Chapter 569: Myrtle's Help

“Oh, sure.” Twycross snapped out of his confused state, “So – by the way, are there any other students who would like to try it as well? I know under the current special circumstances, some of the parents may have violated the restrictions for your Safety … The Ministry of Magic is not going to pursue this for now.”

Harry’s mind wandered as he stared at Malfoy, who had bragged to him a long time ago that the professor had promised him to privately tutor him some magic spells, including Apparition.

But Malfoy didn’t intend to stand out, and until the end, he had just performed the Side-Along Apparition, under Mr. Diggory’s guidance, with ease.

A week passed in a blink of an eye.

The Ministry of Magic team had spent two days sorting through a thousand students from top to bottom at Hogwarts, and in the end, less than a hundred students had failed to meet the standard. According to Twycross, “I’m really impressed, this has greatly reduced our workload.”

“If you had come a few months later, the number of students who didn’t meet the standard would have been even lower.” Sirius stated not knowing whether to say it proudly or grumblingly.

“Ms. Bones was very anxious lately.” Twycross said half-heartedly.

Sirius’ heart fluttered, and he pulled Twycross aside and whispered, “I know all that, I worked as an assistant for the Minister for nearly two months before, and I’m on good terms with Amelia, she told me all about it … Things haven’t gotten better?”

“Alas, I also inquired by chance,” said Twycross, “the number of Muggle victims has been steadily increasing in recent times, many of them were only discovered during the Ministry’s private investigations, and their bodies were stolen … Ms. Bones was concerned that the You-Know-Who might be up to something big.”

Sirius frowned.

When he approached Felix to discuss this matter, Felix looked unusually calm.

“Voldemort is personally taking action, and he seems to have planned to create a batch of Inferi.”

“We should stop him!” Sirius exclaimed sharply.

“I’d like to, but – as I just said, ‘Voldemort is personally handling this’, and he’s not utilizing any Death Eaters’ forces. And you certainly can’t catch him when he wants to leave for sure.”

Sirius’ face froze, and he muttered, “Something has to be done.”

“We made some preparations, in fact, probably in the next few days-” Felix said, before turning towards Angelina Johnson, who had been sitting on one of the benches in the yard, “Miss Johnson? ”

Angelina approached them slowly, ” Do you need me, Professor Hap?” Her friends are looking over leisurely.

“Yes, I wanted to remind you that your hair is not exactly the same colour as I’ve seen before.” Felix stated calmly.

Angelina yelped and fished a small mirror out of her robes and looked at herself carefully, “It really is.” She frowned as a very jarring strand of pink hair in her ponytail turned to black.

“Tonks?”

Sirius growled under his breath.

“Hi Sirius, long time no see.” ‘Angelina’ waved at him.

“So that other one – that wouldn’t be Remus, would it?” Sirius was taken aback and looked incredulously at the other girl on the bench.

“What makes you think that?” Tonks rolled her eyes, “He’s not here, he needs to watch over the sword castle. That’s Emmeline Vance, and Kingsley and Mad-Eye Moody are also here, they got withdrawn from the Department of Mysteries guarding duties.”

Sirius gaped, “Since when?”

“Yesterday.” Tonks cheerfully said.

For the next two days, Sirius made an extra effort to look for students who were acting abnormally in class and even became slightly paranoid. He always felt that some students below the podium would be Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley, or even Mundungus.

After class, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went to the great hall for dinner –

“Sirius has been acting weird for the past two days.” Harry said.

“I’ve been meaning to ask this,” Ron asked with a grin, ” Would you guys play a Frisbee when you were alone together?”

Harry hammered him on the back softly.

“Hi, Neville, Dean, Seamus.” Harry greeted them and sat down in the empty seat next to them. Dean and Seamus seemed to be asking Neville to do something, as Dean said eagerly, “Cast that spell on me again – that daydream spell, I’ve noticed that I’m studying more efficiently.”

“Professor Hap told me this spell should not be abused.” Neville whispered.

“There’s nothing wrong with using it once in a while.” Seamus said while shaking his head.

Harry knew about this magic. During the Christmas break, Ginny had inquired from Tonks about a part of the Auror training, and when school started they used it in their Frontline Lookout training after that, which did not turn out well: the enormous amount of training weighed on the members, and not everyone was comfortable with the mechanical repetition of spellcasting.

Then Neville stepped forward and stammered to introduce a spell he had learned. Harry was quite shocked when he first experienced the ‘Daydream Spell’ – an exact replica of a cosmic astral magic he had experienced on his golden invitation card. Objectively speaking, of course, it was considerably less effective, mainly because Harry’s Occlumency kept reminding him that everything he was feeling was fake. This made Neville’s magic much less effective.

But for the other members of the group, the magic gave them a spiritual baptism. Their little troubles were nothing compared to the vastness of the stars, and those who experienced this magic would be uplifted for at least a while.

“It’s a bit like the amulet Cedric came up with, but both methods are obviously different, and I prefer this one.” Fred commented.

…

Snapping back from the memory of the last club event, Harry had become keenly aware that someone was staring at them, he followed his senses and looked across the table to see two students, a man, and a woman, seated at the opposite table, they appeared to be a couple and when Harry looked back at them, they smiled quietly at Harry.

In the evening when Harry, Ron, and Hermione emerged from the library, it was late, and they were practically the last ones out. The three of them were walking down the empty corridor and Ron was cursing Snape and the assignments he had given to them by turns.

That was creative, Harry thought. Ron seemed to have found a real use from Divination class – they could get a steady stream of unlucky and ill-fated muses from the class and use them to vent their anger against Snape. Suddenly there was a flash before their eyes, and the ghost of a girl darted before them.

“Myrtle?” Harry muttered in surprise, he hadn’t seen her in ages.

“Oh, it’s you guys,” Myrtle was startled as well, she then turned and was about to float away, but then she paused in midair as if petrified. She slowly turned around, her large bulging eyes glaring at them from behind her thick, white, round glasses, and Harry wasn’t too comfortable with that scrutinizing, weighing gaze, which reminded him of Malfoy.

“Can you guys come with me?” She continued.

“What are you talking about?” Ron muttered, “We’re tired after a long day of catching up on our assignments, and now we just want to go back to bed and sleep.”

“You guys and Draco are friends, right?” Myrtle asked.

“Who?” Ron looked up abruptly.

“Draco, Draco Malfoy.” Myrtle said, “He’s in a bit of trouble and I don’t know who to ask for help, but I certainly can’t look for the Professor, that would make things worse …” she rambled on, floating over and bobbing in mid-air.

“He’s not about to get shoved down the toilet is he?” Ron perked up, “And it just happens to block your home too?”

“Rude!” Myrtle shouted at Ron as she descended from mid-air. She then floated up slowly and covered her face sheepishly, “But he is indeed in my lavatory.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other blankly.

Myrtle swooned for a moment before she remembered what she had to do, and she hurriedly urged them on, “Are you going to help or not? Time is running out!”

“Who the hell is the one who’s delaying … I don’t want to get caught in the girls’ lavatory.” Ron muttered in a small voice.

“You’ve been there plenty of times.” Hermione pointed out.

They had indeed been there more than once, spending a considerable amount of time in there brewing polyjuice potion during their second year before they moved elsewhere when Malfoy found out.

“Maybe, but for Malfoy’s sake …” Ron hesitated, and they looked at Harry, waiting for him to make a decision.

“Let’s check it out.” Harry eventually said.

————

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