Chapter 67: Rewards

"Brewing potions is not the same as cooking!"

Snape’s furious roar was deafening.

Yet, it did little to truly impress upon his students. The young witches and wizards remained silent—not out of conviction, but sheer intimidation.

"Look at the mess you've caused!"

Snape was already regretting letting Ian get hands-on experience. Some things were best left at theoretical knowledge—there was no absolute need for practice. So why had he allowed this troublemaker to corrupt others?

However, upon seeing Ian’s completed potion, Snape’s expression darkened further. Though he remained displeased with Ian’s attitude and deeply annoyed by his influence on the students, he had to begrudgingly acknowledge that Ian had completed the assignment successfully.

"Acceptable, but lacking the soul of potion-making—no respect for the craft."

Snape gritted his teeth as he delivered his verdict. Yet, despite his harsh words, his furrowed brows finally relaxed, and his perpetually sour face returned to its usual impassive state.

Though still furious, the old bat seemed to let out a subtle sigh of relief.

Was that just Ian’s imagination?

"I do not want to see such laziness next lesson, nor do I wish to hear more of your foolish ideas." Snape scolded without much force, before snatching Ian’s still-warm potion. Striding back to the podium, he held up Ian’s work for the class to see.

"I am extremely disappointed. Some of you could not even manage a simple potion. I have even seen students who somehow turned their brew into an orange sludge that looks—" he sneered, "—like excrement."

Snape’s gaze swept across the room before he raised Ian’s potion high.

"Though this was made in a stiff, uninspired, and mechanical fashion, it is still more complete than the disasters many of you produced. Look carefully—this is what the Boil Cure Potion should look like!"

"Do not let me see any more of your multicolored abominations. Especially you lot!" His cold glare locked onto the Slytherin section.

"You have been outperformed by a slacker! I have never, in my decades of teaching, seen such a disgraceful batch of Slytherins. You have tarnished our House’s reputation for excellence!"

His sharp rebuke made the Slytherin students lower their heads in shame.

And then—

A strange smell wafted through the air. It was a mix of rotten eggs and something acrid, so foul that several students wrinkled their noses in disgust.

Snape inhaled and his expression abruptly changed.

"Merlin’s beard!"

Before he could react—

BANG!

A cauldron exploded in the Slytherin section, sending its potion shooting toward the ceiling like a geyser. Snape moved with lightning speed, whipping out his wand and casting a Levitation Charm.

The spell halted the cascading liquid mid-air, preventing what would have been a catastrophic downpour of volatile potion over the students.

"Ziggs! Singed! What in Salazar’s name have you two done?!"

Snape’s voice trembled with fury and thinly veiled panic. His grip on his wand was tight—perhaps too tight. Had that potion rained down on them, the consequences would have been dire. He might have had to pack his bags and open an apothecary in Diagon Alley to avoid the wrath of the Headmaster.

"W-We were just trying to experiment, sir! My family has some old potion notes…" stammered a Slytherin boy with an unruly mop of curly hair.

"The textbook isn’t enough for you? My lectures aren’t sufficient?" Snape spat, sweeping away the suspended potion with another flick of his wand. He was seething, his presence like a coiled serpent ready to strike.

"I… I only thought… You just said we shouldn’t be stiff and mechanical about potion-making, Professor, so I had a moment of inspiration…" the second student, a bald boy, muttered miserably.

"…"

Snape stared at them, utterly at a loss for words. He had been hit by his own rhetorical boomerang.

But unlike McGonagall or other professors, he was not one to dwell on being outmaneuvered by students. He swiftly changed tactics.

"Right now, immediately—gather your things and report to Gryffindor!" he roared.

"B-But—!"

"No arguments!"

Of course, Snape had no authority to reassign students to different Houses, but the sheer force of his rage made the two boys’ faces turn crimson. They knew it was just a scare tactic, yet they trembled nonetheless.

Snape turned back to the rest of the class, his expression dark.

"Let this be a lesson. If anyone else dares to create such a catastrophe, I will personally see to it that they never set foot in my classroom again."

This time, the warning was real.

For the remainder of the lesson, Snape supervised the brewing process more closely than ever.

"Not the right color! Start over!"

"Look at this disaster! Are you even trying?"

"Did you not watch Prince brew his potion? Redo it!"

"This one is barely passable. Practice more."

One by one, the students grudgingly improved under his watchful eye. When the last group finally produced a potion that was at least recognizable, Snape exhaled through his nose.

"It is evident that none of you are particularly talented," he said coldly. "The fact that this soulless concoction is the best among you is… disappointing."

With an expression of utter disdain, he set Ian’s potion back on his desk.

Then, from his robes, he produced a small cloth bag and dropped it onto Ian’s table.

"Ravenclaw earns five points. It pains me to do so, but I follow the rules of reward and punishment."

Casually, Snape loosened the bag’s drawstring.

Curious students leaned in.

"That’s… that’s Felix Felicis!" one gasped. "My father has a bottle of it!"

The classroom erupted into whispers.

"Yes. Liquid Luck." Snape’s voice carried a trace of smugness. "In potion-making, mastering this is the first step toward proving oneself worthy of the title ‘master.’ Not that any of you will likely reach that level."

With that, Snape turned away, sweeping towards his desk.

"Class dismissed!"

The students, still slightly dazed, hurriedly packed up and left, eager to escape the tense atmosphere. Snape himself was about to retire to his office for a well-earned break when—

Just outside the classroom—

He spotted Ian and Aurora still lingering in the corridor.

"The gift I promised you," Ian picked the largest bottle of Felix Felicis from the cloth bag, which had clearly been divided into five or six portions, and placed it into the hands of the German girl.

"Originally, I wanted to learn Alchemy first and craft some kind of superweapon for you… but this is still a pretty great gift!"

From the classroom door, Snape—who had just stepped into the hallway—overheard everything.

A vein twitched on his forehead.

“Superweapon?!” Aurora’s eyes sparkled with curiosity. "How super is it?!"

As she handed the vial back, uninterested in Liquid Luck, Snape felt something inside him snap.

"I should have known—where there’s one, there’s another."