Mist drifted over a dirty river.
The river meandered and curved, with piles of trash among the weeds on both sides.
In the nearby community, a massive chimney stood there, a remnant of what was once an abandoned mill. Dilapidated, gloomy, from a distance it exuded an ominous air.
Row upon row of two-story red brick houses were arranged here, with very few windows on their surfaces, only scattered rectangular small windows visible, their frames crossing horizontally and vertically like crosses.
This was Spinner's End, where you could see piles of garbage everywhere. This was the home of Hogwarts Potions Professor Severus Snape.
19 Spinner's End.
Snape sat on a frayed sofa, looking at The Golden Cauldron journal in his hands. He picked up a teacup from the low table beside the sofa, whose original color was no longer visible, turned it around so the chip was on the other side, then gently sipped the black tea inside to moisten his dry throat before continuing to read.
After finishing the Wolfsbane Potion paper in The Golden Cauldron, Snape's brow furrowed slightly. After pondering for a long time, he shook his head slightly and muttered to himself: "Utterly useless!"
Putting The Golden Cauldron aside, Snape picked up another book. Just as he was about to read, he suddenly heard hooting and tapping at the window from outside.
Standing up to open the window, looking at the owl perched outside, Snape frowned again. He reached out to take the letter from the owl's leg, then ignored the owl's begging for nuts, shooed it away, closed the window, and sat back down on the frayed sofa.
Turning over the letter and seeing it was from Sean, Snape's tightly furrowed brow relaxed.
Opening the letter and looking at its contents, gradually Snape's relaxed expression became serious again. He straightened up slightly, his previously relaxed brow furrowing once more, though this wasn't due to irritation or impatience, but rather Snape's expression when he was being serious.
After finishing the letter, Snape immediately stood up and went to the adjacent room, which he had converted into a simple laboratory. It contained various somewhat worn but very comprehensive tools, and the walls of this laboratory were covered with the same kind of cabinets as in Snape's office at Hogwarts. He took out some materials from them and quickly brewed a potion that could substitute for one of the Wolfsbane Potion ingredients, according to the contents of Sean's letter. After testing and examination, Snape sat in the laboratory thinking for a while, finally taking out parchment and a quill to write a reply to Sean.
When Sean received the reply, he had already returned home.
Looking at Snape's response, which contained suggestions from him, it must be said that as one of the top Potions masters in the wizarding world, Snape's suggestions truly gave Sean a sense of enlightenment. The substitute plan for the second ingredient, which had been somewhat stalled, now finally had a new direction.
The Wolfsbane Potion had a total of twenty-two ingredients, seventeen of which were quite expensive. Sean's goal was to find substitutes whenever possible, bring down the price, and split up the brewing process to indirectly reduce brewing difficulty.
He wasn't doing this solely to create welfare or care for werewolf wizards, though he did have some such thoughts. Sean's main purpose was to ride on the popularity of Wolfsbane Potion while writing papers that could be published in The Golden Cauldron series.
Just like the original Wolfsbane Potion.
Sean's improved Wolfsbane Potion was also planned as a series of papers, to accumulate popularity and voice in Potions for himself.
Of course, series papers also had some requirements. Merely substituting one ingredient could certainly be written as a paper, but substituting one ingredient couldn't reduce the cost and brewing difficulty of Wolfsbane Potion in an intuitive and ideal way. Therefore, Sean planned to accumulate three to four substitute ingredients before writing them into one paper for publication.
He wasn't afraid of others following his papers to conduct experiments. Sean's substitute methods incorporated a lot of Muggle chemistry knowledge. Sean was very certain that these Potions masters who looked down on Muggles would never conduct research in this area. Even if they wanted to research it, by the time they figured it out, Sean would have already finished writing the subsequent papers.
With interest here, Sean found research quite enjoyable and tireless.
At the end of the holidays, Blaise came to visit, and only then did Sean stop his research for half a day. Then he drove away Blaise, who was reluctant to leave Caesar, and threw himself back into research until just before school started.
"Hey, did you know? I heard that the famous Harry Potter blew up his aunt like a balloon, and she floated into the sky, seen by many Muggles, causing quite a commotion."
"Then what? What happened next?"
"Then Minister Fudge from the Ministry of Magic personally helped him smooth over the incident." This voice clearly carried a hint of mockery.
"Ha, no wonder. Who doesn't know that Fudge is just Dumbledore's lackey? If Dumbledore wants the great savior Harry Potter to be fine, then the Minister of Magic has to come out and clean up his mess."
"A minister who cleans up messes? Hahaha."
Walking through Diagon Alley, Sean had Aldrich following behind him. Although Aldrich had been very busy recently with something like buying books before school started, Aldrich naturally had to be by Sean's side.
Sean listened to the conversation of the two people ahead. Just from their attitudes toward Harry, Dumbledore, and Fudge at this stage, he could judge that these two guys must be upper-year Slytherin students.
Sean and Aldrich entered Flourish and Blotts to buy textbooks for the new term.
While they were waiting in line, the people in front continued discussing Harry blowing up his aunt like a balloon, though compared to the previous two Slytherins, their words were much more polite and tolerant. Probably Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws.
The queue time wasn't very long, but when Sean was almost at the front, someone behind suddenly said in a low voice: "Hey, did you read the Daily Prophet? That recent news."
"News? I haven't read the Daily Prophet lately. Are you talking about the Weasley family winning money and going to Egypt for vacation?"
"How could that be? This has nothing to do with them. I'm talking about recent news. Someone escaped from Azkaban, and the escape was completely silent. I really don't know how they got out. That's Azkaban!"
"Azkaban? What's the escaped prisoner's name?"
"I actually remember that name. They say he was once You-Know-Who's Death Eater, called Sirius! Sirius Black! A prisoner who should be in Azkaban!"