The carriages lined up and rolled forward, passing through the magnificent iron gates topped with winged boar pillars, and stopped at the stone steps of the castle's oak doors.
Pushing open the doors, they walked into the familiar entrance hall and followed the crowd into the Great Hall, which had been redecorated for the start of term.
Just as during their own Sorting ceremony, thousands of candles floated in the air, illuminating the hall.
Ethan separated from the other two and walked toward the Slytherin table to watch the Sorting ceremony from a spectator's perspective.
The professors were already seated at the high table. He looked up at the familiar faces, with only one being a stranger. Of course, he had seen photos many tis, but this was the first ti eting them in person.
However, there was an empty seat at the staff table. It belonged to Snape, who had not yet appeared.
Soon after everyone sat down, Professor McGonagall led the new students in from the entrance hall.
Just like last year, Professor McGonagall placed a stool before the staff table and set the patched hat upon it.
Once Professor McGonagall stepped back, the Great Hall fell silent. The Sorting Hat split open a wide seam and sang a new song, different from last year's.
When the song ended, the Sorting Hat went still. Applause and cheers erupted, and Ethan even heard loud catcalls from the twins.
The new students were called up one by one to sit on the four-legged stool and wear the Sorting Hat.
"Colin Creevey!"
A small, skinny, gray-haired boy stepped forward and put on the Sorting Hat.
"Gryffindor!" the Sorting Hat shouted.
The Gryffindor table erupted in enthusiastic applause. Colin took off the hat, placed it on the stool, and ran toward his house.
"Luna Lovegood!"
A girl with waist-length, straggly blonde hair walked out of the line.
Her eyes were slightly protruding, her complexion pale, her eyebrows very light, and she wore radish-shaped earrings.
She slowly walked to the stool, put on the hat, and sat down.
After about a minute, the Sorting Hat shouted, "Ravenclaw!"
This ti it was the Ravenclaws who cheered.
"Nancy Riddle!" A girl with black hair and black eyes walked out of the line.
*Riddle?* Ethan's eyes narrowed as he looked at the girl. Then he glanced toward Dumbledore at the staff table.
Sure enough, the old man's expression was completely different from when he'd watched the other students being sorted.
Through his half-moon spectacles, Ethan saw the gravity in his eyes. His gaze was locked on the girl.
This Nancy might have so connection to Voldemort, Ethan guessed inwardly.
"Slytherin!" Before even half a minute had passed, the Sorting Hat shouted.
Ethan watched Dumbledore's expression grow even more serious.
The Slytherins applauded, welcoming their new mber.
Just then, the doors to the Great Hall opened. Snape hurried to the staff table and whispered in Dumbledore's ear.
The two whispered briefly, and Dumbledore conjured a stool beside him, gesturing for Snape to sit.
"Ginny Weasley!"
"Gryffindor!" The Sorting Hat made its judgnt without the slightest hesitation.
The twins excitedly stood on their bench, welcoming their youngest sister into their ranks.
Soon, the Sorting ended. Professor McGonagall rolled up the parchnt, picked up the Sorting Hat, and left.
Dumbledore patted Snape, signaling for him to catch up with Professor McGonagall.
He himself stood up and delivered the welco speech.
Just like last year, it was very brief. After a few simple sentences, he sat down, and food began appearing on the plates.
While everyone was eating, he also left in a hurry, presumably to handle matters concerning Harry and Ron.
"Truly worthy of Gryffindor. I thought after last year's events those two might have changed sowhat, but I didn't expect them to still love 'adventuring' so much." Ethan shook his head. As he served himself food, he thought about the girl who had just been sorted into Slytherin.
*Didn't they say Voldemort's entire family had been reduced to only him? And he was quite old now. This girl couldn't be his daughter, right?* he thought, placing a pork chop onto his plate.
Just as everyone finished the main course and prepared for dessert, Dumbledore returned to the Great Hall with Snape.
The old man smiled as he picked up an egg custard tart and ate it with pleasure.
After the dessert had also been cleared away, Dumbledore stood up.
"Welco to the new school year. I have several matters to announce to you.
"First, as must be said every year, the Forbidden Forest is off-limits to students, whether first-years or returning students. It is very dangerous there.
"Next, a reminder from Mr. Filch the caretaker...
"Also...
"Finally, we welco this year's new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart!"
Blond-haired and wearing a turquoise robe with gold trim and a matching hat, Lockhart stood up. His blue eyes were slightly narrowed, his smile brilliant and radiant as he greeted everyone.
"Hello, everyone. I am Gilderoy Lockhart, a graduate of Ravenclaw House. I am deeply honored to return to the school to teach."
"I suppose there's not a student who doesn't know my na, right? That's right, I am Order of rlin, Third Class, winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award five tis, honorary mber of the Dark Force Defense League, and bestselling author."
"I hope that in the new year, you'll follow in studying Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Ah, so handso!" "Worthy of the wizard who won the Most Charming Smile Award five tis!" Several Slytherin girls gazed at him with hearts in their eyes.
Applause rang out. Most of the girls clapped until their hands were nearly red, while the boys offered only token applause to show their welco.
Lockhart winked at the four house tables, basking in the enthusiastic applause before sitting down.
Dumbledore stood up again, pressing his hands down to signal for quiet. "Alright, alright, I've said my piece. Before bed, let us sing the school song!"
Just like last year, the lyrics appeared in the air above the tables as ribbons, with scattered voices and lodies intertwining.
Once the difficult school song was finally finished, Dumbledore said at last, "Bedti! Everyone go rest!"
"Slytherin first years, follow !" The prefect's voice rang out from the Slytherin table.
"Let's go, ti to head back and rest," Ethan called to his roommates.
Goyle and Crabbe clutched several pies they'd grabbed from their plates and followed him and Draco toward the dungeons.
In the morning, as they ate breakfast, the Slytherin prefect handed out the class schedules for each year.
Ethan looked at the schedule in his hand. "The schedule isn't bad. Friday afternoon's a bit busy, but other than that, it's pretty balanced."
While he ate his fried egg, chaos erupted overhead as hundreds of owls flew in and circled the Great Hall.
An unfamiliar owl dropped a letter in his lap, which was sowhat unexpected.
Setting down his knife and fork, he picked up the letter and looked at it. Without opening it, he placed it in his pocket.
A trendous roar ca from the Gryffindor table, and everyone turned to look.
"Stealing the car... receiving the letter... nearly dying... inquiry... bring them back!"
It was a furious female voice. Fortunately, the Slytherin table was quite far from Gryffindor, so Ethan's ears were spared.
He rubbed his ears, still ringing from the deafening sound, knowing this was Mrs. Weasley's Howler about Ron and Harry stealing the car.
"Truly stupid Gryffindors," Draco said smugly. "Let's see what Weasley will do now. As an official in the Ministry's Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, he's the one illegally modifying Muggle artifacts.
"This ti, facing an inquiry, he might even lose his job.
"It's a pity those two weren't expelled."
The Malfoy and Weasley families had never gotten along, especially this year with the Ministry conducting raids on dark artifacts belonging to pure-blood families, and Arthur leading the charge against the Malfoys.
Ethan made no comnt on the enmity between the two families, but regarding the two of them stealing a car to fly to Hogwarts, he had only one word for it: reckless.
After the Howler finished, Ethan watched Professor McGonagall enter and distribute schedules to the Gryffindors.
After breakfast, Hermione waited for Ethan in the Entrance Hall, made a copy of her schedule, and they traded.
Hermione compared their schedules with so regret.
"It's a pity. Most of our classes are at different tis. Except for Friday morning when we're both free, we can only et in the library at night."
Ethan was actually quite happy about this, since he'd learned a lot of dark magic that Hermione shouldn't know about.
"Then I'll see you tonight. We can do our howork together."
The two separated in the Entrance Hall. Hermione went to Herbology, while Ethan returned to the dormitory to get his textbooks before heading to Charms class.
During lunch, Ethan took out two bottles of dragon blood and half a bottle of Elixir of Life, then knocked on Snape's office door.
"Professor, I've co to take Little Black back."
Before last term ended, he'd been worried that the portable fla bottle in his dormitory wouldn't last until he returned.
So he'd left his first mutated salamander in Snape's care temporarily.
Actually, after returning to the dormitory last night, he'd planned to co find Snape, but after knocking several tis without an answer, he'd had to wait until lunch to see if his little pet was still alive.
Snape smirked. "Are you that worried I'd kill it for its blood and turn it into potion ingredients?"
"No, no, I just haven't seen it for two months and missed it."
Ethan answered carefully, afraid this professor would make trouble for him.
"What is that in your hand?" Snape did not imdiately give him an update on Little Black's condition. His sharp eyes had already spotted the three potion bottles in Ethan's hand.
"I brought them from France. One bottle of Welsh Green dragon blood, one bottle of Swedish Short-Snout dragon blood, and half a bottle of Elixir of Life."
Ethan gently placed the two less precious bottles of dragon blood on the table, holding the half bottle in his hand as he walked up to Snape and shook it.
Snape's eyes locked onto the half bottle, his fingers intertwining. "Where did you get this? Didn't Dumbledore say the Sorcerer's Stone had been destroyed? How can there still be Elixir of Life in the world?"
"I visited Nicolas Flal in France over the vacation. He gave it to . There isn't much."
He placed the potion on the table before Snape.
"I used Scarpin's Revelaspell and could only detect morning dew, moonstone, and unicorn blood inside, plus one unidentifiable material that should be the Sorcerer's Stone, but I couldn't analyze the specific formula or thod of incorporation."
Ethan looked at him, hoping to get so other information.
"You do not need to know the specific formula either. After all, the only Sorcerer's Stone has already been destroyed." Snape grabbed the potion and carefully examined the color of the liquid inside.
"It is indeed the real Elixir of Life," Snape said with satisfaction after similarly casting a Scarpin's Revelaspell.
"Has the Professor seen it before?"
Now it was Ethan's turn to be surprised. He had originally thought the Elixir would be quite rare, but from Snape's words, it seed he had seen it before.
Snape sneered. "Are you looking down on the connections of an internationally renowned Potions Master?"
"Then do you have the potion formula? Although there is no Sorcerer's Stone now, what if we could use other similar things to concoct a potion with similar effects? Wouldn't that be good?"
"Don't indulge in wishful thinking. The most crucial elent of this potion is the Sorcerer's Stone. Without it, the remaining ingredients would have no life-extending effects regardless of what other potions they were combined with."
Despite his words, Snape picked up a quill, took a piece of parchnt from the table, and wrote down a potion formula.
The parchnt floated over to Ethan and landed in his palm.
Boil five hundred milliliters of morning dew, add ten milliliters of unicorn blood, simr over low heat for one minute, add ten grams of moonstone powder, tap the potion with your wand three tis, then stir clockwise three tis until the moonstone dissolves.
After removing it from the heat, soak the Sorcerer's Stone in the mixture for one day to complete the Elixir of Life.
"Is it that simple?" Ethan looked at the simple steps, comparable to the Boil Cure Potion taught to first-years, in disbelief.
"That simple. Aside from unicorn blood, which is rare, the other ingredients are common, and the brewing steps are extrely straightforward. So your earlier proposal doesn't hold up."
Snape nodded, placed the potion in his drawer, and set it alongside another half bottle of the identical potion.
Ethan was still sowhat surprised that the formula was so simple. "Then, Professor, what is the working principle of the Elixir of Life? Is it simply because of the Sorcerer's Stone's involvent that it can extend life?"
------------------------------------------
Chapters on Patreon progress: Currently at;
1. Harry Potter: Satan? Nah, Just My Family Crest = CHAPTER 262
2.Marvel: Cosmic Forger of Infinity = CHAPTER 183
3.Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World = CHAPTER 264
4.Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black = CHAPTER 110
support on Patreon for instant access to the 120 advance chapters: patreon/redofic
User Comments
0 comments from readers