Chapter 18: Sorting and Processing

Ximo ran into the Hall, holding a copy of *The Daily Prophet* high in his hand and shouting loudly.

"Someone saw Sirius Black!"

Sirius Black's affair could be said to be the hottest topic at the moment; everyone looked toward the newspaper Ximo was holding high, showing curious expressions.

John looked up toward the Gryffindor side and discovered that Harry Potter was also there.

Upon hearing Ximo say that someone had seen Sirius Black, Harry Potter immediately stood up and leaned over to check.

A brown-haired girl beside Harry grabbed Ximo's newspaper, and after reading it, said worriedly: "DaFuZhen! Isn't that very close to here?"

"He wouldn't come to Hogwarts, would he?"

Senior Neville was also sitting there, similarly somewhat worried; after all, that was a most evil villain who had once served Voldemort.

"There are Dementors everywhere here, it'll be fine."

The person beside him comforted him.

"Dementors? He already escaped once from Azkaban, which was full of Dementors."

Ximo retorted upon hearing this; in his view, Dementors couldn't protect them at all.

Harry looked at the information in the newspaper, looking worried.

Why was Harry Potter so worried?

John was somewhat curious; was that Sirius Black coming for him?

It didn't seem impossible.

After all, he was the protagonist; major events were always inseparable from him.

If that were the case, then John could rest easy.

Because in such situations, the protagonist usually wouldn't be in trouble, and the murderer would definitely be brought to justice.

Previously, when he saw a murderer break out of prison on TV, he had been quite worried about whether he would run into them or if his family would be harmed.

"John, do you really not need our help?"

After eating, before leaving, Ryan asked somewhat worriedly.

"It's just processing some materials, what's there to worry about? Besides, this is a task Professor Snape gave me; if you were found helping, you'd definitely be punished even worse."

John patted Ryan's shoulder and said, then slowly walked toward the place where they had class earlier.

Ryan and the others had no choice but to watch John leave tragically, as if John were going and would never return.

There was no help for it; after all, Snape could be said to be notoriously fierce among these freshmen.

Many seniors would rather pull the Headmaster's beard than appear in front of Snape.

After John returned to the Potions classroom, he found that the candles here were still lit, but it didn't look like anyone had been there.

Perhaps the school's candles had some automatic lighting function?

No longer focusing on these minor details, John came to the podium and looked at the bottles and jars.

With a curious mindset, John opened one of them.

However, the moment he opened it, a foul stench rushed toward his face.

Yue!!

What kind of ghost smell is this!?

John immediately put down the jar in his hand, covered his nose, and retreated repeatedly.

After smelling that one mouthful, he almost vomited the dinner he had just eaten.

John endured the nausea, put the lid back on, and used a piece of parchment to fan the air, attempting to fan this foul stench out through the basement window.

However, the ventilation in the basement was truly too poor, and this smell lingered.

John had no choice but to exit this room first and go to the corridor outside to catch his breath.

However, before going out, he saw a book titled *One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi* still on the podium, so he picked it up, intending to see if the content inside would be helpful while outside.

The dark and damp corridor on the negative first floor occasionally had a bit of a musty smell, but to John at this moment, it was the freshest air.

By the light of the wall-mounted torch at the entrance, he flipped through that Potions book.

In the index, he saw the material for pufferfish eyes and opened it directly to check.

Before processing, pufferfish eyes must be soaked in a special preservative; otherwise, even slightly higher temperatures will cause the material to spoil, appearing with green spots.

But even when stored in preservative, there are occasionally some individuals of poor quality or those that were not preserved quickly enough.

Therefore, they need to be processed as soon as possible, while checking if any individually spoiled eyes are mixed in, as this will cause other good eyes to be contaminated and accelerate spoilage.

So Professor Snape let him do this chore just to pick out those spoiled pufferfish eyes to facilitate processing later?

Then why didn't he just throw away the spoiled ones when he processed them himself?

It was purely to leave them behind to disgust people...

John thought speechlessly after reading, as it wasn't impossible.

Or perhaps he wasn't in a hurry to process them, and this was just a part of regular inspection, and incidentally to punish students?

Regardless of which one it was, John sighed; if he had known, he would have asked Professor Fuliwei if there was any magic to isolate odors.

Having learned the characteristics of spoiled fish eyes from the book, John knew what to do next, so he closed the book and entered the classroom again.

The smell in the classroom had dissipated quite a bit, but it was still somewhat stinky.

John found tissues in the classroom, twisted them into strips, and plugged his nose; this way, he shouldn't be stunk unconscious.

According to the guide in the book, John put on protective gloves, picked up a pair of tweezers, and began to screen the spoiled fish eyes.

Although he couldn't smell the stench for the time being, it was still stinging to the eyes; John squinted, repeatedly checking and searching, before finding some spoiled pufferfish eyes.

Just as John was advancing his work progress bit by bit, the classroom door was suddenly opened.

John looked up and saw that it was actually Professor Snape, who was looking at John with an expression of disgust because he had two tissues stuck in his nose like green onions.

"Uh, good evening, Professor Snape..." John was stunned for a moment, but still obediently called out.

However, Snape did not respond to him, but silently walked to his side and inspected the jars that John had processed; at the same time, he also noticed that the *One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi* book on the podium had been moved, but he didn't say anything.

Seeing Snape ignore the foul stench, John was somewhat curious; had the smell disappeared?

Tentatively pulling out the tissues from his nose, the next moment, yue!!

Alright, it was still just as stinky.

"It seems your talent for doing chores is at least stronger than your talent for brewing potions."

After Professor Snape inspected them and found no problems, he spat out a compliment that wasn't really a compliment.

John curled his lips, ignored his sarcasm, and continued to bury his head in picking and choosing the pufferfish eyes in the bottles and jars.

Professor Snape didn't continue to say anything either, picking up a jar of pufferfish eyes that John had processed, and with a wave of his hand, a stone bowl and a wooden stick similar to a garlic masher flew over from the cabinet in the classroom.

With just a simple wave of his hand, the pufferfish eyes in the jar floated up, draining the moisture of the preservative.

Then Professor Snape produced a jar of blue grit from somewhere and sprinkled it on these pufferfish eyes.

Immediately afterward, he threw the fish eyes into the stone bowl, and under Professor Snape's operation, the wooden stick automatically began to smash the fish eyes in the bowl one by one.

Within two minutes, it stopped.

What was unexpected was that after these pufferfish eyes were smashed, they were not in a muddy state, but in a granular state with distinct particles.

Recalling the blue dust that Professor Snape had sprinkled at the beginning, perhaps it was its credit.

The components of the pufferfish eyes were automatically wrapped in those distinct particles, becoming the state before his eyes.

After doing all this, Professor Snape spread those granular pufferfish eyes flat on an iron plate.

"The magic power of some materials is extremely weak; only by adding corresponding materials for processing and blending them together can the effect of the materials be promoted."

Looking at the materials spread flat on the iron plate, Professor Snape suddenly blurted out a sentence.

Because it was said too suddenly, John wasn't even sure if he was talking to himself or to him.

"After finishing the sorting, just like I did just now, process these pufferfish eyes well and spread them on the plate to air-dry naturally."

"Also, keep that damn flame of yours away from them."

Having said that, Professor Snape left the jar of blue grit, waved his cloak, and walked quickly out of the classroom.

Leaving John blinking in the classroom.

Hm? ===== CHAPTER 19 =====