"Is this your back garden?"
"It's also the source that provides me with a large amount of magical materials. Otherwise, where did you think the materials I use for brewing potions here usually come from?"
Lily looked around curiously at everything; the variety of plants here was far beyond her imagination!
The thing that attracted her gaze the most was naturally a round, scorching mini-sun hanging at the very top of the botanical garden.
It was generously sharing its warmth with the surroundings at all times, bringing precious light to all the flowers, grass, and trees. This was also the foundation for the long-term maintenance of the entire botanical garden.
And bathed in this sunlight, almost all common magical plants on the market were available!
Several pots of Bubotubers slept quietly in the farthest corner.
Their green leaves remained moist, swaying gently and comfortably in mid-air, obviously well taken care of by Snape on a daily basis.
They were deeply rooted in the soil to absorb nutrients. As long as no one irritated them with annoying noises and rude actions, these Bubotubers would steadily provide Snape with their pale green pus and newly sprouted buds.
These two materials could be used in many potion recipes.
Not precious, but indispensable!
In the most central area, some Grimace Trees and Twilight Rain Grass were planted. These little guys needed more intense light to survive.
At the same time, they also possessed a certain degree of danger. However, Mr. Ferrin, who gave the seeds and saplings to Snape, was obviously confident in this child who had worked in his shop for several months and didn't think this would cause any trouble for Snape.
And that was exactly the case.
The Grimace Tree didn't have a single leaf; its bare branches were sharp and shriveled.
Like a desperate person struggling to reach out their palm towards the sky in the final moments of life.
Only on its wrinkled trunk could one vaguely see a face formed by wrinkles, eyes closed in sleep, carrying a weakness and meanness peculiar to the elderly.
When Snape's footsteps disturbed them—
The grimace widened its eyes as if awakened from a dream, clearly showing anger, and opened its mouth to speak!
"Who is the most faithful in fairy tales?"
Without even looking, Snape spoke in a low voice.
His words interrupted the grimace's anger, and before it could make more noise, Snape continued speaking on his own.
"It's the mermaid, because she can't split her legs."
Not far away, Lily, pricking up her ears, shivered.
What a cold joke...
However, the grimace was obviously satisfied with this answer. It closed its eyes again, and the branches that had started to shake in an attempt to drive Snape away quieted down once more, motionless.
"A meat bun went out for a drink. It drank and drank until it threw up, so the next day it found it had turned into a mantou (steamed bun)."
"A cake got lost in the forest. Guess who encouraged it to walk out?"
"It was a pig, because of chocolate cake (sounds like 'pig encouraged cake' in Chinese)."
Chattering on with one cold joke after another.
Snape's movements were fast and steady. Holding a silver knife, he scraped some bark off the satisfied Grimace Tree and carefully collected it in a glass bottle for preservation.
He didn't spare the soil near their roots either; this was the best material for brewing insect repellent!
Only when he retreated to a safe area did the endless stream of cold jokes come to a temporary halt.
When Snape looked back—
What came into view was a shivering Lily, arms tightly wrapped around herself, looking at him with a complex gaze.
"What's wrong with you?"
"...Nothing, just a bit cold."
"You'll get used to it. Some plants always have this or that quirk. I was the first to discover this secret. Otherwise, if you saw them elsewhere, it would be warriors charging up with Shield Charms to pick them."
Chatting while walking.
Snape squatted down to straighten a pot of Rosmarinus, incidentally sprinkling some insect-repelling powder.
He also directed Lily to run here and there, creating suitable growth environments for the group of magical plants with their respective requirements. In a short while, the two were sweating profusely from their busy work.
"Aguamenti."
Gently flicking his wand.
Mist-like water droplets sprayed out instantly, ensuring that every purple Twilight Rain Grass that needed irrigation was taken care of without touching the venom on their surfaces.
Due to the size of the botanical garden, the quantity of magical plants planted here was not large.
However, the variety could be said to be complete.
Except for a small number of plants with extremely harsh growth conditions, almost all common magical plants on the market could be found here!
This saved Snape a lot of costs in his usual potion brewing, and incidentally, he could experiment with the effect of the "Hybridism" trait gained when Herbology rose to LV5.
Although there were no successful cases yet, with the extension of cultivation time and further improvement of his Herbology skill, success was only a matter of time.
After dealing with the chores in the botanical garden, Snape took Lily to the room in the Room of Requirement specifically used for brewing potions.
The layout here had changed a lot since the beginning.
The most conspicuous thing was naturally the wooden shelf more than two meters high and over ten meters long, filled with jars and bottles of materials, all weird things needed for refining potions.
There were also quite a few finished potions placed on the other side of the wooden shelf.
Only less than one-tenth of that side was filled, but there were already a staggering number of dozens of bottles, enough to show the painstaking effort and energy Snape had spent on potions!
He carefully ground the bark of the Grimace Tree collected today into powder, then put it into a small 25ml glass bottle. Along with that small pinch of soil, he added labels and placed them on the wooden shelf, adding a little more foundation to Snape's increasingly rich material collection.
Lily obviously had her own insights into potions as well.
While communicating, the two brewed their respective potions. Under the distracted operation of doing two things at once, surprisingly, no mistakes or omissions occurred.
This was a silent and tacit competition in their daily lives.
If anyone got distracted midway and caused the potion brewing to fail, they would encounter ruthless ridicule from the other party in the next moment!
But just as Lily had never beaten Snape in their daily competitions, the latter seemed never to give Lily a chance to have something on him in this contest either.
An afternoon passed in a flash.
Before leaving the Room of Requirement, Snape gave Lily a new batch of Concentration Potion. The last batch had been used up; this little thing was quite helpful when reading books.
The latest original potions were not in Snape's plan recently. Currently, most of his energy was focused on developing the minor hex.
Enjoying dinner.
After preaching the Muggle Threat Theory to the fanatical-eyed Mulciber and Leo as usual before bed—
Snape took a piece of citrus honey candy from the candy bag and stuffed it into his mouth. As the sweet taste spread in his mouth, he quietly flipped through the 64th book borrowed from the library in his hand, a book titled The Art of Spellcasting Gestures.
Campus life was peaceful and without waves, and Snape couldn't be more satisfied with this.
However, just as accidents happen when you least expect them—
The next day, a conflict between students broke out in Hogwarts once again
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