I'm talking too much, isn't it?" Let's get down to business, this week's sake. ”

Snape silently took the package, peeled off the wrapper and sniffed it. The expression on his face showed that although he didn't know exactly what it was called, he was fully aware of its properties and effects.

"Good."

He whispered, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear it.

"Twenty-five Galleons, Professor. Of course, if you're willing to share your recipe book, we'll never have to talk about money or anything — I have a pretty high opinion of your pharmacist, pretty high, Professor. ”