"It doesn't make sense!"

Neil picked up the half-broken flask from the ground, sniffed the remaining potion inside, and tossed it aside. The flask landed on the overturned display case, shattered with a clatter, and blended perfectly with the glass stubble all over the floor.

Snape stood nearby, silently watching him smash and pound in his devastated storeroom. Even though there was nothing left to use after the last intruder's destruction, it was still rare for someone like him to allow someone else to treat his property so casually.

Neil glanced at him and saw that he didn't mean to answer, looking a little frustrated.

"How could he not have left a trace at all - I mean, yes, there are a bunch of traces here!"

He pointed to the storeroom, which seemed to have just been run by 10,000 cows, and the display cases neatly arranged along the walls were now only a pile of rotten wood, littered with broken, torn, or trampled potion ingredients and various potions and semi-finished products that had been contained in bottles and jars—all of which had turned into colorful rivers flowing on the floor.

"But there is nothing traceable! No hair! No footprints! Didn't get scratched by anything! I didn't accidentally drop a glove or anything! Do you know what's the most infuriating? After that guy took a potion bath in this place that smelled worse than a, he didn't even get a smell at all! ”

Snape snorted coldly, not negating Neil's nasty metaphor for taste. The result is bound to be something like this when a large amount of potions are mixed together indiscriminately—more than that, to be exact, but Snape is very cautious about dangerous drugs.

Although it was true that he was not expecting an invasion this time, it was not surprising that one day some of the humiliated students (especially Gryffindor) decided to pry open the door with a spell and go in to play a prank, given his popularity at the school. Snape had been very cautious in order to avoid the consequences of blowing up the student in his storeroom, in stark contrast to Hagrid, who had miraculously not killed anyone by luck to this day.

Of course, the option of avoiding that future by improving his attitude towards students was not on his radar.

"I've been lying down the hallway like a dog for several laps, robbing the house-elves of mopping the floor, and still haven't found anything!" Neil said as he picked up a handful of dried buckthorn—stained with unknown slime, and could no longer be used—and began to tear at the leaves one by one, "I can run after the ghost fox for hours in the snowy mountains in winter, and never be thrown more than a block in between—not that I boast, Mr. Professor, that ordinary methods of covering up traces cannot fool me." But this guy ...... Something is very wrong with this guy! ”

He was almost certain that the man must have used magic or something of the same nature to cover his tracks as he escaped, but since Snape hadn't used it as an excuse to mock him until now, it wasn't easy to do.

"I don't understand...... If he was such a skilled wizard, why would he smash the door violently? I've seen the protective charm you've put on doors, it's ingenious, but it's not that powerful - to put it mildly, Professor, it's actually a Gryffindor trap, designed to trick upperclassmen who think they're smart into taking the bait so you can keep them locked up for fun! ”

Snape acquiesced to the latter comment.

"Maybe he's not a 'skilled wizard.'" A hint of malice flashed in his eyes, and he replied to Neil for the first time in half a day, "I just happened to get a magic item that is very suitable for erasing traces...... Let's say, an invisibility cloak - a very good invisibility cloak. ”

Neil, who had been angry just a moment ago, suddenly fell silent and turned his head to stare at him.

"Mr. Professor."

He said expressionlessly.

"The age of the Inquisition is over, and you can leave these persecutors' nonsense to Mr. Filch, who will like it very much. Now, we're down to business. ”

"In my opinion, there is nothing to talk about." The corners of Snape's mouth curled into a sarcastic arc, and he replied unceremoniously, "That stupid thief destroyed my entire storage room, thinking it would be a cover-up, but he's as clever as you are, and thinks I'm going to be blind to what's missing." ”

His knowledge and interest in potions were all in the service of higher aspirations, but that did not mean that he was completely indifferent to this great loss. Many of the materials stored here are worth a lot of money, and even money may not be able to get them, let alone potions that have been carefully concocted on top of them. Even if it didn't matter to the safety of Hogwarts or even the entire wizarding community, he was ready to dismantle the other party.

"You told me that Quirrell was suspected of killing a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest to steal blood, and you told me he hadn't left his office last night - can I think so, that normally, if a person hadn't lied, there wouldn't have been such inconsistent statements?"

"That's true." Neil smiled nonchalantly, "But how tedious life would be without those coincidences—all right, all right, Mr. Professor." As you know, I haven't closed my eyes for two nights in a row, and it's not a gentleman's behavior to force someone to cooperate with your bad words in this state of mind. Why don't you go and meet Mr. Headmaster and ask him if he can't tell us more information until half of the people in the school have died in a plague outbreak? ”

"It's too late." A look of hatred crossed Snape's face, "The Headmaster wasn't at Hogwarts yesterday morning, saying he was 'going to visit an old friend'. ”

Hearing this, Neil slowly closed his eyes and clapped his hands dryly: "Great, everything is just calculated, isn't it?" ”

……

The thug who broke into Snape's storage room was uncovered at dawn and was Pollack Vergail, a first-year freshman at Ravenclaw House. Testimonies show that he has borrowed a large number of treatises on potions and magical biology in the library in the past two days, which are clearly not part of the scope of his homework.

When Snape captured him in the dormitory with the help of witnesses, Pollack himself was still asleep. He was at first surprised and angry at the accusations against him, but when he was told the names of the witnesses, all his surprise was replaced by anger.

Although 80 percent of the confession consisted of meaningless threatening words such as "I'm going to kill him" and "I'm going to strangle that bastard," Pollack finally pleaded guilty through gritted teeth. He claimed that he was curious about the real thing because he saw a book about a unicorn blood preparation, so he wanted to sneak into the Potions professor's private collection to find out, but in the process of rummaging, he accidentally broke a bottle of psychedelic potion with a psychedelic effect, and only then pulled out his wand and blew it up in an uncontrolled state.

It was a very Ravenclaw-esque motive for breaking down the door, and it was a small piece of Daisy Stone stolen from a classmate - everything seemed logical, and he admitted it with pleasure, so that almost no one doubted it.

Professor Flitwick was shocked and furious at the presence of such a student in his college, but Snape uncharacteristically stated that the incident had only turned out to be a little worse and was no different in nature from other pranks that happened every day; And leaving the hallucination potion in the storage room is also your own custodial error, and the student should not be blamed entirely.

It's not so much that his rhetoric itself works, but rather that he actually intercedes for his students and scares everyone stupid. As he had hoped, Pollack received an unusually light punishment, with the exception of points for confinement and writing sentences—and since Professor Snape believed that mere copying was not a reflection of reflection, the writing was accordingly adapted to a demanding treatise on unicorn blood.

- If it weren't for the fact that he had to find a scapegoat to muddy the waters in order to lure the other party to continue his actions and reveal the flaws, Neil would not have wanted to come up with such an immoral idea. The curse that Mr. Verguel had issued when he was dragged away was undoubtedly sincere, and in order to calm his emotions, Neil decided to prepare something pleasing to the people before the other party released him.

The happiest man in the whole affair was undoubtedly Filch, who managed to uncover seven nocturnal wanderers in the Gryffindor dormitories before the real culprit was caught, including Fred and George, who were cat-and-mouse veterans and knew every bunker and secret passage in the castle and would never be caught easily.

But the empty beds in the dormitory can't fool anyone.

The seven men will be escorted to the management room, where they will be reprimanded before reflecting on their crimes by wiping the floor in the hallway. The only thing Filch regretted was that he couldn't tie seven men in chains and lead them away, as slave traders had done in the past.

And if one had to be voted second, it might be Quirrell's turn to be entitled to this honor.

He had been in the office all night and didn't seem to have anything to do with the incident, and the next morning he made a rare appearance at the breakfast table, and looked very good—probably a little worse than a normal person, and he was radiant by Quirrell's standards.

The few kind-hearted and observant students breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of him recovering from his half-dead appearance, and even the dull-minded and unconscionable students couldn't help but laugh out loud at the sight of Snape's expression.

So, in terms of results alone, Quirrell's appearance filled the faces of the students in the entire auditorium with a happy breath.

There is only one person...... and another person who was not present, with the exception.