In the middle of the night, Ethan Jones lying in bed suddenly woke up. He thought of why he failed.
Ignoring what time it was and whether his roommates would be woken up, he quickly got up, set up the cauldron in the corner of the dormitory, and began brewing the potion.
The not-so-bright flame flickered, casting shadows on his face.
The previous steps went smoothly, and Ethan Jones was relaxed. When it was time to put in the horned slugs stained with rat spleen juice, his heart suddenly lifted, thumping.
"Success or failure depends on this!" He gritted his teeth and threw the chopped horned slugs into the pot.
Stirring a few times, simulating a normal reaction to discovering impurities.
Then, he took out his wand, pointed it at the cauldron, and chanted the spell softly.
At this step, he stared at the cauldron in front of him with full concentration, watching the components of the rat spleen juice that had mixed in and started to dissolve into the potion precipitate out bit by bit.
"Stop!" Seeing the impurities precipitated almost completely, he quickly stopped casting the spell and used Specialis Revelio to analyze the composition of the cauldron.
Confirming and separating bit by bit like this, he finally confirmed that all impurities were separated and poured into a small test tube.
Following the normal steps, after the potion turned green, he took the cauldron down, added porcupine quills, and continued simmering. Finally, a pot of green Cure for Boils was successfully brewed.
"Damn, finally succeeded!" Looking at the green potion, Ethan Jones didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The reason for the first four failures was actually because he overdid it. Afraid the impurities weren't removed cleanly enough, in the final finishing stage, he also separated part of the effective ingredients as impurities.
"Too much is as bad as too little. Effective ingredients were stripped, and the potion ratio was inaccurate. No wonder it failed!"
He reflected on his mistake for a while, ladled out the potion, extinguished the flame, lay back on the bed, and went back to sleep.
What he didn't notice was that Draco was woken up and secretly watched him from his curtains for a long time.
Until he went to bed, Draco lay down quietly, but in his mind, he kept thinking about Ethan Jones's operation of separating potion impurities just now, and some jealousy welled up in his heart.
"My talent in potions is not bad either, and obviously my relationship with Snape should be closer. Why can he become the professor's apprentice?! I'm not convinced!" He tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep no matter what.
The next day, when Ethan Jones got up to go to Hagrid's hut for spell practice, Draco also got up and knocked on the door of Snape's office.
Snape, who opened the door, was still expressionless. He didn't show more smiles because he was the son of an old friend.
"What are you doing here, Draco?" Snape said in his usual low voice.
Although he thought well last night, when really facing Snape at this time, Draco was somewhat nervous.
He swallowed his saliva before stammering out his purpose: "Professor, I, I also want to learn potion knowledge from you."
Snape stared into his eyes with his pitch-black eyes. After looking for a while, he said slowly: "Oh, really?"
"Then let me ask you, what potions can be brewed with pickled frogs? What potions can frog brains be used in?" Snape asked the exact same questions he asked Ethan Jones back then.
Draco stammered for a long time but couldn't answer any of them.
Snape's sneer hung on his face. Because he was the son of an old friend, he didn't want to say some words so obviously. He just looked at him with a sneer, hoping he would retreat in the face of difficulties.
But Draco, filled with jealousy, didn't think it was his fault. He believed that even Ethan Jones definitely didn't know this knowledge before studying with Snape.
So, blinded by jealousy, he questioned loudly: "Professor, did Ethan know the answers when you asked these questions?! This is not within the scope of our first-year study at all!"
Snape criticized unceremoniously: "Is that so, Draco? I'm very disappointed in you. Your father Lucius is such a shrewd person. I didn't expect you to be so stupid."
"Let me tell you, these questions were what I asked Ethan on the first day he came to study with me.
His answers weren't perfect at the time either, but he could tell me some answers written in the advanced potions textbook.
So, Draco, before you found me and said you wanted to learn potions with me, did you make any preparations?
You know in your heart whether you really like potion brewing."
Snape's words pierced Draco's heart like sharp needles.
His face was pale, and he was still unconvinced in his heart.
Looking up, he looked into Snape's eyes with his gray eyes, hoping he would speak and say that it was all a joke just now, all fake.
But this was just his fantasy. The cold reality was that Snape ignored his gaze and didn't chase him away, just letting him stand there while he busied himself.
Despondent, Draco staggered out of Snape's office, leaned his back against the wall, slid down weakly, covered his face with his hands, and tears couldn't stop flowing out.
"Wuwuwu." Soft sobbing sounded in the corridor.
"Hehehe, look, a first-year brat crying here!" With a poof, a little dwarf suddenly popped out of the air.
Draco was in no mood to care about Peeves at this time, continuing to sob softly.
"Bang!" An apple hit Draco on the head.
Draco, with slightly red and bloodshot eyes, raised his head and glared at Peeves with tear-stained eyes.
"The brat is angry! So fun!"
Responding to Draco were more apples.
"I'm going to tell the Bloody Baron!" Draco was in pain and threatened.
"Go tell him! Nyeh nyeh nyeh." Sticking his tongue out at him, Peeves disappeared into the air again.
Draco touched his head with several bumps, looked resentfully in the direction of Snape's office, wiped the tear stains off his face, and walked towards the common room.
At noon, Ethan Jones, who finished practicing spells, agreed with Hermione to skip the afternoon library self-study, planning to return to the dormitory to continue brewing potions.
When he came back, he found something wrong with Draco.
Ethan Jones looked at the red blood streaks in his eyes that hadn't completely dissipated: "What's wrong? You cried? Someone bullied you?"
"No, blocked by Peeves in the corridor." His voice was somewhat low, concealing the jealousy in his heart.
"Just shout Bloody Baron when you see Peeves; he's most afraid of the Baron." Ethan Jones himself wasn't afraid of Peeves. For some reason, this prank spirit in the castle turned and ran whenever he saw him.
So except for the beginning of school when it played a prank on Hermione, Ethan Jones basically hadn't confronted Peeves head-on.
"Mm."
Ethan Jones gave Draco a strange look, feeling he was a bit weird today, but didn't take it to heart. He was anxious to continue trying Snape's Separation Charm and had no mind to care about Draco's thoughts.