Hogwarts: What are the four great masters doing?

"It's Felicis, Professor."

"But Professor, you deliberately misrepresented one part of the recipe. This is only the first stage of brewing the Felix Felicis, and the stirring rod used must be wooden. The finished product should be bright orange."

Not only did he answer, he even gracefully pointed out several traps that Snape had deliberately left.

This made Snape frown.

He looked at Ryan, his eyes becoming sharper.

"So, about the dreamless sleeping potion..."

He continued his indifferent questioning.

And Ryan continued to answer calmly.

"What's the amount of wormwood? Of course it should be one-third, otherwise it will explode..."

"How long does it take to boil Echo Water? Four minutes is certainly good, but the potion book I read in my family says it takes four and a half minutes, which is a better time."

They asked and answered questions, and the difficulty of the questions made the young wizards feel like they were listening to a heavenly book.

And every time Ryan answered a question, Snape would mock him and ask a more difficult question.

And finally...

"How do I brew the prototype of the Dream Tracing Potion?"

When Ryan heard Snape's last question, he answered without hesitation.

"Boil the branches and leaves of the two-headed yang tree with a little dew from the mandrake grass during the full moon."

Then he saw a barely perceptible curve at the corner of Snape's mouth.

"Oh..."

He stretched out his voice, like a snake catching its prey. "It seems our genius master's knowledge of potions is limited to memorizing books—yes, the magic book passed down in our family... How correct, yet how ignorant."

He indulged his gift for sharp tongue, "So much so that he was completely unaware that the magical plant, the Two-Headed Sunwood, had completely disappeared three hundred years ago, and that the ingredient for this potion had been changed to the hair of the Moon-Crazy Beast—it's slightly less effective, but easier to find."

It was obvious that he was very satisfied to finally catch Ryan's mistake.

but...

"Oh, sorry Professor."

After a brief moment of surprise, Ryan nodded.

"I truly didn't know the two-headed yang tree was extinct... In fact, within the vault I inherited were some branches and leaves of the two-headed yang tree you mentioned as extinct."

"So I guess the ignorant ones are someone else, aren't they?"

Chapter 39: The suddenly gentle Snape, another night stroll!

Ryan's words were confrontational, yet also contained a hint of probing.

Then he saw Snape was visibly stunned.

Anger flashed in his eyes first, then suspicion, then surprise, and finally an expectation that was hard to conceal.

"Do you have a two-headed yang wood in your vault?"

He asked quietly, not even pursuing Ryan's obvious sarcasm.

"Of course, Professor."

Ryan shrugged. "Just like the little trick I told you about armadillo bile before—that elder left me a lot of things, and the two-headed Yangmu was among them..."

He began to describe the appearance of the two-headed Yangmu in the vault - and when he was halfway through, he saw that Snape was staring at him intently.

"The only material is the branches and leaves of the double-headed yang tree?"

As he asked in a cold voice, his tone had changed slightly.

"Of course there are others."

"Like its roots?"

"of course."

Ryan said with a smile - he knew that the professor had been tricked.

Of course he was not lying. There was indeed two-headed yang wood in his vault. In addition, there were a large number of ancient potion materials that had become extinct in this era - those were all left to him by Hufflepuff, and the number even surprised him.

After reading a lot of books, he realized the value of these things.

The complete extinction of potion materials means that all potions that require the corresponding materials will be affected - some potions may be able to find suitable substitutes, while some potions will simply disappear and be lost!

So he had no intention of spreading the existence of these things.

But this Potions class changed his plans.

Of course, the reason was not Snape's ridicule.

In fact, Snape's mouth was indeed vicious, but not vicious enough for Ryan - Slytherin's mouth was even sharper than Snape's, and he had long been accustomed to it.

What was really important was that he heard Professor Snape's level of potions in this class.

Amidst his vicious words, he always pointed out the mistakes made by every little wizard and offered perfect suggestions for revision.

This was extremely rare in the art of potion making—after all, if the potion was boiled for five minutes less, or the flame was half as strong, it was not something that an ordinary wizard could detect.

And after Ryan's 'confrontation' with Snape, he was even more certain of Snape's attainments in potions.

"A true Potions Master, so young? Remarkable."

It was precisely because Ryan saw Snape's level of potion making that he chose to reveal some of the ancient magical plants he possessed.

Because his teacher Hufflepuff once said.

"An outstanding potion master will surely crave precious potion ingredients. The feeling of brewing a brand new potion that he has never prepared before is incomparable."

And Snape certainly was.

"very good."

So at this moment, Ryan heard Snape's voice.

His voice suddenly became softer instead of cold.

This softness had obviously almost never appeared in his voice, so much so that his voice now sounded a little strange.

"Mr. Elias's answer is correct for now."

As he said this, the little wizards in the entire classroom - especially the little wizards from Gryffindor - widened their eyes, as if they saw a troll suddenly studying alchemy.

They couldn't imagine that Snape actually praised a student who had caused a scene in the Slytherin common room just yesterday!

The whole classroom suddenly became noisy.

But the next moment, Snape glanced around with a gloomy expression.

"Since Mr. Elias's answer is correct, why don't you write it down?"

"Or have your brains been washed by the troll's snot, completely losing the functions of a human brain?"

His familiar, mildly venomous words echoed throughout the classroom, announcing that the class was still going on.

So the little wizards settled down again.

In the following classes, Snape did not make things difficult for Ryan, and even reduced his firepower on Gryffindor a lot.

The only exception was Harry - he was still Snape's main target, and for this he lost another five points to Gryffindor.

Soon, when the Potions class was over.

Snape walked down from the podium and looked at Ryan: "Regarding the weekend detention - tomorrow morning at nine o'clock... You should pray that you are not late, Mr. Elias."

After leaving this sentence, he left the classroom.

Then...

"Merlin's beard—Lian, you're amazing!"

Before Ryan could react, Seamus came over behind him.

"That big bat, he's completely got his neck stuck by you!"

Ron also said, "Did you see that? His expression just now was like he had eaten several slugs!"

He was dancing with excitement, as if he had actually eaten a slug.

As for Harry, who was standing next to him and was the one who was targeted the most in the whole class, he was so excited that he couldn't even speak.

At this time, only Hermione stood aside and reminded: "Ryan, you are going to Snape's detention this week? Then you might want to be careful..."

The little witch's eyes were still red - she had just been scolded and cried by Snape, so that she, who always respected the professor, obviously had great hostility towards Snape.

After responding to the little lions' excitement with a smile and thanking Hermione for the reminder, Ryan returned to his dormitory.

But after returning to the dormitory, Ryan was actually a little confused.

In fact, he also found Snape's attitude in the second half of the course very strange.

Because after the contact last night and today, he felt that he had some understanding of this professor.

A typical, Salazar Slytherin-style Slytherin.

He has outstanding talents and achievements, but he has a weird personality, is cold, aloof, sharp-tongued, and may even be a little extreme.

According to Ryan's understanding, it is more difficult to make such a person surrender than to pry open the horn of an erinaceus.

But after Snape learned that Ryan had ancient and extinct potion materials, his attitude was really too gentle.

"This professor actually wants ancient potion ingredients so badly? He's truly a Potions Master!"

Ryan muttered in his heart that Snape's desire for ancient potion materials exceeded his expectations.

But no matter what the reason - Ryan is happy to see it.

The more Snape desired the ancient magical plants at his disposal, the more likely he would be able to successfully create the potion he needed.

So Ryan didn't think about it anymore. Compared to Snape's affairs, what he needed to care about more now was... tonight's night tour.

Yes.

After a few days of thinking, Ryan decided to restart his night tour.