After Professor Snape, wearing his usual grim expression, assigned what was undoubtedly the longest homework assignment of the week and dismissed the class, Terry remained frozen in place for several seconds. He held his breath as if any movement might attract unwanted attention.
Only after leaving the dungeon classroom and climbing the long stone staircase back toward the upper floors did he finally begin to relax. The moment he stepped into the fresh air of the castle corridors, he released a long sigh of relief.
As soon as he reunited with his roommates, he immediately began complaining about his experience being grouped with Ryze.
"That was terrifying!" Terry said, rubbing his chest dramatically as if he had narrowly escaped death.
"Did you see Snape's expression when he kept questioning Ryze at the beginning of class?" he continued. "Honestly, if Ryze had shown even the slightest hint of defiance, I swear Snape would have deducted points immediately!"
Anthony nodded slightly, clearly remembering the tense atmosphere.
"But the strange part," Terry went on, lowering his voice as if recalling something unsettling, "was that Snape didn't even tell Ryze to sit down afterward. He just started lecturing from the podium while Ryze stood there the entire time."
"And Ryze didn't say a single word! He just stood there calmly, listening and taking notes like nothing was wrong. Watching it from the side, I felt completely suffocated."
Michael chuckled softly, though there was still lingering tension in his expression.
"Later, when Ryze and I started brewing the potion," Terry continued, "Snape kept appearing behind us without warning. One moment he wasn't there, and the next moment—bam—he was standing right behind us, snorting like he was waiting for us to mess up."
"Several times I nearly made a mistake because of that."
Terry shook his head vigorously.
"At this point, I'm completely convinced," he said with exaggerated seriousness. "Ryze's mental strength is terrifying."
He leaned closer to the others as if revealing some profound truth.
"He clearly knows Snape dislikes him and is just looking for an excuse to deduct points. And yet he still dared to ask Snape questions during class!"
Anthony raised an eyebrow.
"Not only that," Terry continued, "he even volunteered to stay behind and clean up the failed potion dregs after class."
Terry shivered slightly.
"Right now there are only two of them down there in the dungeon basement. Do you think that guy Snape might try to poison Ryze while they're alone?"
Anthony waved his hand dismissively.
"It won't come to that," he said calmly.
"Snape may be unpleasant, but he's still a professor at Hogwarts. Even if he deliberately targets certain students, he wouldn't go so far as to poison one of them."
However, Anthony soon added thoughtfully,
"That said… Snape is definitely extremely biased."
He crossed his arms, recalling the class earlier.
"Ryze's potion looked almost identical to the illustration in the textbook. Honestly, it was probably the best one in the entire class."
"And yet Snape didn't award him any extra points. He barely gave him a passing grade."
Anthony sighed.
"Meanwhile, I heard Malfoy only handled the slugs normally during preparation, and Snape still gave Slytherin two points."
Michael scratched his head in confusion.
"What I don't understand is… what exactly is Ryze thinking?"
"Everyone knows Snape never gives students from other houses a good look. Trying to curry favor with him is probably harder than winning the grand prize in The Daily Prophet lottery."
He shrugged.
"At least someone wins that lottery every year."
Michael nodded in agreement.
"That's true," he said thoughtfully.
"Snape has been the Potions professor at Hogwarts for over ten years now, and I've heard he's never added a single point for students outside of Slytherin."
He glanced toward the direction of the dungeons.
"Do you think Ryze is trying to become that exception?"
The three of them exchanged glances.
After a moment of silence, they all reached the same conclusion.
The possibility of Ryze succeeding was extremely small.
Still, after thinking about it for a while, they began to feel that perhaps Ryze's actions had a different purpose.
Maybe he wasn't trying to win Snape's favor at all.
Maybe he was simply showing a certain degree of respect.
After all, if Snape continued to target Ryze during future classes, even someone with strong mental resilience might eventually reach their breaking point.
If Ryze showed Snape respect now, perhaps he could at least attend future Potions classes in relative peace.
While the three roommates were busy analyzing Ryze's mindset upstairs, Professor Snape himself was still standing silently in the Potions classroom.
And he, too, had been observing Ryze the entire time.
Snape wanted to know exactly what this little Black brat was planning.
The moment Ryze showed even the slightest unusual behavior, Snape had already prepared an entire string of sarcastic remarks in his mind.
However, what happened next surprised him.
Snape watched silently as Ryze carefully finished cleaning the potion dregs from the cauldrons.
He wiped the tables.
He organized the ingredients.
He even tidied up the entire classroom.
The process took nearly an hour.
Finally, Ryze approached Snape, calmly reported that the classroom had been cleaned, and then left the Potions classroom without saying anything else.
As Snape watched the boy's light footsteps disappear into the corridor, he could clearly sense the cheerful mood surrounding him.
And Ryze hadn't even tried to hide it.
Even without using Legilimency, Snape could tell the boy was in a good mood.
Snape's brows immediately furrowed.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.
After spending nearly an hour cleaning disgusting potion dregs, that brat could still leave with a smile on his face.
Just what exactly was the boy thinking?
Meanwhile, after leaving the dungeon classroom, Ryze walked through the castle corridors with noticeably light steps.
His mood was indeed quite good.
But the reason had nothing to do with Snape.
Instead, Ryze was quietly analyzing everything he had gained from today's Potions class.
First, there was the curse energy he had absorbed from the leftover potion residue.
Second, he had gained a new understanding of the deeper principles behind potion brewing.
"The dregs left behind by young wizards' failed potions really do contain a small amount of curse energy," Ryze thought to himself.
"Although the amount in a single portion is very small, when combined with the residue I collected this morning, the accumulated amount becomes quite significant."
He nodded slightly to himself.
"As expected… Potions are also a form of magic."
"Just not as straightforward as casting spells."
On the surface, the process of brewing potions seemed almost unrelated to magic.
In fact, if someone simply looked at the recipe and ingredients, they might easily believe that advanced potions could be mass-produced in the Muggle world using modern machinery.
However, the reality was completely different.
Without the involvement of magical power, it was difficult to explain why seemingly tiny details in the brewing process could cause enormous differences in the final potion.
For example, the final step of brewing the Boil-Cure Potion required the brewer to sprinkle Porcupine Quills into the potion after removing the cauldron from the fire.
The waiting time wasn't long.
About thirty seconds was enough.
If performed correctly, the potion would emit a soft pink smoke and could be used to treat boils on the skin.
But if someone forgot this step and sprinkled the Porcupine Quills directly into the potion while the cauldron was still on the flame…
The result would be disastrous.
The potion would produce an extremely foul odor and become highly corrosive.
Not only would it melt the cauldron, but anyone who touched it might develop large, painful boils across their skin.
Ryze had confirmed that this phenomenon was influenced by magic rather than some mysterious chemical reaction he simply didn't understand.
The reason was simple.
During the process of preparing ingredients and adding the Porcupine Quills, he had clearly seen fluctuations in his own magic meter.
That meant a small amount of his magical power had indeed been infused into the potion.
Which proved that potion brewing was inseparable from magic.
However, another thought soon appeared in Ryze's mind.
He wondered whether a wizard's emotions could also influence the brewing process.
Earlier in class, almost everyone had been brewing their potions under intense pressure.
Snape's presence alone was enough to make students anxious and fearful.
Ryze suspected that those emotions might have affected the quality of their final potions.
After all, he didn't believe his technique was significantly better than everyone else's.
And yet his potion had clearly been the most stable and visually perfect product in the class.
Perhaps emotional stability also influenced the magical intensity within a potion.
Of course, this was only a hypothesis.
He would need far more practical experience before he could confirm it.
Nevertheless, today's Potions class had made Ryze realize that his previous understanding of potion brewing had been far too superficial.
He decided that tonight he would carefully review the supplementary potion books he had purchased over the weekend.
Strengthening his theoretical foundation would only make future experiments more efficient.
Snape's deliberate targeting would never cause him to give up exploring the mysteries of potions.
As the first week of classes at Hogwarts came to an end, Ryze quietly organized the different channels through which he could currently obtain curse energy.
After careful consideration, he arranged them in order of efficiency.
Library Restricted Section
Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom
Ancient Runes class
Potions class
Hagrid's Hut
Herbology greenhouse
Ravenclaw Common Room Library
At the moment, Ryze had not yet truly entered the Forbidden Forest.
Therefore, he had no clear understanding of what kind of curse energy might exist there, so he temporarily left it out of the ranking.
However, based on what he already knew, the Acromantula colony living within the forest would almost certainly produce a large amount of curse energy.
When the time was right, Ryze fully intended to explore the area himself.
After all, Acromantula venom was rumored to sell for one hundred Galleons per pint.
He was quite curious to see exactly what made it so valuable.
As for the Ravenclaw Common Room Library, although it contained many books, it was still located in a public area that students passed through every day.
For safety reasons, it was unlikely to contain truly dangerous or cursed texts.
However, Ryze had recently heard an interesting piece of information from the Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope.
According to her, each Hogwarts house actually had a hidden storage room where various items accumulated by generations of students over centuries had been placed.
The Ravenclaw version of this room was located on the lowest level of Ravenclaw Tower.
It was usually not open to ordinary students.
But Penelope had mentioned that she could take Ryze there sometime during the weekend.
Just thinking about it made Ryze feel a sense of anticipation.
He was very much looking forward to seeing what kinds of mysterious items might be hidden there.
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