Chapter 554: Chapter 554 New Project
"Never seen such a spectacle!" Fred said as he came closer, with a strange sense of contentment on his face.
Harry looked at the notice board and understood what he meant. The names of the student clubs posted on it added up to over a hundred, most of which had just been established during this week, and there was a lot of discussion at the foot of the board, and he heard Justin swear that he had seen a "hundred kinds of snuff bottle club", and Harry's eyes searched the parchment and found a similar club, but he was not sure whether it would be " the muggle craft" or "the goblin craft".
Two feet away from him, a Hufflepuff boy animatedly described how magical drawings work, "You could make something move if you just drew it on a piece of parchment, it's pretty simple, but that's only the basic of the basics, there are lots of advanced techniques, and you can even interact with the people in it!"
"Then, wouldn't that be the same as magical portraits? There are lots of them hanging in the castle." His friend asked.
"Of course, it's not the same!" The boy turned red and raised his voice, "Think about it, there's a little man trapped in the maze, and to avoid being eaten by hundreds of Blast-Ended Skrewt he has to rely on you to escape, you have to think up a way to offer that little man help and if he makes it out of the maze he'll express his gratitude to you from inside the canvas ... "
Harry listened for a while and found it very interesting, but he soon found that the boy began to invite the audience to join his "magic painting club" and Harry's mouth dropped open in amazement.
At that moment, Hermione strode through the crowd, beaming with joy.
"It's working!" She said gleefully, "Three people have shown interest in joining S.P.E.W., all freshmen, I didn't expect the new students this year to be so compassionate."
"Hermione, it is against the rules to abuse the power of a Prefect. That's what you told me." Ron said.
Hermione raised her eyebrows.
Ron grimaced and stopped talking, and when Hermione turned to merge into the crowd again, he lowered his voice and whispered to Harry, "If it's not an abuse of Prefect power, then it just means that the current young wizards are failing their basic pre-entry education and haven't even learned how to spell 'spew'... ..."
In the corner, Felix and Snape stood together.
"I didn't think you'd do such a trivial and irrelevant thing." Snape's lips quirked, as his voice was only heard within a small circle close to them.
"It's just a matter of raising your hand." Felix said, looking at the chaotic crowd of students.
He felt like he had developed an odd habit after studying Dementors - enjoying being in a positive, jovial atmosphere - but it was unfortunate that halfway through his research, he didn't have enough Dementors in hand. What specifically happened was that the last dementor was starved and couldn't resist stealing some of the Emotions he had worked to collect from the stadium, so Felix did a few destructive tests on that dementor ...
As he considered how to replenish his supply, he asked quietly, "Been under a lot of stress lately with your part-time job?"
Snape took a deep breath and said in an unemotional tone, "Easier than teaching a bunch of trolls."
"Oh," Felix agreed tacitly, as he counted the Gryffindor house students in the crowd. "One, two, three, four ..."
Snape turned his head to look at him expressionlessly and Felix smacked his lips, "Good thing I don't have that much of a nuisance, both Slytherin and Gryffindor students are performing well ..." He paused and said, "I was told by someone that the one Who Must Not Be Named is pretty depressed these days, the Aurors in the Ministry of Magic are more or less frustrated, you know, the pointless overtime is most frustrating."
Snape didn't say anything.
His memory went back over a month before. It hadn't been long after the battle in Hogsmeade that he had felt the Dark Mark on his arm grow hot, a call from Voldemort. Of course, he didn't immediately leave, it is a privilege Voldemort granted him: because of his undercover status, he doesn't have to respond immediately to the summoning.
So he waited calmly, as if nothing had happened, until Dumbledore returned, who showed him a dry hand and asked him vaguely how much time he had left, and Snape was tempted to punch Dumbledore in his crooked nose.
Dumbledore wasn't injured at all, at least in Snape's eyes, and it wasn't the hand that really required attention, but his suddenly younger face. But as soon as Snape had asked two questions, he was deflected.
Knowing what Dumbledore meant, Snape stared at the dry, charred, lifeless hand, and memorized the image deeply, burning it into his mind so that he could freely assemble it into a memory he wanted when he needed it.
The dark mark kept working through the day and into the evening, with two more changes, with one more urgent than the other, and by the end of the day, it had reached the point where it caused him unbearable pain.
So Snape was forced to meet Voldemort a little earlier than expected, and he had thought of a good reason before he left - Dumbledore had ordered him to keep watch over the school, and he couldn't get away. But when they met Voldemort didn't ask any questions about it at all, and he had never seen Voldemort so out of shape, those red eyes seemingly ready to pick someone to devour.
Bellatrix - the key woman, the one Dumbledore had told him to keep an eye on - was standing behind Voldemort with a tremble.
Voldemort asked him to go to a secret room on the seventh floor of the castle as soon as he returned, to retrieve a tattered diadem. "Large room full of miscellaneous items, a male wizard half statue, tattered cupboard splashed with strong acid..." He described it in great detail and specifics, fearing that Snape would not be able to find it.
Snape agreed although he reckoned Voldemort would be disappointed.
Voldemort then asked in detail about Harry Potter's scar, and Snape told him everything, after which he asked about the Parseltongue, a secret that had been revealed back in Harry's second year and which Snape hadn't held back. The questioning ended with a long, suffocating dead silence. Bellatrix was motionless like a quail, as she fidgeted throughout the conversation.
Finally, Voldemort asked for more details about Dumbledore's injuries, and Snape recounted every scene he had seen the Headmaster from the beginning of the school year until now, as per Dumbledore's instructions, and all of them had one common feature, which was the fact that Dumbledore always wore gloves.
When he heard this, Voldemort's face mingled with a complex look of annoyance and joy.
Snape was then ordered to return to the school immediately to confirm the status of the diadem. And the news had to be reported to him before dawn.
In his mind, Snape thought Voldemort was out of his mind; he didn't seem to have any concern for whether his undercover role would be exposed or not, but he agreed to do it anyway. Snape returned to the school and spookily appeared on the seventh floor, then turned a corner and entered the Headmaster's office - such was the life of a double undercover agent where it would take him more than twice as long to report the situation.
Figuring it was about time, he met with Voldemort again.
This time the meeting place was changed to the old manor of Augustus Rookwood, the 'loyal' Death Eater who is currently imprisoned in Azkaban, and thus his home is unceremoniously occupied by Voldemort. Voldemort was still accompanied by Bellatrix, and it seemed as though Voldemort intended to carry her with him all the time.
Snape calmly reported the information he had gathered, the diadem was naturally lost, and Voldemort was furious, even 'furious' seemed an understatement as he walked around the dimly lit room, the snakewood wand in his hand made a hissing sound. Voldemort cursed Dumbledore aloud, using nearly every vile word he could think of.
Contrasting instructions emerged from his mouth.
First, with a vicious look on his face, he told Snape to poison Dumbledore as he proceeded to treat his wound, "Let Dumbledore die, DIE!" Voldemort growled madly, but it didn't take him long to dismiss the idea, "Go and investigate the whereabouts of the diadem," he said through gritted teeth, "We must find out if it was destroyed or hidden ... if necessary you can break into the Headmaster's office, no, wait for word from me ..."
"I will arrange for a spy from the Ministry of Magic to cooperate with your mission."
But it had been half a month, and there was no news from Voldemort's side as if he had died, and Snape had no idea who the spy that Voldemort was talking about was, that man wouldn't be coming, would he?
The next few days were filled with an air of restlessness throughout Hogwarts.
Despite the fact that the last weekend of November is still a few days away, the students can't wait for the activity to begin, often taking the opportunity of having classes together in different houses to recruit members for their clubs.
From what Felix had observed, Gryffindor and Slytherin didn't interact with each other for the most part, and they both chose students from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Houses to go after.
Even when he was walking outside, he could see students from different houses coming together and chatting.
But he had never expected that there would be students who would have their minds set on him.
"Hey, Felix." Luna looked out from behind a suit of armour and jumped out excitedly when she saw him.
Felix walked over to her, "Luna?" He looked at her with some surprise. Not far from them, a group of girls is hiding in the background looking at them.
"It's like this," Luna said with a serious look on her face, "I want to invite you to join my club."
"Your club is-"
"The 'Crumple-Horned Snorkacks Certainly Exist' Club."
"Uh-" Felix paused and asked tentatively, " Is it possible that you can't recruit anyone and want to get me to make up the numbers? Well, I can't, I mean, I am a professor, after all, but I recommend Valen ..."
"Oh, no, I've got three people." Luna said cheerfully, "But if you gather four students from all the four houses and one professor, you can engrave the club's name on the candles in the great hall, first come, first served, so I'll have to hurry."
Felix looked slightly out of breath, "How come I didn't know about this?"
"It's a hidden trail." Luna said.
It's gossip, right, Felix said to himself, he should have expected it, with the nature of the Hogwarts students, all sorts of unreliable rumours were bound to be spread, he just didn't think it would be Luna who would fall for it, he glanced at the students in the corner, they must be the one egging it up.
Felix thought about it and lowered his voice, "Now that you've found out, well, I agree. Just don't tell anyone else."
When he left, Luna got immediately surrounded by a group of chattering girls.
"How was it, did it work?"
Luna nodded.
"Is the information true?" One girl asked.
"The professor forbid me to say." Luna replied dully.
"Oh ..." The girls looked at each other meaningfully, it seemed to be true, and they dispersed in a huff with long-drawn-out murmurs, not knowing which professor to find.
Felix returned to his office, thinking about making a portable dementor capture cage that he would sell to the Ministry of Magic when the time came and just use the captured dementors to offset the bill. He sat on the sofa, half lost in thought, and when he looked back for a moment, he saw Valen sitting across from him with the New Solutions to Rune magazine copy, and leafing through the pages rapidly.
This academic magazine was printed on his behalf by Luna's father, Xenophilius Lovegood, who sent Felix a sample issue each month, with a complete set of that month's Quibbler edition.
A typical wizard's tabloid, Quibbler is not a popular magazine, but it does not lack readers either. As Felix understood it - despite Luna's denials - its niche magazine offered something akin to entertainment news, containing a hilarious variety of conspiracy theories and discussions about virtual creatures.
Of course, sometimes serious topics are discussed in a serious manner, only the conclusions reached are often unbelievable. Felix, for example, has anonymously published a couple of small articles on it, speculating about a future society of wizards. One of them was about the exploration of Mars.
"A wizard is about to travel to Mars in a Muggle-built spacecraft to grow vegetables when he got intercepted for smuggling three hundred Muggles with him using an Undetectable Extension Charm, as a result, the Ministry of Magic and the Muggle government stated that the law would be amended to ban all non-transparent containers to be carried to mars and as a result, hot water bottles on Mars became a rare resource ... "
The response was, well, lukewarm.
Then, Luna's father wrote a short story based on a similar format: a Seer travels to Mars, where the 'aura' is too strong to make a prophecy, causing the Seer to be accidentally struck by a meteor while flying on his broomstick.
This story became the latest popular joke in the wizarding world and given the closed nature of the wizarding world, it is estimated that it will not go out of fashion even after a century of circulation ...
Valen wasn't interested in the raw theories in the New Solutions to Rune magazine, but she liked to look up the names of people she knew. As she leafed through it, she took out her precious wand and scribbled in the air, and soon the office was littered with crooked letters that made Felix dizzy from reading them, so he reached out and squeezed the words in the air together, crumpling them into a glowing, shiny ball.
Valen yelped in displeasure.
Felix threw the ball at Valen, who exasperatedly threw it back at him, and soon the two were playing this fun (and boring) little game with gusto.
Before going to bed, Felix suddenly remembered to write to his new pen pal who lives in Nurmengard Castle -
"...
It's not a matter of courage, and it's not about proactiveness, it's a matter of brains. Even if I had been born in your time, I would not choose to make an enemy of hundreds of thousand wizards and billions of ordinary people - in my opinion, enslavement is the most time-consuming and laborious way to go - not to mention the fact that the population on both sides has now almost tripled.
Speaking of tripling, I suddenly remembered a question about the Engorgement Charm. I have a colleague who grows very special, extra-large pumpkins ... Do you think eating such a charmed pumpkin over a long period of time would cause malnutrition? Or will it harm the soil?
I think this subject is more valuable and could be classified as muggle research. Or name it something new?
...
Enclosed with the letter are two political books and an excellent magazine that I strongly recommend - "Quibbler," which sells over five hundred copies a day and is worth reading."
Finishing his letter, Felix lifted his head and straightened his back, and Valen, who was lying across the desk, immediately closed her diary and looked at him with a wary expression.
Felix looked away, wondering which unlucky person in the school had been defeated by Valen this time. Unfortunately, he only managed to glimpse two names, one is Astoria and the other is Mafalda ...
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