As the first snow of this winter fluttered down to the earth, Adelaide was about to welcome her first Halloween at Hogwarts.
Ever since Senior Jessica discovered that Adelaide possessed a high talent for field operations, she and the other two seniors had consciously begun to cultivate Adelaide's executive abilities.
From the seniors, she learned how to cleverly utilize the loyalty and recklessness of Gryffindor students to conduct targeted tests on Slytherin students; then, she did the opposite, using the sharp words and vindictive nature of Slytherin students to test the Gryffindors.
Furthermore, she fully utilized her wisdom, using Fizzing Whizbees and exquisite Cantonese dim sum provided by Cho Chang as a gesture of friendship to successfully open the chatterboxes of Hufflepuff students; finally, she used Ravenclaw's essence of pursuing truth, with the rigorous logic of truth and fallacy, to conduct in-depth testing on Ravenclaw students.
Thanks to this series of detailed and comprehensive arrangements, meticulous observations, and cleverly designed tests, the work of the entire Human Observation Group progressed more smoothly than imagined. By the eve of Halloween, they successfully completed the major screening and identified two suspicious individuals, giving the subsequent investigation a clear direction.
One was Terence Higgs, a fifth-year from Slytherin House. He was the Seeker for the Slytherin Quidditch team, and his past performance on the field could be described as quite rough and wild, with fouls being as common as eating or drinking.
However, since last year, he seemed to have undergone a complete transformation, turning into the most polite player on the entire Slytherin Quidditch team.
Such a huge change was truly baffling, thus attracting high attention from the Human Observation Group.
The other was Stephens, a third-year from Hufflepuff House. In his first year, he was notorious for being addicted to sweets, with no resistance to any kind of dessert.
But starting from last year, he suddenly claimed he wanted to go on a diet to lose weight and has since resolutely boycotted all sweet delicacies—is it reasonable for a twelve-year-old boy to go on a diet and stick to it for over a year without breaking his vow?
The four girls of the Human Observation Group unanimously agreed that he must be a Death Eater who had taken Polyjuice Potion, but since they lacked evidence, they could only temporarily list him as a suspect.
In addition, around the first-year Slytherin Alice MacFusty, there was also a mist of doubt that made one suspicious.
On a quiet night, Natasha accidentally bumped into Alice MacFusty sneaking into the Forbidden Forest alone during a night stroll. It wasn't until dawn was approaching that she slipped out of the Forbidden Forest with messy clothes and a pale face—the disheveled hair, slightly wrinkled skirt, and mud-stained shoes all hinted that she had experienced something unusual in the Forbidden Forest.
Natasha initially thought the other party was meeting a secret boyfriend in the Forbidden Forest. Carrying the idea of recording this new discovery, she staked out by the tower window with an Omnioculars for half a month. During this period, she saw Alice enter the Forbidden Forest three times, yet she never managed to see anyone other than Alice appear near the forest.
Natasha became increasingly curious and determined to follow Alice into the Forbidden Forest to uncover the mystery—unfortunately, fate always loves to play tricks. Every time Natasha was about to successfully tail her, she would always encounter various unexpected situations:
Either a patrolling teacher would suddenly pop up in the originally empty corridor, or she would unexpectedly bump into Madam Norris at a corner and be chased all over the Castle by Filch... Such coincidences happened one after another, causing Natasha to repeatedly miss opportunities and remain unable to fathom what secret Alice MacFusty was hiding in the Forbidden Forest.
However, according to Jessica's friend in Slytherin, Alice MacFusty began befriending and suppressing first and second-year students as soon as she entered Slytherin, gathering quite a force among the lower-year Slytherin students.
Adelaide could bet that this person was planning something big—but Adelaide didn't care right now, because Halloween was coming, and she had decided to use the holiday to give herself a few days off and relax.
Two months was enough time for first-year students to get used to the pace of Hogwarts classes and extracurricular life. Some gifted students had already emerged among the freshmen—for example, Adelaide had already earned 95 points for Ravenclaw House, making her the current top scorer in the first year, leading second-place Alice MacFusty by 15 points.
However, this small point difference couldn't widen the gap between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw House points, especially since the Ravenclaw Quidditch team was currently the weakest of the four houses; basically, two matches could lose all the points Adelaide earned in class.
As a fanatical Quidditch lover, Cho Chang was incredibly angry that her house's team was so weak—but compared to this, she was even more shocked by Adelaide's talent for learning.
Adelaide almost never spent her extracurricular time studying, yet she could always obtain an 'O' for Outstanding on her class tests!
This made Cho Chang, who had joined the'Study King' group but only ranked third in the year, question her life. What happened to the saying that only hard work brings results?
Not only was Cho Chang confused, but even Albus Dumbledore had begun to secretly study Adelaide's schoolwork.
According to his observations, the talent Adelaide displayed in Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts could even surpass that of Tom Riddle in his day!
No matter how complex or hard to remember a spell was, as long as the professor demonstrated it once on the podium, she could easily commit it to memory—not only that, but she could also precisely and flawlessly imitate and repeat every detail of the movement and the cadence of the incantation when casting the spell.
He also heard from Charlie that students had privately given Adelaide the title of 'Copy Wizard'... which was indeed well-deserved.
And speaking of Adelaide's talent in Herbology, it was even more astonishing.
Normally, a course like planting magic beans would have a difficulty level equivalent to a sixth-year N.E.W.T. class.
However, Adelaide, together with Cho Chang, succeeded on her first attempt; those simple topics specifically designed for first-years were completely effortless for her to handle.
In the Potions course, although Adelaide showed fear toward the gloomy and sharp-tongued Snape (Dumbledore suspected she was just worried his hair oil would rub onto her robes, though he had no evidence and Adelaide would never admit it), her finished products in Potion Class were the best among the students. Even if Snape stuck his head into the cauldron she was brewing to inspect it closely, he couldn't find any faults.
What Dumbledore didn't know was that Adelaide had majored in Biochemistry in her previous life and had done many experiments, large and small. Compared to those highly precise and complex experiments, the current first-year Potion Class was a piece of cake for her.
Although Adelaide didn't show much interest in Flying Class and the History of Magic, her grades remained at the top of the year—with the sole exception of Astronomy Class, where she barely passed every time.
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