Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures-Chapter 1302: Tryouts

The handwriting left by the Half-Blood Prince on the book was very small, dense and sloppy.

With enough time, it was possible to decipher it bit by bit, but there wasn’t nearly enough time during Potions class.

In fact, it wasn’t just Ron who found it difficult to read — even Evan and Hermione struggled and had to put in a lot of effort.

Of all people, only Harry could recognize it with ease…

It had to be said — there really was some kind of innate connection between him and Snape.

Without Evan explicitly pointing it out, they also speculated about the identity of the Half-Blood Prince.

Hermione thought the Half-Blood Prince might be a girl because the handwriting looked more like a girl’s than a boy’s.

Of course, she said these words irritably, hoping Harry would stop bringing up the book’s content.

After many “failures” in Potions class, her current strategy was to avoid talking about that textbook.

Evan also noticed that she had been spending more and more time on Potions recently.

There were a few nights when Hermione even volunteered to accompany him to brew potions instead of reading in the library.

Harry disagreed with Hermione’s speculation. He thought that since he was called “the Half-Blood Prince”, he could not be a girl.

However, Harry didn’t sound entirely certain when he said this.

Actually, he had also told Evan that the Half-Blood Prince gave him a familiar feeling — very familiar…

He didn’t say the second half of the sentence.

According to Evan’s speculation, Harry was probably wondering if his mother had left this textbook behind.

Unlike Harry, who spent most of his energy on Quidditch, Evan had taken the time to carefully study the textbook. There was barely a page on which the Prince had not made additional notes, a small part of them concerned with potion-making.

The rest were directions for what looked like spells that Snape had made up himself.

There were also parts Evan couldn’t decipher, including ancient magic words, runes, complex formulas, and so on.

The final section appeared to be Snape’s personal emotional record.

It was like a diary, chronicling his feelings during his sixth and seventh years, though in a more cryptic way.

With his understanding of what had happened back then, Evan could probably understand a small part of it.

From some of the notes, it could be inferred that Snape was expressing his dissatisfaction with Harry’s father, James, and Sirius Black.

He did not mention any names, just like he also recorded his love for Harry’s mother Lily without mentioning any names.

In the book, Snape also unabashedly expressed his admiration and loyalty to that person and his alignment with their ideals over the years.

Like most Slytherin students of that era, Snape was also an avid would-be Death Eater during his school years, and felt honored to serve Voldemort.

Putting all these aside, the improvements to potion-making methods alone had already greatly benefited Evan.

After reading this book, he realized that many potion ingredients could be handled in entirely new ways.

And then there were the seemingly inexplicable, bizarre modifications to brewing processes — ones that, despite appearing illogical, yielded unexpectedly remarkable results.

Apart from experimenting and modifying over and over again, Evan really couldn’t imagine how Snape came up with all these ideas back then.

Because of Advanced Potion-Making, Evan’s schedule was packed tight during the first week of the term.

Now, even Elaine rarely came to disturb him. She might have been frightened by Hermione’s review method.

The expression on her face when she looked at the two thick piles of books in front of her was very unforgettable…

By Saturday morning at breakfast, however, Elaine still came over to join Evan and Hermione.

“There are Quidditch tryouts this morning!” she said. “You two aren’t going to get so absorbed in your books that you forget to watch, are you?”

Elaine had also signed up for this year’s Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts, competing for the position of Chaser.

Elaine was a pretty good flyer, but she needed to improve her understanding of the basics of Quidditch.

“Don’t worry, we’ll definitely go and see. Are you getting used to your new broom?” Evan asked.

“To be honest, the broom you designed is too bulky; not suitable for me at all,” said Elaine bluntly. “Not only me, but Ginny also thinks so. But don’t worry about me. I borrowed the Firebolt from Harry. I like this kind of broom better. If I’m selected by the team, I can consider buying one. Ginny says there’s a new model out this year. I saw the promotional poster. The performance of the new Firebolt has been greatly improved. It’s perfect.”

Yeah, perfect indeed — the price was perfectly outrageous…

Evan felt that Elaine might not know what she was talking about. Where would she get that much money to buy the latest Firebolt?

Now Evan was still paying for this girl’s food, and Caresius didn’t lift a finger for her care.

All he’d done was hand Elaine over to Evan, assuring him that he could trust him before vanishing entirely.

Not even providing living expenses — how exactly was he so “reassured”? Was he really her uncle…?

Evan sighed. Between the new Firebolt, the Felix Felicis potion, and other expenses, he would have to spend a fortune this Christmas.

He looked up at the rainy ceiling of the Great Hall and suddenly felt that today might not be a good day for Quidditch tryouts.

It wouldn’t be ideal for the spectators either, who would soon have to sit in the cold, wet stands in the rain.

At this moment, compared to Elaine’s relaxed expression, Ron across the table was obviously much more nervous.

That expression reminded Evan of the first time Ron played a match last term.

It was exactly the same — there was no need to say much about it. That game against Slytherin had been a total disaster.

“Weasley is Our King” — this was the Slytherin students’ favorite song to sing.

“Come on, Ron, could you please relax a little? You’ve played Quidditch for a whole year last year!”

“It’s different this time. This year, there are four times as many people trying out as last year, and a lot of them are really good,” said Ron.

“Strange, I dunno why the team’s this popular all of a sudden!” Harry agreed, looking at the long registration list in front of him.

He felt slightly nervous too at confronting the first hurdle of his Captaincy.

“Oh, come on, Harry,” Hermione said. “Don’t you get it? It’s not Quidditch that’s popular, it’s you! You’ve never been more interesting, and frankly, you’ve never been more fanciable.”

“What?”

“Everyone knows you’ve been telling the truth now, don’t they? The whole Wizarding world has had to admit that you were right about Voldemort being back and that you really have fought him twice in the last two years and escaped both times. And now they’re calling you ‘the Chosen One’ — well, come on, can’t you see why people are fascinated by you?”

“But it’s not just me, there’s also Evan…”

“Yes, there’s also Evan, who’s considered to be Dumbledore’s successor and the one with the greatest potential to become a powerful wizard,” said Hermione impatiently. “He’s just as popular as you are! Evan’s always been well-liked by the students, which is exactly why he’s been getting so many love letters recently.”

“Hmm, love letters?” Harry blinked, feeling the conversation take a bizarre turn!

Yes, love letters — Evan had been receiving quite a lot of them lately…

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