Chapter 431: Shifted Mindset

The dungeon was as familiar as ever.

The storage cabinets were filled with materials organized by Wizard Sean.

To be fair, the underground spaces of Hogwarts—the dungeons—were vast. In the original story, Harry and Ron spent a full half-hour lost before encountering Malfoy while trying to sneak into the Slytherin common room.

Here, besides the Slytherin common room, there were also Snape’s three essential domains.

The Potions classroom, the Fifth Underground Classroom, and his office.

The Potions classroom was where young witches and wizards attended lessons, while the Fifth Underground Classroom was one of the rarely used Potions rooms maintained by Mr. Filch.

From this, Wizard Sean again realized that Hogwarts had once housed many students, otherwise there would not have been multiple identical classrooms.

As for Professor Snape’s office, it was the place Wizard Sean visited most often. There, he learned nearly every type of potion and all manner of rare potion ingredients.

These potion ingredients had long been his responsibility to organize and store, even the task of transporting them from the greenhouses fell to him.

If Hermione still planned to steal from Professor Snape’s office, Wizard Sean would be the first to notice.

Now back in the dungeon, Wizard Sean felt as at home as ever.

He swiftly retrieved the materials in one minute and began preparing today’s potion—Polyjuice Potion.

“Look into my eyes. Have you forgotten to tell me something?”

Snape abruptly asked.

“You know Lockhart was arrested?”

Wizard Sean sounded slightly curious.

“Foolish… when?”

Professor Snape’s expression remained unreadable, his hooked nose sharply outlined in the dungeon’s dim light.

“Three days ago. Three days and five hours.”

Wizard Sean added.

“You—what did you do again?”

Snape’s lips had barely lifted in a smirk before they dropped, his gaze sharpening as he fixed it on Wizard Sean.

“It wasn’t me, Professor. His lies were exposed.”

Wizard Sean spoke plainly.

“Hmph—”

Snape sneered.

If anything at Hogwarts had nothing to do with him, then Hogwarts didn’t belong to him.

As for every other event at Hogwarts, large or small, claiming it had nothing to do with him was pure nonsense.

“You watched him being exposed. You called Dumbledore. Hmph—yes, clearly unrelated to you.”

Snape’s lips curled into a cold smile.

Yet inside, he slowly felt a sense of comfort.

Wizard Sean froze, quickly checking his Occlumency—no intrusion had occurred.

That meant Professor Snape had merely made a reasonable guess.

“I know more than you realize.”

Snape paused, as if words were stuck in his throat.

Finally, his eyes flickered, and he abruptly yielded,

“Next time, do something foolish by this standard.”

Wizard Sean nodded quickly.

The cauldron bubbled with thick, gurgling bubbles; the viscous liquid swelled into a bubble, then burst, clinging to the inner wall.

Snape didn’t lower his head—he stirred swiftly.

Thick black smoke rose from the cauldron; the potion roared like boiling water, churning violently with foam. One second later, it turned a repulsive yellow.

“Now, add a piece of the transfigured being’s body.”

Snape said.

He dropped a strand of hair into the cauldron; the liquid turned a transparent white.

Snape froze, staring motionlessly at the liquid for a long time.

“Different subjects cause the liquid to display different components.”

He instructed.

Wizard Sean understood: this was Polyjuice Potion—and in a rare, nearly complete state.

He carefully observed the potion’s condition and wrote concise, necessary notes.

Time slipped away; Snape’s face was unreadable in the dim candlelight.

“Have you forgotten to say something else?”

His cold voice rose with the icy wind slipping through the wooden door’s latticework.

“You… know Hagrid is becoming the Care of Magical Creatures professor?”

Wizard Sean guessed.

“Of course.”

Snape said.

Did he know?

He didn’t.

But no one knew he didn’t.

The wizard before him was a fool who blindly trusted others.

“Hagrid invited me to be his teaching assistant…”

Wizard Sean spoke plainly.

“Hmph—teaching assistant?”

Snape’s face darkened, cutting him off.

“And?”

Wizard Sean fell silent.

Professor Snape seemed to know more.

Was it the Ravenclaw diadem destroyed—or Slytherin’s locket?

“Disappointing—”

Snape rasped the words from his throat, as if resigned,

“You should understand: in the magical world, there is vast difference between wizard and wizard. Learn to use everything around you, Green—”

He flung something quickly. Wizard Sean caught it instinctively.

The torchlight fell on his palm; he saw the cold object clearly.

A small, gleaming golden hourglass, suspended from a long, delicate golden chain.

Wizard Sean looked up and saw Professor Snape’s impassive face.

“When you use it, bury your greedy thoughts.

Remember: each time the sand turns, time rewinds one hour. You have at most five hours of reversal—

What are you waiting for? Recite every word I said, word for word!”

Snape stared at Wizard Sean, his tone growing irritable.

Since when had he started doing this?

He blamed it all on the thin document, clearly stating his obligations.

“Remember: magic involving time is extremely unstable. Violating temporal laws causes catastrophic consequences.

Hmph—for example—a wizard mistakenly killing his past or future self; completely altering a wizard’s life path; causing temporal anomalies that erase people who should have been born…”

Professor Snape’s low, gravelly voice echoed through the dungeon; his words were far from pleasant.

“The Ministry requires strict guarantee reviews before approving Time-Turner use:

Hundreds of laws govern Time-Turner possession, and abuse incurs the harshest legal penalties.

Only when you memorize every rule may you use it. Understood?”

Professor Snape sounded like he was threatening.

“Understood, Professor.”

Wizard Sean tucked the Time-Turner away; he knew where to find these regulations.

—Hogwarts Library.

But he hadn’t expected Professor Snape to care about such things.

“What classes did you choose?”

Snape asked abruptly again.

He had adopted a mindset of “if I’ve interfered already, I might as well interfere completely.”