Damn it, I've been tricked.
This was all Harry could think after downing Snape's bizarre potion.
The initial enticing aroma and Snape's final words had been nothing but a trap to make him lower his guard. It seemed the old bat's murderous intent had been evident from the very taste of the potion.
What kind of taste was it?
Harry's brain was being shattered by the intense sensations assaulting his tongue and the walls of his mouth—he had no time to savor the details when it felt like his mouth was about to explode.
He could only process the current numbness through later memories, but that didn't stop us from describing the experience directly.
The clear liquid was just a disguise. Once it entered his mouth, it revealed its true, hideous nature—becoming murky and viscous.
The fiery spiciness collided with his taste buds, and the resulting sparks traveled through his mouth to his nasal cavity, giving Harry the ultimate double torment.
Combined with the texture and taste, it was fortunate that Harry's remaining rationality told him he hadn't actually drunk lava, or he might have fainted on the spot, his consciousness declaring him dead.
After the spiciness came an even deeper, endless aftertaste—an unbearable bitterness extracted and concentrated from who-knows-where that surged from Harry's burning esophagus back into his mouth. But it couldn't mask the original spiciness; instead, it mixed with it, delivering multiple layers of assault on Harry's mouth.
To summarize: this potion bites back.
And Snape had designed this potion to dissolve instantly upon contact, giving the drinker no chance to spit it out.
You could say it was very considerate.
Harry painfully released the now-empty potion bottle, clutching his throat with both hands as he screamed and collapsed to the floor. Snape, as if he'd anticipated this, calmly reached out to catch the vial that was about to meet its shattering fate.
But beneath his seemingly calm, unruffled exterior, Hermione could sense barely suppressed joy and sorrow.
Joy and sorrow?
These contradictory emotions were now present in Snape's heart. It was hard to imagine what the Potions Master was feeling right now.
"Hey! Harry! Are you okay?!"
Ron beside Harry couldn't sit still. He leaped up and crouched beside Harry, anxiously watching his good friend struggle in pain, then turned an angry gaze toward Snape.
"This is Hogwarts!!"
Snape was unmoved by Ron's fury, simply putting away the potion bottle in his hand methodically and saying unhurriedly:
"If this potion works as I intended, the pain before the effects take hold will only last ten seconds. He won't die."
Harry, kneeling on the ground and retching continuously, was about to blurt out a sentence starting with "F" upon hearing this.
What do you mean "pain before it takes effect," you bastard?!
Does this mean there will be more unbearable sensations when the damn potion takes effect and after it takes effect?
Seriously, Snape, if you want to kill me, just do it quickly—don't drag it out, I can't take it!
So, was it really as Harry imagined?
Snape hadn't lied, but actually the potion's side effects were only manifested in the first ten seconds after drinking it. He deliberately didn't explain clearly just to satisfy his twisted sense of humor.
However, this kind of twisted pleasure he could find with Harry was limited to just this moment.
Although in Harry's perception, time seemed to have passed an entire century, for the other young wizards, ten seconds was very brief.
Though during those short ten seconds, they didn't have an easy time either—trembling and resolving to study Potions even harder, quite a few of the little ones made this decision.
Fortunately, Harry's screams gradually subsided. After a moment or two of silence, what followed was Ron's shriek.
"What's happening? Harry's body is shrinking!"
Not shrinking—more accurately, he had become more slender and graceful than his original build.
Harry hadn't fully grown yet, and his height had only just reached average levels. Now, after drinking the gender-transformation potion Snape had carefully prepared for him, Harry's body could only be described as petite and pitiful.
Harry's messy brown-black hair became smooth and also grew longer, falling to his shoulders.
"I... what happened to me?"
Harry, just awakening from the intense stimulation of the potion's effects, asked dazedly. He only felt somewhat itchy all over, with no other sensations.
He raised his head.
What met everyone's eyes was Harry's face...
No, more precisely, it was a face that bore eight or nine-tenths resemblance to Harry's original features, but the previously hardening facial lines from adolescence had softened considerably, and the boyish handsomeness had completely transformed into delicate beauty.
Harry's looks had already been among the best in Gryffindor, but now...
He completely outshone Gryffindor's house beauty, Parvati.
The perfectly symmetrical, gentle features were covered by a few strands of falling brown-black bangs, through which one could glimpse slender, softened eyebrows, and beneath them, the crowning jewel of this face.
Those emerald-green, spirited, crystalline eyes.
At this moment, there were even some crystalline teardrops from the previous pain clinging to the corners of her eyes and cheeks, making Harry look pitifully vulnerable.
She knelt there, looking up at Ron.
(I can't take it—I used such good facial description writing for this scene, I want to kill myself. I'll just gloss over this kind of plot from now on.)
Ron's brain crashed for a second, then his features showed pure terror as he screamed and fell backward, using his hands and feet to crawl away, knocking over several chairs.
Ron tremblingly extended his right hand, pointing shakily at Harry, his mouth opening and closing but unable to speak even a single word.
Kind of... pretty?
Countless thoughts collided and churned in his mind, but only this one result floated to the surface of Ron's chaotic thoughts.
Then he slapped himself.
Wake up, Ron!
This person is Harry!
Didn't see clearly, take another look...
Stop it, Ron, how can you be like this?!
Harry's in such a miserable state and you're still having such strange thoughts?
Why don't you just gouge out your eyes!
...
...Just one more look, really just one...
No one knew Ron's psychological thoughts and internal struggle at this moment. Everyone was shocked by Harry's current transformation.
Snape was the same.
However, there were still people who weren't much affected.
Like Glenn, who was resting with his eyes closed.
Like Hermione, who was now frantically taking photos with her magical camera, the shutter clicking rapidly.
The sound of photography awakened the young wizards and Snape from their various reactions, ensuring this Potions class was destined to be anything but peaceful.
Or rather, it was bound to be recorded in history.
A certain chapter in the future revised "Hogwarts: A School History" was destined to include what happened in this class.
Even the chapter title could be predicted:
"Shocking! A Certain Potions Professor Actually Uses Gender-Transforming Potion as Punishment! Is This the Distortion of Human Nature, or the Collapse of Morality?!"
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
The story isn't over...
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