Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 32 Past Glory is but a Fleeting Cloud

"Yes, we'll get a very powerful sleeping pill called, called the Water of Life and Death." Harry glanced gratefully at Tyella, who was sitting next to him, before immediately looking away.

“Very good.” A subtle, unreadable emotion flashed in Snape’s eyes.

"So where can we find a piece of bezoar?" Snape asked again.

“In the cow’s stomach, sir,” Harry replied.

What are the differences between *Aconitum carmichaelii* var. *hussa* and *Aconitum ferox* var. *wolfsbane*?

“Um…no, there’s no difference, sir,” Harry said somewhat uncertainly. He seemed to remember that both of these were alternative names for aconite. “I think they’re both called aconite.”

Snape stared at Harry's emerald green eyes for a long time.

Finally, the expression on his face seemed to soften a little.

"Gryffindor gets five points."

After saying this, Snape turned back to the podium, tapped the table with his wand, and silenced the somewhat noisy young wizards below.

Potions class continued, but the situation for the Gryffindor students did not improve, and Snape soon deducted the points he had given Harry.

Snape divided them into pairs and instructed them on how to mix and prepare a simple potion to treat scabies.

Snape dragged his long black cloak around the classroom, watching them dry nettles and crush snake fangs. Almost all the students were reprimanded, except for Tyella and Harry.

Harry felt that his survival was entirely thanks to Tyella. Tyella casually grabbed a handful of dried nettles, rubbed them lightly with her fingers, and placed them on the scales. The weight was a precise 5g!

Then Tiera picked out a few small snake fangs and gently placed them on the scales.

3.1g!

Harry looked at the scales; they needed 3g of snake fangs, as long as…

However, Tyella did not weigh the snake fangs to the precise 3g. Instead, she crushed them directly with a pestle and mortar, carefully breaking them into powder. Then, she ground them into powder in a clockwise direction, from slow to fast. Before grinding, Tyella lit the alcohol, took out a larger cauldron, filled it halfway with water, and immersed the small cauldron required by Hogwarts in the water. Then, she chopped up the slug tentacles and nettles, and poured five liters of water with Harry into her own small cauldron.

Once the water in the large crucible had boiled, Tiera used a small brush to sweep the snake tooth powder from the mortar into the crucible.

Harry stared in disbelief. Tierra's movements were fluid and seamless. While the other young wizards were still adding and subtracting dried nettles on the scales, Tierra had already put the potion into the pot and let it boil.

Everything was normal in the pot. The potion gradually changed from a mottled brown to a pale yellow. Tiera stirred it clockwise three times at a moderate pace, and the potion stopped boiling, turning into a pot of pale yellow liquid.

At this moment, Tiera quickly put on heat-resistant gloves, lifted the small crucible out of the water bath, and added the chopped porcupine quills and crow saliva in sequence.

The pale yellow medicine eventually turned pale green. There was no violent reaction during the process, and everything seemed peaceful.

Tiera thus became the student who finished brewing the potion the fastest in that class.

Even those from wizarding families, like Malfoy, are still at the stage of honing their snake fangs.

"You've studied potions before?" Snape asked, staring intently at Tierra after examining the potions.

“No, sir,” Tyella replied. “I used to work in a Chinese medicine shop in Chinatown. Muggles use this double boiler method to brew potions; they don’t have magic to control the temperature.”

The method of preparing this medicine is not difficult; the difficulty lies in controlling the temperature and the timing of adding porcupine quills and crow saliva.

But for Tiera, who had received formal training at a chemical engineering university and passed the university chemistry experiments I-III, organic chemistry experiments, biochemistry experiments, and biochemical separation experiments with A- grades, this was a piece of cake.

Snape looked at him, then silently nodded, acknowledging the explanation.

Muggles do indeed have many sophisticated potion-making techniques, something Snape himself had witnessed firsthand. It's not entirely impossible that a homeless orphan from the Muggle world would come across these techniques while working. Moreover, these sophisticated techniques are quite useful among lower-ranking wizards, because they cannot precisely control the temperature of a flame with magic; therefore, this water bath heating method can effectively help them increase their success rate in brewing potions.

However, this method was unnecessary for Snape. A potions master like him could change the temperature of a flame to his liking with just a thought, without even waving his wand.

Heating with a water bath would be superfluous.

Just as he was showing everyone how perfectly Tierra was brewing the potion, a plume of acidic green smoke suddenly billowed from the underground classroom, accompanied by a loud hissing sound. Neville had somehow burned Seamus's hotpot into a crooked mess, spilling the potion onto the stone floor and burning holes in the students' shoes. Within seconds, the entire class was standing on their stools. When the pot was overturned, Neville was soaked in the potion, his arms and legs now covered in red, swollen scabies, causing him to scream in pain.

"Idiot!" Snape roared, waving his wand to wipe away the spilled potion.

"I bet you put the porcupine quills in before taking the pot off the heat, didn't you?"

Neville started sobbing, and suddenly a lot of scabies appeared on his nose.

"Take him to a ward in the hospital upstairs," Snape snapped at Seamus.

After this little incident, Snape seemed to be in a worse mood, and he deducted another ten points from Gryffindor.

Even the reward that Tiera received for being the first to brew the potion was selectively forgotten.

Even so, the lion cubs were still very encouraged.

Because Harry is the first Gryffindor to earn extra points since Snape started teaching Potions!

No wonder he defeated the mysterious man!
Almost every Gryffindor wizard remembered Harry's contribution.

After all, compared to the Mysterious Man from childhood horror stories, Snape was a real, insidious figure looming over their rooftops.

This made Harry even more popular, and wherever he went, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws would congratulate him after hearing about it.

This overwhelmingly positive treatment made Harry both happy and apprehensive.

Almost everyone thought it was Harry's doing.

Even Ron and Hermione came to congratulate him.

But only Harry knew that this was not the case at all.

If it weren't for Tiera's notes...

Harry realized with a start that he had stolen Tierra's credit, which made him feel guilty as if he had stolen something from someone else.

Harry, somewhat conflicted, went to Tyella to explain.

He was afraid he would lose this friend because of this; after all, he had taken credit that rightfully belonged to him—that was stealing! Harry thought to himself.

"What? Oh, you mean that?" Tiera said nonchalantly, his gentle, breezy smile returning as he looked up from his book.

"Study hard, Harry," Tyella said, rubbing his brow with a hint of exasperation. He had underestimated how much wizards of this age valued honor and achievement. He was simply helping Harry to shine brighter in the savior's aura so that no one would notice Tyella, who had been following Harry around rather strangely.

It is commonly known as "the darkest place is under the lamp".

But I didn't expect Harry to take this kind of thing so seriously.

"Compared to true knowledge, everything we possess now is nothing but fleeting smoke," Tiera said earnestly, unsure of what else to say.

(End of this chapter)