The Quidditch match had ended.
Amid the cheers of the spectators, Cedric Diggory caught the Golden Snitch first, leading Hufflepuff to a significant victory.
From the performance, it seemed that the Ravenclaw team only had Cho Chang performing at her best. Perhaps they needed a "savior" to pull them out of their fourth-place position.
However, this match, which would typically remain the talk of the school for two or three days, lost all its heat by midday.
— Because the three-headed dog incident had spread through the entire castle like wildfire.
"I can't believe they would let such a creature into the castle!"
"I'm writing to my father! Dumbledore shouldn't be doing things like this! Hogwarts isn't his personal property!"
The Slytherin table erupted in noise, owls flying in and out, delivering letters.
Ron watched as Malfoy, surrounded by a group of people, spoke passionately, sneering in disdain.
"Look at him! All he does is brag about his father."
"I think Malfoy's actually right this time," chimed in Seamus, who shared a dormitory with Ron. "Dumbledore putting the three-headed dog in the castle was definitely a bad decision."
Ron grumbled, displeased, but didn't argue.
He knew Seamus had a point, but he was simply jealous of how Malfoy always seemed to attract attention.
Hermione, after thinking for a moment, cut into her steak, "Maybe Dumbledore put the three-headed dog in the castle to guard something. It certainly seems like there's more to it than we know."
"Guard something?" Harry asked instinctively.
Hearing her words, Harry suddenly thought of the small, dirty bundle from the underground vault No. 731 that Hagrid had taken out.
.....
The atmosphere at the Ravenclaw table was no different from usual, but the voices among the students were louder, all expressing discontent with the three-headed dog that might pose a threat to their safety.
Dawn didn't participate in the discussion. He quietly finished his lunch.
But instead of leaving like usual, he stayed at his seat, pulling out a book and flipping through it.
...
The days passed slowly, and after a couple of days, when the heat of the incident had started to die down, Hogwarts seemed to settle back into its routine.
On Wednesday, Madam Pince's injuries healed.
The day she was discharged, the strict and stern Madam Pince, who was disliked by most students, received a warm welcome from Hufflepuff.
It wasn't hard to understand, as the boy she had saved was a wizard from Hufflepuff.
With campus life returning to calm, Dawn found some time and returned to the abandoned classroom on the fifth floor.
After using the same method to sever the magic circuits, revealing the hidden room, Dawn quickly walked inside.
After the brief cleaning last time, the room had little to no dust, and he could clearly see the wooden floor, a stark contrast to the marble floor in the Ravenclaw dormitories.
Dawn gave the room a quick glance and noticed that it was marked by the passage of time.
The bed sheets were rotting, the desk was nearly falling apart, the corners of the walls were covered with cobwebs, the curtains had disintegrated into threads, and the glass was cracked.
Dawn frowned.
He felt that nothing in the room could be reused; everything was in such poor condition it was almost all ready to be discarded.
He cast a few cleaning spells.
Opening the drawer of the desk, Dawn hoped to find something left behind.
But inside the drawer, he only found a pile of rotting debris that was beyond recognition.
Could this even be restored with the recovery spell, given his current magical ability?
Dawn clicked his tongue and considered trying.
But then...
"Little one, entering a lady's room without permission is quite rude, don't you think?"
A sudden voice made Dawn whip around.
He quickly raised his wand, and with a flick, he tore the already decaying curtains to shreds.
Behind them, a portrait hanging on the wall began to speak. The portrait depicted a golden-haired girl sitting leisurely in the afternoon sun, sipping tea.
Dawn raised an eyebrow.
Although the girl in the portrait was much older than the one in the book, Dawn immediately recognized her. She was the owner of the diary he had found in the fairy tale book.
He hadn't expected to find her magical portrait still in the room!
The golden-haired girl placed her teacup on a round table beside her, looking directly at Dawn. "Would you mind telling me how you found this place?"
"Well, if you insist, I found it because I found your diary," Dawn said, pulling out the fairy tale book and showing it briefly, before stepping closer to the portrait, standing a meter away and meeting the golden-haired girl's eyes.
"Can you tell me your name? The diary didn't mention it."
"Olivier Carter," the girl said.
But then, her eyes narrowed in confusion. "Wait! I remember I hid the diary in the Slytherin girls' dormitory... How did you find it?"
Dawn shrugged, ignoring the girl's puzzled gaze. "Maybe, from the castle's perspective, it's just another forgotten object."
The room full of miscellaneous items in the Room of Requirement couldn't possibly all be left behind by those who found the place.
Dawn had already suspected that objects abandoned for a long time in the castle would end up in the Room of Requirement, gathering in that room.
He pushed these thoughts aside and curiously asked:
"Miss Carter, about the missing parts of your diary, can you tell me where you hid them?"
"Oh, that's a secret."
The golden-haired girl smiled. "If you're really curious, go find them yourself! All I can tell you is that they're still somewhere in Hogwarts."
With that, she froze, like an actual painting, and no longer paid any attention to Dawn's words.
Dawn frowned.
He still had some questions regarding the blood curse and the Fountain of Fortune, but with a portrait that had clearly decided to ignore him, he had no way of getting answers.
Shaking his head, he reached up, took the portrait down, turned it around to shield it from prying eyes, and hung it back up on the wall.
He took one last look at the room.
Although it was in a state of decay, he believed that once cleaned up, it would be more comfortable than the Ravenclaw dormitory.
And the library was on the same floor!
Despite the three-headed dog incident, Dawn decided it would be best to stay in the dormitory for now.
However, he thought he might bring the toad in here first.
Under the constant effects of the Flesh Splitting Curse, the toad had become increasingly deformed, and it was no longer suitable to keep it hidden beneath the bed.
After all, it would be troublesome if someone found it and reported it to the professors.
Dawn searched the room one last time. When he didn't find anything else, he left, closing the door behind him.
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