Chapter 101: Snape's Carefully Prepared Detention

After half an hour of back-and-forth, the three finally reached an agreement.

Fred and George gave Silven a price he couldn't refuse—any lower and it would basically be free labor—but they had conditions too.

Namely, all the goods Silven sold at Hogwarts from then on, except for wands, were to be exclusively handled by Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, until the two of them graduated and left the school.

Silven understood their thinking perfectly. At this stage, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes could only be considered newly established; they had tried making a few little gadgets, and only a handful of Gryffindors were willing to buy them.

Silven was their first big client. Between earning some startup capital and making a name for themselves, the two decisively chose the latter.

Although startup capital was important too, they were even more hoping that, through this batch of wand stickers, the name Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes would quickly appear in the common rooms of the other three houses.

Add to that the follow-up collaborations, and the benefits outweighed just charging a fee for the help.

Still, Silven agreed without much thought—after all, that was precisely why he had come to find the Weasley brothers in the first place. It was a case of the two sides clicking at once.

But upon hearing the price Silven had set for the stickers, Fred and George were stunned.

"How much?"

"Two Galleons?"

Fred pointed at the gold Lockhart sticker on top, thinking he had misheard. He could guess the thing wouldn't be cheap, but he hadn't expected it to be this expensive.

Could a sticker at two Galleons a piece really sell?

"Ah, that one's just for show, don't mind it." Silven waved his hand.

"What about the silver Dumbledore sticker?" George asked.

"Five Sickles," Silven said. "The Head of House is two Sickles."

At that, the two of them collectively let out a breath of relief.

That price was far more reasonable—about the same as in the wand shop. Otherwise they really couldn't guarantee they'd be able to sell the things.

"Leave it to us," Fred said confidently.

George raised an eyebrow too. "You just need to have a bag big enough ready, and wait to fill it with silver Sickles!"

Both of them were confident, and Silven was confident in them too.

Because they had just reached the agreement, when Silven took out all the stickers he had prepared, some sharp-eyed people noticed what was going on.

So the Professor McGonagall stickers sold six on the spot, and then they called over even more people.

Two Sickles wasn't particularly cheap, but it was the start of term, Halloween hadn't even arrived yet, and everyone's pockets were still flush with pocket money—they could still afford it.

"I'm having second thoughts," Fred said, surrounded by the crowd, feeling a pang of heartache.

"Me too," said George.

That evening, they sold a total of sixty-five Professor McGonagall stickers, six Dumbledore ones, and one of Professor Sprout.

All in all, 162 silver Sickles.

And that was just one evening's haul from Gryffindor house. If it were expanded to all four houses… the Weasley brothers' eyes were already nearly taking the shape of silver Sickles.

Besides, they both knew perfectly well that the developing potion on these stickers only lasted for a certain period; afterward the figure on top wouldn't move at all, and people would have to buy new ones—another windfall.

Honestly, the two of them were getting a little envious.

Early the next morning, Silven had just stepped into the common room when he saw Fred, red-eyed, staring fixedly at him.

"What do you want?" Silven instinctively took a step back.

"Nothing, nothing." Fred immediately switched to a different face, saying casually, "I just wanted to ask—is there anything special about your stickers?"

"Of course," Silven said. "I used a special pine-resin glue that doesn't affect the wand's normal use at all."

Wands… Fred sobered up in an instant.

Right—how could he have forgotten about wands? Anything that stuck to a wand—magical tape, portrait paint, that sort of thing—would affect it to some degree, making the wand less smooth to use than before.

But the stickers Silven provided had no such flaw; using them had absolutely no effect.

Fine, no point thinking about it—they couldn't pull this off. Getting up this early had been for nothing.

So, under Silven's puzzled gaze, Fred didn't say another word and simply turned and walked away.

"Weird," Silven said, not minding it. He prepared to head to the Great Hall for breakfast first, then to the library to return the books he'd borrowed the day before.

But just as he opened the passage door to the common room, the leg he'd just stepped out with pulled itself back in on its own.

"Harry? Ron?"

Silven looked at the two people lying in the corridor by the door and couldn't help asking, "Did you… sleep out here all night?"

"Not all night—they only got here ten minutes ago!" came the Fat Lady's voice from the side. "And they didn't even give the password, just came and lay down on the floor straight away.

"I'll tell you two, the school doesn't allow sleeping in the corridors, but if you won't give the password I can't let you in either."

"It's because you changed the password," Harry said, his voice weak to the extreme.

Silven noticed that he and Ron had almost no color in their faces; it seemed that just climbing back up to the eighth floor had already drained every last bit of their strength.

And the Fat Lady had indeed changed the password that morning; they had been in Snape's office, so naturally they didn't know.

"Never mind, come in first and we'll talk." Silven asked, "Do you need a hand?"

"Better not," Harry said. He and Ron forced themselves to stand and walked unsteadily into the common room.

"Do you two want something to eat?" Silven pointed at the biscuits on the table beside them.

Those were what the Weasley brothers had brought up from the kitchen last night; there were still plenty left.

Logically speaking, with Harry and Ron as weak as they were, they ought to eat something. But when they saw the biscuits, they simultaneously covered their mouths.

"Urgh…"

In an instant, their faces went even paler.

In the end Silven found half a bottle of pumpkin juice, and only then did they manage to drink a little.

"What on earth did you go through in Snape's office?" Silven sat down in the armchair beside them and couldn't help asking.

"You'd never guess…" Ron said, gripping the pumpkin juice bottle tightly, his face written all over with utter despair.

"He made me squeeze leech juice. By hand… an entire big bucket… urgh!"

Before he could finish speaking, he spat back out the bit of pumpkin soda he'd just drunk.

"Um… this…" Silven's mouth twitched. "Snape really has it rough — managing to get two whole buckets of leeches in such a short time."

"No, just one bucket." Harry's eyes were hollow, his pale lips trembling slightly. "He made me deal with… the slime from Flobberworms… by hand."

"…"

Silven silently stood up and moved to an armchair farther away from them.

Although he knew it was rude to think this way, Silven was genuinely relieved he hadn't touched them earlier.

"Flobberworms, leeches, slugs — Snape did it on purpose."

"He of course… did it on purpose…" Ron said in broken fragments. He had thrown up who knows how many times tonight; by now he didn't even have the strength to curse.

"I really envy Hermione… her detention is polishing silverware…"

Silven got them some fresh water.

"Don't say it like that — you can try to look on the bright side." Silven tried to comfort them.

"Like what?" Harry stared blankly at Silven, his voice drifting.

"Like…" Silven thought hard for a moment. "Oh, for example, Snape didn't make you collect rat spleens or spider eyes. Doesn't that make you feel a lot better?"

"I'd rather just drop out of school!" Ron said flatly, no joke about it — he really would drop out.

Harry hesitated, his inner self falling into a fierce struggle, as if some invisible pointer kept swinging back and forth between his uncle and aunt and rats and spiders.

But whether it was just psychological or not, after hearing Silven's words, they really did feel much better, sitting there holding their cups, sipping fresh water in small mouthfuls.

"I'll go to the Great Hall and get you something to eat."

"Thanks, but I really can't eat." Harry shook his head repeatedly.

He had been throwing up all night; he felt as though his stomach was being gripped hard into a ball by some invisible giant hand, but even so, he truly didn't want to eat anything.

Ron was the same — rather than eat something and then throw it back up, they'd rather stay hungry.

Soon, more people came into the common room. Like Silven, they first asked Harry and Ron with concern about last night's experience, and upon learning the truth, silently moved to a spot far enough away from them.

It wasn't that they were cold-hearted — it had nothing to do with that; it was purely an instinctive reaction.

Jin Ni tried several times to approach and failed; when she looked at Harry again, a hint of struggle had crept into her eyes. Because at one moment, Harry's image in her eyes suddenly turned into a giant Flobberworm wearing a school robe.

At this moment, the young witch was steeling her resolve, struggling to maintain Harry's original image.

(End of chapter)