Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures - H.P.S.T Chapter 1427: Peaceful February

Practice makes perfect, and everything depends on your own perception.

That was probably his idea.

But at this moment, a horrible screech of pain pierced the air above the Great Hall.

Everybody looked around, terrified, to see Susan Bones of Hufflepuff wobbling in her hoop with her left leg still standing five feet away where she had started.

The Heads of House converged on her; there was a great bang and a puff of purple smoke, which cleared to reveal Susan sobbing, reunited with her leg but looking horrified.

“Oh my God!” Hermione covered her mouth with her hand.

“This is Splinching, or the separation of random body parts,” said Evan. “Unexpected situations often occur during Apparition, mainly when the mind is insufficiently determined, but the magic has already taken effect by then, so it becomes like this, with part of the body moving away and part of the body remaining where it is.”

At the front of the crowd, Twycross’s explanation was similar to Evan’s. He told everyone not to panic and to remain composed.

He demonstrated Apparition again, vanishing gracefully and reappearing at the back of the Great Hall, but the demonstration didn’t have much of a reassuring effect. Fear of Splinching made everyone hesitant, and in the second half of the lesson, not a single student managed to Apparate successfully.

Twycross did not seem discouraged and seemed to be used to such outcomes.

Fastening his cloak at his neck, he merely said, “Until next Saturday, everybody, and do not forget: Destination. Determination. Deliberation.”

With that, he waved his wand, Vanishing the hoops, and walked out of the Hall accompanied by Professor McGonagall.

“Destination. Determination. Deliberation?!” Hermione said, “Easy to say, but I can’t even find the feeling of entering nothingness.”

“I’ll take you through it a few more times next time we go to Hogsmeade,” said Evan. “Did you forget? I wasn’t much better when I was learning Apparition either. It was Sirius who … Harry, where are you going?”

As the students crowded out of the Great Hall, Harry hurried toward the staircase.

“Malfoy’s using Crabbe and Goyle as lookouts. He was arguing with Crabbe just now. I want to know what it is about,” he turned around and lowered his voice. “I just thought of it, and the Marauder’s Map just happened to come in handy. From now on, I’ll use the map to monitor him. As soon as I see where he is and Crabbe and Goyle are keeping watch outside, I’ll put on the Invisibility Cloak and go find out. If I have any news, you two will be the first to know.”

With that, he ran past the crowd towards the Gryffindor common room, leaving Evan and Hermione behind.

“Using the Marauder’s Map to spy on Malfoy?” said Hermione. “Is he going to be looking at that map all day?”

“Looks like it,” Evan replied. Harry was definitely heading back to get the map.

He was determined to find out what Malfoy was up to this time, and for the next two weeks, Harry checked the map as often as he could, sometimes making unnecessary visits to the bathroom between lessons to search it. Ron even told them that he had woken up one night and saw Harry staring at the map by the light of his wand…

Malfoy Watcher, that should be Harry’s new title.

Evan couldn’t find any reason to pay such close attention to someone, except for strong love or strong hatred.

Even if Malfoy was really suspicious, Harry didn’t have to go to this extent.

The point was that it was useless for him to do so. After persisting for so long, Harry did not once see Malfoy anywhere suspicious. Admittedly, he spotted Crabbe and Goyle moving around the castle on their own more often than usual, sometimes remaining stationary in deserted corridors, but at these times Malfoy was not only nowhere near them, but impossible to locate on the map at all.

Harry toyed with the possibility that Malfoy was actually leaving the school grounds, but could not see how he could be doing it, given the very high level of security now operating within the castle.

Harry discussed this with them several times, and in the end he could only suppose that he was missing Malfoy amongst the hundreds of tiny black dots upon the map.

As for the fact that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle appeared to be going their different ways when they were usually inseparable, these things happened as people got older.

It wasn’t just Malfoy and Goyle and Crabbe who had been separated recently, but also Ron and Lavender.

It was the usual kind of relationship trouble.

Lavender kept insisting that Ron wear the thick gold chain she had given him for Christmas, but he wasn’t keen on it. They argued over it, and then more arguments followed…

“How can I just walk around with that thing on display all the time?” he grumbled. “People will laugh at me.”

“So… are you two breaking up?”

“No,” Ron wrinkled his nose. “We’re just taking a break. She’s too clingy. I need some space.”

In the days that followed, Ron returned to the state he was in before he fell in love with Lavender.

No more public snogging in the common room. Instead, he spent time with Evan, Harry, Hermione, and Elaine.

However, no one was particularly worried about his relationship with Lavender.

Ron had said many times before that he wanted to break up with Lavender, but in the end the two of them reconciled and continued to be together.

In short, Ron’s words were not credible at all.

Ginny said that no other girl besides Lavender would put up with him, so they were bound to get back together in the end. Though it was always Ron who went crawling back. No one could quite understand what Lavender saw in him.

It was a harsh remark, but it wasn’t entirely wrong…

And so, February passed by, Dumbledore was still nowhere to be seen, they had neither gotten any memory out of Slughorn, Harry had not figured out what Malfoy was doing, and none of the sixth years had learned to Apparate.

Evan, on the other hand, had devised a plan to break into Gringotts, though it would have to wait until after they left Hogwarts.

He had also taken the opportunity to check the Room of Requirement while Malfoy was absent.

After quite a bit of effort, he finally found the Vanishing Cabinet and confirmed that Malfoy was indeed trying to fix it, but his progress was very slow and he seemed to have encountered some difficulties.

At this rate, he probably wouldn’t finish fixing it until May or June.

After comprehensive consideration, Evan decided not to wait any longer and to talk to Dumbledore during his next lesson.

There were still two secret treasure keys left, Slytherin’s and Hufflepuff’s. If Dumbledore truly possessed information about what Slytherin had left behind and was working on some kind of plan, Evan wanted to be involved.

If not, then he would stick to his own plan: leave Hogwarts, retrieve the Cup, find Nicolas Flamel to help break its enchantments, locate the homeland of the house-elves to obtain Hufflepuff’s treasure key, and then turn his attention to Slytherin’s…

Evan had solid reasons for making this decision. By late February, the Death Eaters had broken their silence. After a period of relative quiet following the Christmas holidays, they had resumed their attacks. The Wizarding World was once again shaken by a string of horrifying disappearances, one every three days, without fail. Among the missing were several relatives of students at Hogwarts.

The shadow of panic had returned. …

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