The days at Hogwarts

After finishing the process, Loren stepped aside and signaled for others to start.

Harry was still in a daze, Ron's legs were shaking and he didn't dare to move forward. Hermione had tears in her eyes and kept shaking her head.

"Do you want to be locked up for one night, or for a month?" Loren ignored them and started collecting snake venom.

There was no way to persuade them. Loren was scared to death for the first time, so he could only wait for them to muster up the courage.

After watching Loren do it for a while, Hermione clenched her hands into fists, wiped her eyes, and walked over to him, "I, I'll give it a try."

The girl was crying and sounded timid.

Hermione stretched out her hand with a slight tremor, and gently held a snake. The moment it touched the snake's scales, her shoulders shook visibly, and then she mustered up her courage, took the snake out, stretched her hand straight, shrank her head, and pressed the snake to the mouth of the test tube to extract the venom.

After extracting the venom, Hermione closed her eyes and threw the snake into another empty box. She kept gasping and whimpering, but no tears came out of her mouth.

Loren put his hands on her shoulders, trying to bring her some comfort.

Ron saw that Hermione, a girl, could do it, and unwilling to be left behind, he pulled Harry to another box and started operating it.

After doing this for a while, Harry began to make strange noises, as if he was imitating the hissing sound of a snake.

"Hiss, hiss~"

Ron didn't pay much attention to it, he was trying to control his shaking hands.

"Sigh~"

"ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss"

This behavior was too weird, and Ron couldn't stand it anymore. "Please! Harry, stop making weird noises, okay?"

Harry woke up with a start, and Loren and Hermione also looked over here.

Harry looked at Ron in confusion. "Didn't you hear them talking?"

Loren patted his head, forgetting that Harry was a Parseltongue.

Ron opened his mouth in surprise and began to stutter, "You, you, you are a Parseltongue?"

"What am I?" asked Harry.

"Parseltongue!" Ron was a little excited. "You can talk to snakes!"

"What's wrong with that?" Harry said. "It's the second time I've done that. I talked to a python before."

"That's a long story. I thought being able to talk to animals was a wizard's talent. Many people can do it, right?" Harry looked at Loren and Hermione.

They both shook their heads in unison.

"They can't do that," said Ron. "It's not a common skill, Harry."

"Didn't you hear what I said just now?" Harry noticed something was wrong.

"I just heard you making some weird noises! That's terrible." Ron said the first half of the sentence excitedly, but lowered his voice in the second half, fearing that others would hear it.

Harry didn't understand what was so bad about this, "Why does it matter?"

Hermione replied: "Salazar Slytherin's ability to speak Parseltongue is famous, so the symbol of Slytherin House is a snake."

Ron added: "Now it is generally believed that those who can speak Parseltongue are descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Many Parseltongues are dark wizards. Parseltongue has a very bad reputation."

"I, I'm not." Harry suddenly felt panicky. He was not a descendant of Slytherin, nor was he a dark wizard.

Loren didn't expect Harry to show his talent for Parseltongue here. According to the plot, this should be the plot of the Chamber of Secrets. He thought about what to say for a moment, "We all know that Harry is not a bad person."

Loren looked at Hermione and Ron, "As friends, we should keep this secret."

The two responded to Loren's gaze and nodded.

Loren turned to Harry and said seriously, "Don't show your Parseltongue ability in front of others in the future."

Harry nodded somewhat dazedly. He could feel that this was for his own good, and his friends' concern slowly eased his panic.

It's not illegal to speak Parseltongue, he thought, and relaxed.

Several people began to extract snake venom.

"hiss~"

Loren and the other two looked at Harry at once.

Harry raised his head and smiled innocently, "They told you to be gentle and quick when you grab it. It's very uncomfortable to be outside the golden thread."

Yes! We can communicate!

Loren's eyes lit up, "Ask them if they can spit the venom into the test tube themselves."

Hermione and Ron's eyes also lit up and they looked at Harry expectantly.

Harry lowered his head and made a hissing sound, and the snake in the box responded with a hissing sound. It looked like a question-and-answer conversation.

Even though the three of them already knew about Parseltongue, this strange scene still gave them goose bumps on their arms.

After a while of communication, Harry looked up and said happily, "They said yes. This is good for both sides. Let's just put the test tube in."

"Great!" Ron cheered. If he continued to reach out to extract the venom from snakes one by one, he would definitely sleep with snakes in his dreams at night. Oh, that's scarier than spiders.

Loren secured the test tubes to the rack and placed the whole thing in the snake box.

The snakes in the snake box began to surge, wrapping themselves around the test tubes in an orderly manner and spitting venom into them.

Harry stared at the snake box and hissed from time to time. Ron looked at this scene, feeling both afraid and wanting to take a closer look.

Now that she didn't have to extract the snake venom, Hermione's tense shoulders relaxed and she had the leisure to look around the entire storage room.

"A bicorn horn."

“Boomslang.”

Hermione counted the distinctive materials placed in prominent positions one by one.

"Professor Snape must be very rich," Hermione concluded.

Ron also began to look around. "How did you know that?" He didn't recognize the ingredients of the potion at all.

Hermione was a little disgusted, but she still explained, "Every material here is very valuable. Some high-quality African tree snake skins are worth hundreds of galleons per ounce."

Ron's eyes sparkled with the light of money. He looked around the storeroom with drooling eyes, but he quickly gave up the painful idea in his heart. "If I wasn't afraid that Snape would make me into potion material, I would..."

He didn't finish the rest of the sentence, but the people around him understood what he meant.

Harry pulled out a test tube filled with venom and said with a smile, "You probably have no medicinal value, and Snape will probably turn you into snake food."

Ron looked at the densely packed snakes in the box and shuddered when he thought of that scene. "I hope they don't feed the snakes with me alive."

Harry put an empty test tube in, hissed for a while, looked up and said with a suppressed laugh, "These snakes say they have a specially formulated diet and won't eat something as smelly as you."

"Hahahahaha..."

The dark storage room became joyful.

Please read it and invest in it. If you think there is anything wrong, please tell me.

Chapter 56

The black-hearted capitalist Loren Morgan forced people to squeeze the venom out of the snakes themselves. With the help of foreman Harry Potter, he quickly completed the work of two boxes of snakes.

Loren closed the box again and placed the test tubes of venom neatly on the shelf, waiting for Snape to return and announce the end of the day's lockdown.

Hermione's words aroused some interest in visiting the storage room, but no one dared to touch anything. No one knew whether Snape had cursed or poisoned these materials.

Harry felt that Snape had that in mind. He left the office and let them let down their guard and touch anything, causing them to be poisoned and die, without leaving any evidence.

Ron stood far away, curious about the value of these materials, and kept asking Hermione and Loren.

"How much is this worth?"

"The skeleton of an invisible beast is worth a few dozen Galleons. Their fur is even more valuable."

"what about this?"

"The wings of the curled-winged demon. I don't know the price either."

After waiting for a long time, Snape still didn't come back.

Considering Snape's behavior of placing the Galleons that Dumbledore awarded them on the table in advance, Loren made a guess, "We don't need to wait for him to come back."

Hermione and the other two did not object. They couldn't wait in the office forever.

Loren and his companions checked again, confirmed that nothing was missing, and left.

Ron walked happily in front holding a small cloth bag filled with gold Galleons, throwing it up, catching it, throwing it up, catching it. Listening to the crisp metallic collision sound of the gold Galleons in the bag, he felt genuine happiness in his heart.

Gee, what a wonderful night.

Harry also felt happy. Without Snape, Snape's detention was over. The tedious and heavy work was easily solved by his Parseltongue.

Loren and Hermione walked behind, not talking about anything, following quietly. It seemed that they could talk about anything, but also that they didn't need to say anything.

Walk forward, through the dark shadows, into the lit candlelight. You can feel that there is such a person beside you, you are walking on the same road at this moment, and you don't need to bother to find any topics to talk about.

The slightly moist air at night seeps into my lungs, feeling cool and making my breathing smoother.

"Are you free tomorrow?" Hermione asked, as if she was casually saying that the wind was nice today while walking on the side of the road.

Loren was also relaxed, "No plans, what's wrong?"

"I want you to accompany me in duel training."

"No problem at all."

The two of them calmed down again, walking side by side in the corridor, breathing comfortably...

A few people returned to the lounge, found a corner to sit down, opened the bag and divided the money.

There were 60 Galleons in the bag, 10 more than Dumbledore said, and each person could get 15 Galleons.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and Ron is ordered by Mrs. Weasley to take leave to go home at the weekend. He might get hurt when he comes back, but when he thinks of his new wand and the extra gold Galleons, Ron can't help but feel happy.

……

The next morning, Hermione dragged Loren to the Room of Requirement.

Loren, with a straight face, seriously suggested that Hermione also start with the Shield Charm, which is a spell that can be used for a lifetime and can defend against most evil curses. For them who have experienced the magic riot, learning the Shield Charm is the best choice.

Hermione sorted out her thoughts, nodded and agreed with Loren's opinion, and started by practicing the Shield Charm.

The time has finally come for me to avenge myself. Loren could no longer keep a straight face and the corners of his mouth rose uncontrollably.

"Any problem?" Hermione felt that Loren's smile was suspicious no matter how she looked at it.

Loren rubbed his cheek and said, "Ahem, nothing's wrong."

After that, Loren began to tell Hermione some details of the Shield Charm, the gestures when casting the spell, and the tone of the spell.

Hermione was not unfamiliar with these. She watched Loren improve little by little while he was practicing the Shield Charm, and soon she memorized these key points in her mind.

In the duel room constructed by the Room of Requirement.

Loren and Hermione stood facing each other, with their wands held in front of them. From this moment on, Loren could no longer hold back his expression, revealing an eager and evil smile.

The malicious intent was written all over his face in this smile. Hermione was a little frightened. She tightened the wand in her hand and focused her attention on Loren.

It's my turn, Loren thought.

"Are you ready?"

There was no sneak attack, so Hermione felt relieved and said in a deep voice, "I'm ready."

"Are you ready?"

The spell was about to begin. Hermione took a deep breath and said, "Be ready."

"Are you ready?"

Hermione finally realized that Loren was teasing her. She was a little speechless, but still responded, "I'm ready."

Hermione recalled the scene of their first sparring session. It was her first time to cast a binding spell on someone. She was very nervous and asked the question several times unconsciously.

Hermione found it funny, she was repeating herself because she was nervous, but Loren actually remembered it until now and wanted to recreate the original scene.

Just when Hermione thought Loren would repeat himself a few more times and was ready to answer a few more times, Loren took action.

"[Tongtong Petrochemical]"

Hermione didn't have time to react at all. She was illuminated by the white light of the spell. Her whole body stiffened, her hands stuck to the edge of her pants, and she fell straight down.