Time at school was always easy and comfortable, unlike working outside, like a tightly wound puppet, constantly striving for a livelihood. Amosta barely noticed, and two weeks had passed in a flash. Tomorrow would be the first day of the second semester.
Generally speaking, Hogwarts only held a welcoming feast the night before the start of each school year, to celebrate the new students' enrollment and the beginning of the new academic year.
The start of the second semester usually had no celebratory activities, but this year was different. Due to the terrifying attacks that caused widespread panic last semester, Dumbledore, breaking tradition, decided to hold a feast in the Great Hall that evening to boost morale.
Snape strode through the third-floor corridor. Nearby young wizards quickly dodged aside upon seeing the cold-faced, fearsome Potions Master, fearing to be too close.
Snape himself was accustomed to such scenes. He didn't glance at these students, quickly turned a few corners, and stopped in front of a classroom that had been unused for many years.
"Come in, Professor Snape."
The voice suddenly emanating from the classroom made Snape, who was about to knock, pause. He pushed the door open as instructed and saw Amosta standing in the center of the classroom with his arms crossed, smiling at a wall.
"Headmaster Dumbledore invited you to invite me to the feast?"
Snape entered the room and closed the door behind him, sneering, "It seems you, like our great Headmaster, are almost omniscient, Amosta?"
"I saw you come out of Headmaster Dumbledore's office and come straight here without going anywhere else. I pretty much guessed."
Amosta raised his eyebrows, pointing at the wall, his expression a little smug as he showed off his hard work.
"See the effect, Professor Snape? I stayed up several nights, running around the castle under a Disillusionment Charm, and finally managed to calibrate all the images the day before school started. If I were to rate it myself, the effect is excellent!"
Snape ignored Amosta's self-praise. He turned to gaze at the wall, which was divided into hundreds of small squares, each flickering with an image. After a few careful glances, even he, having experienced many great storms, couldn't help but change his expression slightly.
In those images, Harry and Ron were walking out of the Hospital Wing. They were going to inform Hermione about the feast that night and ask her if she wanted to attend.
Crabbe and Goyle were standing in the Owlery, waiting for Draco Malfoy, who had just entered. After a while, Malfoy emerged, muttering and with owl feathers stuck all over his head. He clutched a letter in his left hand and threw an owl onto the rafters with his right. These actions made Crabbe and Goyle burst into laughter, and Malfoy, consequently, looked pleased.
At the hunchbacked witch statue on the fourth-floor corridor, a scrawny, black-haired boy with curly hair was keeping watch for someone. He whispered something to the statue. Then, the witch's hunch opened, and two identical red-haired boys emerged one after another. They joyfully high-fived their friend and showed him the butterbeer they had bought from the Three Broomsticks.
Filch had just caught two first-year young wizards secretly throwing Dungbombs into the lavatories. He fiercely grabbed their collars and marched them towards his office. On the way, he encountered Percy scolding Sally-Anne Perks because she had secretly used a Leg-Locker Curse on Padma Patil, causing Patil to fall into a puddle outside the second-floor lavatory.
Consequently, she was also grabbed by Filch and taken to the office.
Neville, holding the Mimbulus Mimbletonia given to him by his Great-Uncle Algie, walked into Professor Sprout's office. Professor McGonagall also stood at her office door, grim-faced, watching a wizard in a turquoise robe, with golden hair flowing and a brilliant smile, depart.
A series of flickering images clearly displayed the current events at Hogwarts before Snape. He stared at the people in those images, watching them walk around or talk loudly. Finally, when he looked at the smiling Amosta again, his expression changed.
Indeed, on the night Amosta returned to school, he had told Snape what he planned to do.
But Snape had to admit that at the time, he hadn't paid much attention to this outlandish idea concocted by his talented student. It was only now, with Hogwarts so vividly displayed before him, that Snape realized its power.
"How did you do it?"
Snape instinctively lowered his voice, his eyes even showing a hint of dread. "I know you've set up many little gadgets around the castle... How did you prevent them from being discovered?"
"It's very simple," Amosta said with ease. "I applied Disillusionment Charms and powerful anti-detection spells to all the Omnioculars. The young wizards certainly won't discover them, and even the professors won't find them unless they specifically search."
Indeed, they couldn't be discovered. This thing was different from a wizard's scrying; it wouldn't make people feel anything unusual at all. Snape considered himself a vigilant person, but he hadn't felt at all that he was being monitored throughout his journey.
"...Actually, the principle of this thing is very simple. It's like WWN (Wizarding Wireless Network); it transmits signals through magical magnetic fields. The only difference is that my system transmits images, while the broadcast transmits sound."
Amosta shrugged, as if he had just concocted a potion for boils that even a first-year student could handle, and there was no need for much surprise. He explained to Professor Snape in a very casual tone,
"My biggest difficulty was that the magical magnetic fields within Hogwarts were too chaotic and too powerful, which interfered with the stability of the signal transmission. For this, I specifically spent an afternoon modifying the interference charms and adjusting those Omnioculars based on the strength of the magical magnetic fields at different locations in the castle... This really exhausted me. Seriously, next time you see Dumbledore, could you ask if he can give me some overtime pay?"
"Speaking of Dumbledore--"
Snape's face was sallow, his expression shifting between gloom and cheer. "Does he know about this setup of yours, Amosta?"
Amosta didn't answer the question, because he saw Percy Weasley, bearing the red hair emblem of the Weasley family, sneaking into the Ravenclaw Tower basement during his patrol, his actions highly suspicious.
He immediately went to the wall and searched carefully. In the corner of the wall near the window, he found the corresponding image. In the image, Percy was embracing a beautiful girl with long, curly brown hair, passionately kissing her.
"Tsk tsk!"
Amosta exclaimed, "Being a prefect is really convenient. If I were a prefect back then, I wouldn't have to... Well, I forgot I don't have a girlfriend."
Amosta made a joke, then answered Professor Snape's question,
"Perhaps he knows, perhaps he doesn't, I'm not too sure, Professor Snape. Headmaster's reaction to my return this time was not quite what I expected. I thought he would keep a close eye on me, but instead, he largely ignored me. Do you know why?"
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