"Good." Snape returned behind the podium and stood still again, his black eyes looking down at them from deep sockets. "You have an hour and a half—"
He paused, letting the silence ferment in the air.
"—begin."
The classroom was instantly filled with a flurry of motion. The sound of benches scraping against the floor, footsteps, and hushed conversations arose as everyone surged toward the store cupboard—and then, as if blocked by an invisible barrier, they clustered together in front of its doors. Five minutes later, the crowd had largely dispersed. Only then did Leon stand up and walk unhurriedly toward the cupboard.
He first glanced at the list posted on the cupboard door—the standard student version of the ingredients list, consistent with the content on the blackboard. But he didn't immediately reach out to take anything.
Those students who had rushed ahead were already working, cutting moonstones and measuring syrup of hellebore. Flames crackled under cauldrons, and various liquids began to bubble. The smell of boiling herbs gradually filled the air—someone had already gone astray, as Leon caught a faint, barely perceptible burnt smell.
He turned his head. The Hufflepuff girl on his left was frantically stirring her cauldron, the liquid inside taking on an unhealthy greyish-green colour.
Making a mistake right from the first step of brewing a potion truly left one speechless.
But thinking about it carefully, it wasn't hard to understand.
Because with a person like Snape, being his student was a miserable experience. You suffered in silence and had nowhere to turn.
All day long, it was either passive aggression or open hostility. When you encountered a problem in class, you weren't allowed to ask—if you asked, it meant you weren't listening carefully. You weren't allowed to ask classmates either—if you did, that was whispering in class...
What could you do with a teacher like that?
He was a first-rate Potions Master, but a complete failure as an educator.
So at a time like this, you had to fend for yourself.
According to the original timeline, that copy of Advanced Potion-Making—the one belonging to the Half-Blood Prince—should be in some corner of the store cupboard. Professor Slughorn would lend it to Harry Potter, who wouldn't have a textbook the following school year. But right now, this book should be lying there quietly, waiting to be discovered by someone who knew of its existence.
The problem was, the store cupboard was large. He didn't know the exact location.
But the system knew.
Walking up to the cupboard, he didn't act immediately. He first rummaged through a row of shelves—making it look like he was searching for some extra ingredients. Then, the moment he confirmed Snape's gaze had shifted elsewhere, he drew his wand, his lips moving slightly as he muttered in a barely audible voice:
"Revelio."
Extremely low power. Extremely little light. If one wasn't specifically staring at him, no one would notice the faint white light that flashed from his wand tip for a split second.
Then, in the inner section of the third row, a faint light appeared.
A red glow.
He followed the indicator, pretending to organise the tray in his hand, then casually reached for that compartment. Inside was a stack of old books—some textbooks, some reference books, all old editions that weren't normally used.
Leon's hand slid across the spines.
The one at the very bottom was worn and battered, its cover peeling, its pages yellowed.
Leon grabbed it.
Without hesitation, without taking even a second glance, he mixed the book with the other ingredients and carried the tray back to his seat.
The entire process took no more than thirty seconds.
Leon placed the tray on the desk and laid out the bottles and jars one by one. The surrounding students were all focused on their cauldrons; no one noticed he had brought back a book.
Snape was still sitting behind the podium reading, indifferent to everything in the classroom.
Leon lowered his eyes and placed the book on the desk—pressing it under the moonstone and the syrup of hellebore. From the front, only a yellowed edge could be seen. Then, as if confirming the ingredient steps, he opened the book.
[System Prompt: Special Item Detected — Advanced Potion-Making (Annotated Edition).
Identifying Annotator...
Identification Complete: Severus Snape (Alias "Half-Blood Prince").
Item Grade: Legendary.
Features: Contains a large number of potion recipe optimisations, original spells, and personal notes. Can significantly increase the learning efficiency of Potions and unlock special recipes and spells.]
Leon opened it and found that the standard printed recipes took up most of the space on each page, but the margins were densely covered in handwritten notes—a spidery scrawl, thin and cramped, yet every word was clearly legible.
Then he opened the cover.
At the very bottom of the title page, a line of faded ink quietly lay there:
This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince.
With this ultimate secret manual in hand, he could rely entirely on self-study for the upcoming lessons.
There was basically nothing to say about the rest of the Potions class. Relying on the Fast Learner perk, Leon followed the steps on the board, step by step brewing a standard Draught of Peace—a liquid emitting a faint silvery-grey glow.
His success was so effortless that for a moment, he wondered why Harry couldn't manage it at all in the original story.
Thinking about it carefully, it didn't seem like Harry was too stupid. Rather, he was too resistant.
While brewing that cauldron of the Draught of Peace, Leon made a discovery.
So-called potion-making was actually a type of ritual.
It wasn't simply about adding ingredients, boiling for a certain amount of time, or stirring a certain number of times. During the process of brewing a potion, one's own magic was also continuously being consumed.
The more advanced the potion, the more this was true.
That was why simple potions like healing salves and Skele-Gro could be mass-produced.
But things like the Wolfsbane Potion, which could suppress a werewolf's transformation on a full moon, or Felix Felicis, which could make all of one's endeavours succeed, could absolutely not be mass-produced.
As a result, when the brewer felt a heartfelt resistance toward the potion they were making, the effect and success rate of that cauldron would naturally plummet.
The more Harry hated Potions class, the lower his success rate in brewing potions became, and the more he was scolded by Snape. Then Harry would hate him and Potions class even more—ultimately completing a vicious cycle.
In his sixth year, the reason Harry was suddenly able to transform into a Potions genius wasn't just because of the Half-Blood Prince's textbook. The fact that the Potions teacher had changed to Professor Slughorn instead of Snape was also a crucial factor.
After all, it was just a textbook, not a cheat system like Leon's. No matter how correct the contents were, it still required Harry to study it earnestly.
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