When Adrian was escorting the Thestrals back to the Forbidden Forest, some unknown activity was occurring deep within the forest.
The beech tree was active once again.
On the trunk of the beech tree, the bark slowly writhed like living flesh. A wrinkled human face emerged once more from the depths.
Those eyes were half-open, half-closed, with a drowsy appearance.
"Coming..."
The low, hoarse voice echoed through the forest, startling several crows roosting in the branches.
Then the ground began to tremble slightly, and several thin cracks appeared in the soil around the tree roots.
After a moment of silence, the expression on the tree face suddenly became extremely weary, with wrinkles sinking deeper.
"Tired..."
The human face gradually disappeared into the rough bark, as if it had never appeared. The Forbidden Forest returned to silence.
"Tired..." the voice sighed, carrying with it the weight of eons.
Of course, Adrian had no idea what was happening to the beech tree at this time—he had even forgotten about its existence.
After the Care of Magical Creatures class ended, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked back through the castle corridors toward Gryffindor Tower.
Ron kept glancing sideways at the small wooden box in Hermione's arms, his curiosity obvious in the way his eyes kept darting toward it despite his attempts to appear casual.
"That's from Professor Westeros, isn't it?" He asked finally, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. "What treasures are inside? It looks like something that should contain ancient artifacts or priceless gems."
"Just some potions," Hermione replied, continuing to hold the box close to her chest as if it contained the crown jewels. Her voice had a tone of protective secrecy that made the contents seem even more intriguing. "He thought I might be tired and gave me some help."
"Tired?" Ron looked confused, his brow furrowing as he tried to understand. "Why would you be tired? We've only just started the term, and you always seem to have more energy than the rest of us combined."
Hermione sighed. "If you could pay attention properly in every class, stay awake for all your homework, and actually read the assigned material, you'd need these too."
The pointed comment hit its mark, and Ron shut his mouth with an almost audible snap, his ears turning slightly pink with embarrassment.
After hearing Hermione's response, Harry immediately felt this must have some connection to Hermione's mysteriously packed class schedule.
But he didn't pursue the topic further. If Hermione didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't press her. One of the things he had learned about friendship was that giving good friends personal "space" was sometimes more important than satisfying his own curiosity.
"You'll really like the professor's potions," Harry said, changing the subject. He smiled warmly at Hermione. "He makes potions in all sorts of flavors, and they all taste quite good. It's like drinking liquid sweets instead of medicine."
This was true—in Adrian's own potion system, taste was indeed a very important element. He particularly enjoyed making the same potion in different flavors to suit different people's preferences.
Of course, many traditional potioneers considered this thankless work, viewing such attention to deliciousness as frivolous and unnecessary.
But Adrian believed that medicine should heal both body and spirit, and what good was a potion if people couldn't bear to drink it?
"Really?" Hermione said with delight, her eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. "I once had terrible-tasting cough medicine in the hospital wing. It was so awful I nearly couldn't finish it."
Ron nodded in vigorous agreement, his face distorting at the memory. "I had the same stuff when I caught that cold last year. The taste was absolutely dreadful—like soup made from dirty socks that had been left in a dungeon for months."
The comparison was so vivid and disgusting that all three of them made automatic faces of revulsion.
Hermione, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, eagerly opened the lid of the box in her hands. She took out one of the bottles, noting how the glass felt warm to the touch, and opened the cork stopper with a soft pop.
She sniffed the contents gently, and her eyes widened with pleasant surprise.
"Oh, it's like lemon sherbet," She exclaimed in wonder. "It actually smells delicious—like summer afternoons and sunshine."
"Let me smell it," Ron said, his curiosity overcoming his previous embarrassment. He stopped walking and leaned over eagerly, inhaling deeply.
Harry, who had been walking slightly ahead, turned to look at them and chuckled at the sight of his friends hunched over the tiny bottle.
"The potions you drank in the hospital wing were probably brewed by Snape," He said with a grin. "His potions are just like him—carrying the musty smell of dungeons, completely incomparable to Professor Westeros's creations."
Ron burst out laughing at the comparison.
"Well said," Hermione agreed, still smiling at the pleasant aroma rising from the bottle.
However, when they looked toward Harry to share in their amusement, their expressions immediately froze. The laughter died in their throats as if someone had cast a silencing charm on them.
Harry looked confusedly at Hermione and Ron's suddenly stiff expressions, noticing how their faces had gone pale with what appeared to be terror. "What's wrong? Why are you both looking like you've seen a ghost?"
Hermione frantically signaled to him with her eyes. She mouthed silently: "Be... hind... you..."
Harry felt his stomach drop as he instantly realized what was happening. He slowly turned around, feeling as if all the blood in his body had frozen to ice in his veins.
Snape stood less than a foot behind him, having appeared with the silent stealth of a hunting predator. His black eyes flickered with dangerous light, like dark flames in the depths of a cave. His presence seemed to drain the warmth from the corridor, replacing the golden afternoon light with something cold and threatening.
Obviously, he had heard everything Harry had just said about his potions and his similarity to dungeons.
Harry couldn't help but groan inwardly—why did Snape always walk without making any sound?
"Er... hello, Professor," Harry said, trying a smile that felt more like a grimace. His voice came out higher than usual, showing his nervousness. "We're just heading to the common room now. Lovely evening, isn't it? Well, goodbye then."
He took a small step backward, hoping to escape before the situation could worsen.
However, Snape had no intention of letting Harry off so easily. He curved his lips into a cold smile that was somehow even more terrifying than his angry expression.
"What a vivid comparison, Mr. Potter," Snape said, his bone-chilling voice carrying through the corridor like winter wind. "It seems you have developed quite unique insights into the noble art of potion-making during your time at Hogwarts."
Ron stood nearby, his face pale with fright. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish gasping for air. Meanwhile, Hermione clutched her box of potions tightly against her chest, as if it might somehow protect her from the professor's wrath.
"Thirty points from Gryffindor," Snape announced quietly. "For insulting a professor and displaying remarkable ignorance about the complexities of potion-brewing."
"You can't—" Hermione began to protest, her natural sense of justice overriding her fear.
"Oh?" Snape turned his attention to her, moving to stand in front of her and stared at her coldly.
Hermione froze in place, finding herself somewhat breathless under the intensity of his gaze.
Then Snape slowly reached out with one pale hand and took the lemon sherbet-flavored potion from her trembling fingers. He held the small bottle up to his eyes.
For several seconds, he studied the potion in absolute silence, turning it this way and that as if searching for hidden flaws.
"Hmph," He finally snorted disdainfully, the sound carrying contempt. "Frivolous design. Unnecessary embellishment. I can't imagine this is a potion made by a student I once taught."
Harry immediately caught the key phrase in Snape's words. A student he once taught? Did he mean Adrian?
"Potions is a precise and rigorous discipline," Snape continued, his voice drifting through the corridor like smoke from a funeral pyre. "Every ingredient, every measurement, every moment of brewing time must serve the ultimate purpose of efficacy. Any component that doesn't directly benefit the potion's power is nothing more than superfluous burden, a waste of time and resources."
He gently swirled the pale-yellow potion, watching the liquid move. A flash of contempt flickered in his dark eyes.
"Improving the taste," He said, his voice dripping with disdain. "What a foolish, childish idea."
Hermione's lips trembled slightly, as if she wanted to argue, to defend the thoughtful kindness that had gone into creating these potions. But under Snape's cold gaze, she ultimately remained silent, knowing that any words she spoke would only make things worse.
Harry and Ron also wisely said nothing, having learned from years of experience that challenging Snape in this mood was about as safe as poking a sleeping dragon.
They knew that if they talked back at this moment, they would definitely lose more than just thirty points.
Seeing that the three students had no further moves to make, Snape snorted coldly again. He casually tossed the potion back to Hermione, who caught it with fumbling fingers, then flicked his black cloak with dramatic flair and immediately left.
Only after Snape's figure had completely vanished from sight did the three friends finally dare to breathe properly again.
"He's really scary, isn't he?" Ron said, his voice still slightly shaky. He ran a hand through his red hair, which was now damp with nervous sweat. "I swear he can appear out of thin air just to make our lives miserable."
Harry nodded in eager agreement, his heart still racing from the encounter. "Snape is definitely the most difficult professor to get along with in the entire school. And he mostly seems to have it out for me—I swear he spends his free time thinking up new ways to make my life complicated."
At this moment, Hermione was still standing there in a daze.
"Don't take Snape's words to heart," Harry said gently, moving to pat her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Professor Westeros's potions are definitely the best at Hogwarts, no matter what Snape says. His kindness and skill are worth more than all of Snape's bitter criticisms. If we could choose, who would want to drink Snape's terrible-tasting potions that make you feel worse instead of better?"
After speaking, Harry unconsciously glanced behind him. He was genuinely afraid that Snape would suddenly appear behind him again, like some sort of vengeful ghost.
"I'm not upset about what he said about the potions," Hermione sighed, her voice heavy with a different kind of worry. "I know Professor Westeros's potions are good. What bothers me is that Gryffindor lost thirty points again because of us...."
"What does that matter?" Ron said with typical carelessness. "I think we'll probably lose even more points in tomorrow's Potions class, knowing Snape. He'll have thought up some new way to punish us by then."
After hearing this spectacularly unhelpful observation, Hermione turned to glare at him fiercely.
Really, bringing up the very thing that shouldn't be mentioned at a time like this showed a remarkable lack of sensitivity.
"That's not how you comfort people, Ron," Harry said carefully. "When someone's worried about something, you don't make them feel worse by predicting even more problems."
Ron shrugged. "I was just stating facts. But you're right, I suppose that's not very comforting."
Fortunately, with Hermione's academic excellence around, they could usually earn back all the points they lost in other classes.
After their uncomfortable encounter with Snape, the three quickly made their way back to the common room, eager to reach the safety and warmth of their own territory.
Hermione immediately drank one of her potions—the lemon sherbet-flavored one that Snape had handled so dismissively.
Meanwhile, Harry and Ron sat into chairs by the common room fire, keeping watch over Scabbers' condition.
To their immense relief, after Scabbers drank the Rat Tonic, he immediately calmed down and stopped running around frantically.
In just a few minutes, Scabbers was sleeping peacefully in Ron's pocket.
Ron let out a huge sigh of relief.
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