Chapter 422: Generous Aragog
Chapter 422: Generous Aragog
With a bountiful harvest, Kyle finally left the Forbidden Forest, feeling satisfied.
A total of nineteen pints of Aragog's venom, which equated to one thousand nine hundred Galleons, was quickly returned by Kyle, who had given Lui Wei the Tuberculous Hogfoot Leg.
Of course, there wasn't originally this much venom, but the old spider realized its own hypocrisy and decided to demand more money.
It wasn't that it didn't want to give more; the production capacity of the Aragog was just this high. The entire lair, from Aragog himself to the tiny spiders the size of fingertips, had been squeezed dry, barely managing to produce nineteen pints of venom.
When Kyle left, the spiders couldn't even stand up, lying on the ground as if they had drunk fake alcohol, twisting and turning.
The scene was quite touching to Kyle, and he decided that upon his return, he would quickly make a batch of spider restorative potions to send to Hagrid, asking him to deliver it to the Aragog.
He hoped that the restorative potions would help them recover sooner... after all, under normal circumstances, the process of the Aragog restoring its venom was quite slow.
Kyle walked into the castle in high spirits, unaware that a pair of eyes was staring at him intently from the shadows.
"Ah ha!"
Filch jumped out from a hidden corner, his face contorted with malice, and said, "Night out, I caught you, didn't I?"
"Sorry, Mr. Filch, I don't understand what you're saying."
Although he was startled, Kyle maintained his composure and said, "I just got up early and took a walk outside, that's all."
"Do you think I'll believe your nonsense?" Filch sneered. "It's only five o'clock; how could a small wizard possibly be up this early?"
"Maybe I went to bed early last night," Kyle said. "If you don't believe me, you can go ask in the Hufflepuff Common Room; everyone knows that I returned to the dormitory at ten o'clock and didn't come out again all night."
"Or you can ask the painting hanging in the corridor."
Seeing Kyle's calm demeanor, Filch, who had initially been firm, now wavered.
"I will," he said, leading Kyle to a painting in the kitchen corridor. "Now you still have a chance to admit it, or else..."
"No need, Mr. Filch," Kyle said, taking the initiative to look at the painting. "Hello, did you see any Hufflepuffs coming out after curfew last night?"
"No!" the wizard in the painting replied firmly.
"Are you sure?" Filch asked, his face darkening.
"Of course," the wizard said. "Last night, I was staring intently at the lady across from me, starting from nine o'clock. If any small wizard had passed by here, I would have seen them immediately."
Filch's face turned slightly sour.
"The truth is out, Mr. Filch," Kyle smiled. "If there's nothing else, I'll be on my way."
"By the way, I noticed that Mrs. Norris has been looking a bit thin lately. Is it possible that Hogwarts hasn't been paying her lately? You're even withholding her food."
Filch's face grew even darker, as if he had just heard that the school was going to assign a Dementor to guard the gates.
"I did not withhold Mrs. Norris's food!" he roared. "Never!"
"Oh..." Kyle shrugged, noncommittal. "But she has been looking thinner lately. Perhaps you should buy her some good fish jerky to improve her diet."
"No need to trouble yourself..."
These past few days, Filch hadn't caught a single student breaking the rules, and he was already feeling annoyed. He never expected that early in the morning, he would be accused of withholding Mrs. Norris's food.
"You're right... you're not wrong."
Kyle didn't look at him, he simply tapped the wooden barrel with his wand.
"Well then, Mr. Filch, I'll be heading back now. See you next time..."
Kyle waved and turned, walking into the passageway.
As the passageway door closed again, Filch's voice also disappeared.
There wasn't a single person in the common room... but then again, it was only 5 o'clock, and no Hufflepuff would be up this early. Usually, such students would only be found in Ravenclaw...
There was no need to sleep anymore, so Kyle poured himself a bottle of stimulant potion and sat in the armchair closest to the fireplace, reading a book.
It wasn't until 7 o'clock that people started trickling into the common room one after another.
...
The first class was Divination.
Although in the eyes of most students, including the professors, Professor Trelawney was just a fraud living off Hogwarts, there were also those who believed she was a powerful seer.
"I used to think she was a fraud too, until all her prophecies about me came true..."
In the dim and stuffy top-floor room, Michael excitedly said, "She said I'd be away from everyone for a while, and sure enough, I ended up in the hospital wing over the weekend... This counts as being away from everyone, right!"
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Michael was talking about what happened after the Quidditch match. He was hit on the head by a Bludger, and Madam Pomfrey forced him to stay in the hospital wing for two days.
"She said the same thing to me," Kyle said, "It's just a coincidence."
In fact, not only them, even Cedric had received her bad news.
In a conscious state, Professor Trelawney was indeed a fraud, but she had extensive experience and knew how to make her off-the-cuff "prophecies" come true.
Quidditch players were a good choice.
In Quidditch, whether in practice or matches, injuries were inevitable.
So, in the first Divination class after the start of the school year, almost all the Quidditch players were on her prophecy list.
Professor Trelawney didn't need to do anything, she just had to wait. When the players got injured, the prophecy would naturally come true.
Using this method, she gained quite a few followers, like Michael.
He joined the team later, and after Professor Trelawney got this news, she temporarily added his name to the prophecy list.
Coincidentally, this prophecy was made on Friday, and it came true after the match on Saturday.
So Michael believed it without a doubt and became her loyal follower.
Today, Professor Trelawney maintained her usual demeanor, probably because the Quidditch match was approaching, and her target was once again on the team members.
As she passed by Kyle, she walked straight past him without stopping.
Based on her experience of watching matches, she knew that Kyle had never been injured during a match, so the success rate of her prophecy about him was too low, not worth considering... Another person was more suitable.
She walked by, stopping unintentionally at Michael's desk, watching him fiddle with the celestial globe.
"There's something here..." Professor Trelawney whispered, leaning in, "Something's moving... What is it... Oh!"
She suddenly shook her head and sighed, "Dear, if I were you, I'd be careful of a person with messy hair... Yes, the first person you think of. Before Easter, it's best to stay away from him."
Michael immediately became tense and started looking around, carefully searching for the person Professor Trelawney was referring to.
...
(End of Chapter)
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