The Thestral carriages moved.
Dana was certain that the twins and Lee Jordan couldn't see the Thestrals, because the Thestral on the left was clearly suffering from a bad stomach, constantly spewing green, semi-digested matter as it flew through the air, while the three of them were still enthusiastically discussing how Gryffindor would win the Quidditch Cup this year—they wouldn't be so calm if they could see this spectacle.
"Win the cup? How novel! We have the two best Seekers in the entire Hogwarts. As long as Harry doesn't have any accidents, we'll win. Not to mention we have Dana to back us up!" Fred said.
Lee Jordan shook his head with a smile:
"If you ask me, as long as Dana becomes the starting Seeker, I don't think any house team can threaten us."
"That won't do!" the twins said in unison. Fred spoke first:
"Harry would be sad if that happened."
George continued,
"Besides, Dana's matches end in a few seconds. There's no fun in it."
Fred agreed,
"I don't want to go on the field like a fool and then have the game end without doing anything—"
"—There's no sense of participation!"
While they were talking, Dana, now a second-year student, arrived at the castle and went straight to the Gryffindor table to sit down.
There was nothing special about the new semester's opening ceremony.
After the Sorting Ceremony, Dumbledore routinely introduced the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
The only two noteworthy things were that Lockhart was indeed a popular author with a huge number of fans, and the applause was thunderous when Dumbledore introduced him;
And Dana attracted the attention of many new first-year wizards—
That was Quidditch superstar Dana Emrys!
The holder of the world record for the fastest capture of the Golden Snitch!
So the two focal points of the Welcome Feast were one at the professors' table and one at the Gryffindor table.
The empty seats next to Dana were filled with first-year wizards, and Colin Creevey even sat across from him, taking pictures of him incessantly.
This staunch Harry Potter fan seemed to be betraying his fandom somewhat tonight.
It wasn't that he didn't want to photograph Harry Potter, but Mr. Potter and Ron Weasley were currently being dumped by the Weasleys' flying car near the Whomping Willow, looking bewildered.
However, Dana seemed a little absent-minded.
He ate while looking up at the "starry sky" on the ceiling of the Hogwarts Great Hall.
Even when the twins spoke to him, he only gave half-hearted replies.
"Fred, what's wrong with Dana? He was fine just now."
"I don't know. We'll ask him later."
After the feast, Dana hung back at the end of the crowd, barely looking where he was going, staring at the walls and ceilings of the castle.
"Dana!" George suddenly slapped Dana on the shoulder, and Dana instinctively cast a "Protego," knocking him away.
"Oh, Dana, what's wrong with you?" Fred asked, while his brother was getting up from the ground with a happy expression:
"So the Shield Charm can also knock people away! That's so interesting!"
Dana came back to his senses and apologized to George,
"Sorry, George, I didn't know it was you."
"No, Dana, I should be the one apologizing. I was the one who scared you first."
Fred asked again,
"Dana, you've been staring at the castle since just now. What are you looking at?"
Dana looked at the beautiful patterns on the wall to his left and sincerely exclaimed:
"Hogwarts is truly a treasure!"
The twins exchanged glances, not knowing what Dana meant.
Dana explained:
"Look—these seemingly ordinary patterns. If you're not familiar with magic arrays, who would guess that this is a magic power supply line? The entire Hogwarts is a precise machine—sorry, you might not be very familiar with machines…"
"No, Dana," Fred interrupted proudly,
"We know what machines are! We helped Dad dismantle that car. The Muggle 'mechanics' are truly fascinating—it's just a pity that the car was lost by our good brother."
Dana nodded:
"Yes, Muggle machines are indeed amazing, but you have to know that Hogwarts is a product of a thousand years ago.
The layers upon layers of magic arrays on it are more complex than any Muggle machine I know!"
"That's true," George echoed,
"We've been exploring for so many years, and we haven't fully explored Hogwarts yet!"
Dana slapped his forehead as if he had remembered something,
"Oh, right, the Marauder's Map is useless to me here. You can have it."
With that, Dana took out the parchment and handed it to the twins.
"Dana, you're too generous! Thank you!"
The twins took the map as if it were a treasure, looked at each other, and eagerly prepared to turn around and go downstairs.
Dana saw through their thoughts and instructed:
"Wait a moment, please bring me some food. I'm going to use it for tomorrow's breakfast."
"Ah, why?"
"I advise you to do the same. It's best not to go to the Great Hall tomorrow morning."
"Ah?"
"Harry and Ron caused such a big commotion today. Do you think your mom will send a Howler?"
The twins laughed loudly upon hearing this!
"No, how could we miss such a happy event!"
"Dana, we'll help you get your breakfast! But we will never miss the excitement tomorrow morning!"
The second semester started smoothly.
Apart from Lockhart's farcical classes, there seemed to be nothing special about the new semester.
Although Dana had gradually been accepted by the young wizards, he was still clearly an outsider—he spent his time either in the library or wandering around Hogwarts, observing every subtle trace of the magic arrays in the castle, except when he was in class or eating.
Of course, there was another person who was out of place, and that was Ginny Weasley.
This later heartthrob was unable to get along well with her classmates at this time, so she was unsurprisingly bewitched by a certain diary.
One evening in early October.
Ginny walked out of the common room in a daze and headed to the girls' bathroom on the second floor.
Although she was only a first-year student, she acted as if she had lived here for many years.
She skillfully shuttled through the various secret passages without alarming anyone, any portraits, like a ghost—even a real ghost couldn't have noticed the girl's movements that night.
In front of that faucet, Ginny spoke:
"Hiss hiss hiss…"
The Parseltongue password caused the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, which had been silent for fifty years, to reappear, and the girl jumped in without hesitation, entering the dark, bottomless tunnel.
Standing in front of the Slytherin statue,
"Ginny" excitedly recited in Parseltongue:
"Speak to me, Slytherin, the greatest of the four founders!"
The statue's mouth opened again.
However, this time no basilisk swam out.
"Ginny" frowned, seemingly puzzled by what was happening in front of her.
She waited for a long time, but the basilisk didn't appear.
"Where's the basilisk? Did it sneak out?"
Controlling Ginny, the sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle's soul fragment was extremely puzzled, and he even began to suspect that the basilisk had died of old age.
—It can be seen that Ron Weasley's mouth is still quite tight. He didn't even tell his family about Dana killing the basilisk.
But thinking about it, it's also true. With Hermione, such a "child of someone else's family," already annoying him, if Mum knew that there was an even more exaggerated one at school, wouldn't it annoy his ears to the point of developing calluses?
Although Dana had completely conquered Mum's heart this summer—but at that time, Ron had already put the basilisk out of his mind. After all, he only heard the story from Harry, so it's not surprising that he didn't have a deep impression.
End of the Chapter.
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