Even years after graduating from Hogwarts, Harry would still break into an cold sweat whenever he recalled those particular past few nights of his fifth year. The memories retained their power to make him shudder.
He had originally intended with anger fueling his actions to follow Snape and Malfoy into the Forbidden Forest that first evening to teach Malfoy a lesson as punishment for his father pushing Hogwarts toward financial closure and potential shutdown.
Unfortunately, their hastily conceived plan was never successfully executed. They'd never gotten the chance to confront Malfoy. Instead, they had been caught red-handed by Snape.
With both Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson away from the school handling the negotiations with the Board of Governors, Professor McGonagall, as Gryffindor's stern Head of House, had taken full charge of administering their punishment with her usual severity.
First, the absolutely furious Professor McGonagall had deducted another twenty points from each of them on top of what Snape had already taken that night in the forest. This devastating loss essentially meant that Gryffindor was now destined to lose this year's House Cup, with no mathematical possibility of recovery.
Second, and far worse than the point loss, Professor McGonagall had also punished them by assigning them to go into the Forbidden Forest every single night after dinner to collect various ingredients and materials for Snape's potions stores.
Over the past several grueling nights, they had obediently followed Snape's black-robed figure into the dark, dangerous Forbidden Forest to catch slippery frogs in stagnant pools, collect stinging nettles and pungent lovage that left their hands covered in rashes, search for aggressive Murtlap rats in their burrows and carefully collect their valuable venom in small vials while avoiding their vicious teeth.
Ron had been badly bitten by a particularly large and angry Murtlap rat on the third night. He'd spent an entire night in the hospital wing because of the injury, with Madam Pomfrey fussing over him and applying foul-smelling poultices.
There was hardly a single night when any of them could get to bed before midnight, and usually it was closer to one in the morning by the time they crawled exhausted into their four-poster beds.
While working in the cold, damp Forbidden Forest on these nightly expeditions, Snape merely stood aside at a safe distance, his arms crossed, giving curt orders and mocking their clumsy operations with cold sarcasm and cutting remarks, while doing absolutely nothing himself to help.
Honestly, the relentless torture and exhaustion of these few nights made Harry feel, for the first time in his Hogwarts school life, the genuine impulse to simply drop out of the school. To pack his trunk and leave and never come back.
Of course, poor Hermione had been completely and unfairly dragged into this nightmare through no fault of her own.
When the three of them had initially decided to follow Snape into the Forbidden Forest that fateful evening, Hermione had firmly and repeatedly opposed the plan. But she had followed along anyway, going purely to prevent them from doing something even more stupid than they'd already planned.
Afterward, Neville, who had originally proposed this reckless suggestion in a moment of anger, had sincerely apologized to Hermione multiple times for getting her involved. He felt genuinely terrible about it.
"I hope this terrible experience teaches you all a valuable lesson," Hermione said listlessly one night before bed, her voice was flat with exhaustion.
She was vigorously scratching at the numerous itchy bumps covering her face and arms from countless mosquito bites in the Forbidden Forest. The bites had swollen and turned red, making her miserable. "We're already extremely lucky not to have been expelled from school."
"Maybe that nasty old bat Snape knows that Hogwarts won't be open much longer anyway, so he didn't bother insisting we be expelled," Ron muttered bitterly as the three boys went back to their dormitory. "He's just taking this last golden opportunity to torment people as much as possible before the school closes down."
The three exhausted boys returning to their dormitory had absolutely no energy even to wash up properly or brush their teeth. They went straight to their beds, still wearing their dirty, sweat-stained clothes.
After Ron threw out this cynical comment, he collapsed onto his mattress and began snoring loudly within seconds, without waiting to hear Harry and Neville's opinions on the matter.
However, despite their best efforts and nightly suffering, the forced labor of Harry and his friends obviously could not rescue Hogwarts from its dire financial straits. The crisis continued to deepen.
After Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout had spent considerable time and effort negotiating with the shopkeepers and villagers of Hogsmeade and some suppliers from further away, the food appearing on the house tables at mealtimes, while still not quite as abundant or varied as students were accustomed to before the crisis, at least no longer looked quite so desperately meager or inadequate.
But Professor McGonagall was clearly unable to solve the much more serious problem of teaching supplies and rare magical ingredients. Those couldn't be bargained for or purchased on credit from local merchants.
After a tense weekend had passed, on Monday at noon during lunch, Angelina Johnson told Harry that Snape had actually made the NEWTS Advanced Potions class students study independently during their last class period, providing no instruction at all.
"But haven't we gotten Snape plenty of strange things from the forest?" Harry asked in genuine surprise, confused by this development. "We've been collecting ingredients for him every night!"
Self-study in Potions class was such an absurd, unprecedented thing that he had never heard of happening at Hogwarts before in the school's entire thousand-year history.
"NEWTS-level courses involve many extremely advanced and complex potions," Hermione explained patiently, though her own expression was troubled.
"They require many precious, rare magical ingredients—things like powdered unicorn horn, phoenix tears, refined moonstone, Acromantula venom. Expensive components that the few of us can't possibly gather in the Forbidden Forest no matter how many nights we spend there.
Those things have to be purchased from specialized suppliers. Oh, and Katie Bell has to take her OWLs this year, doesn't she? For students facing OWLS-level exams, this happening is truly an absolute nightmare! Their education is being compromised!"
"You still have the mental energy to worry about others, Hermione?" Ron asked with some admiration, scratching irritably at the partially healed wound on his arm where the Murtlap rat had viciously bitten him.
Although Madam Pomfrey had skillfully removed some of the worst negative effects with her potions and healing spells, wounds in the healing period always itched irritatingly.
"The ones who really need to escape this nightmare are us," Ron continued, his voice heavy with self-pity.
"Oh, I really desperately hope Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore can quickly reach some kind of agreement with the Board of Governors, whatever it takes, so that horrible old bat Snape won't have any more chances to torment us like this anymore!"
Looking up at Snape, who sat calmly eating his breakfast at the staff table with his usual expression of disdainful superiority, apparently enjoying the meal without any concern for the students' suffering, Ron ground his teeth together in pure hatred.
Harry suddenly thought of something important, his mind making a connection. He dropped the half-eaten apple pie in his hand back onto his plate, wiped his mouth hastily with a napkin, and looked urgently at Hermione with sudden concern.
"Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson are negotiating with the Board of Governors about Hogwarts' future. What does the Daily Prophet say about this whole situation, Hermione? Is there any coverage of it at all? You've been reading it every morning."
"No, nothing," Hermione shook her head, her bushy hair was swaying. "Recently, apart from publishing articles attacking Hogwarts's educational quality with the usual propaganda—the newspaper has absolutely no reporting about this funding crisis or the negotiations.
It's not surprising when you think about it, is it? After all, the Ministry of Magic and the Board of Governors did something deeply dishonorable in this entire affair, something they can't defend publicly."
She leaned forward, lowering her voice. "If the general magical community knew that the Ministry of Magic used such despicable, underhanded tactics to achieve intervention and control at Hogwarts, essentially starving children to gain political power—what would people say? Public opinion would turn against them. The Minister of Magic's approval ratings would be completely finished."
Harry bit his lower lip hard, becoming even more worried about Hogwarts's uncertain fate and the school's future.
He had never imagined, never even considered the possibility, that before the newly returned Voldemort had caused any major trouble or launched any attacks, the supposedly legitimate magical government would be the first force to push Hogwarts to the critical point where it couldn't continue operating normally.
With a gloomy, oppressive mood hanging over him like a dark cloud, Harry finished his afternoon classes in a distracted haze, barely paying attention to the lessons.
And when the gloomy sky outside the tall windows was tinged with the golden-orange colors of twilight, the sun setting behind distant mountains, and they sat down heavily in the Great Hall again for dinner, their moods inevitably turned even more sour. The day felt endless.
"Can't it just rain? Just once?" Ron huffed irritably, looking up at the enchanted ceiling which showed a cloudless evening sky, stars beginning to appear.
He vigorously tore apart the bread roll in his hands piece by piece, taking out his frustration on the innocent food. "I don't believe that Snape would actually make us go into the Forbidden Forest to catch disgusting leeches in pouring rain!"
Harry opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly a sight at the entrance made the words he was about to speak stick awkwardly in his throat.
Not just him—many young wizards throughout the Great Hall turned astonished, curious gazes toward the bizarre witch who came running energetically into the hall.
The witch wore eye-wateringly bright banana-yellow robes, her fingernails were painted a dazzling, almost shining pink, her blonde hair was done up in, stiff, weird large curls that looked like they'd been set with Permanent Sticking Charms. She wore gaudy, jeweled glasses with rhinestones, and carried an expensive-looking crocodile-skin handbag in her ring-covered hand.
The young man following behind the flamboyant witch was carrying a heavy professional camera on his shoulder, panting heavily as he struggled to keep up with her brisk pace.
"Hurry up, Bozo, don't dawdle! This is a rare opportunity!" the witch said with extreme excitement.
She completely ignored the bewildered, confused looks from the young wizards and professors watching her bizarre entrance. She rushed directly to the end of the Gryffindor table with surprising speed, craning her neck rudely over a startled first-year's head, examining the food on the table before them with interest.
For some reason, the witch frowned with dissatisfaction. "Oh, isn't this a bit too sumptuous, Bozo? Photographing it like this won't create any controversy or scandal."
As she spoke, she raised her heavily drawn-on eyebrows vividly, thought briefly while tapping one pink fingernail against her teeth, then rudely and without any apology pushed several shocked young wizards aside to make room. "Excuse me, make way! Coming through!"
The witch said briskly to the frightened young wizards, pulled out a wooden bench with a scraping sound, and examined the food spread on the table again more critically. After a few seconds of consideration, she began to take decisive action.
The excited witch reached out with her pink-nailed hands and pushed aside the puddings, roast beef, chicken legs, and sausages that had appeared again on the students' table. She shoved them down the table, leaving only a few greasy, unappetizing pumpkin pasties and some plain boiled potatoes in front of the first-years.
After doing all this rearranging, she tilted her head to look critically at the mess she'd deliberately made of the table. Her peripheral vision caught sight of the half-eaten bread roll in poor Colin Creevey's mouth.
"Oh, let me borrow that!"
She reached out without hesitation and actually snatched the bread directly from Colin's mouth, yanking it out. She carelessly tossed it onto an empty plate and dusted off her hands with satisfaction, nearly making the shocked Colin fall back off the bench.
"Now that looks more like it," the witch said with satisfaction, admiring her staged scene of deprivation.
Then she moved aside efficiently. The young man behind her carrying the professional camera had taken advantage of this time to set up his equipment properly and began frantically photographing the arranged scraps and leftovers on the table from multiple angles, the flash was going off repeatedly.
At the end of this absurd farce, the witch even pulled back the first-years she had driven aside earlier. She forced the terrified young wizards to pose awkwardly for a photo with the pathetic-looking table, arranging them to look as miserable as possible.
"Perfect! Thank you!" The witch said brightly, as if she'd done them a favor.
She even stuffed the bread she had taken from Colin's mouth back into Colin's mouth without warning. "Let's go, Bozo, we'll head upstairs now. Watson said he'd wait for us in his office. It's on the third floor, right? He said so in his letter."
Harry watched in stunned silence as the witch, tottering on her high heels, led the photographer quickly up the stairs from the side of the entrance hall. The odd pair disappeared from his sight, the clicking of heels were fading.
"Rita Skeeter, reporter for the Daily Prophet," Ron identified her after a moment. "But what on earth is she doing at Hogwarts? I thought she was banned from the grounds."
"That's not important right now, Ron," Hermione said, her tone suddenly lighter, as if a weight had been lifted.
She let out a long breath of relief. Having been tormented and exhausted by Snape for several miserable days and nights, she seemed revitalized again by this development, her eyes were brightening.
"Didn't you hear what she said at the end? Professor Watson has already returned to the castle. Oh, I think all of this should have a resolution now."
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