When Adam walked out of the hospital wing, the second-floor corridor was already deserted. Most of the students had been led back to their common rooms by the professors. Many of them had witnessed Aiden's terrible state and had no desire to continue the Halloween festivities. At least, Adam hadn't seen anyone jump out and shout, "Trick or treat!"
But as he passed a girls' lavatory, he heard a rustling sound and faint voices from the shadows behind him. The moment Adam turned around, he was startled. The wand hidden in his sleeve slid into his palm, and the tip of it began to glow with white light, ready to cast a spell.
"Calm down, Adam, it's us..." Cho cried out, startled herself, but the figure beside her had already lunged forward.
Even with Adam's wand pointed directly at her, she didn't flinch, and with tears in her eyes, she tried to reach out and hug him. But as she got closer, she suddenly froze, her small hands dropping unnaturally. She stared intently at the dried bloodstains on his sleeve, and her eyes welled up with tears.
"...I'm fine. This is just fake blood from Aiden's clothes," Adam explained, a little flustered.
But the little witch just stood there, still in a daze. Even when Adam reached out and pinched her chubby little cheeks, she didn't get angry and glare at him like she usually would. She just looked at him with a gentle sadness, tears streaming down her face and dripping onto the floor. She just shook her head, sobbing quietly.
Cho, who was standing not far away, couldn't bear to watch. She quietly walked up behind Adam, and was about to kick him towards Shirley when she caught a glimpse of a dim lantern and Filch's hunched shadow at the corner of the corridor. She quickly pulled them into the lavatory, holding her breath and waiting for the heavy footsteps to pass down the hallway before letting out a sigh of relief.
"What are you guys doing here?" Adam whispered to Cho.
"Because I'm the one who brought them here," Helena's voice said eerily from behind them. She was looking at Adam with a complicated expression. Her gaze fell on his robes, and especially on the corner that Shirley was clutching tightly. Another ghost, one Adam had never seen before, was floating beside her. She had long, straight hair tied in pigtails and wore a pair of thick glasses.
"They were loitering outside the hospital wing, and I was afraid a professor would see them, so I had to bring them here," Helena explained. "By the way, this is Moaning Myrtle. I haven't had a chance to thank you yet."
"Oh, that's alright, Lady Grey. I'm really glad I could help you," Myrtle said excitedly to her, making Cho wonder if she was looking at the right ghost. Most students at Hogwarts didn't have a very good opinion of this ghost. She always hid in the lavatory, crying loudly and leaving water everywhere. Because of Myrtle, the girls didn't like to have classes on the second floor of the castle, and they had to go to the lavatories upstairs instead.
"You really should have stayed with her for a while..." Cho glanced at Shirley, then leaned closer to Adam and whispered, "Instead of going to the Astronomy Tower with Lady Grey. You don't know how worried she was when she heard you were in the hospital wing; she was almost crying."
"Shirley is worried that she'll bring bad luck to the people around her, like her parents, and Mrs. Cole from the orphanage..." Adam said, his voice trailing off, his small face full of frustration.
Seeing that both Shirley and Adam were silent, Cho sighed softly and looked at the wand in his hand. "Why did you react so strongly just now? Hogwarts should still be very safe..."
Her voice suddenly trailed off as she looked at Moaning Myrtle nearby, who was wearing a school uniform from decades ago. Thinking about Aiden, who had just been sent to the hospital wing, she couldn't bring herself to say the rest of her sentence.
"I think you'd better get used to it. Pay attention on Halloween, especially since we have a long time left at Hogwarts," Adam said, tucking his wand back into his sleeve and into the spring-loaded holster on his wrist. It was a little gadget he'd invented himself. The last time in Hogsmeade, he had a feeling that he was too obvious in the way he pulled out his wand, and Professor Hogge had noticed him.
Professor Flitwick, who taught Charms, had mentioned that in a duel between wizards, the speed at which one pulls out their wand is crucial. When he was young, he had easily made it to the finals of a dueling competition just by having a fast draw.
Adam's calm tone confused Cho. She frowned and asked again, "Why?"
"You've read A History of Magic, right?" Adam asked out of the blue.
Cho nodded, looking confused.
"Then you should know that nine years ago, there was a boy who survived and defeated You-Know-Who, and it happened to be on Halloween night."
She gasped when she heard the name, and looked around in fear, giving Adam a look of lingering terror. "But that didn't happen at Hogwarts. What does that have to do with us?"
"Of course it has something to do with us, because..."
"...Because when that boy who lived gets admitted to Hogwarts, a second curse will be born." The first was the widely known curse of the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, where professors always left their post after a year due to strange events. Some were attacked by dangerous creatures, some were embroiled in wizarding conflicts, and some even mysteriously disappeared. The other curse was about Halloween; on that night, various accidents were bound to happen at school. For example, a professor would burst into the feast, claiming to have seen a troll. The following year, a cat would be petrified by a Basilisk in the corridor. And in the third year, a fugitive from Azkaban would even appear.
Adam suppressed the urge to act like a seer and turned to look at Shirley, who was propping her little head up and staring at him blankly.
"Because... because I feel it's very dangerous. Anyway, just remember to keep your wand with you when you need it."
As a Ravenclaw student, the thirst for knowledge was etched into her very bones, and Cho's fists clenched. But her good upbringing allowed her to calm down. Just as she was about to pull Shirley to join her in scolding Adam, she noticed her expression.
She sighed deeply. Well, I guess I can't count on her.
"I hate riddles!"
When the three of them parted ways at the staircase, Cho was still giving Adam a resentful look. The feeling of being watched only disappeared when Adam swore that he would have Cedric play Wizard's Chess with her all day tomorrow. She huffed and walked up the stairs, but from her back and her light footsteps, it seemed her mood had improved quite a bit.
"You were actually trying to warn Cho that various accidents would happen at Hogwarts in the future, weren't you?" Shirley, who had been silent all night, gently tugged on Adam's sleeve, her voice hoarse.
Adam's pupils contracted slightly, and he asked with a start, "You can predict those things?"
Shirley shook her head hesitantly, her lips pursed. After a while, she leaned closer to Adam's ear and whispered, "I can only vaguely see some blurry fragments, but they're all bad things."
"The night we came back from the orphanage, I even saw a funeral in my dream. A phoenix was crying sadly, and Professor Dumbledore's name was carved on the tombstone..."
Adam's attention was drawn to a strange detail again, and he asked abruptly, "Did you see Professor Dumbledore's body?"
She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head blankly.
Adam reached out and ruffled her little head, asking gently, "So you think all of these things are caused by bad luck from you?"
Shirley looked down sadly, her voice faint and tearful. "It's not because of those things. I'm just... afraid of bringing danger to you..."
Adam's hand tightened, messing up her long auburn hair. She looked up at Adam with a pained expression, her eyes teary and her lips tightly pressed together.
"Prophecies aren't always correct. The fragments you see aren't necessarily what you think they are."
"So you don't need to worry about these things. I actually think I might be the one bringing the danger."
Adam smiled and pinched her little face, making it look like a hamster's. He seemed to finally understand why his teacher always couldn't help but pinch his cheeks like this. The little witch didn't struggle, just stared at him blankly.
"You're not afraid of me?"
"No."
The sadness in her eyes gradually gave way to a glimmer of light. The familiar little witch seemed to be back, like a lonely little kitten wandering the world that had finally found its own little cardboard box.
But a few seconds later, Shirley narrowed her eyes and poked Adam's face hard. "I feel like you're thinking about something else."
"I'm not."
"Really not?"
"Just a little..."
Adam was thinking about what expression he should have on his face when he led Dumbledore to see Ariana if Shirley's prophecy came true. But no matter how he thought about it, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but turn up.
But he soon stopped thinking about it. Because the next morning, as he sat eating breakfast in the Great Hall, he received a letter delivered by an owl. There was no name or address on it, just a short sentence.
"So you are Dumbledore's best student?"
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