cycle

Brewing the veritaserum antidote was more difficult than I imagined. I made almost no progress in the first two days - the hourglass slowly announced the passage of time on the corner of the table, and almost every grain of sand leaked from the cauldron The liquid in it will undergo earth-shaking changes.Since I lit the fire with the wand, the crucible will automatically empty every 5 minutes. My best result so far is actually the first time I tried it. At that time, I completed two-thirds of the content on the parchment.

Dad doesn't seem to care about my progress at all, he only reminds me that the attempt is over for the day when the curfew is approaching, and he never pays attention to me for filling his office with white smoke, blowing up the third cauldron, wasting Half a box of lion stone powder and other behaviors to express opinions. If he hadn't occasionally coughed a few times because of the too pungent smell, I even doubted that he would have left long ago.

"What should I do if I can never do it within 5 minutes?" I said dejectedly in the charm class. The classroom was full of croaking frogs and crows, and everyone was busy practicing silent spells. Even if you don't close your earplugs to listen, you don't have to worry about someone eavesdropping on us.

"Are you kidding, is there any potion you can't make?" Tallus thrust forward his wand like a fencing sword, "Silently!"

He poked the crow that was protesting loudly in his hand, and the crow that was already struggling screamed louder and pecked him hard.

"It's a quick stab, not a quick piercing through their throats to shut them up." Hermione rolled up her sleeves and raised her wand at the fat frog in front of her, "Silently!"

The screaming frog suddenly lost its voice, and it opened its mouth wider in disbelief, but it couldn't make another syllable until it inflated itself into a bulging ball.

"There's a Quidditch proverb that a Seeker flying all over the field will never catch a Snitch—well, it just means that the more you rush things, the worse it will be." Harry told me, No solution, and we can think of other ways, if he makes up his mind to occupy your evening, we still have noon, right?"

"Then I can only catch up with my homework when I am in History of Magic." I replied gloomily, the confinement almost took up all my free time every night, and there are still several piles of papers in my schoolbag that I have only written a small part of. homework.But I have to admit that Harry hit the point, I've never been so frustrated with potion-related matters, and this frustration makes me very irritable.Of course, I have failed in many whimsical attempts, but this kind of continuous, stagnant and even worse failure is something I have never imagined, and even in my vision I should Three nights would do it—the truth is that on the third night I still only did half of the steps, and I even got four of them wrong.

"Let me take a look at your practice!" Professor Frivy's shrill voice suddenly appeared from behind us. He first looked at Hermione's hand that had been sunken depressed because he couldn't make a sound. The frog, then looked at us.Talus managed to silence the crow after refraining from fancy fencing; Ron stabbed the frog in front of him in a panic, and the frog was stabbed directly under the table; Harry squeezed the frog too tightly just now , although his frog didn't make any more noises, but Professor Frivy obviously thought it was because he suffocated the frog directly by pinching it.

"Alice!" Hermione nudged me with her elbow, and I was still thinking about the mistake of dispensing the medicine last night. Only then did I realize that Professor Frivy had turned to me, and quickly stabbed forward with her wand. The crow immediately fell silent.

During the break, Angelina informed the boys that the Quidditch team had started training. It sounded like McGonagall couldn't tolerate Umbridge's behavior and asked Dumbledore directly. The boys were very excited. The first game of the school year is only three weeks away.Peeves was scurrying around the classroom, blowing drops of ink on the heads of the students resting in the classroom, chasing whoever was hiding the most.I sat by the window and watched the pouring rain outside, and suddenly felt a small shadow fly past the window, I stood up suddenly, and a whole bottle of ink poured down from the top of my head, I heard Peeves laughed wantonly.

"Peeves!" Harry growled.

"Silly baby Potter is angry!" Peeves screamed happily as he rushed out of the classroom, aiming his bean gun at the students who were dodging in panic on the way.

"It doesn't matter, anyway, my new robe will probably be delivered tomorrow." After cleaning my head, I smelled the smell of old ink left on the robe, "Well, this smell is really bad."

"I thought you weren't going to change it." Hermione took out a handkerchief and wiped the ink stains that I hadn't cleaned off at all, "Speaking of which method you used to clean up those spider webs? They are basically It's gone."

"It fell off by itself." I said simply, not intending to tell her about Luna Lovegood's speeches about "Polsters", after all, I turned over almost all the authoritative records of Fantastic Beasts in the library. I couldn't find a single record about this kind of creature in the books. It seems that "Polsters" is just like the fire elf and the mob, it's a wild girl's fantasy.

"Get here first today." Another day of trying to get nowhere, but Dad moved ahead of time, and I looked up from the chaos to look into his calm, unwavering eyes.

"There is still an hour and a half." I begged feebly, "I still want to try—"

"Whether it's an hour and a half or a week, attempts with wrong ideas will not yield results." Dad waved his magic wand, and the smoke in the office disappeared immediately, and the small ball of light suspended around me softly illuminated him face, "Tomorrow, same time."

"Yes, Professor." Listlessly, I tidied up the materials scattered under my feet and the schoolbag stained with medicine.

Before I opened the office door and walked out, Dad suddenly said, "There is no Potions homework due this week, go to bed early today."

When I turned around, my father had already looked down at a piece of densely written parchment and ignored me. When I said good night to him softly, he only nodded to show that he heard.

The rain outside the window still didn't stop, and it even tended to get bigger and bigger. In the corridor, only a few couples could be seen sporadically making out in statues or shadowed corners while there was no curfew.Maybe it was just accidentally inhaling some slightly poisonous gas, or maybe it was the heavy rain. When I thought of Vivienne again, I felt dizzy and aching in my head, and the usual whispers of the portraits in the frames It doesn't sound very real, I really should have a good sleep.

A few junior students ran past me in a panic, as if something was chasing them behind.I looked up in bewilderment and saw Draco's face with a nasty smile, the prefect badge on his chest and the snake-shaped ring on his hand were shining in the flickering lights of the corridor, Pansy Parkinson exaggerated Smiling and walking side by side with him.

"It's two hours before the curfew!" I heard a junior girl crying to her companions, "Are they going to complain to Professor Umbridge? Our Gobstone Club has finally passed the review -"

I turned and headed for the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, leaving all the loud, irrelevant things behind me, and now I just want to know what the hell is wrong and why I can never seem to be able to move in five minutes. I finished a dose of Veritaserum antidote within a day—why did my father say so categorically that my train of thought was wrong?

I went back earlier than usual, and there were quite a few people gathered in the Gryffindor common room chatting and talking.Hermione appeared to be back in the dormitory, only Crookshanks nestled in her usual chair.I thought the boys were sitting together to catch up on their Potions homework, but when I got closer, their parchments were all blank.I don't want to be stared at by their hopeful eyes and can only reply "It's still as bad as yesterday", it seems that they are discussing something with serious expressions, maybe it has something to do with the Quidditch practice tonight.

Crookshanks trotted towards me, and it seemed a bit strenuous to hold him, but he snorted obediently in my arms, and I felt the vague pain in my head relieved a lot.It seemed to know that I was in a bad mood. It didn't run away until I returned to the dormitory, but stayed quietly by my side, watching me with round eyes.

"You are as good as your master." I nestled sleepily on the bed, and stretched out my hand to stroke its furry back.

Attempts with wrong ideas will have no results, and my father's words echoed in my ears again.I lay on the soft bed and fell into deep thought, and found that after a few days, I didn’t have a clear idea in my mind at all. The things in the crucible disappeared within 5 minutes, which made me very irritable, so I started to configure other magic things indiscriminately. Like medicine, I try to skip some seemingly unimportant parts-so the so-called wrong thinking is implying that I abandon the fluke mentality of taking shortcuts and return to rigorous procedures and processes?

"A Seeker flying all over the field will never catch a Snitch," I said to myself. "Maybe it's true."

"Neville's scar hurt again last night." I heard Harry whisper to Hermione during breakfast. Hermione's frown tightened, until she finally concluded, "He's got to talk to Professor Dumbledore."

However, the chair belonging to Dumbledore behind the staff desk has been as empty as Hagrid's chair for a long time, and we don't even know if the Headmaster is still at Hogwarts at this time.

It had been raining non-stop, and one had to strain one's ears to distinguish Professor Sprout's voice of scurvy from the patter of rain on the roof of the greenhouse.Fortunately, the Care of Fantastic Creatures class in the afternoon was moved from the outdoors to the empty classroom on the first floor. Just thinking about walking through the grounds in this weather was a terrible torture.

We were arranged to freely review the unicorns and sniffing content of last semester according to the paintings on the blackboard. Many people took this opportunity to gather and chat in twos and threes.Hermione carefully supplemented and revised the notes of last semester according to each hanging picture ("You actually have a notebook on protecting magical animals!" Ron showed a shocked expression), and found a seat to sit down after confirming that it was correct. , Said to me: "You are in a good mood today."

"Oh," I nodded as I was copying the configuration steps of the Veritaserum Antidote in my mind, and replied, "If I'm not wrong—of course this is just my guess, maybe I can make something tonight Come."

As I wrote before, my school days were full of exaggerated praises from my peers and elders for my talent for potions. Over time, I myself believed those praiseworthy words, recklessly and conceitedly despised the step-by-step steps in the textbooks, outdated Outdated skills, thinking that their intelligence should not be constrained by textbooks that should have been rewritten long ago.I have never even realized that this arrogance has invaded my bone marrow before, so that when I get a completely unfamiliar and complex potion configuration sheet that I have never touched, the first thing I think is not to follow it completely. The content of the content is reproduced again, but "there are too many things written on this, there must be a way to simplify it".

While shortcuts bring convenience, they also bring new risks.This truth became more and more profound after I really started to engage in the basic research of potions. In fact, my father reprimanded me more than once for skipping steps and looking for shortcuts when configuring potions. Acting in textbooks is the embodiment of dullness and clumsiness. "The premise of innovative research is to fully understand the achievements of the predecessors." I put this sentence on the title page when I was invited by the Ministry of Magic to preside over the revision of the fifth edition of "Advanced Potions". Late bloomers can face this ever-changing world with a humble and active heart.

The skies finally cleared up over the weekend.I also finally filled a small bottle of dark brown, metallic luster liquid from the crucible before the curfew bell rang on Friday night, and there was a thin layer of sand on the upper half of the inverted hourglass. I fell down from the ground, and I felt my hands tremble when I handed the flask to my father. I had never felt such a great sense of accomplishment.

"Barely." This is already a very high degree of approval in Dad's dictionary. I don't know if it is an illusion caused by the light ball. I think his expression has softened a lot, and there is even a very faint smile at the corner of his mouth. Passed the glass bottle to me again: "Reward."

"Is there enough pocket money for a new robe?" I heard my father ask me when I happily went back to pack my schoolbag, and he quickly added, "Mom asked me to ask you."

"Enough." I carefully put the glass bottle full of Veritaserum antidote into the inner layer of my schoolbag, "And I caught up with the discount at Madam Malkin's robe store."

I seldom talk about such trivial things to my father, and I think he should never care too much about it. I even think that my mother should have told him about my change of robe before he knew about it.

Days of torrential rain kept all the students bored in the castle, so even though the sunny day on Saturday was accompanied by bursts of biting cold wind, many people chose to come out to enjoy the rare sunshine.Days of confinement made my homework progress even worse than the three boys who canceled Quidditch training due to bad weather, but I still temporarily left my schoolbag in the Gryffindor lounge and asked Harry for a small bag Owl-nut then came to the lake.The heavy rain made the lakeside muddy, and the hem of the robe was splashed with muddy water after only a few steps. The couples who usually like to date here have gone to drier places, and the place suddenly became deserted.

I thought it would take me a while to find the little earth pit where Vivien was buried, since I had only placed a stone to mark it.But I unexpectedly found a house elf squatting there with an unknown number of hats on his head and several layers of sweaters of different styles, with a lot of weeds just pulled out from the damp soil in his hands.

"You... how are you?" I cautiously greeted its back.

The elf turned around, and I found that there were still several scarves wrapped around his neck, and the socks on his feet were bulging.Its big green eyes widened when it saw me, and I stared blankly at it. It looked like a house elf from Hogwarts, wearing all kinds of things Hermione wove—— Does it mean that Hermione's efforts are still effective?

"Miss Alice Snape!" It bowed deeply to me, its slender nose poking into the mud under its feet.

"Uh," I waved my hand at it, "don't salute me, I'm not your master—"

"Of course, of course, Dobby is a free elf, and no wizard is Dobby's master, but Dobby still pays respect to wizards!" said the house-elf enthusiastically to me in a high-pitched voice. Miss Liz Snape is as respected by Dobby as Mr Longbottom, Miss Granger, Mr Potter, Mr Wizzy, and Mr Bragg!"

It looked very excited, and said a long list of people's names in one breath, but I still don't know why it is here, I just vaguely feel that its voice and the name Dobby seem to have been heard somewhere.

"Uh, where have I met you?" I asked a little embarrassed.

The elf didn't seem to care at all, its big pointy ears were pricked up, and it answered me happily: "Dobby used to work at the Malfoy Manor! It doesn't matter if Miss Snape doesn't remember Dobby, you are the first The wizard who treats Dobby tenderly, so Dobby has always been firmly in his heart! Dobby really wants to repay the lady-cleaning the Gryffindor Tower and finding ways to help the lady clean the cobwebs from the robes is not enough! But Dobby is just a house elf... Dobby saw the drenched young lady and young master when he was cleaning the auditorium that day, so he secretly listened to the conversation between you and Miss Granger, and learned about the owl."

Its ears drooped because of sadness: "Dobby couldn't save Miss's owl, but he still wanted to do something for Miss, so Dobby helped tidy up here! It rained heavily a few days ago, and Dobby protected this place Very good, don't worry, miss!"

"Thank you..." I widened my eyes and looked at the neatly repaired mud pit behind the elf and the stone still standing in the pit. There was a stick figure of an owl drawn on the stone, "I don't know How should I put it, Malfoy Manor... many years ago—"

"House elves receive very little kindness, so we remember it very well!" Dobby nodded at me, "Dobby will always remember everyone who helped Dobby."

"Thank you." I extended my right hand to it. It hesitated for a moment, stuffed the hay into the sweater, and then shook hands with me after wiping its own hands. "Well, did the other elves get Hermione's clothes too?"

"They don't want to clean Gryffindor tower anymore." Dobby puffed out his chest. "They think it's an insult to hide clothes everywhere—Dobby cleans Gryffindor tower alone, Dobby I don't mind, because you can meet a lot of people you want to meet in Gryffindor Dobby! Dobby also wants to help you as much as possible!"

I smiled, and accompanied by Dobby, I scattered the bag of owl nuts in my pocket into the mud pit, and squatted there for a while.

"The wind by the lake is too strong." I suddenly heard Harry's voice behind me. I turned around and saw that he was still carrying a Firebolt. He should have just finished a Quidditch training, and his hair was messier than usual. , "I think your remaining homework should not allow you to go to the school hospital to waste time."

"Mr. Harry Potter!" The elf jumped up happily, "How are you doing recently!"

"Fine." Harry smiled, showing his white teeth. "It looks like you're wearing all the clothes Hermione made, she'll be very happy."

"Let me see Vivienne." I wanted to stand up, but my feet were numb from squatting for too long, and I almost fell into the mud puddle. Harry picked me up deftly.

"I know," said Harry gently. "I guessed it when you asked me for nuts."

He looked at the small mud puddle in silence for a while, his left hand that wasn't carrying the firebolt clenched his fist, and slowly released it to regain his composure.

"Dobby won't bother Mr. and Miss!" Dobby bid us farewell, "but if you need help, Dobby will do his best to help!"

"Okay." I smiled at it.

"Wait, Dobby, we do need some help right now. We need a place for about thirty people to, uh, do some practice or something." Although there was no one else but us, Harry lowered his voice , "Can't be found by anyone else - especially Professor Umbridge. Does such a place exist at Hogwarts?"

I thought it would say that it remembered this and would try to inquire about it. Unexpectedly, it pondered for a while, and then clapped its hands happily: "Dobby just knows a place - some elves mentioned it, we call it The 'Come and Go Room' or 'The Room of Requirement'!"