Returning to familiar schools and looking at unfamiliar textbooks, the young wizards, feeling empty-headed with nothing remembered, racked their brains to cope with homework.
The post-holiday syndrome didn't disappear until half a month after school started; Madam Pince in the library was busy off her feet during this period.
While Lynn perfected the design of their small business with the twins, he was also reading books and attempting his own research. Whether getting a gun or a wand, he needed to be proficient in the fusion of magical materials. This was a proficiency that needed time to build up.
Harley was also busy during this period, running up and down the castle. She even broke into the Slytherin common room alone—the snake's den—and retreated in one piece. When they saw Harley enter wearing the Gryffindor school uniform, the little snakes of Slytherin got a huge fright.
They thought Gryffindor had come knocking on their door. The last time people from Gryffindor came to visit the Slytherin common room traced back centuries to when Phineas Nigellus Black served as Headmaster at Hogwarts. At that time, the four houses of Hogwarts were unprecedentedly united.
To be such a rotten headmaster, he was the first case in Hogwarts history.
While being extremely biased towards Slytherin House, he stuffed "dung" into Slytherin House with unprecedented vigor. As long as someone was from a pure-blood family, even if they were a retarded product of inbreeding with intelligence comparable to a troll, he opened the doors of Hogwarts for them.
If not for the alchemical treasures left by the four founders of Hogwarts—the Quill of Acceptance and the Book of Admittance—who knows how many young wizards wouldn't have received correct guidance under Phineas's policies, allowing dark tragedies like Obscurials to stage again.
After all, that was the Victorian era. With forces working from within and without, Hogwarts ushered in its darkest days, and its reputation collapsed like a bursting dam, facing total ruin.
It can only be said—Great Britain really is a land remarkable for producing outstanding people.
In terms of doing bad things, it possesses world-leading natural talent.
Fortunately, Harley escaped from the Slytherin common room with no harm done, otherwise a lion-snake war might have been staged again.
The beautiful, kind-hearted, and sweet-voiced Harley enjoyed an unusually high level of popularity in Gryffindor.
The snow outside the castle showed signs of melting. The weather was slowly warming up, but the days when snow melted were the coldest. Just as Lynn put on his fur cloak and walked towards the Room of Requirement, Harley, having popped out from who knows where, stood prettily blocking his way.
"Finally caught you!"
Harley stood with hands on her hips, starting to interrogate him quite fiercely.
"Lynn, did you forget something very important?!"
"Important thing..."
Lynn pondered for a moment, then slapped his forehead. "It's about Hagrid, right!"
The most appropriate thing Lynn could think of that Harley would keep worrying about was the "secret past" weighing on Hagrid.
"We agreed before to investigate clearly how Hagrid was wronged back then. Yet you haven't done anything at all; you just talk a good game."
Harley, who had truly taken this matter to heart, was very dissatisfied with Lynn's previous inaction. During this time, she and Cho had asked almost every person, ghost, and portrait in Hogwarts who might know about that event. Just understanding what happened back then wasn't enough; what she wanted was to wash away the injustice of the past for Hagrid and return his innocence.
"So what did you find out?"
Lynn asked Harley softly.
"Wasn't it rumored back then that the Chamber of Secrets was opened, and a Muggle-born female student died in the third-floor bathroom? Hagrid was accused of being the murderer because he kept an Acromantula as a pet. But because the Ministry of Magic couldn't find direct evidence, under Dumbledore's guarantee, he was released, but his wand was still snapped."
"And the girl who was killed was Moaning Myrtle?"
"How did you know?!" Harley almost dropped her jaw in surprise. She and Cho had only pieced together the clues and reconstructed the truth after inquiring everywhere in the school. "I never saw you asking about this in the school!"
"Then you definitely didn't go ask the house-elves in the kitchen."
Lynn shrugged. Although he knew the general content without asking, he still had to find an excuse. So when he went to the kitchen to find a midnight snack, he asked in passing, unexpectedly finding the elves knew this matter very well.
"How could you..."
Harley bit her lip, speaking aggrievedly. "Why didn't you tell me if you already knew? Do you know how much effort Cho and I spent to find clues!"
"Had to let you guys have some sense of participation."
Lynn smiled and patted Harley's little head. "But the main reason is, even if we know what happened back then, there's no way to get evidence to overturn the verdict at that time. Without strong and powerful evidence, it's impossible to reverse the case."
"Then what should we do?" Harley was also troubled by this problem. After knowing what happened back then, she was very anxious to find a way to solve it.
"Maybe someday when we get a time machine, we can just travel back fifty years and catch the real murderer."
"But how is that kind of thing possible! Going back to the past... even magic can't do that, right!"
Harley didn't know much about the magical world, but she had never heard of magic for time.
"Time-Turners already exist. A time machine... maybe one day it will just pop out."
Although the probability was slim, Lynn still had some hopeful thoughts in his heart. It was just that this kind of thing couldn't be forced; just let it be.
"If there isn't a time machine, then all we can probably do is wait. Maybe one day, we really will find evidence or witnesses. I have this premonition."
"You speak as if you can foresee the future." Harley tilted her head, her face puffing up into a little angry bun.
"Maybe I really have the potential of a charlatan."
Just as he wanted to reach out and poke Harley's bun face, his finger was grabbed.
"But no matter what, let's go ask Hagrid clearly. Maybe he knows something, but no one believed him before, and he had unspoken bitterness."
"Let's go to Ravenclaw Tower to find Cho, and go find Hagrid together!"
Pulled out of the common room by Harley, the two came directly to Ravenclaw Tower on the opposite side of the castle through the Room of Requirement. Harley reached out and pulled the eagle knocker at the entrance, and a pleasant female voice sounded.
"I am the black son of a white father, a wingless bird, flying straight up. When I am born, those who touch me shed tears, but once I am born, I will vanish into the air."
The eagle knocker's questions were bizarre; sometimes philosophical reflections, sometimes clue analysis. To get in, you had to answer its question.
But while Harley was thinking, Lynn just pulled her forward.
"The door isn't open! The door isn't open!"
Just before hitting the door, Harley hurriedly spoke.
But the next second, her vision blurred, and she appeared directly inside the door.
"Open the door? Why open the door?" Lynn looked at Harley with some confusion. "Is it necessary to answer such an incredibly stupid question?"
"It's a bit offensive for you to say that..." Harley showed a look of difficulty. "Is this question stupid?"
"The answer is smoke. If it asked me 'What simulation game gives you a hundred draws just for logging in,' I'd think more highly of it."
Harley blinked ignorantly; she completely couldn't understand Lynn's topic.
Like Gryffindor, boys couldn't go to the girls' dorms. While Harley went to the dorm to find Cho, Lynn walked into Ravenclaw's small library and started reading books.
Although it was called the school library, the collection here amounted to several thousand or even ten thousand books. While it couldn't compare to Hogwarts' main library, it was still excellent, and there were many private goods here that the main library didn't have.
Most were donated by Ravenclaw students, especially those from wizarding families. Lynn even saw a wizarding family's genealogy stuffed onto a bookshelf, wondering which filial descendant did such a good deed.
"Lynn, let's go."
After about five or six minutes, Harley poked her head in at the small library door. Cho had already changed into outdoor clothes and was waiting beside her.
"The door disappeared?"
After walking out of the Ravenclaw common room, looking at the door that had disappeared on the side wall, Harley lowered her head in distress and looked at the long spiral staircase.
"If no one is watching nearby, the door will of course disappear. However, it doesn't matter at all."
"You two give me your hands."
Saying that, Lynn reached out his hands to them.
"What are you doing?"
The two girls who gave their hands to Lynn were slightly confused, but out of trust in Lynn, they still did it.
"Jumping down, of course."
"Wait—"
Before the words of refusal were finished, Lynn pulled them and lightly "flew" over the railing, leaping down towards the empty space in the middle of the spiral staircase.
Although both were excellent Quidditch players and already very accustomed to the feeling of flying in the sky, even if their diving speed on broomsticks was much faster than now, the thrill was far inferior to now.
The sense of powerlessness from rapid falling made them scream, but the panic on their faces had only just appeared for two seconds when the safe feeling of feet on the ground suddenly returned to them.
"This way down is fast, right!"
The two girls, whose legs were a bit weak, grabbed Lynn's arms tightly. Only when they confirmed they were standing steadily on the corridor floor did they suddenly find the strength to raise their fists and bang on Lynn's head.
"Eh~ Can't hit me."
Lynn, who dodged away with a teleport, smiled wickedly, walking ahead with both hands in his pockets.
"Lynn, you bastard! Don't run!"
Fighting and frolicking all the way out of the castle, when they arrived in front of Hagrid's hut, the somewhat out-of-breath girls exhaled large clouds of white mist. The rising heat made their faces rosy, but in front of them, there were no traces of snow around Hagrid's stone house.
After getting closer, waves of heat could be felt by them even through the wooden door.
"I don't recall Hagrid being very afraid of the cold, right?"
Harley said with some confusion. "How has his house become an oven?"
"Maybe because Hagrid is just really 'warm-hearted' towards his acquaintances."
"That cold joke isn't funny at all."
Harley stepped forward and knocked on the door, shouting inside: "Hagrid, we're here. What are you doing in there?"
A burst of clanging sounds came from inside the stone hut. Hagrid seemed a bit flustered and frantic. After a good while, the door of the hut opened.
"Hello there, no classes today?"
Hagrid tried to put on a calm look, but what he said exposed himself.
"It's the weekend today, Hagrid. No classes."
"Oh... Oh!" Hagrid slapped his head. "I misremembered, haha..." He laughed awkwardly, then asked again: "Is there something the matter?"
"Why aren't you inviting us in?" Harley pursed her small mouth and put her hands on her hips. "Are you hiding something bad from us? Being so guilty?"
"I—" Hagrid's expression was a bit tangled, but soon, he sighed and waved to the three. "Come on, come in."
Inside and outside the house were simply two different worlds of ice and fire. A vigorous bonfire burned inside the hut. The surging heat wave made Harley impatiently take off her cloak as soon as she entered the door. But even so, she was so hot that fine sweat appeared on her forehead, and this was just a few seconds after coming in.
Hagrid, wearing a thick leather overcoat, dressed like this all year round. This mere room temperature of fifty or sixty degrees caused him no discomfort at all.
"I—"
Hagrid had just opened his mouth when Lynn's voice interrupted him.
"Hagrid! How did you pick up a dragon?!"
A look of surprise appeared on Lynn's face. He spoke exaggeratedly, his acting slightly flamboyant.
"What dragon..." Hagrid was dumbfounded by this question. "It's just a dragon egg."
"Did a mother dragon lay the egg in the Forbidden Forest and leave after hatching? That really is an incompetent mother!"
"But it's just an egg—" Hagrid hurriedly explained: "A Norwegian Ridgeback's."
"Such a small dragon must have a hard time surviving in the Forbidden Forest! Its nearby neighbors must be Graphorns or Manticores, or at the very least bad-tempered Erumpents. Once a wizard gets close, they'll be chased all over the forest. There's mortal danger!"
"What are you talking about—"
"Even well-trained Ministry of Magic wizards can't get close easily unless they want to die a violent death."
"But it's just an egg, Lynn. I won it playing cards a while ago..." Hagrid tried to correct Lynn's nonsense; he was an honest person.
"Oh, so it wasn't a dragon mother who gave birth and ran, but poachers who couldn't handle this dragon egg, so they just dumped it in the Forbidden Forest to let it fend for itself. What a pitiful little guy."
"Hagrid, after you found it, it refused to leave, right? And built a nest deep in the Forbidden Forest? No one can get close except you?"
Feeling that Lynn's words were strange, Hagrid scratched his head, not knowing how to explain clearly to him for a moment.
"The Ministry of Magic would definitely capture an uncontrolled dragon in the wild. Dragons are worth a fortune—unless they don't have the ability to catch the dragon, after all, their strength is limited, and they can't deal with the various ferocious magical creatures in the Forbidden Forest."
"Hagrid, you definitely wouldn't accompany them to act as their escort bodyguard, right?"
Hagrid stood frozen for a few seconds, then asked Lynn in a hesitant voice: "Are... you saying... correct... right... right?"
He blinked his innocent black eyes. "I should have picked up this little guy in the forest, right?"
"Yes, you picked it up, and by then it had already built a nest and refused to leave."
"I think what you said makes sense; it should be like that." Hagrid slowly nodded. "This little guy took the Graphorn next door as its mother and lives right next door."
"I picked up a dragon!" Hagrid suddenly grinned broadly. "Yes, I picked up a dragon, and it refused to leave on its own."
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