William had seen plenty of magical creatures at Hogwarts, but nothing could compare to what he found inside Professor Snape's secret storeroom.
Now he understood why Snape guarded his Potions storeroom so fiercely. To put it plainly, everything of value he owned was here.
This room, expanded by an Undetectable Extension Charm, looked like the mad laboratory of a scientist who had taken over a massive supermarket. Every aisle and shelf was packed with jars and containers of various shapes and sizes, each preserving a different species.
Special red "safety lights" glowed softly around the room, giving it the feel of a photographic darkroom.
The light rose from beneath the shelves, casting a red glow across the jars of preserved specimens in alcohol or some potions. This protected light-sensitive ingredients, ensuring they weren't exposed to typical lighting.
Under this red illumination, the lifeless creatures inside seemed to gather in shadowy clusters, watching from within the glass jars.
It gave William the eerie sensation, as if he was standing inside a giant aquarium.
He glanced down the aisles, which seemed to stretch endlessly, holding thousands upon thousands of magical creature specimens.
If Hagrid ever saw this room, he'd probably want to strangle Snape!
After all, these were all his precious "beasties."
So this was more than a Potioneer's paradise; it was a graveyard of magical creatures.
William was no magizoologist; but he was thrilled, like a country boy gawking at treasures.
He pressed his nose up to a large glass container, staring at the ugliest fish he'd ever seen.
It was a rare type of coelacanth, a species William had read about in a book on magical creatures. Nearly every part of this fish could be used in brewing the most valuable potions.
And not just any potions—the best kind!
Gleefully, he tore his gaze away, only to be drawn to something even more remarkable on his left.
In the next aisle sat a massive tank, like a row of glass phone booths fused together.
Inside this transparent coffin floated something monstrous, a pale, ghostly figure with an indistinct shape.
William peered closer at the creature's bulbous, sack-like head, its eerie basketball-sized eye gleaming faintly in the low light.
It was a giant squid!
A label on the tank identified it as an Architeuthis dux.
This squid species was acknowledged by the magical world as the largest invertebrate magical creature, far larger than the Giant Squid in the Black Lake and just as dangerous as a Hungarian Horntail.
This was incredible!
Some potions required dragon blood due to its twelve unique uses and irreplaceable qualities.
But what Potions Master would keep the entire corpse of an adult dragon just for a few vials of blood?
Yet here was Snape, doing just that.
William couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy—well, outrage, he corrected himself.
Snape should be sent straight to Azkaban for this kind of hoarding, and as for this room, William wouldn't mind taking it over.
After all, treasures like these deserved an owner who truly appreciated them.
For a brief moment, William's sense of justice wavered. Maybe it would be fine to let Snape remain in Azkaban for the alleged murder of Tywin, spending his days in penitence.
Mesmerized by the sight of the squid, William found himself imagining brewing high-grade potions, his cauldron simmering with rare ingredients.
He wondered if tossing in a piece of the squid's tentacle might boost the potion's effects.
If he replaced gillyweed with a fragment of this tentacle in a Water-Breathing Potion, he could increase the duration from one hour to an entire week.
Normally, gillyweed allowed an hour or so of underwater breathing. But even a tiny piece of this tentacle would magnify the effects a hundredfold.
To be honest, William had never had access to rare or high-quality ingredients. He'd only ever worked with the cheapest materials available.
Potions required an immense amount of funding.
William began to suspect that Hogwarts' budget cuts had all been funneled into Snape's hoarding habits.
After all, the school had hesitated for years to upgrade the brooms for the Quidditch teams and only replaced them after Charlie Weasley's accident forced their hand.
Where had all the money gone?
Charms, Transfiguration, and other subjects didn't require much funding, so it had to be Snape who was draining Hogwarts' resources to buy these items.
And the best part was that everything here was as valuable as gold.
With expanding human settlements, magical creatures' habitats had been increasingly disrupted, causing the prices of many ingredients to soar.
For instance, the African Boomslang skin, crucial for Polyjuice Potion, rose in price every year due to crackdowns on poaching and export restrictions in Africa.
William had just noticed at least a dozen crates of Boomslang skin.
Snape wasn't the only one with valuable items, either. He recalled once seeing a bundle of unicorn hair in Hagrid's hut, enough to make a blanket.
That bundle alone would sell for hundreds of Galleons.
It seemed that every teacher at Hogwarts had their own hidden wealth.
The next time anyone dared claim that Hogwarts professors were underpaid, William would be sure to set them straight.
And he doubted all of Snape's treasures were self-acquired.
Some of these items were clearly blacklisted from trade, yet Snape had stockpiles of them.
If the Hogwarts administration wasn't backing him, William would eat his hat.
After all, most of Britain's witches and wizards were Hogwarts graduates.
Top graduates could easily arrange special permissions for Hogwarts, given their influence in various fields.
It was no small matter; with Dumbledore as headmaster, Hogwarts held a near-monopoly on wizarding education in the UK, creating an extensive network of loyalty.
In one corner, William noticed a row of cauldrons, all bubbling with potions in various stages of completion.
Some potions, like the Polyjuice Potion, required a lengthy brewing process, with lacewing flies alone needing twenty-one days to stew, and the whole potion taking nearly a month.
Many of the cauldrons here held partially brewed potions, sealed and ready for the next steps.
From the scents, William managed to identify one as Felix Felicis—liquid luck. Perhaps Snape was hoping for a bit of luck, considering his recent misfortunes.
Another cauldron held Veritaserum, though William could only guess whom Snape intended it for.
The rest were more complex brews, ones that William didn't recognize right away, but all were clearly high-level potions.
William felt as though he'd stumbled upon a new world.
The room was filled with rare specimens he'd never encountered, and with no fear of failure, he could practice potions to his heart's content.
Every Potions Master started by churning out cauldrons of potion, much like how every master duelist honed their skills through countless hours of practice.
No matter how much natural talent one possessed, one couldn't become a master without endless hands-on experience.
In the past, William had lacked both money and ingredients, but now… now he was rich!
He could spend his afternoons studying Transfiguration and use his evenings to practice potion-making. This was the first step to becoming a Potions Master.
Yes, he was growing more and more fond of this time loop.
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