Through their combined efforts, the surveillance network unique to Hogwarts was fully established before Monday's curfew. After testing by Glenn and Hermione, it was working normally, successfully sparing the little girl from exhausting late nights—much to her regret.
Goodbye to those wonderful secret rendezvous in the quiet, dim corridors at night~
Though she called it regrettable, it was actually fine. Under Glenn's supervision, Hermione had long developed good sleeping habits. She'd get drowsy right at eleven-thirty every night, and after washing up, her head would hit the pillow and she'd immediately fall into comfortable sleep—the process was incredibly smooth.
After all, considering Hermione's daily activities, the girl used her brain several times more than her peers. The consumption was indeed high, requiring sufficient sleep to recharge for the next day's activities.
So even though she complained about staying up late to accompany Glenn, she still got drowsy on schedule. Without a proper reason for night wandering, she could only whimper a few times before heading home to sleep.
During the summer holidays, after Glenn and Snape had their academic exchange, Glenn learned that Snape had used the gender-swapping potion Glenn gave him as a blueprint to create a reverse potion—a potion that could undo the effects of gender transformation. After Glenn brewed it himself following Snape's instructions, his daily task of escorting Hermione back to her dormitory became somewhat more convenient.
Previously, Glenn hadn't minded his gender transformation into female much, so he hadn't developed a reverse potion. But now that he and Hermione had become lovers, Glenn felt increasingly awkward about the feeling of transforming into a woman after drinking the gender-swapping potion.
So Glenn thought Snape's derivative potion development was excellent.
But speaking of which, Snape seemed very invested in this type of potion, apparently spending the entire summer in the Potions classroom researching gender-swapping potions...
Whatever, not my business.
Time to get back to work.
After seeing Hermione off, Glenn left the Gryffindor common room and began walking toward the secret passage on the eighth floor.
He didn't plan to only install surveillance cameras in the secret passages—that still wouldn't be safe enough.
.....................................
The next day, Tuesday morning, the first class was again Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures. However, since this course's learning content was quite flexible, and yesterday's first class had been so successful, after consulting the young wizards' opinions, Hagrid chose to continue letting everyone interact with the hippogriffs.
Yesterday, most young wizards had only established initial contact with these big fellows and hadn't really played with them much. Today's relaxed class suited their wishes perfectly, so that even after class ended and they sat down in the Potions classroom for the next lesson, smiles still lingered on the young wizards' faces.
Then everyone's daily dose of smiles was terminated by Snape. Even after a whole summer, Professor Snape was still Professor Snape—his tongue remained sharp and venomous, his behavior still awful. Upon entering and seeing the young wizards' faces beaming with smiles, he sneered and doused everyone with cold water.
"It seems your sluggish brains haven't caught up with the Hogwarts Express back to school. Your idiotic grins make me shudder."
"Since you all love to smile, let's have a classroom test. I hope you can still smile after the test."
The indiscriminate attack even covered all the little snakes from Snape's own house, Slytherin, leaving them confused and frustrated.
"I feel like Professor Snape has some agenda. Looking at him, he seems a bit impatient, as if he wants to quickly achieve some goal," Hermione whispered softly to Glenn while using magic to control her quill to write the correct answers from her mind onto the test paper.
The classroom test was a piece of cake for Hermione—it was practically over as soon as it began.
After learning cold reading from Glenn, Hermione had advanced further in her ability to perceive others' emotions and thoughts, which made her sense Snape's abnormality today.
Glenn shrugged, indicating he wasn't sure. He was also controlling his quill to write answers on the test paper.
Facing their quiet conversation, Snape, sitting behind the desk on the podium directly in front of them, naturally saw Glenn and Hermione's interaction clearly. But he only snorted coldly and ignored them, his hand constantly in his black robe pocket for unknown reasons.
Hermione, who had expected Snape to come over and mock her for whispering, was greatly shocked by this. It made her even more certain that Snape's state was strange today.
Something was wrong, very wrong. This old bat was definitely brewing something nasty.
Hermione quietly scooted closer to Glenn, a bit afraid that Snape's brewing nastiness might suddenly explode and accidentally hurt her.
As time passed, facts proved Hermione's premonition was correct, reaching a peak just as the classroom test was about to end.
She saw Snape collect all the young wizards' submitted test papers and review everyone's answers in a speed-reading manner.
Obviously, the over two-month holiday had indeed made some young wizards slack off, or perhaps Snape's questions were inherently difficult, so that the old bat's expression didn't look good while he rapidly graded the papers.
As for Glenn and Hermione's papers?
This guy didn't collect them at all!
When Snape passed by them, he didn't even glance at Glenn and Hermione's test papers, making Hermione wave her little fists in protest.
"Outrageous!" Hermione muttered.
But the protest was ineffective. Snape's returned gaze seemed to say "you two go play by yourselves."
While rapidly grading papers, Snape paused slightly when he reached a certain test paper, then showed a sinister smile at the corner of his mouth, pulled that paper out separately, set it aside, and continued with the remaining papers.
Who knew which lucky soul had gained Professor Snape's "favor"—how pitiful... ah no, how honored.
Hermione thought so, then raised her gaze from Professor Snape's hands upward, just in time to see Snape finish grading the remaining papers, his cold but inexplicably excited gaze leaving the desktop and shooting toward the back of the classroom.
So Hermione naturally turned around.
So Hermione naturally saw Harry, frozen and trying to hide himself.
So Hermione naturally opened her mouth to quietly complain:
"That lucky soul is naturally Harry. I can't believe I even thought about it for a moment."
Though she didn't know what nasty scheme Professor Snape was brewing, she still had to try hard to survive. Good luck, Harry.
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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