In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 17: Thief

"There is no difference in essence between Crow's Head-shaped aconite and Boat-shaped aconite, they are just called in different ways, both of them are the same kind of aconite."

"Many novice potion students can easily mistake them for a different species of aconite, and as a result, they are deceived by some unscrupulous merchants."

There were no desks in the potions' classroom, Jon and the class had a dark cauldron placed in front of them, and a row of wooden shelves lined all four walls of the classroom, which didn't contain any disgusting and gruesome body parts of various creatures, and held some strange looking herbs as well as some common flowers and plants.

According to Lily, brewing potions tends to make the potion brewer's heart cold and dark, as they deal with various bloody body parts in an isolated room, so a sunny and fresh environment is essential.

"That's it for today's lesson, next time you are in class, each of you will have to hand me a one-foot assignment, write down what you know about all the potion ingredients I have talked over in this lesson."

The professor of Potions class could not be considered gentle in her way of dealing with the students, she looked at everyone with an expressionless face, which made her look a little dull and deadpan.

After spending so many days with Neville and the rest of them, Jon was able to hear some of the stories about Professor Potter at night when they were chatting before going to bed.

It was rumoured that she previously had a happy and loving family.

Neville's words also confirmed what Jon had suspected in his mind at the beginning, that the point at which this world first began to shift was most likely during the night when Voldemort had found the Potter's house after hearing the prophecy.

After cleaning up their cauldron in the classroom, Jon and the four of them walked out of the Potions' classroom together.

Wednesday is the day of the week when they have the least amount of classes, and after the end of the Potions class, most of the time in between is free, except for the Astronomy class with Professor Flitwick at midnight today.

"Wanna go play wizard's chess in the common room?" Ron suggested.

He had just finished his week-long punishment of scrubbing toilets the day before, and he had spent the last two days trying to make up for all the time he hadn't been able to play earlier, he looked like he wanted to divide up into three parts to play with each of them.

Justin and Lavender readily accepted while Neville said he was going to sleep in the dormitory to catch up some sleep in order to prepare for Astronomy class in the night.

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Jon shook his head too, he had very little interest in wizard chess.

"You guys go ahead, I want to go to the library."

The group was not surprised by this, ever since he had found out that the wagon had a library full of magic book collections, he basically spent his free time there whenever he could.

After parting from Ron and the group, Jon walked alone in the direction of the library.

Ever since he had stepped into this wagon, a sense of unexplainable crisis had lingered in his heart.

This temporary peace and quiet academic life had not removed this sense of crisis from his mind, and Jon knew very well that no matter what kind of changes Voldemort had undergone, Dumbledore's men would always be a thorn in his side.

Especially since he appeared to have completely gathered the authority of the wizarding community around here and had basically reached the pinnacle of power in the Harry Potter world, this Hogwarts on the wagon would be the last piece that wasn't under his control.

He would certainly find a way to utterly eliminate the most conspicuous "stain" left in the wizarding community, and Jon could not possibly guess what Voldemort had in store for the situation; the only thing he could do now would be gradually reinforce himself.

He only managed to feel a little safe, when he was able to fill his head with knowledge.

Professor Flitwick would not officially start teaching them real spells until the following week's charms class, but Jon had already experienced the wonders of magic in his first class on Transfiguration.

His talent is surprisingly impressive, at least when Professor McGonagall taught them how to turn a match into a needle, Jon was the first to succeed among the five freshmen, without any previous failed attempts. Professor McGonagall was pleased with this and exempted him from the Transfiguration class assignment that day.

This gave him a slight mental boost and at the same time motivated him to run to the library more often every day.

Being talented only meant that he had the potential to become a powerful wizard, being diligent would help him get closer and closer to that possibility.

Jon wasn't the only one in the library, there were also a few senior students who didn't have classes looking through materials and completing assignments given by their professors.

It was quiet, with only the "rustle" of quills on parchment being heard.

After understanding what the incantations and wand gestures meant for the spells, Jon had no intention of practising the spells in private without having a proper grasp of them.

The consequences of saying a wrong word or using a wrong wand gesture are unpredictable and could lead to a major or minor complication. For Jon, who at present prefers to be cautious, he would rather wait for Professor Flitwick to start properly teaching them the spells before he tries his hand at the other seemingly simple spells.

In the meantime, he continued to read the spell books, which contained all the general spells with great interest, as he wanted to learn the theory before actually doing it.

Time passed, and by the time lunch began, Jon was alone in the library.

Just as he was mulling over the pronunciation of the Mending Charm in the 'The Standard Book of Spells, Grade III', a small, dark shadow suddenly passed by in the corner of his eye.

Jon flinched slightly, and when he looked over at the rows of bookshelves again, he spotted nothing.

He put the book down on the desk and stretched, thinking that his eyes were blurry from reading too long.

After glancing at the time on the pendulum clock and feeling that it was about time to leave, he got up from his chair and put the spell book back in its original place on the shelf, just as he was leaving towards the library's entrance.

All of a sudden, Jon felt the hem of his robe sink, as if something was making its way up his robe!

That thing was so fast that just as Jon noticed it, it had crawled into the right pocket of his robe, and just as it crawled in and immediately tried to get out of the pocket, Jon had reacted.

He reached out and covered the exit of the pocket directly, and no matter how hard the creature inside struggled, it could not get out of his pocket.

With one hand, Jon grabbed the small, soft-feeling creature through his pocket, while he released the opening with the other hand, allowing him to see the daring 'thief'.

It is a creature with black fluffy fur, a long snout, which at first glance looks like a duck's beak, and a Doraemon pocket growing on its belly in front of its body.

When Jon looked at it, it was panicking as it tried to stuff a crystal orb about the size of a pigeon's egg into the pocket in front of its belly, it was a small gift from Neville to thank him for his help guiding him in the Transfiguration class homework the other day.

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