The next day, when that lukewarm spring sunlight once again shone upon the castle, the Aurors also one after another left Hogwarts.
In a certain sense, this meant that Dumbledore ultimately still hadn't managed to persuade Fudge.
But for the students, this was undoubtedly great news. That day, many of them had run out of the common rooms early in the morning, wildly celebrating outside the long-missed castle.
The reason why the students were this excited naturally had something to do with the lifting of Hogwarts' military control.
But even more so, it was because Professor Dumbledore, seeing that the term was about to end and that students had all missed a large number of classes, had canceled the final exams for ordinary students this year.
(Of course, the higher-grade students still had to take their Wizarding level exams. Compared to the others, they could only be called unlucky.)
However, different from the other students, the Hufflepuffs today hadn't gone anywhere…
"Link! Link! Wake up quickly!"
Inside the dormitory, Link, who had just gotten a good night's sleep, was shaken awake by an excited John.
And after he woke up, he was startled by the scene in front of him.
Because at that moment, their small dormitory was already packed full of people.
They were all here to ask Link about what had happened in the Forbidden Forest that night.
Among them were boys and girls, but the majority were student leaders or upper-year students like Cedric.
As for the rest of the Hufflepuffs, they were crowded outside the corridor of the dormitory.
Looking at those eyes full of expectation and excitement, Link was, for a moment, speechless.
But under the repeated questioning of John and Cedric, he finally still told a portion of the story, trimmed down.
Link could swear he had already tried to narrate in the most boring and ordinary tone possible, but for some reason, these listening students still from time to time let out bursts of gasps, which caused another wave of commotion among the students in the corridor who couldn't hear clearly.
After finally escaping John and the others' siege, Link originally thought this matter would end here.
But when he slowly made his way to the Great Hall to enjoy breakfast, he discovered that students from the other houses were no less curious about this matter than the Hufflepuffs.
This resulted in Link being immediately surrounded by a dense crowd as soon as he sat down.
Everyone spoke over one another, all begging Link to recount the events of that night again.
This made Link's expression turn a little unpleasant. Because at this rate, never mind breakfast, he wouldn't even get to eat lunch.
And just then, a familiar voice sounded from outside the crowd.
"Alright, all of you get lost! I don't want to say it a second time!" Emily, arms crossed, spoke coldly. At her side stood a group of tall and strong Slytherins.
This made the students surrounding Link all consciously scatter.
They didn't want to provoke the fearsome "Queen Victoria."
"Thanks, Emily."
Looking at Emily who had scared everyone off and now sat down beside him, Link let out a breath and said.
And upon hearing this, Emily lowered her already blushing face and replied with a quiet, almost inaudible "Mm."
Such behavior was completely different from her earlier demeanor of driving everyone away.
But Link smiled. He found Emily quite interesting like this.
With Emily silently keeping him company, Link hurriedly finished his breakfast, but didn't choose to leave. Instead, he continued teasing Emily.
As for the others in the Great Hall, they had already turned their attention to the Hufflepuffs.
Though Link refused to say more, the other Hufflepuffs wouldn't miss the chance to be in the spotlight.
They were very happy to recount the story of Link that they had heard.
Of course, how much they modified it magically was no longer something Link could control.
While Link teased Emily, Harry, Hermione, and Ron also came over to Link's side.
At first, the three were a bit afraid of Emily, who had already returned to her previously icy demeanor.
But after chatting with Link for a bit and seeing Emily not reacting much, they gradually relaxed.
"Link, did you hear?" Harry, gradually returning to normal, said excitedly, "The Malfoy family has suffered huge misfortune recently!"
"Yes! My dad just got back from searching the Malfoy residence yesterday. He said the Malfoy family has nearly been emptied out!" Ron chimed in at the right time.
Malfoy being unlucky was absolutely the thing Harry and Ron most loved to see.
However, what kind of expression would Harry have if he knew what Tom Riddle had to say about Draco?
Thinking this, Link couldn't help but smile.
The three then chatted about the Malfoy family's situation for quite a while.
Though Link believed that the so-called "being emptied" scene at the Malfoy home was likely a performance by Lucius to garner pity, seeing Harry and Ron so happy, he didn't burst their bubble.
And watching the three chat happily, Hermione, who had been silent for a while, bit her lip.
She had wanted to ask about Link's physical condition from the very beginning.
Unfortunately, Emily had been watching her with a vigilant gaze the entire time, which made her very uncomfortable.
But now, she really couldn't hold back anymore.
Sneaking a glance at Emily, Hermione finally reached out, preparing to tug on Link's sleeve to get his attention.
But before her hand even touched Link's sleeve, Arkam suddenly poked out from within it.
After a brief moment of eye contact with those golden snake eyes, a sharp scream burst from Hermione's mouth.
"Ah!"
"What's wrong?"
Hearing this, the trio immediately looked over. And Emily, who had seen all of this from beginning to end, covered her mouth and laughed, casting a look of approval at Arkam.
"Snake, there's a snake!"
Hermione tremblingly pointed at Arkam. Only then did the trio notice the small head poking out from Link's sleeve.
"Oh, no need to be afraid," Link suddenly realized and patted Arkam's head before explaining, "This is my new pet, Arkam."
"P-pet?"
Ron and Hermione stammered.
The two of them couldn't accept the fact that someone would raise a snake as a pet.
As for Harry, who shared the same Parseltongue ability as Link, he wasn't all that scared. He not only wasn't afraid, he even tried to wave and greet Arkam.
Unfortunately, after experiencing the Tom Riddle incident, Arkam had developed an instinctive aversion to all Parseltongues except for Link.
Seeing this, not only did Arkam not respond to Harry, he even turned and directly slipped back into Link's sleeve.
For a moment, Harry's expression turned a little awkward, while Link next to him laughed heartily without restraint.
———
After chatting with Harry and the others until the afternoon, Link finally broke free and made his way to the Room of Requirement.
Unlike last time, this time the Room of Requirement had already transformed, according to Link's will, into a huge spell training ground.
Looking at the pitch-black anti-magic brick walls in front of him and the alchemy dummy targets in the distance, Link silently opened his attribute panel.
Previously, because he was worried that assigning points would affect his body and trigger Dumbledore and the others' overreaction, Link had been holding on to his skill points.
But now, it was time to properly consider the matter. Though, actually, there wasn't much to consider.
At present, the only spell Link had at LV5 was Sectumsempra, and holding the belief of immediately boosting combat power, Link had only this one choice for using the golden skill point.
"Then let's begin." Muttering to himself and taking a deep breath, mentally prepared, Link finally tapped the golden plus sign behind Sectumsempra LV5.
In the next moment, Link's brow furrowed.
But this time, the reason Link frowned wasn't because the breakthrough of Sectumsempra overloaded him with knowledge, rather, it was because the feedback it gave was pitifully little.
That made all the mental preparation Link had done go to waste.
However, little doesn't mean weak.
[Sectumsempra LV6 has been acquired!]
Looking at the dark-gold popup in front of him, after taking a moment to react, Link still smiled.
Then, with a sharp flick of his wand, an invisible and traceless cursed force instantly took shape, silently shooting out dozens of meters, directly piercing into the body of a distant alchemy dummy.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
Even after ten seconds passed, the alchemy dummy still showed no reaction.
It was as if what Link had fired was just a dud.
However, seeing this, the smile on Link's face grew even brighter.
"Explode!"
With a shout from Link, the cursed force inside the alchemy dummy finally activated, transforming into dozens of black spikes that pierced the dummy from the inside out, turning it into a hedgehog.
This time, the upgrade of Sectumsempra gave only one thing besides the regular increase in power and control, that was a certain degree of free manipulation of the cursed force.
This ability, at first glance, may not seem like much, but in reality, it was ridiculously strong.
Aside from the delayed shadow spike just now, it could even be used as a control skill or a tracking skill, with extremely wide application.
Lowering his wand, Link nodded in satisfaction, then tapped the upgrade plus sign for Refilling Charm.
This time, the feedback it gave was similar to when Sectumsempra was upgraded to LV5, a flood of knowledge rushed directly into Link's brain, causing him to briefly crash.
But once he recovered from the crash, Link couldn't help but curse.
Because he suddenly discovered, due to the upgraded Refilling Charm flooding his brain with mostly general-purpose spell knowledge, the experience bars of his other spells also rose significantly.
Many low-level spells directly leveled up, and the Sensory Charm, which had already been near leveling up, also successfully reached LV4.
In comparison, the actual effect of the Refilling Charm upgrade was not so exciting.
Besides the usual power boost, control improvement, and wandless casting, the only new ability was that the types of things that could be treated as containers had increased.
Now, the Refilling Charm could be used on almost all objects, including air.
That meant it could freely adjust the humidity in the air, or even...
Well, Link honestly couldn't think of any more.
But this was the trait of foundational spells after leveling up.
Their core effects might not be very strong, but they gave huge experience feedback to other spells, it could be said to be a well-rounded development.
Moreover, judging by the effect of Sectumsempra's upgrade to LV6, if Refilling Charm could be upgraded again, Link might be able to master free generation and control of liquids.
And since liquid had physical properties, what it could do would far exceed what cursed power could.
For example, high-pressure water blades, or super-heavy water shields...
Thinking about it in detail, this actually sounded pretty awesome.
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