The Polyjuice Potion takes twenty-one days to prepare. This uncle, more evil than evil, is indeed deep-minded. I wonder if he's always had the habit of impersonating others to do bad things!
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
Snape's eyes flickered slightly as he grabbed the bottle from Ian's hand, "Think with your brain, what do I need to do to turn into your appearance?"
Snape knew Ian couldn't be deceived about the potion's ingredients, as Ian's potion-making skills are known to be understood by no one better than this professor.
"Go brew the potion!"
He ordered Ian.
Seeing Ian standing there staring at him without moving, Snape frowned and said through clenched teeth, "I'll pay you! Go brew the potion!"
Ian still didn't move.
"What do you want?"
Snape seemed a bit helpless now.
"I want to know what you did after turning into my appearance!" Ian truly didn't expect Snape to be this perverted, and Qiu Zhang calling him a pervert was indeed due to his family background.
"I only used it in this office." Snape weakly slouched back into his chair, obviously unwilling to reveal his real purpose to Ian.
"Huh?"
Ian found it hard to understand.
"Brew the potion!"
Feeling Ian's doubtful gaze, Snape's expression was as suffocating and uncomfortable as having eaten dung. He couldn't figure out which step he had messed up.
Or maybe it was a miracle that the potion could be successfully brewed even once? If that's the case, that wouldn't be bad; he wouldn't need to choose an ingredient from the formula to attempt to wipe out its species.
"Alright, Professor, I don't want your Golden Galleons; I just need you to exchange my Golden Galleons for Pounds and send them to my home during Christmas." After receiving Snape's answer, Ian no longer stood idle and started brewing the Infinite Firepower Potion.
He didn't seem rusty. Ian originally thought Snape would correct some of his operations, but surprisingly, Snape just kept staring at each step Ian took without intending to give any guidance, until the deep blue potion was poured into the bottle, and the office was filled with the "glug" sound of potion-making.
"You want six cauldrons?"
Ian handed the brewed potion to Snape, then looked at the remaining five large cauldrons, intending to continue, but was driven out of the office by Snape whose expression was uncertain.
"Prepare your Golden Galleons!"
Snape seemed to keep his promise.
However, he shut the door quite roughly. Ian wanted to press his ear against the door to listen to the movement inside, only to find that Snape's office was filled with the sound of crucible cleaning.
He listened for about five minutes.
Ian felt quite bored.
"Perhaps I can still catch the Defense Against the Dark Arts class now." Unable to understand Snape's situation, Ian still pondered Grindelwald's lesson full of golden content. He didn't believe Snape couldn't brew what he could; maybe Snape had misremembered the steps of the ritual?
Despite Snape being a Master of Magic Potions, staying up late can weaken one's memory... it's possible. Surely, it's not that only Ian can brew this potion? Well... perhaps it isn't impossible, maybe next time he could ask Teacher Morgan what's going on—Ian applied his habitual thinking of seeking guidance from a mentor when facing a problem.
Just after Ian left the basement for some time.
"How can this be!"
Snape looked in disbelief at his newly-failed work. He had perfectly copied Ian's every step, even timing each step consistently.
However.
The potion resulting from the magic wand ritual still appeared in a grayish-white color, with some invigorating magical power effects but lacking the effect and quality of the deep blue potion.
"There's nothing wrong with my procedure; I even turned into him... and still failed?" Snape couldn't understand it despite pacing his office back and forth, thinking for a long time without grasping the reason.
"Dumbledore is only returning tonight, and I'm afraid to ask him for help; maybe I should search the Forbidden Book Area in the library, since the kid mentioned his formula was from there."
With this thought.
Snape rushed out of his office briskly, his hurried demeanor causing the cats in the hallway to retreat. He encountered fellow Hogwarts professor Sybil Trelawney in the ground-floor hall.
"Good afternoon, Snape."
Sybil Trelawney, with her frizzy hair and thick eyeglass lenses, cautiously held a crystal ball, evidently a teaching tool for high-year wizards.
"You seem troubled, yes, I can sense it..." Sybil Trelawney got into character prematurely, grabbing Snape with some mysticism.
"I am not one of your students; no need to perform in front of me, Professor Trelawney." Snape cast a cold gaze and shook off Sybil Trelawney's hand.
He continued heading toward the library.
However.
Sybil Trelawney suddenly twitched, her eyes rolled upward, following which a voice, seemingly not hers, softly emerged from her mouth.
"Why not search for that book, the one you acquired in your early years, the book that produced the Dud Revival Potion." Sybil Trelawney's words made Snape stop.
He frightfully turned back.
His eyes incredulously staring at Sybil Trelawney. But after uttering those words, Trelawney twitched several more times like in an epileptic fit.
"What's wrong with you, Snape?"
She seemed to have completely forgotten what had just transpired.
"Do you remember what you just said?" Snape stared intently at Sybil Trelawney, seeing nothing but a blank expression in her eyes.
Snape finally exhaled a complex sigh of relief.
"Sorry, I have something to attend to."
His attitude softened to some extent, even quickening to a run, swiftly returning to his office. Once more, he opened the secret compartment where he previously retrieved the potion.
Without any hesitation.
Snape extracted a brick from the compartment, which transformed into a book once in his hands or, rather, resembled an ancient diary. The bright red cover seemed to boast the owner's character, and the diary's owner bore a name familiar to Ian — Morgan Le Fay.
Aside from the cover.
The diary contained no text. Snape, back at his desk, hesitated for quite some time before biting down, lifting his feather pen, and writing down his query.
"Is the Reviving Potion formula incomplete?"
He penned his doubts.
[Search results, keywords Reviving Potion: the complete formula has been presented; the answers you seek are not recorded in this notebook. Perhaps you should explore other ways of validation.] The diary's blank pages began to display text, reminiscent of search engine responses.
"So that's the case, that crazy woman's prophecy is still unreliable, and Ian's damned Infinite Firepower Potion, what on earth is its bizarre ordeal?" As Snape sighed vexedly, preparing to re-seal the book, an unforeseen event occurred.
Although he hadn't written anything.
The diary's text emerged again.
[Search results, keywords Infinite Firepower Potion: precursor to Apocalypse Potion, non-reproducible, formula unknown, my master had records.
This is a human world taboo, needing the Gods' consent.]