Chapter 210: Terrified Hermione
For several weeks after the founding of the Philosopher's Stone Guardians Alliance, Duncan went out every night for a stroll, smeared in Invisibility Potion.
But unfortunately, he did not discover any trace of that odd fellow. It was as if the man had evaporated into thin air, never appearing again since that night.
However, during this period, Mrs. Norris was living very happily. Every night she would search the castle as if on a treasure hunt, looking everywhere for Duncan. Once she found him, she would strut around near his position, head held high and chest puffed out, only leaving after Duncan tossed her a piece of dried fish.
After several weeks of this, Mrs. Norris's scrawny body gradually put on flesh, even showing signs of turning into a Garfield. Filch, seeing the increasingly healthy cat, was so happy his face split into a grin. His mood improved, and he became a much gentler person. When he saw muddy footprints students had left in the corridor, he, unprecedentedly, did not lose his temper. Instead, humming a tune, he cheerfully cleaned them up.
The little witches and wizards who passed by stared so hard their eyes were about to fall out. One after another, they exclaimed that it was unbelievable, suspecting that Filch had been body-snatched! But no student pursued the matter. Filch becoming mild was a good thing, and everyone wanted him to keep it up. After all, no one wanted to keep looking at a man with bulging eyes who spent all day in front of them screaming himself hoarse and roaring abuse.
On the fifth floor of the castle, the door of an abandoned classroom was locked tight. The curtains blocked the dust- and cobweb-covered windows completely, leaving no gap. Inside the room, a dim candle sat on a rickety, broken desk. Around it, the members of the Guardians Alliance sat up straight and proper.
"I went round the castle last night with Ron under the Invisibility Cloak," Harry cleared his throat. "Mrs. Norris secretly ate the dried fish she had hidden behind the statue, and Filch, in surprise, merely muttered two curses at Fred and George!"
"Hold it, hold it!" Fred's stern face cracked; he couldn't keep it in. He said, "Weren't we only supposed to share important information? This doesn't count at all!"
Harry and Ron exchanged a look with drooping brows and said, full of innocence, "But apart from this, we don't have any information to share! Creatures moving about in the corridors of the castle—if you exclude Filch—might only be the rats scurrying everywhere! Do you have any leads?"
"We'd very much like to shout that we do!" George shrugged. "But sadly, other than Filch, we also haven't seen anyone else."
"This term is about to end. Will that person really act?" said Ron. The long, dull patrols had left him a bit irritable.
"Ron, don't be anxious," Neville said in a low voice. "Maybe that person is just waiting for us to relax, and then he'll make his move."
"Neville may be right—I've found a clue," Hermione suddenly spoke, drawing everyone's eyes to her.
"What?" Fred's eyebrows lifted in delight. "I knew bringing Hermione into the Guardians Alliance was an absolutely correct decision!"
"She's broken the deadlock for us!" George said with a grin. "Leading the lost lambs to behold the dawn of victory..."
Duncan swished his wand and sealed the noisy mouths of Fred and George. Ignoring their muffled protests, he looked at Hermione and asked, "What clue did you find? Tell us quickly!"
"I ran into Snape and Filch when I went to the library yesterday," Hermione said, looking around at everyone. "The two of them were huddled in a corner of the corridor, and when I went over, I just happened to hear Snape angrily complaining to Filch. He said someone had stolen a lot of his potion ingredients and told Filch to be more alert on his patrols and help him catch that hateful little thief soon."
"Do you think this could be a signal that Snape or that mysterious person is about to act?" Hermione looked at them, her brows drawing together slightly. "After I heard what you said last time, I kept looking in the library for any potion that could let a person become someone else, and I finally found it..."
Hermione bent down, picked up a book, and slammed it onto the desk with a bang, nearly smashing Harry's hand on the tabletop and scaring him into jerking it back at once. But Hermione seemed not to notice this at all. She hurriedly opened the book, fixed her eyes on a page, traced it with a finger, and read: "Polyjuice Potion—after drinking it, you can become any person, whether the other party is an elderly person, a child, or a burly man several times taller than you!"
"It's a pity the page only has an introduction to the potion and no recipe; otherwise, I could have further confirmed things based on the ingredients Snape lost. But we still have reason to suspect that the person who stole the ingredients wants to brew Polyjuice Potion and once again act in someone else's guise!"
"However, there's also another possibility. Perhaps this is a trick directed and performed by Snape himself. He deliberately let slip to others that his ingredients were stolen. Then he turns into someone else to steal the Philosopher's Stone or, like last time, he doesn't even need to transform and can shed suspicion through acting."
"Mm, what Hermione says makes sense. Examination week is about to arrive; this is definitely the loosest period of school management, most favorable for that person to act!" Listening to Hermione, Duncan nodded in thought. In his heart, he still suspected that the odd fellow was a plant invited by Dumbledore. So in the past stretch of time, whenever he had nothing to do, he went by the Headmaster's office and, through hints and roundabout questions, asked several times. But each time, Dumbledore, smiling, said he had already reminded the professors to step up their patrols and that Duncan needn't worry about it.
"Since we know that person may act, we'll have to be more careful with our activities during this period to avoid running into danger. Harry, Ron, you two shouldn't patrol separately at night for the time being. Go together; it's safer. If you run into that thief, even if you can't beat him, two people screaming will make a louder sound!"
"Did you hear that? This is not the time for you two to play heroes!" said Fred—he and George were, for once, serious.
"Got it..." Ron drawled in reply. Who knew whether he had taken the others' words to heart.
After discussing for a while longer in the dim classroom, everyone's stomachs started to rumble. They all stood up, preparing to leave. But Hermione did not move. Her eyes were vacant as she stared ahead, and she had kept this look for quite a while...
Duncan waved a hand carefully in front of her eyes and asked in concern, "Hermione, what's wrong? Are you unwell?"
"I forgot!" Hermione came back to herself, raised her head to look at Duncan, her face full of terror. "Final examinations are almost here, but I haven't even started my second round of revision yet. It's over, I..."
"Merlin's beard, a second round! Hermione, we haven't even opened our books yet!" Fred and the others said in unison.
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