Chapter 22

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Ethan kept looking at the Potions teacher for a few more seconds, looking straight into his eyes, but not making any attempt to use mind magic, before looking back at the pale Cassia.

Slightly leaning over, he whispered, "First warning, girl."

Cassia, to Ethan's surprise, looked right into his eyes, with no trace of panic on her face as she replied, "Bring it on."

There was only challenge in her eyes.

At that Ethan rolled his eyes and walked past her, sitting at his table along with Neville. He hadn't brought the boy to the Slytherin side because he didn't want to scare him too much, but as the Gryffindors sat around him, surrounding him while sending death stares, Ethan started regretting his decision.

Still, what was done could not be undone… well, except if you have a time turner, and even then the rules of time travel were strange- Anyway, Ethan had already read the instructions, so he said to Neville, "Stop shaking and fill the cauldron with warm water."

"B-but the water is cold…"

"Then heat it up?"

Neville looked lost though as he looked around. Sighing, Ethan moved the pot from the table, revealing a stove.

"If you don't know the spell, then use the stove. Darn it, have you even read the damn manual?" Ethan cursed, annoyed at the boy.

"No cursing in my class, Grindelwald!" Snape was quick to remind him, but it would seem his dislike for Ethan hadn't overgrown his favouritism for Slytherin, seeing he hadn't taken any points from him despite taking some from Ron earlier.

Neville gulped as he opened his text book with shaky hands, making Ethan sigh as he slammed the book shut, making Neville jump.

"Are you that daft? You need a manual to lit up a stove?" Ethan groaned and lit it up, before asking him if he understood.

"Y-yes?" Neville replied, hesitatingly.

"Stop stuttering, that's annoying." Ethan groaned.

Neville nodded, and filled the pot with water before placing it back on the stove. Of course, he spilled water everywhere on the crafting table, which Ethan cleaned with a flick of his wand.

Once the water started heating, Ethan looked at Neville with squinted eyes and asked, "What are we supposed to do, now?"

Neville glanced toward the black board, and said, "Wait until the water is boiling?"

"And we are just going to stand there?"

Neville scratched his head and replied, "N-no, we could arrange our ingredients and…"

Ethan sighed, "No, Neville. Use your head, please, this is agonizing. While we wait for the water to boil, we prepare our ingredients. We were given raw ingredients, and if you don't process them and add them too quickly, then you will end up with an exploding, dissolving acid. Do you want acid in your face, Neville?"

"N-no, I guess not."

"And neither do I. Since this is our first class, let me guide you." Ethan offered, and Neville nodded vigorously, happy he could finally relax.

However, Ethan quickly lashed out, "You're going to stand there and watch me? You must have one hell of a good memory if you don't need to take notes!"

Neville's face flushed red as he hurriedly took out a quill, an ink pot and a notebook.

While Ethan waited for Neville to take out his stuff, he could feel the death glares had intensified, and even Harry, who had been pretty friendly, was looking at him with a frown.

And honestly, Ethan could understand, with the way he was treating Neville. However, he didn't stop as there was a reason for his behaviour.

Firstly, he was really annoyed at Neville's incompetence, but more importantly, being lenient with Neville wouldn't help anyone.

Neville had more than once in his canonical life been endangered by his own clumsiness, and that was in the relatively safe original timeline, where Voldemort only managed to kill a single student before the Battle of Hogwarts despite his many attempts.

But in this world, a single change could possibly be enough to change one of the boy's clumsy but funny incidents into a fatal accident.

Ethan wasn't a saint, but if he could help Neville, then why not?

Ethan then proceeded to make the potion in front of Neville, starting by weighing the dry nettles (Snape had been kind enough to dry the leaves) as they had to have exactly eight grams of them.

Then, he crushed the snake fangs into powder with the help of a mortar, this time the dosage was less precise, they could add between three and eight spoons of the powder, it would work anyway.

As for the last ingredient, the porcupine quills, they were already ready.

As Ethan took his time to thoroughly crush the fangs, by the time he was finished the water was already boiling, so Ethan put a few of the dry nettles into the water, and stirred the water with circular waves of his wand.

He added leaves every 20 seconds, as explained on the blackboard, and when he had put all the leaves, he let the mixture infuse for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, he took Neville's handbook and read what he had written.

Ethan was pleasantly surprised to find that Neville had not only recorded every step with precision, but he had also noted down the sequence and timing, which was what Ethan wanted him to learn. As expected, the boy had potential, if anyone bothered to dig for it.

Every potion were made different ingredients that should be used differently, but the methodology was the same for any potion. If Neville was receptive to this kind of working method, he could even pick something up and improve his grades in other subjects.

Since they seemingly had nothing left to do while the mixture boiled, Ethan gave Neville his handbook back and said, "See? When you put in the effort, you can do good. I knew I didn't judge you wrong in Herbology."

Neville smiled for the first time since he started interacting with Ethan as he was finally praised after several rounds of abuse.

Ethan added, "Now, for the next step…"

"Add between three and eight spoons of crushed snake fangs after 30 minutes." Neville quickly said, which made Ethan smile. It seemed the stick and the carrot worked wonderfully with Neville.

Ethan quickly retorted though, "Yes, that is what's written, but if you had started reading your potions book you would know there is a 'golden' ratio, so to say, to make our potion as efficient as possible. This ratio is somewhere between three and eight spoons."

Neville gulped and asked, "How much is it?"

Ethan shrugged and replied, "It wasn't said, and I believe this is intentional. We can either do it randomly and pass, or we can search for it ourselves to make a perfect potion. Now you tell me, Longbottom. Do you want to be average?"

Neville widened his eyes, and suddenly rose from his seat, exclaiming, "I don't want to be average!"

Every head in the class turned toward the Gryffindor in wonder, and Snape was quick to lash out at him, making a few people chuckle, while Neville sat back down with a blushing face.

Ethan flicked his wand at the notebook and said, "I like your enthusiasm, but you should calm down a little. Now, a tea spoon of crushed snake fangs weighs around 4.5-5 grams, but since I took more time to crush it thoroughly, a spoon should weigh around 3 grams."

As he spoke, his words were being noted down in Neville's handbook, making Neville's eyes widen in shock. Ethan didn't actually know a specific spell to achieve what he was doing, he was simply doing it out of sheer will as he manipulated his magic like a pen. It was one of the trainings he had found in his childhood to train his control over his magic.

To write thin letters in a readable calligraphy was extremely hard to do by simply manipulating magic, with no spells attached, and it had been a great help in allowing him to master his magic. Nowadays, it was still being useful as he never had to manually take notes.

Of course, although he could do it without a wand, while in public he always used his wand because he didn't want to reveal his great mastery of Wandless Magic.

This form of magic did not really represent a wizard's strength or mastery over their magic as if trained early enough any wizard could learn it, but in most of the world people would expect him to become defenceless once deprived of his wand, making Wandless Magic a powerful hidden weapon.

Wandless Magic was actually taught to children in Uagadou, the magical school in Uganda, Africa, so it really wasn't hard to master. However, if a wizard used their wand for their whole childhood, then as an adult grasping Wandless Magic would be much harder.

If he ever became someone important in the Ministry or Hogwarts, Ethan was definitely going to make Wandless Classes mandatory in the country, but that was a matter for the future.