Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 353 Slughorn Tells History

The afternoon Potions class was held in the underground classroom, with Slytherins and Gryffindors attending together.

The air was filled with the smell of potions brewed over the years, which seeped into the cracks in the rocks and could not be washed away by cleansing spells.

The fireplace burned with green flames, a little warmer than the corridor, but only slightly, and the young wizards wrapped themselves tightly in their robes.

Long tables stretched from the front of the podium to the back wall, each table holding two crucible racks, a set of basic tools, and a pile of materials.

Slytherins sat on the right, Gryffindors on the left, with several rows of empty desks in between, just like last semester and the semester before that.

The atmosphere in Slytherin is a bit off.

The purebloods' faces hadn't yet recovered from the morning's shock. Avery and Alex sat together, still whispering to each other.

Avery's expression still carried the same awkwardness he had that morning, his brows furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down.

Another purebred boy in the row in front of him was similar, arms crossed, staring at the table, looking preoccupied.

The entire half of the Slytherin classroom was filled with a solemn and serious atmosphere; almost every face showed that we were thinking about important issues.

We don't know what happened in Gryffindor.

They didn't take that History of Magic class; the schedule was different. They only saw a group of people from Slytherin with grim faces, whispering among themselves, as if they were having some kind of secret meeting. The air was thick with tension.

A Gryffindor boy tilted his head and glanced at the Slytherin students, whispering something to his deskmate, who chuckled.

Another, bolder speaker spoke up directly, his voice loud and arrogant, deliberately making sure both sides could hear: "Who died in Slytherin today?"

The person next to him tugged at him, stopping him from continuing.

No one paid any attention to the Slytherins, not because they were holding back, but because they simply couldn't be bothered to reply.

Lena sat a row behind Avery, her small frame upright, her gaze sweeping over the Gryffindor group with an undisguised indifference.

Samuel sat next to her, arms crossed, his expression less overt, but clearly not taking the mockery over there seriously.

They both climbed up from the bottom of Slytherin, and unlike these pure-bloods, they didn't have such a personal connection to the fear and anger towards Muggles.

But they are Slytherins, and in this kind of atmosphere, they will naturally gravitate towards their own house.

As for the other purebloods, they didn't even glance at Gryffindor, their expressions carrying a condescending disdain.

We are worried about the historical fate of the wizarding community. You don't even know what happened, so what's the point of talking to you?

A foolish lion.

It's a subtle, shared feeling; we're thinking about really important things, things only Slytherins would think about.

The Gryffindors, their minds are filled with nothing but Quidditch and pranks, and they don't care about the fate of the wizarding world at all.

They don't understand, and they don't deserve to understand.

A bunch of useless potion-making idiots.

The Gryffindors looked at each other, confused, but said nothing more, assuming the snakes were having a collective fit of madness.

Slughorn emerged from the office, his round belly protruding from his green velvet vest, the buttons taut and the bottom one looking like it might pop off at any moment, his usual smile on his face.

He glanced around the classroom as soon as he entered, his gaze lingering briefly on Slytherin.

He's a veteran Slytherin; he can tell at a glance what kind of state his students are in.

He walked to the podium, ran his finger along the edge of his vest, and said with a chuckle, in a casual tone, "What's wrong? Did someone step on your tail?"

The Slytherins looked at each other.

One of the girls couldn't hold back any longer, her voice filled with anger and confusion: "Professor, this morning Professor Binns talked about the witch hunts. Muggles burned wizards, and in Bamberg alone, more than nine hundred people were burned."

After she finished speaking, a boy next to her asked urgently, his voice filled with obvious doubt, "Professor, can Muggles really kill wizards?"

Slughorn listened without much change in expression, still with that smiling look, nodded twice, and tapped his finger lightly on the edge of the podium.

"Oh, the witch hunt." His tone wasn't serious; he was still smiling, a relaxed and reassuring smile.

"Do you think all medieval wizards were like you?"

The classroom quieted down a bit, and Gryffindor's attention was drawn in, and he listened intently.

"Seven years of formal education at Hogwarts, with wands and systematic spell instruction, and you can go toe-to-toe with an Auror right after leaving the school?"

He stood up straight from the side of the podium, put his hands behind his back, pushed his stomach forward, and spoke in a relaxed tone, as if he were telling a rather interesting historical story.

"Most wizards in the witch-hunting era were self-taught, and the master-apprentice system was used. An old wizard would take on one or two apprentices, and what they learned depended on luck. Some people only knew three or four spells in their entire lives."

Hogwarts does have an admissions book and an acceptance pen that automatically records children in Britain with magical talent from the day the school was founded, but recording is one thing, and notifying and enrolling students is another.

Before the Act of Secrecy, there was no tracking system from the Ministry of Magic. How far could an owl fly? What if it was shot down by a Muggle with a slingshot halfway through delivering a message?

A wizarding family living in a fishing village in the northernmost part of Scotland, hundreds of miles from Hogwarts, with a journey through dozens of Muggle towns, would spend weeks driving a horse-drawn carriage to send their child to school.

Those who can't come, those who don't know, those whose families are afraid of revealing their identities and won't let them come—the admission book has a hundred names on it, but less than half of them will actually get a seat at Hogwarts.

As for wands, well, the Ollivander family has been making wands in Britain for over a thousand years. They have excellent craftsmanship, but where would a wild wizard living in a Muggle village buy one?

Standardized manufacturing and widespread supply came after the Law of Secrecy. Before that, many wizards used old wands passed down from their ancestors; some had their cores replaced three or four times and were still in use, while others didn't own a wand at all.

He glanced at the boy who had asked the question.

"Those wizards lived in Muggle villages, were neighbors with Muggles, did business with them, and some didn't even really understand the difference between themselves and Muggles. They got caught—"

He spread his hands, his tone carrying a hint of helplessness, but more of a sense of how lucky you are now.

"A wizard who only knows two spells, who was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and never even touched a wand, is no different from an unarmed Muggle widow in front of the stake."

The classroom was quiet for a while.

Then Slughorn laughed: "But you're different."

He stretched out his hand and drew a circle in the air, encompassing the entire classroom.

"You, all of you in Hogwarts, second-year students, have been learning spells, transfiguration, and potions for a year and a half, and you're holding Ollivander's wand. Imagine you were placed in the Middle Ages."

His smile widened, tinged with genuine pride: "Each one of them was a top wizard of that era."

The little wizard is indeed easy to coax.

Some people breathed a sigh of relief, some nodded, and Avery's brows relaxed, his complexion improving considerably.

The girl who spoke first tucked her hair behind her ear, picked up her wand, and twirled it between her fingers with a composed air.

Lena and Samuel exchanged a glance. Samuel shrugged slightly, while Lena's lips curled up slightly.

They are Hogwarts students, formally trained wizards, not those wild wizards of the Middle Ages who couldn't even touch a wand, and they won't be burned at the stake by Muggles.

The young Slytherin wizards straightened their backs again, shifting their gaze from the professor to the Gryffindors, their aura shifting from somber to a clear sense of superiority.

Gryffindor overheard a bit and roughly knew it was about the witch hunt.

A few Gryffindors curled their lip in disdain. Was this really something to make a fuss about?

"At least Gryffindors aren't afraid of Muggles," the daring Gryffindor boy muttered under his breath.

The person next to him rolled their eyes at him.

Regulus remained silent throughout.

He sat in the middle row of Slytherin, against the wall, listening to Slughorn finish his story.

The professor was right; medieval wizards were indeed weak, their education was poor, and their equipment was outdated.

But the core issue of the witch hunt movement is not the strength or weakness of individuals.

Loose sand is loose sand; even a mediocre wizard can't stop ten thousand organized Muggles.

The professor's reassurance was effective for the child.

He chose not to add anything, as there was no need for him to speak on this occasion.

"Alright, alright," Slughorn clapped his hands, his smile returning to its usual enthusiasm and energy: "First class of the new semester, focus your attention, all of you look this way."

He turned to the blackboard, tapped it lightly with his wand, and several lines of words appeared on the blackboard, the characters glowing.

"Those interested in that period of history can go to the library after class to find 'Medieval Wizard Villages: A Forgotten History of Settlements' and 'Before and After the Act of Secrecy' by Offensive."

The two books offer different perspectives, and reading them side-by-side is more interesting than Professor Binns' lectures.

Or Chapter 10 of Bathilda Bagshot's *History of Magic*, which she writes more vividly than Binns recounts, probably because she is a living person.

He turned around, glanced at the whole class, and said with a smile, "Of course, Professor Binns's class has its value. If you listen carefully, you'll get a 0 on the exam."

Slughorn thought for a moment, coughed lightly, and added, "I'm not saying Professor Binns' lectures are boring. In fact, he was my professor when I was in school."

After saying that, he blinked, spread his hands, and looked completely innocent.

The young wizards burst into laughter, and the atmosphere finally relaxed.

"New semester, new knowledge, today we're making tranquilizers."

Slughorn clapped his hands again, drawing everyone's attention back, then tapped the blackboard lightly with his wand, and another line of text appeared: the recipe and steps.

"The recipe is on the blackboard, the ingredients are on the table, cut the grass roots into sections, use three lavender buds, use hedgehog needle infusion as the base liquid, and stir with a glass stirring rod seven times clockwise and three times counterclockwise."

"Don't give me that second-year level of understanding, gentlemen of Gryffindor, I'm watching you."

Sure enough, someone from Gryffindor shrank back.

He tapped his finger on the blackboard: "Begin."

The sound of materials being chopped filled the classroom as the crucible was moved onto a stand and a flame lit up at the bottom.

Avery's knife made two cuts on the grass roots, then he lost focus, and the third cut went astray, shattering the grass roots all over the cutting board.

Slughorn walked past him from behind, tapped on his desk, and said, "Mr. Cuthbert, grass isn't wood; you're cutting firewood."

Avery was speechless and quickly lowered his head to continue cutting.

Alex, standing nearby, quietly pushed half of his share over to them.

A muffled thud came from Gryffindor; someone had stirred the mixture in the wrong direction, and a plume of purple smoke billowed from the cauldron, choking the student and causing him to cough.

Slughorn walked over with a grin, waved his wand, and the purple smoke dissipated, restoring the liquid in the cauldron to its normal color.

"Seven times clockwise, three times counterclockwise, not the other way around. Next time, make sure you know the recipe. The direction of stirring is more important than incantations or hand gestures."

The student's face turned bright red, and several people nearby were snickering.

Regulus was quietly doing his own thing in the back row.

Instead of using the previous method, he used his magical perception to directly probe the structure of the finished product and then bypassed the steps to guide the materials to fuse on their own.

Let's follow the steps today.

Cut the grass roots into uniform sections, and clean three lavender buds and place them in a crucible.

Pour in the hedgehog needle soaking solution, simmer over low heat, and stir with a glass stirring rod seven times clockwise and three times counterclockwise.

Simple, mechanical, requires no brainpower.

For him, this was a process of clearing his mind. He didn't need to analyze the flow path of the material's magic, nor did he need to construct the magic structure of the finished product in his mind. He just did it.

After stirring for the last round, the liquid color changed from light green to pale purple, leaning towards blue, and became stable, uniform, and just right.

Slughorn passed by his table, glanced down at the crucible, scooped up half a spoonful with a small silver spoon, smelled it, and then put it back.

The color is accurate, and the smell is pure.

He nodded in satisfaction: "Mr. Black, not a single step off. This is the epitome of standard procedure. Slytherin, 10/10."

Regulus nodded politely. "Thank you, Professor."

The others were unfazed, shrugged, and continued with their own lives.

Regulus's bonus points are like the sun rising in the east—nothing to be surprised about.

The bell rang, and most students breathed a sigh of relief.

Avery tossed the crucible into the pool and stretched. Alex quietly tidied up his tools and rewrapped the unused lavender buds. Hermes had already reached the door.

Slughorn's voice drifted from behind the podium: "Mr. Black, stay behind for a moment."