Chapter 70. Never Be a Traitor! Unless There's Meat...
After talking with Professor Fawkes and agreeing to contact him by owl, Lynn was kicked out of the ward.
Dumbledore then went inside and spoke with Professor Fawkes about something.
Lynn stayed outside the ward to tease Fawkes, who was also left outside, but it seemed uninterested in him, giving him the cold shoulder.
Lynn didn't have to wait long before Dumbledore came out of the ward, beckoned Fawkes, called Lynn over, and they left St. Mungo's Hospital together.
Back at Hogwarts, Lynn's school life returned to normal.
Every morning he would get up and practice spells with Cedric Ian and the others by the Black Lake, attend classes during the day, and spend his free time studying the various dark magic books that Professor Fawkes had left in his office and given him.
Occasionally, he would go to the Room of Requirement to experiment with dark magic that was inconvenient to practice in public. His
days were fulfilling, and he longed to return to his high school life in his previous life.
Time flies, and finals are fast approaching.
Lunch.
Looking at the scoreboards of the various houses in the Great Hall, Cedric couldn't help but complain about Slytherin's significantly higher green score compared to the other three.
"How do you guys farm points like that? Why is Slytherin's score so much higher than ours?"
He was a diligent student, always striving to earn points for Hufflepuff, but the gap between him and Slytherin wasn't narrowing; in fact, it was widening. Lynn,
engrossed in cutting sausage, wasn't pretending to be silent, while Ian glanced at him sideways. He and Lynn were in the same year, and sometimes their houses shared Potions class, so he knew why this was happening.
"Of course, it's because Slytherin has a good student and a good headmaster," he said, emphasizing the word "good" with a blank expression.
Lynn defended himself without changing his expression.
"How can points earned through skill be called 'farming'? If you're so capable, why don't you earn points for your houses in Herbology and Charms respectively?"
Cedric and Ian remained silent; they wanted to too, but Professors Sprout and Flitwick weren't as ruthless as Snape.
Speaking of this, Lynn looked up at the Great Hall ceiling with a worried expression.
"How can I get Professor Snape to praise me just once?"
Cedric and Ian exchanged a strange look, then Cedric looked Lynn up and down, shaking his head.
"Something's wrong with you."
"What's wrong with me? What are you thinking? It's just a personal collecting habit; I want to collect praise and points from all the professors at Hogwarts. What's wrong with that?"
Although Lynn's explanation was far-fetched, it wasn't entirely unacceptable. Cedric shook his head and sighed again.
"Getting Snape to give you extra points is easy, but getting him to praise you is harder than getting praise from Dumbledore."
Getting Snape to praise someone is indeed hellish. Lynn has been competing with him for a whole semester, and his Slytherin score is almost double that of the second-place student, yet he hasn't seen Snape say a single good word about him.
"Let's not talk about this anymore." Lynn stopped worrying about Snape's attitude; it's just a few Potions talent points anyway, he can just give them up.
"Exams start tomorrow, how's your preparation going?"
The three of them usually do well, except for Ian, whose grades are slightly lower. However, that's only relative to Lynn and Cedric; even in Ravenclaw, where the learning atmosphere is the most intense, Ian is considered one of the top students in his year.
Moreover, although Ian always liked to go to the library, the books he read were mostly strange, often involving bizarre magical stories and obscure curses.
This consumed a lot of his energy; otherwise, Ian's grades would have been even better.
Everyone's expressions relaxed when this was mentioned, and Cedric raised an eyebrow.
"You know, I taught myself all the second-year spells as soon as school started, and Transfiguration was practically my own doing. Professor Fawkes's Defense Against the Dark Arts is quite good; I feel pretty good about it. Herbalism is even taught by our headmaster himself. As long as Professor Snape doesn't make things difficult for me, getting O's in all subjects shouldn't be a problem."
Ian nodded, indicating he felt no pressure.
"The knowledge taught at Hogwarts isn't too difficult; if you pay a little attention, the exams shouldn't be a problem."
While they were relaxed, for the other young wizards, the final exams were the end of the semester.
That afternoon, the Weasley twins came to Lynn, asking him to borrow their Charms class notes from Cedric. They wanted to cram at the last minute to see if they could pass tomorrow's exam, so they wouldn't be disliked by the professors at school and get scolded by their parents at home.
"Final exams are the enemy of all students!" George said indignantly.
Beside him, Fred nodded in agreement.
"If I become the headmaster of Hogwarts, I will definitely abolish final exams and forbid any professors from assigning homework!"
Lynn rolled his eyes and handed them the notes he had borrowed from Cedric.
"If you two become headmasters, then the British wizarding world will have no future."
Cedric was already studying the third-year Charms course and didn't need to review the second-year notes at all. When Lynn asked to borrow them, he thought Lynn wanted to study in advance and generously gave them to him.
"Don't forget to return them to me after you're done. I'll use these notes to preview things during the summer vacation." Lynn instructed them.
The twins patted their chests, assuring him not to worry, and that they would return his notes intact after the spells exam the next day.
After saying goodbye to the twins, Lynn returned to his dorm. He had also grabbed a steak while eating lunch, and once back in his dorm, he chopped it up and put it in Umaru's bowl.
Umaru, who hadn't had meat for months, stared wide-eyed at the sight of the meat, but she still retained a sliver of rationality. She tilted her hamster-like head back, looking at the smiling Lynn with a bewildered expression.
"After eating bread and cookies for so long, no one can stand it anymore. It's okay, eat up."
Umaru was instantly moved to tears, but even though Lynn was suspicious, she still had to keep up the act.
She peeked out, feigning confusion about the beef in the bowl, as if asking why there weren't cookies today.
"You don't like it? Okay, I'll throw the meat away and replace it with cookies." Lynn made a move to reach for her bowl.
Umaru wasn't about to let him succeed. Like a hungry rat pouncing on its prey, she leaped into the bowl and, like a starving ghost, began to devour a piece of beef.
Savoring the delicious aroma of the meat, Umaru felt both satisfied and a little scared. "
Old Kira, where did you go? If you don't come back soon, I'm going to... I'm going to be bribed by Lynn...
Waaah, the meat smells so good!"
One more chapter, and Volume One will be over. Before I knew it, it had already reached 150,000 words! Tsk tsk tsk
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