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Ron and Neville blocked Snape's path.
They really managed to startle him quite a bit. His reaction was so exaggerated that even the nearby Gryffindor students could tell he was shocked.
"I knew it! Something's wrong!"
Ron and Neville stared hard at Snape. His reaction was even more suspicious than they expected.
When Ron shouted, "Hand over Hermione!" , Snape visibly stiffened. His pitch-black pupils shrank abruptly, and it was as if someone had pressed a wand to his back.
Even the first-year wizards could clearly see this.
"Hand over Hermione!"
To be honest, Ron's mind was completely blank. He hadn't learned any powerful charms, he couldn't even remember which ones he had learned but that didn't stop him from pointing his wand at Snape.
One had to admit that this boy truly had courage, especially the kind that makes you stand up for a friend. As a child raised in a wizarding family, Ron naturally knew what it meant to pull out a wand on another wizard.
He was terrified.
His legs trembled. Yet he clenched his teeth and refused to back down.
"You two... stop talking nonsense!" Snape sounded flustered as he spoke. He looked left and right as if to check if anyone else was in the corridor.
Seeing that everyone was in class and there were no late students wandering around, Snape let out a small breath and tried to compose himself. Only then did he turn his cold, hawk-like eyes back to the two boys.
Of course, his gaze still wasn't steady. But this time, they weren't as evasive as before.
"Why aren't you two in class?" Snape lowered his voice, trying to sound intimidating, though there was an almost undetectable tremor in his tone.
Ron clenched his teeth, his knuckles turning white around his wand.
"Hand over Hermione! We already know your evil plan to boil her into a potion!"
Good Lord!
Without Voldemort around as a threat, Ron really had managed to find a new reason to suspect Snape. To be honest, even Neville didn't quite believe Ron's ridiculous theory about "boiling Hermione into soup."
However, after seeing Snape's behavior, even Neville wasn't so confident in his common sense anymore. He realized that Snape's expression would twist unnaturally every time Hermione was mentioned.
Sure enough...
Under Ron's relentless questioning...
Snape's Adam's apple bobbed visibly. His eyes darted around like a startled owl, drifting several times toward a storage cabinet in the corner before quickly shifting away.
"Enough! Stop spouting nonsense!" Snape forced himself to look vicious as he spoke.
It was scary, but not as scary as usual.
This only made Neville and Ron take a few steps back instead of running away. Snape glared at them fiercely. There was something oddly familiar about that look, though Ron couldn't place it.
The man's eyes, movements, and tone of voice felt slightly different from the Snape they knew.
Could someone be pretending to be Snape again?
That thought surfaced, but Ron immediately dismissed it. Just yesterday, he'd embarrassed himself with that exact guess. After returning to Hogwarts, he had secretly sworn he would never make the same mistake again.
"This Snape is wrong, but also kind of right?"
Neville also felt something familiar.
But he wasn't good at thinking deeply about things.
Of course, to Neville, the situation probably didn't require any thought.
"No matter what, Professor Snape must have boiled Hermione in potions!" Neville raised his trembling wand and blurted out the words in a terrified, high-pitched squeak.
"Shut up, you two stupid pigs." Snape's face went pale instantly. He lunged forward and clamped a long, thin hand over Neville's mouth.
"Be quiet, Longbottom!"
He hissed in a low voice, the panic in his voice leaking through. A senior student was walking past. Snape glared at him, and he immediately turned and ran.
It was a good thing the student hadn't heard anything they shouldn't have.
He was a Gryffindor, no less.
If Ron and Neville's nonsense spread, who knew how the rumor would change overnight? Maybe tomorrow people would say Snape turned Hermione into jelly.
"You're acting weird! You're definitely guilty!"
Ron's alertness shot to maximum level at this moment. Snape's reaction was far too abnormal. Normally, he would just sneer, deduct points, or shut them up with a sarcastic remark.
But right now, he was acting exactly like someone who'd done something wrong.
"Yesterday, I went to your office, and I saw strands of hair in your potion. And it was moving! Did you boil more than one student?"
Neville's voice trembled with fear as he spoke. His imagination was impressive, to say the least.
Snape's face turned even paler than usual. He slapped his hand over Neville's mouth, pressing so hard that Neville could hardly breathe. His fingers trembled slightly, but his eyes were still firmly locked on the two boys.
"You know nothing. Go back to your classroom immediately, or I'll have Professor McGonagall speak to you herself."
His words squeezed out between clenched teeth.
"Professor McGonagall can't threaten us! She'll help us save Hermione!" Ron's words struck right at Snape's soft spot.
His expression kept shifting.
In the end, he didn't dare threaten them with McGonagall again.
Seeing Snape's obvious weakness...
"Talk!" Ron mustered his courage, stepped forward, and said in a trembling voice, "Does your potion still have any chance of being boiled back into Hermione?"
One had to admit that Ron's imagination was beyond what even Neville could hope to match.
What an outrageous idea!
And what an unbelievably wild theory!
If Ian were here, he'd be amazed at how literally Ron took the phrase, "Wizards can do anything." This kind of blind, brain-breaking faith is truly the definition of "anything is possible."
Neville was completely bewildered.
"?"
Even Snape was stunned.
"Who told you that wizards can be boiled into potions? And that potions can be boiled back into wizards? Have you lost your minds? Or did yesterday's incident drive you both insane?"
Snape's furious tone finally sounded like the Snape they knew.
"Miss Granger is just helping me watch an unfinished potion. Gryffindor will get twenty points for it. And you two.. do you want to earn Gryffindor another deduction?"
Snape pinched his voice into a strange, mocking tone; his anger had returned, making him his usual gloomy self again.
Ron and Neville stared at each other. The explanation sounded reasonable, but Snape's behavior was completely off, he was too tense and a bit incoherent.
He didn't look innocent at all.
"Are you sure?" Ron asked suspiciously.
Snape froze for a moment, then let out a cold, sharp laugh.
"Weasley, don't you trust your own professor? It seems your mother really should have taught you some manners."
After saying this, he pressed his lips tightly together.
He seemed to realize he'd said something he shouldn't have.
But—
That familiar tone...
It actually made Ron and Neville shrink back a bit.
"Enough! Stop wasting class time." Snape suddenly put on his sternest expression, darker than ever. "If you two don't get to class immediately, Gryffindor loses fifty points... no, five hundred."
The threat worked instantly.
Ron's eyes widened. Five hundred? Did Snape want to deduct five hundred points from Gryffindor? If the Gryffindors found out, Ron would be condemned for life. Based on past experience, confronting Snape in the hallway like this might cost them ten or twenty points, plus a week of detention.
Five hundred was insane.
"He definitely has a problem!"
Even though he was furious, Ron didn't dare gamble with that many points.
Still, he didn't consider going to find Professor McGonagall. Ron glared resentfully at Snape, who had already turned around and pushed open the door to the Potions classroom.
His black robes billowed behind him as if desperate to flee.
"We've got to get to his office! We need to find Hermione, he must have boiled her in a cauldron!" Ron whispered urgently to Neville. "Snape has definitely already done something horrible to Hermione!"
He was still absolutely certain of that.
Though, catching Snape while he was distracted wasn't a bad plan.
It was...almost clever.
But...
Such cleverness doesn't necessarily lead to good outcomes.
When the footsteps finally faded behind the door, Snape slowly unclenched his fists. He lowered his head to look at his fingertips; Neville's saliva clung to them. After quickly wiping them clean, the Potions professor let out a long, shaky breath.
It was as if he had just surfaced from deep water, gasping for air.
"I almost exposed myself..." He muttered to himself as he walked forward. His voice was no longer as hoarse and deep as before, though it was still a bit raspy.
Inside the classroom, the second-year students were already seated.
Many turned their heads to look at him.
But these unfamiliar faces made Snape feel far less tense.
"All right, let's begin the lesson." Snape strode to the teacher's desk.
The second-year students sat nervously behind their cauldrons, waiting for Snape to start class with his usual poisonous sarcasm.
But today, Snape was different. He held a brand-new notebook and read aloud word for word, his voice flat and dull, like a puppet under a mechanical charm.
"Today's lesson is… uh… we'll be making 'Sleepthorn Extract.'"
He lowered his head and sped through the notes.
"Step one: Add... into... mm... Stir clockwise three times... Then..."
He read the instructions one sentence at a time, stopping occasionally to jot down key points.
No one was called on and no one was mocked.
He stuck to the notes.
He truly stuck to the notes.
There was an unfamiliar quality to him.
The students exchanged looks. The real Snape didn't need notes, he could insult an honors student while pointing out every minor flaw in everyone's potion simultaneously.
But today, the professor hadn't mentioned trolls more than twice.
'This is completely abnormal.' Someone whispered, "The professor seems different today..."
"Really? I thought he was weird, too. He barely scolded anyone. Actually, he seemed gentle."
"So strange."
…
Quite a few students were suspicious.
But...
Snape's usual authority still held. No one dared to raise their hand. For the entire forty minutes, Snape barely looked up.
He seemed completely unaware of the students' whispers as he paced mechanically around the room, occasionally glancing at his notes, and continuing his oddly flat, emotionless lecture.
When class ended, the students left the classroom in a confused chatter.
"Did you guys notice? Snape didn't yell even once today!"
"He didn't deduct any points either! When Neville's potion started smoking black, he just sighed!"
"Merlin's beard... did he get hit by a jinx or something?"
…
After leaving the professor behind, the students grew bolder, murmuring as they walked down the hallway.
Snape listened to the whispers. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly in relief.
"Excellent!"
Hermione silently celebrated her successful disguise. She had made it through the entire class without being exposed or raising suspicion. She could finally earn back some House Points for Gryffindor.
Yes!
Snape had tempted her with points. She couldn't resist, and she was curious about what teaching felt like, so she disguised herself as Snape to help him teach.
There was simply no helping it. Snape was still stuck in that upside-down position. He certainly couldn't have Hermione drag him into class like that. His only options were to skip class or find a replacement.
To prevent more people from becoming suspicious and investigating his office, Snape had only one choice: use the carrot and stick of extra points and threats to convince Hermione.
Giving Hermione "special tutoring" was partly for this reason.
Hermione was nervous beyond words as a substitute Snape.
This is her first time.
Of course, she was tense and unprepared.
It nearly scared the life out of her when Ron and Neville showed up.
"I hope they went back to class and stopped making wild guesses..."
Just remembering Ron's crackpot theories made her want to massage her temples.
She had successfully survived the first class so she finally felt a tiny bit of relief.
She thought her disguise might even be flawless. But her confidence didn't last long... only until she turned the corner and ran straight into Gilderoy Lockhart.
"Ah! Professor Snape! Good morning!" Lockhart flashed his trademark brilliant smile.
Hearing this, Hermione replied automatically:
"Good morning to you, too, Professor Lockhart."
The moment she said it, she realized it was the wrong thing to say. The real Snape was always hostile toward Lockhart.
Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes flickering nervously.
Lockhart raised an eyebrow, his smile still bright.
"Lovely weather today, and you seem to be in quite a good mood. But have you caught a cold? Your voice sounds rather odd."
Lockhart's tone held a hint of uncertainty.
"No, no!" Hermione fled immediately.
She ran fast.
Very fast.
She darted around Lockhart and practically sprinted out of the hallway. Lockhart stood there, stroking his chin thoughtfully, watching "Snape" rush away.
"Hermione Granger."
The voice Lockhart used was female.
It was Aurora.
(End of Chapter)
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