As the cold yet bell-like voice faded, the corrosive potion on the floor vanished completely.
"Hm?" Snape raised an eyebrow in surprise and turned toward the source of the voice.
Blonde hair. Emerald eyes. A cold expression.
The little witch who had once told Lykos her name—Cassandra Vole.
"Professor, may we continue the lesson now?" Cassandra withdrew her wand and asked calmly, as if she had merely done something trivial.
"An excellent Vanishing Charm, Miss Vole," Snape said with a slight nod—rare praise from him. "Using a fifth-year spell to remedy a classmate's mistake in time… very well done. Slytherin gains five points."
Then he turned and shot a fierce glare at the other students who had been watching the spectacle.
"What are you all staring at? Do you intend to let your potions boil over?!"
The students immediately shuddered and hurriedly returned their attention to their cauldrons.
"Lykos, is that girl from our house?" Draco whispered while stirring the thick yellow liquid in his cauldron.
"If I remember correctly, we've already been in school for a week," Lykos replied, giving him a sideways glance.
"Yes, it's been a week, but I honestly don't remember her at all!" Draco complained innocently. "The only time I remember seeing her was during the Sorting Ceremony. I have absolutely no other memory of her…"
At that moment, Lykos paused while grinding snake bone powder.
Suddenly he realized something.
Cassandra's presence over the past week had been strangely faint.
Searching through his memories, he discovered that he hadn't noticed her at all during the previous classes!
But that shouldn't be possible.
A girl with such striking features shouldn't be so easily ignored—even if she wasn't a popular figure at school.
Lykos' expression shifted slightly.
He turned and tapped Crabbe on the shoulder.
"Crabbe, Goyle—do you remember her?" he asked subtly, gesturing toward the blonde witch.
Crabbe frowned and sank into deep thought.
"Who is she? Why is she here?"
Goyle looked equally serious.
"…Lykos, what did you just ask? I didn't hear it clearly."
At the same moment, because they had stopped stirring their cauldron, the already unstable potion inside began to overheat.
With a loud pop, a large bubble burst.
The liquid splashed onto their faces.
"AHH! Hot! It's burning me!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow!"
"…."
Lykos blinked.
Then he calmly turned back to his seat and resumed grinding the bone powder on the table as if nothing had happened.
Hearing the screams, Snape shot them a murderous glare.
"You idiots!"
He glanced at their potion, unable to hide the disgust in his eyes.
"You didn't listen to a single word I said this entire lesson, did you?"
Crabbe and Goyle continued howling as red swollen bumps appeared where the potion had splashed them.
"Draco, take them to the hospital wing," Snape ordered.
Then he slowly walked over to Lykos.
"Hayden, why didn't you tell them the correct brewing procedure? Do you think their mistakes somehow make you look competent? Slytherin will—"
Snape instinctively prepared to deduct points.
But then he remembered Lykos belonged to his own house.
He forcibly suppressed the urge.
"Slytherin is truly unfortunate to have a student like you!"
After replacing the point deduction with a harsh remark, Snape flicked his long cloak and swept back toward the podium like a giant bat.
…
An hour later, the first Potions lesson of the semester ended.
Lykos deliberately paid closer attention to Cassandra.
As soon as the bell rang, she left the classroom with silent, graceful steps like a cat.
Not a single person noticed her departure.
Snape showed no dissatisfaction with her leaving promptly either—she had already completed the potion assigned for the lesson.
Although her potion wasn't quite as outstanding as Hermione Granger's, the top student from Gryffindor, it was easily above the acceptable standard.
Still, Lykos had the faint feeling Cassandra was deliberately concealing her true abilities.
After all, the Vanishing Charm was advanced fifth-year Transfiguration magic.
If Cassandra could cast it so easily, could her potion-making ability really be so ordinary?
…
"How are Crabbe and Goyle doing?"
Lykos met Draco in the entrance hall outside the Great Hall.
He still felt a slight twinge of guilt for indirectly causing the potion to splash onto his followers' faces.
Although, if they had continued brewing at that rate, the explosion might have been even worse.
"Madam Pomfrey rubbed some stuff on their faces and they recovered in a few minutes," Draco said casually, waving his hand. "They'll definitely make it to Herbology this afternoon."
"Wait a minute. If they recovered in just a few minutes, why did you skip the entire class?" Lykos crossed his arms and stared at him expressionlessly. "I had to finish the potion by myself."
"Ah… hahaha… well, I didn't want Crabbe and Goyle to feel lonely!" Draco laughed awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.
"Hey, look at the house point hourglasses!"
Since skipping class was fairly normal—especially when a professor had personally given him an excuse—Lykos decided not to press the issue.
He casually looked toward the giant hourglasses standing in the entrance hall.
There were four massive hourglasses used to track house points.
They were filled with red, blue, yellow, and green gemstones, representing Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.
Whenever a house earned points, gemstones of the corresponding color would fall into the hourglass.
When points were deducted, the gems floated back up into the sphere above.
Since the school year had just begun, none of the hourglasses contained many gems yet.
However, because Gryffindor had recently gained a first-year student who constantly raised her hand to answer questions in class, the red gemstones had briefly surged ahead during the past few days.
"Look, Lykos! Slytherin has the most points now!" Draco said excitedly, pointing at the green hourglass.
"But Slytherin's points didn't increase by much…" Lykos frowned slightly.
Then he looked at Gryffindor's hourglass—and immediately understood.
Thanks to the "joint efforts" of Snape and Harry, Gryffindor had managed to lose an entire week's worth of Hermione's hard-earned points in just one Potions class.
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