From Hogwarts to Sturhaven

Upon hearing the word "fatal injury," Professor Snape quickly knelt down to check on the students. After confirming that they were indeed not in mortal danger, Snape stood up, his expression returning to its usual calm and composed state.

"I didn't know you had such abilities, Mr. Doom?" Professor Snape's voice was almost a whisper, and then he began to pronounce Ivy's punishment, "Because of your recklessness in... 'magical communication,' you, Ivy Doom, will be punished with solitary confinement for the entire term."

The kind-hearted Professor Snape still couldn't bring himself to deduct Slytherin's house points, but simply announced that Ivy would be punished.

“That sounds alright, at least Slytherin didn’t lose any points.” Ivy nodded calmly, accepting Professor Snape’s verdict.

"Now, can I go back to my dorm?" Seeing that Snape didn't make any further moves, Ivy raised an eyebrow and asked, "I must say, today has been quite a fulfilling day, and I'm exhausted. Especially after experiencing such an intense 'magical exchange'."

“Hmph! As your first task as punishment for confinement, move these students to the school hospital for treatment by Madam Pomfrey. Only then can you return to your damned bed.” Snape rejected Ivy’s suggestion and then assigned him his first task. “Of course, I will supervise you.”

"Yugardim, Leviosa." Ivy extended her wand and used a large-scale levitation charm to make all the fallen Slytherin students fly up, then conjured a long rope to link them all together.

"Shall we go, Professor?" Ivy, leading a human balloon made up of dozens of Slytherin students, politely asked Professor Snape.

The latter didn't answer, but simply tossed his long, black robe and began walking towards the door of the common room. Before leaving, Snape noticed the first-year student still standing there, stunned.

"Have you all lost your minds? Get back to bed! And you better not let me hear from any professor that you're late for class."

Upon hearing their dean say that, the first-year students scattered like birds and beasts.

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"Fred! Look! There are lots of Slytherin students following Snape!" George pointed to the Marauder's Map, which was covered with a dense tangled mess of names.

“That’s…” Fred also turned his gaze over, trying to make out the location among the letters, “Slytherin’s dungeons?”

"What are they doing? Why are so many people out here together?" George began to wonder what was going on.

“I dare say… Snape must be unhappy about not getting the Defense Against the Dark Arts position all these years, and he’s leading the students to the headmaster’s office to protest!” Fred began his unfounded speculation.

“No! It’s definitely worse than that! Maybe Snape wants to be headmaster!” George exclaimed, eager to stir up trouble. “This is war! Slytherin’s war against Gryffindor!”

"Why Gryffindor?" Fred didn't understand.

“Because Dumbledore is a Gryffindor!” George folded up the Marauder’s Map and began calling to his brothers, “We have to go and see what’s going on, no matter what.”

“Of course! But we still need to be careful of Filch and his old cat. I just saw them on the map, lurking on the second floor.” Fred offered his suggestion. “Perhaps we can go around through the school hospital. It’s only the beginning of the semester, so there shouldn’t be any unlucky souls there. Mrs. Pomfrey shouldn’t be on her guard.”

“Alright! Let’s do it this way! If only we had invisibility cloaks, we wouldn’t have to plan our route like this.” George packed all the loose items onto his body. They had originally planned to give Filch a few rotten eggs as a welcome gift for the new school year, but now that they needed to figure out “Slytherin and Snape’s conspiracy,” not revealing themselves was the best option.

"Forget it, we can't afford it. Besides, that thing will lose its effectiveness in less than ten years; it's nowhere near as good as the Disillusionment Charm." Fred cautiously peeked out from around the corner, and only after confirming there was no danger did he reply to his brother, "We absolutely must learn that spell this year!"

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Because Ivy was holding so many human balloons, some students' limbs often got tangled with the decorations at the corners of the castle, either rubbing off portraits on the walls or getting caught on spears from armor.

So, in order not to wake the whole castle, Snape and Ivy had to look back every few steps, and their progress was really not fast. Therefore, when they stepped off the last step of the dungeon stairs, Fred and George had been waiting for quite a while.

"Good heavens...did those students faint? Did Slytherin have a civil war?" Hidden opposite the dungeon exit, Fred and George saw Snape's secret clearly.

However, they soon realized that something was seriously wrong.

"We have to get out of here quickly! Snape must be taking them to the hospital! If we stay here any longer, we'll definitely be discovered!" Since the two were heading to the Slytherin dungeons through the hospital, their hiding place was now blocking Snape and Ivy's path.

Fortunately, the Weasley twins were as agile as a pair of circling balls, so when Snape turned around to urge Ivy, the two took the opportunity to leave their hiding place.

"How did those unlucky guys even pass out? Spending their first night of school in the school hospital? We don't think we've ever done anything like that before." Using their familiarity with the layout, the two successfully moved to the corridor on the second floor of the main teaching area and then began to discuss what had happened in the Slytherin common room.

But before George could answer the question, Mrs. Lorris's meows came from the end of the corridor.

"All I know is that if we don't leave now, we might be locked up on the first night of school!"

So the pair of wandering balls hurriedly flew back to their beds.

Chapter 22 Astronomy Lesson

The Slytherin first-years are to come to the Astronomy Tower on Tuesday evenings for an astronomy class taught by a Black woman named Aurora Sinesta from Waggado School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Africa.

It is said that Vargado is a place with a great talent for astronomy, which is probably why Dumbledore hired a black professor.

Since the astronomy class was scheduled for midnight, there was no time left for Ivy to be confined afterward, so he could stay in his own bed for the first time in a long time, instead of facing Professor Snape's uninteresting face.

Even including the first day of school's confinement, Ivy was only locked up for two days, but being forced to handle potion ingredients all the time was no fun. After all, he couldn't use "Avada Kedavra" to threaten the potion ingredients into processing themselves; he had to do it himself.

Therefore, being able to stay as far away as possible from Snape's gloomy Potions classroom was the best thing that could happen to Ivy.

The astronomy course was very simple; it involved observing the sky using the student-provided telescope after the necessary explanations.

If the orbits of other planets in the solar system are correct, then observe the planets; if you're unlucky, then observe other stars in the night sky instead.

Although it was still September, the temperature in the Scottish Highlands at midnight was already very low. The young wizards, who hadn't been able to put on their winter clothes, were shivering with cold and secretly vowed to wear more clothes for the next astronomy class.

Thanks to the temperature-regulating magic on the Slytherin robes, Ivy stood out among the chattering young wizards, not to mention his ability to always spot the right star in the night sky. Professor Sinister was delighted and added five points to Slytherin's score.

“You deserve it.” Professor Sinister patted Ivy on the shoulder with his dark hand, then turned to check the other people’s telescopes.

How did you do that?

Ivy turned his head, and a pair of bright emerald eyes were staring at him seriously. It was Cassandra, the almost excessively beautiful first-year Slytherin student. Ivy was certain that this girl did not exist in the original Harry Potter books; otherwise, no one could resist describing her appearance in detail.

However, this is normal, since ancient magic does not exist in the original work.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Ivy replied softly. “Just place the telescope in the right position, focus it properly, and make sure the stars are in the correct positions. If you don’t mind, I can teach you step by step.”

“You know I’m not talking about astronomy.” Cassandra seemed unsatisfied with Ivy’s astronomical tricks and continued to ask questions.

“But we’re in astronomy class right now!” Ivy’s eyes widened, seemingly surprised that his classmate wasn’t doing his homework properly and was discussing things unrelated to the lesson with him, a model student.

A slight blush rose on Cassandra's fair face. She took a deep breath, trying not to show her anger too obviously: "Let's talk this out openly. I must say, your magic is a bit stronger than I thought..."

"Just a little?" Ivy knew she didn't want to admit defeat, but she still asked mischievously.

Cassandra stared at Ivy for a long time before continuing, "...She's stronger than I imagined. I need to know why."

"Oh...I understand now, you're asking me for advice?" Ivy feigned sudden realization. In truth, he had long since noticed the girl was secretly observing him, but he hadn't expected Cassandra to confront him so quickly. Ivy had assumed she would continue following him until she believed she had some secrets about him.

“You can think that way.” Cassandra’s words were so soft and quick that Ivy barely heard them.

"So... this is how a noble Slytherin begs?" Ivy continued to tease her.

“Please! Tell me, how did you do that?” When Cassandra said this, Ivy was sure she could hear the sound of her teeth grinding together.

“Because I’m a genius!” Ivy said smugly. “And that’s no big deal for a genius!”

Cassandra turned and left without saying another word to Ivy.

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Besides attending classes on time and completing assignments like a good student, and then going to the Potions classroom at the same time every day for his solitary confinement, Ivy had many other things to do.

For example, exploring different parts of the castle to see how it differs from what it was over a hundred years ago.

Judging from the few rooms he knew that were never shown to the public, apart from a little more dust, they were basically the same. It seemed that although a lot of things had changed in the past hundred years, there were still many things that had not changed.

At least Slytherin's study and the secret chamber built by the Gaunt family did not have them.

As for the Room of Requirement, it was inevitable that things would change there. At least Ivy knew very well that Voldemort must have entered it during his school years, and even hid the Ravenclaw tiara, which was a Horcrux, inside when he returned to Hogwarts for a job interview.

However, due to time and distance constraints, Ivy has not yet gone there. Especially with a little tail always following her around.

Yes, Cassandra doesn't seem to have given up; instead, she has chosen to secretly investigate Ivy's secrets.

Because of the "magical exchange" in the Slytherin common room on the first day of school, Ivy thought that Dumbledore and Snape would increase their surveillance on him, so he could do something else to distract himself.

Some people may wonder, while completing his studies at Hogwarts and dealing with Snape's confinement, where did Ivy find the energy to do other unrelated things?

This brings us to the topic of the timetable for first-grade students.

As newcomers to the Hogwarts family, first-year students actually have very few courses.

There are only three Herbology classes, two Transfiguration and Charms classes, one History of Magic class, one Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and one Astronomy class each week, as well as two consecutive Potions classes (on Friday mornings, which Slytherin and Gryffindor attend together). The rest is Flying, which is a physical education class, held twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Slytherin also attends Flying with Gryffindor, but it hasn't started during the first week of school. The first Flying class will be held next Thursday.

Based on this calculation, first-year students only need to attend 14 class hours per week, while if we consider all five days of the week, there are a total of 35 class hours!

In other words, first-grade students have plenty of time to explore the castle, figure out the route to class, and then complete their homework—it couldn't be more fun!

Therefore, even though he had to deal with solitary confinement at night, Ivy had plenty of time to do other things, and what he needed to do recently was to continue his research on the Grimoire of Destruction.

Chapter 23 Trick

Ivy found several new pages in the Grimoire of Destruction.

The Grimoire of Destruction was originally titled "The Wizard's Practical Guide," a portable magic textbook designed to help Ivy quickly develop combat skills. It contained various spells highly useful in battle, recorded on different pages.

However, since Ivy herself is a master of dark magic who has mastered the "Avada Kedavra" technique, she has little interest in the slightly safer spells on the pages during battle.

I only use it occasionally when competing with classmates.

Later, influenced by ancient magic, *The Wizarding Manual* evolved into its current form, the Grimoire of Destruction. Ivy can still see her attribute panel on the title page and even choose feats for herself using the Grimoire of Destruction.

Besides the "Spellcasting Elimination" feat already selected, Ivy now has five additional feats to choose from. However, since she doesn't hold even a single level 5 D&D spellcaster class, these available feats seem rather pointless.

But recently, Ivy discovered some unusual pages in the Grimoire of Destruction.

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Hand of the Mage

Ring Rank: Trick

School of thought: Conjuration

Casting time: 1 action