#32 - The beginning of the conflict

After scouring all seven years' worth of Potions textbooks, Anduin walked back in a cheerful mood. He estimated that he could master the basic spells and Defense Against the Dark Arts spells from years 1-7 in about a week. Then, while selecting and practicing defensive spells, he could begin studying potions, allowing him to put his potions business on the agenda sooner.

As Anduin headed towards the Great Hall, he passed a classroom on the third floor and suddenly heard a rustling sound. His keen senses told him that someone was in the nearby classroom.

Could someone be scavenging in the classrooms like me? But that's not right, this is the first-year Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Unable to resist his curiosity, Anduin cast a 'Quietus' charm on himself and slowly walked towards the classroom door. The classroom door was locked. Opening it directly would definitely alert the enemy. His purpose was only to find out who was inside, not to cause trouble.

But this didn't stump Anduin. He raised his wand and pointed it at his ear, casting an Amplifying Charm. This was something Anduin had learned at the last Duelling Club meeting. It contained some of the techniques from the 'Deafening Charm' counter-spell, which could increase a person's hearing several times over. It was discovered by Ravenclaw's Senior Quirrell, whose research topic was related to sonic spells.

After casting the spell, Anduin suddenly felt that his surroundings became noisy. This was also one of the side effects of this spell technique. If you weren't careful, if someone shouted next to you after casting the spell, you might faint on the spot. Anduin took a few seconds to adjust, then put his ear to the classroom door. Intermittent sounds came from inside.

"Tomorrow night... Charles... you... hahaha... fools... teach him a lesson..." The person in the classroom wasn't speaking very loudly, and there were other ambient sounds affecting it, causing Anduin to hear it intermittently.

Anduin listened for a while and then immediately dispelled the spell. This spell technique was still very immature. Using it for two minutes made him feel dizzy.

However, Anduin half-heard and half-guessed, and roughly understood the situation in the room. There were about five or six people in the room. Anduin heard a voice that sounded familiar, it was Travers's voice, but the other voices sounded unfamiliar, not like students from the same year. The people inside seemed to be discussing something, planning to do something to Charles or Gryffindor tomorrow night.

A group of people from various grades mixed together, it's unlikely they would gather together to plot against a lower-year student.

"Is the small war inside Hogwarts about to begin? Is Slytherin preparing to strike first? The headmaster has been mostly away from the school recently, it seems they are preparing to make some trouble while they have the chance." Anduin roughly sorted out the cause and effect.

But this was none of his business. He didn't have the ability to intervene in the conflicts between the houses right now, but they mentioned Charles, as his friend, Anduin was going to give him a heads-up if he had the chance.

With that thought, Anduin stopped lingering and hurried to the Great Hall.

When he arrived at the Great Hall, dinner had already started. Anduin sat down at the Slytherin table, turned his head and looked around, and found that several activists from the pure-blood families were absent from the Slytherin table. He understood what was going on. He turned his head again to look at the Gryffindor table, and Charles was happily joking with his classmates.

Seeing this, Anduin nodded silently, and had a plan in mind. Then he buried his head and quickly ate some food. The taste was average and very greasy, but Anduin quickly filled himself up.

After waiting for a while, Anduin noticed that the Slytherins had returned to the Great Hall, as if nothing had happened, and sat down to eat slowly.

Before long, Anduin noticed that Charles and several classmates seemed to have finished their meal and were packing their things to leave.

At this time, Anduin took the lead and walked out of the Great Hall first, and waited at the corner next to the door.

Sure enough, Charles and his group came out of the Great Hall shortly after.

"Charles!" Anduin called out to Charles softly. Seeing that Charles turned his head to look at him, he waved to Charles gently.

Charles was puzzled, but when he saw that it was Anduin, he said goodbye to the people next to him, asked them to go first, and walked towards Anduin.

Anduin saw Charles approaching, grabbed his arm, and pulled him to a corner next to him.

"What's wrong, Anduin? Why are you being so mysterious?" Charles looked at Anduin pulling him and pulling him into a corner, and asked inexplicably.

"I have something to ask you. I want to ask you, do you have anything to do tomorrow night?" Anduin looked at Charles and asked him softly.

When Charles heard Anduin's words, his heart skipped a beat and he felt something was wrong. He did have something to do tomorrow night, but how did Anduin know? Although Anduin hadn't communicated much with him since he went to Slytherin, Charles instinctively still wanted to believe Anduin.

After thinking about it, Charles said to Anduin: "That's right, tomorrow night is one of our prefect's birthday. We are planning to sneak out to the Astronomy Tower tomorrow night to celebrate his birthday."

When Anduin heard this, he thought, sure enough, they were preparing to target Gryffindor's actions.

"Listen to me, you may be in danger tomorrow night. If possible, I suggest you don't participate, or remind your housemates to cancel the action." Anduin didn't waste any time and quickly said to Charles.

"Are you saying?" Charles's eyes widened and he glanced at Anduin, and Anduin on the opposite side nodded at him.

"Don't tell anyone that you heard it from me, be careful." After Anduin finished speaking, he left, not caring whether Charles believed him or not.

Charles was his friend, and reminding him once was already the best he could do. If the other party didn't believe him, it was none of his business. Moreover, this was Hogwarts, and Anduin didn't believe that anyone would die. If the Gryffindors were prepared to act recklessly, suffering losses and injuries was their own fault.

Charles, who was left in place, stood there and thought for a while, and felt that Anduin shouldn't be lying to him, so he walked out thoughtfully.

Anduin, on the other side, didn't dwell on the trivial matters of the houses anymore. After the History of Magic class in the afternoon, he went straight back to his room.

He flipped through today's 'Daily Prophet' to learn a little about the current situation in the magical world.

"It seems that the newly appointed Minister Millicent Bagnold is very determined." Anduin saw Bagnold give a public speech in today's newspaper, announcing that she would resolutely fight against the Dark Lord and the Death Eater organization, and that she had granted the Aurors permission to use the 'Unforgivable Curses' on Death Eaters.