Chapter 50
Late at night, Harry had another nightmare, this time he was on the Quidditch pitch and the entire sky was dark and gloomy, pouring with heavy rain. He could barely see anything.
Bludgers and the Quaffle whistled past his ears. He tried desperately to spot the Golden Snitch, when suddenly he noticed Professor Lucian on the teachers' stand, facing his direction, lips moving continuously.
The next moment, the Quaffle and Bludgers — which had already been flying in other directions — abruptly turned around and smashed toward both his arms from left and right!
"Hiss!" Harry jolted awake from the pain in his sleep. Everything around him was pitch black; he instinctively moved his arms. They were fine. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
At that moment, Harry suddenly heard a small voice calling from beside him.
"Harry Potter… Harry — Potter."
Harry turned his head instinctively, and his heart missed a beat — a rather ugly grey house-elf was crouching at the foot of his bed, cautiously watching him, its enormous eyes particularly prominent.
"You're — Dobby? Why are you here?"
"Harry Potter must be careful of Professor Lucian! He deceived Dobby! He clearly said he would take care of the Basilisk! But he still let the Basilisk appear!"
"Professor Lucian?!" Harry's expression changed. Still in his pyjamas, he quietly climbed out of bed.
"Let's talk outside. Don't wake them."
"No need, Dobby has already cast good-dream charms on them. They won't wake up."
"You—" Harry glanced at Neville, who was snoring thunderously, then frowned at Dobby.
"What exactly did you mean by what you just said? Tell me in detail."
"It's like this…"
It didn't take Harry long to learn everything from Dobby — including how the house-elf had tried to stop him from returning to school and had attempted to attack him during the Quidditch match.
"It was you! You were the one who sealed the platform barrier at the beginning of term so Ron and I couldn't get through! Do you have any idea that because of that Ron got a Howler from his mum and his dad got investigated? And once wasn't enough — you even tried to attack me and ruin my match!" Harry furiously raised his wand, pointing it straight at Dobby.
"You'd better never show up in front of me again, Dobby. Next time we meet, I will attack you."
Dobby gave a faint smile. "Dobby is already used to death threats. Dobby hears them five times a day at home." He blew his nose on a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking utterly pathetic, and Harry's anger involuntarily deflated.
At the same time, more questions arose in his mind.
'So… during today's Quidditch match, I had actually been about to be attacked? And it was Professor Lucian's house-elf who had protected me?'
Then he had still suspected the professor… A rather intense wave of guilt began to surge in Harry's heart.
Afterwards, he learned even more from Dobby — that the Chamber of Secrets had already been opened once before, and someone was plotting behind the scenes. But Harry no longer believed that person was Professor Lucian.
Nevertheless, no matter how much he asked, Dobby refused to reveal that person's name. After torturing himself several times and urgently advising Harry to leave the school quickly, Dobby escaped under Harry's persistent questioning.
The next day, Harry told Ron and Hermione everything.
Hermione looked both delighted and troubled.
She was delighted because they could now eliminate one wrong answer — since the Chamber had been opened before, that meant Malfoy couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin… unless there were multiple heirs, but the probability of that should be extremely low.
And since Barton, Professor Lucian's house-elf, had helped Harry, the three of them truly no longer wanted to suspect him.
Even Ron kept his mouth shut this time. Harry, meanwhile, had already developed a favourable impression of Lucian — after all, the man had protected him. If things had gone as Dobby described, if a Bludger had smashed him into the hospital wing and made him lose the Quidditch match, Harry felt he really might have died of sheer anger.
The matter of the Chamber of Secrets seemed to have reached a deadlock all at once, and Harry decided he would no longer follow Professor Lucian.
But aside from this matter, they had plenty of other things to worry about; with the arrival of November, all the students at Hogwarts became extremely busy.
The older years need no mention — the seventh-years, in order to secure a good path after graduation, were anxious even the laziest witches and wizards of that age. Though it didn't make much difference in most cases.
The sixth-years might have been a group of pure-blood heirs, but after being thoroughly subdued by Lucian, they studied with remarkable diligence. Four of them even changed their original career plans to become Aurors — with Lucian there, they believed they could definitely get an Outstanding in Defence Against the Dark Arts for their N.E.W.T.s, and even Charms could improve along with it.
The fifth-years had been studying until their heads spun since the beginning of term. After Professor Lucian released his self-compiled workbook in the second week — One Year to O.W.L.s, Three Years to N.E.W.T.s— they went completely mad!
Of course, there were some who got tired, went crazy, and wanted to give up, but with everyone else studying frantically, they were eventually dragged into the rat race anyway.
They had no choice but to keep up — because after doing the so-called "real past papers" that the professor had provided, they discovered that the overall level of their year group was improving dramatically. This year's O.W.L. results… might end up explosively better than any previous year.
If other people got Outstanding or Exceeds Expectations in Defence Against the Dark Arts while you only got Acceptable — or even failed — that feeling would truly be awful.
As for the lower years…
Hermione and Cedric not only had to handle regular schoolwork, but also the extra assignments from Professor Lucian's study group. At the same time, they had to sneak around, avoiding prying eyes, to brew Polyjuice Potion. They were busy as if thrown into a cauldron of chaos.
And they still weren't even sure whether the potion would ever be needed.
Harry, Ron, and the other students were driven nearly mad by the newly introduced monthly exams — at the end of the month they would face their first test, and the point gap between first and fourth place was simply enormous.
At present, thanks to Harry winning the Quidditch match, Gryffindor was temporarily in the lead for the House Cup with a 50-point advantage over second place, but the gap with the other houses wasn't actually that large.
Ravenclaw students were eyeing the prize hungrily — there were still seven months until the end of the school year. Excluding holidays, and adding the end-of-year final exams, there would be at least four more monthly exams — that was 200 points!
In fact, they only needed 75 points to catch up to Gryffindor. Any extra points would become their buffer — insurance against Professor Snape suddenly losing his mind and deducting points at random.
Their calculations were sharp, and their study posture was extremely serious.
Whether in the library, the Great Hall, or on the grass by the Black Lake, Ravenclaws studying could be seen everywhere at all times.
Students from the other houses couldn't sit still either after seeing this. Even Lucian began to suspect whether someone had placed a curse on the House Cup itself.
Almost every student was going mad for this seemingly intangible honour, leading to a series of ridiculous events in the following days that left even him both amused and exasperated.
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