Chapter 374: The Rise of the Snake Court

By the time Shaylin had returned to Hogwarts from Bath, carried by Dobby through Apparition, it was already night and long past dinner time.

Xie Ling looked at the empty dormitory and sighed deeply. He sat quietly on the bed, clearing his mind of all distracting thoughts.

It had been a long time since he had experienced that kind of leisurely feeling where he didn't have to think about anything, and he even felt a little bored.

He suddenly understood how Dumbledore felt.

Ordinary people always look up to and envy those heroic figures who are high above them, but they do not know that the greater the power, fame, and strength they possess, the heavier the responsibility they bear. In fact, being ordinary is also a kind of happiness.

He took out some snacks from his pocket, ate them briefly, took a hot bath, and then lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

the next day.

It is June 6th, four days after the end of the Goblet of Fire, and there are still four days before Hogwarts goes on holiday.

At breakfast time, when Xie Ling walked into the auditorium, he found the atmosphere a bit depressing.

He had just sat down next to Daphne when Daphne whispered, "Today's Daily Prophet came out, and it reported that our former Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Kettleburn, for some unknown reason, trespassed into the forbidden area of ​​the Centaur tribe without permission, not only offending the Centaur, but also being so crazy as to try to attack the Centaur first. As a result, he was killed by the Centaur in the battle, and his body was only delivered to the headmaster last night."

"This matter spread among the students this morning. I heard that Hagrid and the centaurs had a big fight at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and the noise reached the castle," Daphne said solemnly. "Since this morning, students can be seen discussing this matter everywhere."

Schelling cast a glance at the professors' seats. Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout were both discussing something seriously. Professor Snape's gloomy face still made it difficult to read his thoughts. Dumbledore's seat was vacant.

"So..." Xie Ling used his knife and fork to elegantly cut the bacon toast into several small pieces, "What is the school's response?"

Daphne followed Sherin's gaze and glanced at the empty headmaster's seat before she said, "After the Daily Prophet reported the incident, the former Hogwarts professor's death in the Forbidden Forest adjacent to Hogwarts undoubtedly aroused the sensitive nerves of many parents who were worried about their children's safety. It has caused an uproar in the entire wizarding community. It is said that the headmaster rushed to the centaur tribe in the Forbidden Forest early this morning to try to investigate the whole story, but was turned away. The angry centaurs did not even show Dumbledore any mercy."

Xie Lin sneered in his heart. Dumbledore might have lost more than he gained. He had originally intended to use Kettleburn to monitor the Forbidden Forest, but ended up attracting hostility from the centaurs. Coupled with the alarmist statements of the Daily Prophet, parents would once again question Hogwarts' ability to ensure the safety of students. This was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Dumbledore's image of wisdom and resourcefulness.

"Notify our companions in Slytherin and other colleges that the Forbidden Forest may not be peaceful in the near future, and no one should go near there." Sherin ordered.

"Yes, I'll talk to Murray, Luna, and Susan," Daphne nodded in response.

"Let's not worry about this anymore. It has nothing to do with us. Okay, after breakfast we have to get ready for today's class." Xie Ling put the last piece of toast with cheese sauce into his mouth, calmly wiped the corners of his mouth with a tissue, and stood up.

Today is Wednesday, and I have a Transfiguration class with Hufflepuff and a Charms class with Ravenclaw.

Professor McGonagall was not very satisfied with the progress of Transfiguration this year. Nearly half of the students in the two classes combined still made mistakes when casting Transfiguration Spells, and their mastery of Transfiguration Spells was not proficient enough, not to mention the even more difficult cross-species transformation.

In this class, she severely criticized Goyle, Crabbe, and Justin because their performance was the worst among all the students. Then she praised Draco, Daphne, and Susan. Even so, these three were only outstanding in the transformation spell, and they still needed more efforts to master the cross-species transformation.

Ernie McMillan and Zacharias Smith looked at each other meaningfully, as if they both understood something.

Hufflepuff students are always united, and it is rare for them to be divided into different small groups within the same grade. For example, if Hufflepuff and Gryffindor get close to each other in a certain school year, under the influence of this group unconsciousness, there are almost no badgers who will make friends with Slytherin.

This was the case with the batch that enrolled in 91.

Ernie, Justin and Harry were close friends, while Hannah Abbott and Megan Jones often hung out with the girls from Gryffindor. Even if the rest of the group didn't have much contact with Gryffindor for various personal reasons, they wouldn't have any friendship with the other two houses.

Until recently, a rare outlier appeared among them - Susan Bones.

Susan didn't know why she suddenly became very close to Slytherin. Even though Hannah and Megan, who used to be like sisters to her, tried to find out the reason many times, they couldn't get any information from her. As a year passed, the fourth grade study career came to an end, and something interesting happened.

Apart from the halo of savior, Harry and Ron did not show any specialness from other students. Hermione finally had the title of "Miss Know-It-All" and her grades were also dazzling enough, but Harry and Ron's performance was far from meeting everyone's expectations.

Among the Hufflepuff students who are on good terms with Gryffindor, except for Ernie and Zacharias who have good grades due to their family background, the grades of others such as Justin, Hannah, and Megan have almost visibly declined this school year. However, this is not because they are really regressing, but because they simply cannot keep up with the pace of progress of other students in the same grade.

In stark contrast to the two of them is Susan Bones, who hangs out with the Slytherin clique. Although Susan comes from the Bones family, which has a deep family background, the entire family was slaughtered in the last wizard war, leaving only her and her aunt to depend on each other.

Susan's academic performance has been mediocre since the first grade. She is even behind Hannah, Justin, and Megan. Even in the peaceful Hufflepuff House, she is at the bottom of the class.

But ever since she began to distance herself from her original friends and became interested in various activities in the Slytherin circle, her progress was almost like riding a Firebolt with ten times the power. Her progress was so fast that it was unbelievable. In just one semester, she had surpassed Ernie and Zacharias and became the leading representative of Hufflepuff in academics.

What does this mean? Ernie and Zacharias both know it. They have a feeling that things are going to change for Hufflepuff.

After the Transfiguration class, the next class was the Charms class with Ravenclaw.

Although the main content of the Charms class this semester only covers the Summoning Spell and the Expulsion Spell, Professor Flitwick actually assigns two to three extracurricular reading materials before the end of each class, requiring students to study them in their own spare time. Although the number does not sound large, it is a very astonishing amount of reading when accumulated - this is why in the original book, the spells mastered by Hermione, who has read all the extracurricular reading materials, are so different from those of Harry and Ron, who just live a day-to-day life.

Flitwick was one of the tutors who was loved by the students for his lenient and easy-going personality. Most of the students got excellent grades in this course, but this academic year, no other student except Shailling was invited to join the Charms Club, including Hermione from another class.

Sherin knew this very well. Although Hermione came from a Muggle family and had never been exposed to magic before the age of 11, she had a great talent for learning magic and had a deep understanding of using magic. However, her personality was too straightforward, which limited her to learning and using magic, and she was unable to make any innovations or improvements in any field of spells.

When Professor Flitwick decided to invite students to join the Charms Club, what he valued most was the creativity of innovative magic.

At lunch time, the little snakes gathered at the Slytherin table, discussing their grades excitedly.

The fourth-year students have received their grades in almost all subjects. Except for the slightly unsatisfactory results in the Magical Creatures class, Slytherin is almost the only one who dominates the rest of the subjects, such as history, astronomy, alchemy, herbology, transfiguration, and spells. The only classes that have not yet known their results are the Defense Against the Dark Arts class on Thursday and Potions class on Friday.

They have been notified that Thursday's Defense class has been cancelled; and Friday's Potions class is the subject that Slytherins are best at, and they are confident of their results in this class.

Sherin sat in the middle between Daphne and Astoria, as usual.

"Brother Xie Lin," Astoria said proudly, "Look, these are my grades in all subjects. I should be number one in the school again this year. Come on and praise me!"

Xie Lin stroked her golden hair lovingly and said softly: "My Tori, I knew you would not let me down. How did the others perform?"

At this moment, a fragrant breeze blew from behind Xie Ling, and the Carol sisters also gathered around Xie Ling. They looked at each other, showing sweet and bright smiles, and said in unison: "We are the second and third in the whole grade."

Sherin nodded with satisfaction. Among the second-year students, Slytherin took the top three places.

I heard that the situation is similar among the third-year students. Although Luna from Ravenclaw ranks first, the second and third places still go to Slytherin House. What's more, all the students in the Sleeping Dragon Society know that Luna is actually one of them.

As the powerful figures of Gryffindor graduate one by one, it can be predicted that in the next few years, Hogwarts will be dominated by Slytherin in terms of academic performance.

As for the performance in the Quidditch competition, Shalling did not want Slytherin to be outdone by other colleges, but he did not want to intervene in this matter, so he left everything to Draco!

After all, he is his biological brother who grew up with him, so he has confidence in Draco. Under his influence, Draco's character is much more stable than that in the original book.

Schelling had seen Draco practice Krum's special move "Wronski Feint" in private, and Schelling could say that Draco's attainment in this move was no less than Krum's - with the blessing of the Firebolt, the Hogwarts Seeker had no rivals except Harry Potter, who was the protagonist and also held the Firebolt. (End of this chapter)