Chapter 1,168

The principal's office was probably the only place in the tower that still had a light on at the moment.

This made Fox uncomfortable.

Normally, it should be taking a rest at this time, and Dumbledore should be busy with his work, instead of discussing with anyone here... Harry Potter?

"It seems inappropriate for us to have a heart-to-heart talk," Snape said calmly.

"Oh, you really refused, Severus." Dumbledore didn't seem to take it to heart, "So, what are you going to do?"

"What to do?" Snape said coldly, "Actually, I don't quite understand what you are doing now, or in other words, your previous plan."

"Well, actually, the situation changes every day," Dumbledore said, "so we have to be cautious..."

"Dong dong dong..."

There was a rhythmic knocking on the door that was somewhat untimely.

"You invited others?" Snape said somewhat unexpectedly.

"Oh, I think this will solve some problems, Severus." Dumbledore said, and Snape just stepped aside indifferently.

"Come in," Dumbledore said loudly.

The door opened with a creak.

"Professor, you are looking for me? And, Professor Snape, good evening."

"Oh, good evening, Fanlin, I believe this will not disturb you." Dumbledore said briefly, which made Snape frown.

"So, what is this?" Snape said coldly, "Are you going to involve him in the plan?"

"No matter what, everyone is involved, and Fan Lin is obviously more suitable for formulating all processes, isn't he? In the Order of the Phoenix, many plans are much better in Fan Lin's hands than in mine..."

Fan Lin was a little confused, what was his plan... Dumbledore was...

But the moment he saw Snape, Fan Lin had a rough idea in his mind.

Was Dumbledore planning to involve him in Professor Snape's return to the Death Eaters?

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore." Fan Lin shook his head and put aside all unnecessary emotions. Originally, he was surprised why Dumbledore wanted to separate him and Harry, but now, all this is nothing. It's reasonable.

"Oh, I'm just stating some facts that others don't want to say. Whether it's Sirius or others in the Order of the Phoenix, you can always bring some...surprises?" Dumbledore seemed very satisfied with his description. , "So, I think we have some other things to deal with today, such as dealing with the issue about our Malfoy."

"I must protect him, Dumbledore." Before Fanlin could speak, Snape said coldly, "Besides, I think you should..."

"Oh, Malfoy intends to do harm to you, Professor." Fanlin continued. As a swearer, Snape naturally cannot reveal the content of the oath in any form.

"I'm curious, did you tell Harry these things?"

"Oh, no, he's smart, and he eavesdropped on...Professor Snape's conversation with Malfoy. In fact, Harry has always felt that Malfoy was up to no good, starting with Borgin's Bock." Fanlin said.

"Oh, that poor girl, luckily she didn't get any more harm done," Dumbledore said.

"So, professor, what are you going to do?" Fan Lin asked. According to the facts, it was obvious that Dumbledore was cursed by Voldemort and did not have a few years to live. Naturally, he used his plan to succeed Malfoy.

But now, this is not appropriate.

There is no need to trade Dumbledore's life for an opportunity full of uncertainty. It is not cost-effective at all. Besides, besides being old...

"This is exactly what I am worried about." Dumbledore said, "Tom will become stronger much faster than I thought, but we need enough time to wait for you and Harry to become stronger, but in fact , the goal of Hogwarts is really too big, the enemy is in the dark and we are in the dark, obviously, this is not beneficial to us. "

"So, that's why we should take the initiative, isn't it, professor? Maybe we can use this opportunity, just like last time at the Ministry of Magic." Fan Lin said.

"I said, I want to keep Draco safe."

"But I have no obligation, Professor, you have to understand what he did. If my guess is correct, it is not in our interests." Fan Lin said stiffly, regarding Snape's consideration, Fanlin had no intention of agreeing with it from the beginning.

"Perhaps we can come up with a compromise," Dumbledore said, interrupting any possible ensuing argument.

...

When Harry told Ron, Fanlin and Hermione the task Dumbledore had given him the next day, although he told them separately, Hermione still refused to communicate with Ron and began to give him contemptuous looks. .

And Ron didn't think Harry would have any trouble finding Slughorn.

"He likes you," he said over breakfast, nonchalantly waving fried eggs with his fork. "He won't deny you anything, will he? Go ask him after class this afternoon."

However, Hermione's point of view was discouraging. "He must have decided to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn't get him to say it," she whispered as they stood in the abandoned, snowy courtyard. "Soul fragments... Soul fragments... I've never heard of them..."

"You haven't heard of them?" Harry was disappointed; he hoped Hermione could give him some clues about what soul fragments are.

"They must be very advanced dark magic, otherwise why would Voldemort want to know about them? I think it will be difficult to get information, Harry, you must be very careful how to approach Slughorn, come up with a strategy..."

For the tasks assigned by Dumbledore, this is probably a kind of training for Harry, cultivating Harry's ability to complete things independently, and letting Harry start to think.

This is indeed a very necessary thing. Harry is good at thinking, but in fact, he is better at rushing forward with passion than thinking.

Therefore, Fanlin did not intend to point out Dumbledore's little tricks in words. Soul fragments, to put it bluntly, are just Horcruxes.

"Ron thinks I should go find him after the potion class this afternoon..."

"That's a good choice. Maybe you can try it first." Vanlin said. In fact, after the concept of Horcruxes came up, Harry never delved into the specific things of the Horcruxes, and everyone kept silent. After all, Harry's nature was still very bad.

Voldemort's eyes and ears? Or something else...

Compared to this, Vanlin was more concerned about what Dumbledore said last night. On the one hand, it was due to his quarrel with Professor Snape. In fact, Vanlin wanted to make changes. It would be more reasonable to keep the manpower instead of putting Snape next to Voldemort.

But Dumbledore was different. He seemed to be willing to stick to his ideas, just like Lupin was doing, and he needed to leave for a short time...

This completely deadlocked the whole discussion.

In fact, the potion class these days was very uncomfortable. At least Vanlin and Harry thought that Ron and Hermione must share a table. Today, Hermione moved her cauldron on the table so that she could be closer to Vanlin, and ignored Harry and Ron.

"What have you done?" Ron muttered to Harry, watching Hermione's haughty attitude. But before Harry could answer, Slughorn was at the front of the room calling for silence.

"Quick, please settle down, settle down! There's a lot of work to do this afternoon! Can anyone tell me about Golpalott's Third Law...? Oh, of course! Miss Granger can!"

Hermione recited as fast as she could: "Golpalott's Third Law says that the antidote for a mixed poison exceeds the sum of the antidotes for each of the individual ingredients."

"Precise!" Slughorn smiled. Ten points to Gryffindor! Now, if we accept Golpalott's third law..."

Harry had to believe what Slughorn said about Golpalott's third law, because he didn't understand it at all. It seemed that no one except Hermione was listening to what Slughorn said next.

"...What that means is, of course, that we can now correctly identify the ingredients of Sarpi's revelaspell potion. Our main goal is not to find the simplest way to configure an antidote among those ingredients, but to find some additional ingredients, just like the process of alchemy, to make a complete transformation. "

"This seems to be something that Mr. Al is better at. "

"Yes, sir, being familiar with the components and changes of matter is indeed the basic requirement of alchemy, whether from a macroscopic or microscopic perspective. At this point, perhaps we can quote the conclusions of Muggle science and adopt the composition structure of atoms and so on. "

"Oh, great idea..." Slughorn awarded Valin ten points again, and now almost all the points in Potions were in the hands of Harry, Hermione and Valin.

Ron sat next to Harry with his mouth half open, absentmindedly doodling in his new Advanced Potion-Making book. He had forgotten that he could no longer rely on Hermione to bail him out when he didn't understand.

"So, then," Slughorn finished his speech, "I want each of you to take a small glass bottle from my desk. You will create a potion before the end of this class. Good luck, and don't forget to wear your protective gloves."

Before anyone in the class realized that they should act, Hermione had stood up and walked halfway to Slughorn's desk; and when Harry, Ron and Ernie returned to the table, she was already pouring the potion from the potion bottle into the crucible and lighting a fire below.

"It's a pity that the prince can't help you much this time, Harry," she said briskly, "you need to understand the relevant rules this time. No small omissions or cheating! "

This annoyed Harry so much that he uncapped the bottle of poison he had taken from Slughorn's desk, which was the colour of a tacky pink fruit punch, poured it into the cauldron and lit a fire underneath.

However, he had no idea what to do next. He glanced at Ron, who stood there imitating everything Harry did, looking even more clueless.

"Are you sure the prince didn't have any hints?" Ron whispered to Harry. Harry pulled out his trusty old copy of Advanced Potion-Making and turned to the chapter on Antidotes. It was all golpalott's third law, just like Hermione had memorized it, and the prince didn't write a word to remind him what it meant.

Apparently, the prince saw it no differently than Hermione did.

"Nothing." Harry said frustratedly. Hermione was feverishly casting spells on her cauldron. Unfortunately, they couldn't imitate her spells, as she was now so good at silent spells that she didn't have to say them out loud.

And when I saw Fan Lin...compared to Hermione, Fan Lin's side became more difficult. Fan Lin, who was proficient in experiments, replaced almost all the steps with magic. All he needed to do was to do it at the right time. Add different potions...

However, this is doomed that Fan Lin will not complete the new antidote. In fact, it is better to leave the limelight of the Potions class to Harry. After all, this is not his trouble.

However, Ernie Macmillan muttered "speialisrevelio!" to his cauldron, which sounded impressive, so Harry and Ron quickly imitated him.

Five minutes later, Harry recognized that the voice calling him the best potions maker in his class would ring in his ears.

When Slughorn walked around the underground classroom for the first time, he looked hopefully into his cauldron, preparing to exclaim with joy as usual, but he turned his head hastily, coughed, Because the smell of bad eggs hit him.

There was no trace of pride in Hermione's expression; she hated not being able to complete a task in Potions class every time.

She was filling her mysterious potion ingredients into ten different vials.

In order not to watch this annoying scene anymore, Harry took out the Half-Blood Prince's book and flipped back a few pages pointlessly. Under the long list of detoxification items, some words were scrawled.

Just shove the bezoar down their throats.

Harry stared at the words for a moment. Had he ever heard of something called bezoar before? Did Snape mention it during their first Potions lesson?

"A stone taken from a sheep's stomach can cure most poisons."

This wasn't an answer to Golpalott's question, Harry wouldn't have dared to do this if Snape was still their teacher, but this was a time for desperate measures.

He hurried to the storage cabinet and rummaged around inside, pushing aside the unicorn horns and chaotic herbs until he found a cardboard box at the back with "Bezoar" scrawled on it.

"Time's up," Slughorn said cheerfully. "Okay, let's see what you've done! Oh, my God...what have you done?" Slughorn slowly moved around the room, examining the various antidotes.

No one finished the job, although Hermione tried to add some more ingredients to the bottle before Slughorn arrived.

Ron had given up completely and was just trying to avoid breathing in the strong putrid smell emanating from his cauldron.

Fan Lin looked at Harry's position. Obviously, Harry had not finished it, and he seemed to have only solved half of it. Compared with this, Fan Lin was more interested in making some new changes in these mixed poisons. Alchemist It lies in creation. As for solving, it depends on your mood.

Harry stood waiting, clutching the bezoar in his hand. Slughorn finally reached their table. He ignored Ernie's potion and made a pained expression as he passed Ron. He didn't stop by Ron's cauldron and left quickly behind him, looking disgusting.

"And you, Harry," he said, "what are you going to show me?" Harry held out his hand, the bezoar in his palm. Slughorn stared at it for ten seconds. Harry knew whether he would criticize him the next second. Then he turned around and laughed.

"Kid, you have courage!" he announced loudly, holding up the bezoar for the whole class to see. "Oh, you're just like your mother...I can't blame you...the bezoar does act as an antidote to these potions!"

Hermione looked blue, her face was beaded with sweat, and her nose was caked with cigarette ash. She was halfway through the poison, using fifty-two ingredients including some of her own hair, and was watching Harry intently from behind Slughorn.

"You came up with the idea of ​​using bezoar entirely on your own, didn't you, Harry?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"That's the personal spirit it takes to be a true potion-maker!" Slughorn said cheerfully before Harry had a chance to reply. "Like her mother, she had the same ideas and instincts about potions, and he undoubtedly inherited it from Lily... Yes, Harry, yes, if you have a bezoar on your hands, of course that It would be a trick... but they don't work on everything, and since they're rare, it's still worth learning how to mix antidotes..."

"Time to pack up!" said Slughorn. "And ten points for Gryffindor!"

There was only one person in the room who looked angrier than Hermione, and that was Malfoy.

Harry was pleased to see that he had poured out something that looked like cat vomit. However, before any of them could show their anger at Harry being at the top of his class without doing anything, the bell rang.

The laughter continued and Harry returned to his desk at the front of the classroom. He was lingering behind to pack his school bag. Hermione looked a little distressed. They both wished Harry good luck when they left. Finally, when Fanlin closed the door for them, only Harry and Slughorn were left in the classroom. (To be continued)