The next day.
Hogwarts' gloomy, oppressive underground classroom.
This was the Potions classroom.
Cold, rigid stone walls seeped a chill that seemed to penetrate straight to the bone. The air was a nauseating mix of pungent herbs, the rotten stench of animal entrails, and the sharp tang of metal being corroded by acidic substances.
Rows of glass jars lined the walls, each containing pale, twisted specimens soaking in murky liquids. In the eerie firelight flickering beneath the cauldrons, they cast wavering ghostly shadows, silently watching this group of newly arrived first-years.
Fear was the one emotion they all shared.
The very first lesson was a joint Potions class for Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.
Bang!
The classroom door was violently slammed open. The heavy wooden door crashed into the stone wall with a dull, thunderous sound.
Severus Snape—like a massive bat awakening from the darkness—swept in, wrapped in billowing black robes and the icy wind of the dungeon depths.
His footsteps made no sound as he glided onto the platform, his black robes curling behind him in an ominous arc.
"There will be no foolish wand-waving here,"
he said without even looking at the students. His greasy, icy voice—deliberately lowered into a hissing whisper—slid precisely into everyone's ears.
"Nor any silly incantations. As such, I do not expect many of you to truly understand this subtle art… this exacting science…"
The entire class fell deathly silent.
Even breathing became something that required extreme caution.
Snape finally lifted his gaze from the lectern.
Those were pitch-black eyes, bottomless and unfathomable. His stare swept through the classroom like a venomous snake's tongue—cold, sticky, and lethally scrutinizing.
His gaze roamed the room, then locked onto Harry Potter without the slightest deviation.
"Potter!"
He deliberately dragged out the name, every syllable dripping with undisguised malice.
"Our world-famous… savior."
Harry stood up in confusion, his body stiff with tension.
"Tell me," Snape said,
"what do you get if you add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Harry's lips parted slightly, his eyes completely blank.
He had previewed the material the night before—but not this.
Under the crushing pressure, his mind shut down entirely. He could only stand there helplessly, enduring the stares coming from all directions.
At that moment—
A hand shot up with a whoosh.
Straight as a spear.
Fingers taut, elbow locked like a wooden rod, as if using her entire body's strength to pierce the ceiling.
Hermione Granger.
She had clearly prepared more thoroughly than anyone else. She practically glowed, desperate to prove her worth in front of the new professor.
Snape's eyes swept over her raised hand.
His lips curled in open disgust, as if he had seen a maggot writhing on a clean plate.
He ignored her.
And yet he also did not continue tormenting Harry, as if bullying someone with no ability to fight back had instantly bored him.
His gaze shifted to the Ravenclaw table.
Passing over faces tight with nerves or fear, it finally settled on one particular figure.
The only student who had shown no emotional reaction whatsoever since Snape entered.
"Mr. Prince."
Eric stood up.
Smoothly. Cleanly. Without a single unnecessary movement.
The class's attention instantly snapped away from Harry, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, all converging on Eric.
"Tell me," Snape asked in his oppressive, hissing tone,
"what do you get when you combine powdered asphodel root with an infusion of wormwood?"
"Draught of Living Death, Professor," Eric replied calmly.
His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a peculiar penetrative quality, clearly reaching every corner of the dungeon and overpowering the bubbling glug-glug of the cauldrons.
Snape's eyebrow twitched—almost imperceptibly.
He had anticipated many kinds of answers: hesitant, uncertain, even wrong.
But he had not expected one so crisp and decisive.
"Then," Snape continued,
"where would you find a bezoar?"
"In the stomach of a cow, Professor," Eric answered evenly.
"It is an excellent antidote to most common poisons."
"And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
"They are the same plant, Professor," Eric replied.
"They simply have different names under different naming systems."
Eric answered fluently, without pause.
The Potion Mastery he had just acquired the night before meant that these first-year fundamentals were no longer rote facts in his mind.
They were alive.
A complete system of knowledge, with clear structure and logic.
Answering such questions was as effortless as breathing—no different from stating an objective fact.
Hermione's arm, still raised high, began to tremble uncontrollably as Eric's answers continued, one precise response after another.
Finally, like a puppet with its strings cut, it slowly—and painfully awkwardly—lowered.
Snape's expression grew extremely complex.
There was surprise.
There was scrutiny.
And even a trace of something he himself did not realize—
Offense.
He had intended to give this boy with the "Prince" surname a warning, to make him understand that talent meant nothing in the face of real authority.
Instead, the boy had truly displayed…
The talent of a Prince.
A talent that was both painfully familiar and deeply detested.
"Very good."
Snape practically ground the words out between his teeth.
He was just about to dismiss Eric with a contemptuous gesture and redirect his fury at Gryffindor's ignorance—
When Eric spoke again.
"However, Professor."
"What?"
Snape's gaze instantly turned dangerous.
The temperature in the dungeon seemed to drop several degrees.
"Regarding monkshood and wolfsbane," Eric raised his eyes and met Snape's stare—one that could make even adult wizards tremble—and spoke in a tone colder and more precise than Snape's own, a purely academic cadence.
"In the fifth edition of Magical Drafts and Potions, page seventy-eight, the description of their magical properties contains a minor error."
"..."
The dungeon fell into absolute silence.
Even the bubbling of the cauldrons seemed to have been strangled by that earth-shattering statement.
Hermione Granger's face turned deathly pale.
The standard answers she had prepared all night—the knowledge she took such pride in, that she could recite backwards—looked like childish doodles when placed beside Eric's researcher-level depth of analysis.
He hadn't just answered the questions.
He had even—
In front of everyone—
Pointed out an error in an authoritative textbook cited by the Potions professor himself!
What arrogance.
And yet… what confidence!
Snape stared at Eric, those obsidian eyes churning with a storm no one could comprehend.
A few seconds passed.
Those seconds felt like an entire century.
Then, for the first time ever, the corners of Snape's perpetually cruel mouth lifted—just barely.
It was not a smile.
It was the twisted expression of a predator who had found prey interesting enough—an unsettling blend of appreciation and cruelty.
"Sit down,"
he hissed.
Then he whirled toward Harry and Hermione.
"Gryffindor, for the ignorance of some—and the hyperactivity of others—"
"Five points deducted."
Hermione's body swayed violently, as if struck squarely in the chest by an invisible sledgehammer.
Once again, she had been completely crushed by Eric Prince.
The last time was at the Sorting Ceremony, when her proud background had been rendered laughable next to his pure-blood surname.
This time, it was in the classroom she felt most confident in—where she had prepared the most.
The knowledge she had sacrificed sleep for was shattered by a depth she could not even begin to comprehend.
Intense jealousy.
Crushing frustration.
And a gnawing self-doubt over how fragile the results of her desperate efforts truly were.
These tangled emotions collided violently in her heart, nearly devouring her rationality.
At that moment—
A cold, mechanical system notification rang out in Eric's mind.
[System Alert: A-rank destiny deviation detected. Target: Hermione Granger.]
[Emotional anchor: The top student's jealousy and frustration.]
[Congratulations, Host. A-rank causality investment completed. Gained Causality Points ×50.]