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Chapter 618: The Professor's Peculiar Behavior
Chapter 618: The Professor's Peculiar Behavior
"Conna, listen to me. If you have time, it's best to take Snape to see Madam Pomfrey at the hospital wing. I suspect he might have taken the wrong potion."
In the Hufflepuff common room that evening, Kyle was earnestly trying to convince Conna to pay more attention to Snape's situation.
However, his good intentions were met with no response. Conna was focused on her own homework, not even bothering to engage in conversation. At times, she would even look up and glare at Kyle.
"I'm serious," Kyle said.
He had been at Hogwarts for five years, from his first year until now, and Snape had only ever deducted points from him. It was the same in every class, without a single exception.
To be honest, Kyle was relieved that he had only lost one point this time. It wasn't until he left the classroom and saw the resentful looks from the Slytherins that he realized Snape had given him points instead of deductions...
Snape, the notorious point-deductor, had actually awarded him points? Kyle's first reaction was disbelief. Such an unusual action couldn't be explained by simply taking the wrong potion.
That's why he wanted to convince Conna to take Snape to the hospital wing. After all, Snape was Conna's only family, and even if he didn't like him, he couldn't just ignore the situation.
But Conna didn't see it that way.
"What's wrong with getting points for excelling in the professor's requirements?" Conna looked up with a hint of exasperation as Kyle continued his incessant chatter, "Professor Snape is just being a bit stricter with his usual standards, but this is an advanced class, and the difficulty has increased significantly. It's normal to get points for that."
"No, no, no," Kyle shook his head vigorously, while inwardly thinking:
"This wouldn't be a problem if it happened to any other professor, but with Snape, everything seems so eerie."
Of course, he dared not voice these thoughts aloud.
And the strange occurrences didn't stop there.
The following day, Professor McGonagall also awarded him thirty points in Transfiguration class, which was also a rare occurrence.
While Professor McGonagall was known for her fairness, she typically limited the number of points awarded in class to ten, to maintain a balanced score among the houses.
This point limit would only increase when learning particularly challenging new content, but even then, thirty points were seldom given.
Combined with the points awarded by Umbridge, in less than a month since the start of the school year, Hufflepuff had soared to the top of the house points leaderboard, leading the second-place Slytherin by over twenty points.
"Unbelievable," Cedric said, gazing at the sandglasses in the Great Hall, "I truly hope this ranking can last until the end of the year. That way, we Hufflepuff can break Slytherin's record and become six-time champions."
Cedric's eyes shone with aspiration. He would be graduating next year, and he genuinely wanted to see Hufflepuff excel and contribute to making it happen.
For instance, leading the team to win this year's Quidditch Cup...
If he could achieve that, he would not only earn a substantial amount of house points but also the honor of a five-time Quidditch Cup champion.
"Come on, let's go for practice! We only have three hours of field access, so grab your brooms and meet me at the pitch!" Cedric exclaimed, feeling a surge of enthusiasm. He turned and shouted, "Hurry!"
Without further ado, he rushed out of the Great Hall, unbothered by the light rain outside.
"I really think Cedric is becoming more and more like Oliver Wood," Fred said, patting Kyle's shoulder and suppressing a smile.
"Yeah, the pressure of being a leader is immense," George added, "Wood was much crazier before he graduated. He wanted us to practice every night, but Professor McGonagall didn't allow it."
"But you still lost," Kyle said with a smile.
The two friends' faces darkened immediately, glaring at Kyle with clenched teeth.
Admittedly, Kyle's words sounded harsh, but they couldn't refute them, and it was Hufflepuff that dashed their hopes of winning.
"Enough, you're not going to be that lucky this year."
"Harry won't fall for it again either!"
"We'll see."
Although they were good friends, when it came to the topic of Quidditch, there was only winning or losing, and no friendship.
"Are you still participating in Quidditch this year?" Kyle asked curiously. "As far as I know, aren't you busy preparing for the Weasley Joke Shop?"
"Developing products, stocking up, choosing a store location... These all require a lot of time and energy."
"Ah, yes, but it's manageable if we only attend three training sessions a week," Fred said, rubbing his head.
Opening a joke shop was their dream, but when they started to gradually make it come true, they realized it was so troublesome.
First was the issue of inventory. Although they had come up with many inventions, the quantity was a bit too meager for a store.
So they had to rack their brains to research more gadgets, regardless of their popularity.
Zonko's Joke Shop had almost two hundred products, and they couldn't lag too far behind.
Another issue was the store location, which was the most troublesome.
Originally, Sirius had said he could help with the store, but now he was a bit preoccupied with Ministry matters and couldn't afford to be distracted by this.
So the two decided to handle it themselves.
They chose Diagon Alley for the location, but the rent there was shockingly high.
Although they now had money and could afford to rent two shops, those were Galleons, and they had to save where they could.
Recently, they had been discussing this matter, looking for a well-located shop that wasn't too expensive... But the results were less than ideal.
However, it made sense; if there was such a good location, it would probably have been taken by others already. How could they possibly get it?
So they decided to add a little more to their startup funds, and then they found a suitable one.
It was an owl nut shop, but nowadays, most people would choose to buy a small snack when they bought a pet, so their business wasn't doing well, and they were preparing to move to another location.
However, the location of that place was excellent, at 93 Diagon Alley, right next to Gringotts.
Young wizards were always generous with their money after withdrawing it... especially in the days before school started.
So the two had been hesitating lately.
Fortunately, they still had a year before graduation, so they had plenty of time to consider.
Kyle watched as Fred and George suddenly looked worried, and asked, "Do you need my help?"
"No, we can handle it ourselves," Fred shook his head. Then, as if he had thought of something, he said cautiously, "Don't even think about using this trick to make us go easy on you. It won't work."
"Yeah," George raised his eyebrows. "Anyway, we're not giving the Quidditch Cup to Hufflepuff again this year!"
"I should be the one saying that," Kyle smiled and didn't pursue the matter further.
Most of the students had already left the Great Hall with their brooms, and Mikael, who was at the back, urged them outside. Kyle quickly followed.
(End of Chapter)
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