"What's that sound?!"
Harry looked up with a start, glancing around for the source of the noise. Filch was startled by his sudden fuss.
"What sound? Who are you talking to?"
Harry began searching everywhere near the corridor. Hearing Filch's question, he asked with a puzzled expression.
"Didn't you hear it just now? A voice said it was hungry and mentioned killing or something."
Filch first looked around suspiciously with Harry for a moment, but then said impatiently, "Are you trying to trick me into distracting my attention so you can escape? Stop trying to fool me with these tricks, Potter! You're not even in the same league as those two brats! Now, come with me to the office immediately!"
Filch didn't give Harry a chance to resist, almost dragging him to the office by his collar, preparing to issue him a detention slip. Afterward, Nearly Headless Nick tried to help by distracting Filch to rescue him. When Filch returned in a hurry, it seemed to be because Harry had seen something he had left on his desk. Between fear and nervousness, Filch still punished him by making him clean the first-floor corridor of the castle for a whole week.
Feeling that he had been incredibly unlucky all afternoon, Harry left Filch's office. He still thanked Nick for helping him and, in return, promised to invite his friends to his Deathday Party on Halloween.
However, even after returning to the Gryffindor Common Room, Harry's bad luck did not leave him. Just as he entered the Common Room, he happened to run into Seamus practicing spells. Under Seamus's "exquisite" technique, a perfectly good Knockback Jinx somehow exploded, leaving the already filthy Harry with frizzy hair and a face full of dust.
Harry scrambled into the boys' bathroom to clean himself up, only to accidentally slip on some dirty clothes when coming out, causing him to be covered in mud once again and forcing him to wash a second time.
Returning to the dormitory, he told Ron about his experiences that day. Ron worriedly asked whether he had been cursed and planned to give him his long-treasured amulet to help ward off the bad luck. But as soon as Harry took the amulet, the string holding it snapped, and the messy dried herbs inside spilled all over the floor.
"A very powerful Dark Wizard must have cursed you!"
Ron shouted while helping to clean the floor.
"You have to take this seriously, Harry. I've carried this amulet for five years without anything happening. You should go to Dumbledore or Professor Cavendish and have them exorcise the curse for you!"
Harry lay spread-eagled on the bed with a miserable expression. He didn't react to the words, but Neville, who was hidden under his quilt doing who-knows-what, suddenly shuddered. But no one noticed Neville's strange changes lately; everyone thought he had caught a cold and was just feeling down and unwilling to talk.
Without even eating dinner, Harry lay tiredly on the bed, his eyelids gradually closing. Suddenly, in the darkness, he felt as if something were scurrying near his pillow. Harry swallowed hard and nervously reached for his wand.
"Lumos!"
He saw a dark figure dart past the pillow. Instantly, Harry's pupils dilated, and a look of terror spread across his face.
"Ron! Your rat pooped on my bed!!!"
...
The day before Halloween, the last class for the second-year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs was Sherlock's Defence Against the Dark Arts class.
Nearly two months had passed since Tom's trial, and in the end, still no one had been able to defeat him. Since then, although Tom no longer appeared in Defence Against the Dark Arts class, the legend of Tom still circulated among the second years.
Students said he was an invincible cat, and the rumors grew more and more ridiculous. Eventually, a version emerged claiming that Tom was actually the pet of some powerful old witch, that he could perform magic and ride a flying broomstick, and that he only came to Professor Cavendish's class to help out.
The second-year students had also returned to their normal classroom life. Sherlock had found a special channel through Hagrid to obtain several not-so-dangerous dark magical creatures for the students to observe firsthand and learn how to deal with them.
Because the Halloween holiday was starting tomorrow, Sherlock could see that the students were in no mood to study. So he spent the lesson telling them the wonderful story of a brave magical adventurer's exploits.
The students were enthralled. Even after class, they kept pestering him, asking which book the story came from and wanting to borrow it from the library to read.
Sherlock sent away the students asking about the story, but he still had to deal with a few students who had come to hand in their late homework.
"You clearly could have finished it well, so why did you wait until today?"
Sherlock asked the Hufflepuff student named Justin Finch-Fletchley expressionlessly.
Justin shrank back at the sight of him.
"Sorry, Professor, I forgot."
"Don't let it happen again. You may go."
Justin breathed a sigh of relief and bowed.
"Happy Halloween in advance, Professor."
"I wish you a happy time tomorrow as well."
Harry, who stood behind Justin to hand in his homework, felt an involuntary shiver run through his body for some reason when he heard Sherlock's blessing.
Just as Harry was feeling puzzled, Sherlock's gaze turned toward him.
"And why are you handing in your homework late, Harry?"
Harry hurriedly explained, "Because I got the castle floors dirty a few days ago, and Filch punished me by making me clean the corridors for a week, so I didn't have enough time to do my homework."
"That's a justifiable reason."
Sherlock took the homework from him. Seeing Harry hesitate as if he wanted to say something, he asked curiously, "Anything else?"
"No, nothing. I'll be going then, Professor."
"Mhm. Go on, then."
Harry turned and left the classroom. For some reason, after leaving, he subconsciously let out a long sigh of relief, as if he had escaped from some indescribable bad luck.
Ron and Hermione, who were waiting outside, looked at him strangely.
"Did Professor Cavendish scold you?"
Harry shook his head. "No, Professor Cavendish said my reason was justifiable."
"Then why are you sighing?" Ron patted him on the shoulder and said excitedly, "Are you regretting going to the Deathday Party tomorrow? Then let's not go!"
Hermione, on the other hand, was quite enthusiastic about the party.
"Of course not. Harry promised Nick, so we must go."
Harry didn't speak. He looked at Justin's retreating back as he walked away chatting and laughing with friends, and for some reason, he remembered that unlucky afternoon of his.