Rice: Looking forward to Professor Quirrell's second phase

Chapter 31 Rice: Looking forward to Professor Quirrell's second phase

What's going on?! This class is so incredibly boring!

After banishing drowsiness from his mind, Rice felt completely lost.

He simply couldn't understand how anyone could deliver a lecture so bland, boring, and hypnotic. Professor Binns's voice, like a ventilator, combined with the afternoon sunlight, had a hypnotic effect that surpassed even a hypnotic spell.

Rice looked up and glanced around: Daphne had her head down, seemingly asleep; Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were sitting in the corner of the classroom, looking surprisingly alert, but after seeing the wizard chess set on their table, Rice understood why they were able to stay awake.

At Ravenclaw, a school renowned for its bright minds and studious students, almost no one was paying attention. Half an hour later, even they couldn't understand what they were writing in their notes. Only Hermione managed to withstand Professor Binns' hypnotic voice and diligently took notes, earning Rice's astonishment.

Rice decided to borrow Hermione's notes after class. Although he didn't think Professor Binns had taught anything of value, he figured he should take a look anyway—who knows, he might find something of value?

Thinking about this, Rice couldn't help but sigh: How did Bins become like this? Becoming a ghost doesn't necessarily change one's personality drastically, does it?

Could it be that……

Rice had a terrible thought: Had Professor Binns' teaching quality deteriorated to this terrible state before his death? Was there something wrong with Hogwarts' tenure system for professors?

Finally, the class ended. Professor Binns picked up his lesson plan, walked straight through the blackboard behind him, and went back to the faculty lounge to rest. The young wizards in the classroom gradually woke up.

An unforgettable course!

After borrowing the notebook from Hermione and flipping through it, Rice determined that today's history of magic contained nothing of value.

He was starting to lose his composure: with a professor of the history of magic like this, could the young wizards at Hogwarts really learn the history of magic well? They might as well just read "The History of Magic" in their dorm rooms.

Starting today, Rice's schedule has been "no classes since last Monday." Attending these easy classes is a complete waste of time! Skipping them during the semester and borrowing notes before finals is considered following school rules.

Rice is the kind of person who is hard to be bound by worldly rules. If you expect him to sit quietly in the classroom like other students and daydream, he might as well just go to sleep; he can dream about anything.

He didn't storm off today purely out of respect for Professor Binns, who had worked diligently for a thousand years and was still contributing to the university after his death.

In the days that followed, Rice attended classes offered by Hogwarts, such as Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms, and Astronomy, along with his classmates.

After taking these classes one by one, Rice felt that his eyes had been opened.

Compared to a thousand years ago, modern magic education is more systematic and institutionalized, and the teaching materials have been revised to be better, which are all good things.

Rice had only a brief experience with it and felt that modern magical education was definitely a huge improvement over that of a thousand years ago, but it also had its shortcomings.

To summarize, it's about raising the lower limit and lowering the upper limit. The average level of students trained by modern magic education is definitely higher than that of the Middle Ages, but the probability of producing top-level experts is also much lower.

This era is unlikely to produce wizards with the extraordinary abilities of myself and my three old friends.

Thinking about it this way, Dumbledore was indeed amazing. To possess such strength in such an environment, he could be considered a darling of the times.

However, drawing such a conclusion after only attending a few introductory lessons is indeed somewhat hasty. Further observation is needed to determine the true extent of the problem.

The professors of Hogwarts' compulsory courses are a veritable constellation of geniuses. For example, Professor McGonagall, who teaches Transfiguration, actually demonstrated Animagus transformation to the freshmen during her first class.

Animagus!

Wizards who can transform into animals are rare in any era, and there are only a handful of them registered.

However, not all professors of required courses are elites...

Professor Quirrell, who taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, was so bad that Rice was terrified.

His classroom reeked of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he had encountered in Romania.

Rice scoffed at this: Garlic is no match for vampires. Wizards who pin their hopes on garlic for exorcism might as well break their wands and become Muggle priests; at least they could smash a vampire's head with a crucifix.

Professor Quirrell wore his signature large scarf, which he said was a gift from a prince thanking him for helping the prince rid himself of a resurrected zombie. However, when students asked how to deal with resurrected zombies, he couldn't give a coherent answer, which significantly undermined the credibility of his story.

Rice was also speechless: Zombies or vampires, just blast them with spells and that's it. If one Explosion Spell doesn't kill them, use a Burning Spell. If that doesn't work, seal them. Why all this rambling nonsense?

However, Rice doesn't agree that Quirrell is completely useless; this professor is hiding a big secret. To be more specific, there's something fishy about his headscarf.

His turban harbored a very evil power, comparable to the corruption in the soul of Daphne's sister, Astoria.

Perhaps that was the real Quirrell, or perhaps Quirrell used some underhanded means to gain power, which was common in the magical world a thousand years ago, where wizards would do all sorts of crazy things to become powerful.

In any case, Rice believed that when it came to a real life-or-death struggle, Professor Quirrell would not be the pathetic figure he was in now.

Rice was somewhat looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it was said that professors teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts in recent years only had one-year terms, so he was afraid he wouldn't get to witness it.

On Friday, Slytherin students will have Potions class with Gryffindor freshmen, which is what Rice looks forward to the most.

Can someone who isn't good at Potions really become the Head of Slytherin?

It's unclear when exactly, but the headmaster of Slytherin House became inextricably linked with Potions.

Professor Snape was a master of Potions, and it's said that the previous Head of House, Professor Slughorn, was also a giant in the field. Going back further, Slytherin House produced a plethora of Potions masters, practically making it a hallmark of Slytherin.

The root of this can perhaps be traced back to Salazar Slytherin, the founder of Slytherin House, who was the most outstanding Potions Master of his time.

The Slytherin family's expertise in potions may have been planted by him.

Like the Slytherin common room, Potions class was located underground. Students received instruction from Snape in a damp, dimly lit underground classroom.

Not only was it colder and more gloomy than the main castle building on the ground, but there were also many glass jars along the classroom walls, containing many grotesque specimens.

Even Slytherin students get goosebumps when they walk in here.

After the school bell rang, Snape picked up the class roster.

He began calling out names one by one.

He stopped when Harry's name was called.

(End of this chapter)