From Hogwarts to Sturhaven

Ron and Hermione had come to visit him several times, but he had always pretended to be asleep and avoided them. All he wanted to know now was what had happened that day, and his two companions, who hadn't entered the Blackflame Gate, obviously wouldn't know what had happened.

Footsteps came from the doorway. Harry turned the pillow over and pulled the blanket over his head again.

Mrs. Pomfrey, the head nurse of the university hospital, is a very strict woman, but also very kind.

She could tell Harry was faking sleep at a glance: "You're perfectly healthy, son. You just need something to eat. Your friends have brought you lots of good food. Have some and chat with them, shall we?"

Harry remained silent, trying to make his breathing sound natural.

"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry vaguely heard a cry of surprise; it must have been Hermione's voice.

Mrs. Pomfrey moved away from the bedside, and a moment later, voices could be heard from the doorway: "He won't see anyone, and he won't speak... he's like a lost soul! Honestly, I can't imagine what kind of trauma this child has suffered!"

Madam Pomfrey's voice was full of reproach, and she did not soften her tone just because Dumbledore was the headmaster.

“Thank you, Poppy. Would you please get Harry some euphoria?” Dumbledore said gently. “Let me in to check on him. Everything will be alright.”

Mrs. Pomfrey did not answer, but her footsteps faded into the distance.

“Professor Dumbledore, may we go in too?” Harry heard Hermione ask.

“Wait a moment, okay?” Dumbledore said patiently. “Give us some time alone, and I’ll return Harry to you in good health in a little while. But I can help take the food in; I believe he needs to replenish his energy.”

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore." Ron's thanks were followed by the sound of Dumbledore opening the door.

Harry could no longer hide behind the covers. He poked his head out from under the covers and met Dumbledore's gaze.

Dumbledore's long, slender fingers were holding the crust of an egg tart, and he looked somewhat embarrassed, as if he hadn't expected Harry to suddenly peek out.

"I don't think you'd mind if I had one, would you?" Dumbledore looked at Harry with hopeful eyes, and he nodded.

So the egg tart disappeared into Dumbledore's mustache, and the crunching sound of teeth against the pastry made Harry feel a little hungry.

Dumbledore noticed this too. He gestured for the plate to float to Harry's side and said, "Come on, son. Have some. It won't stop our conversation. I can tell you have many questions."

Harry sat up from under the covers, picked up a fry and put it to his mouth. After a long while, he asked, "Sir... I want to know the truth..."

“The truth,” Dumbledore sighed, “is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must be treated with utmost care. However, I will try my best to answer your questions, unless I have a very good reason to keep quiet, in which case I hope you will forgive me. Of course, I cannot lie to you.”

“Voldemort…why did he want to kill me? And why couldn’t he kill me?” Harry asked.

Dumbledore sighed heavily, put down the remaining egg tarts, as if Harry's question had instantly robbed him of his appetite.

“Well, the first thing you asked me, I can’t tell you. Not today, not now. You’ll know someday. I think you need some more time to prepare… But the second question, I can tell you. It was your mother’s ‘love’ that saved you. It’s an ancient and powerful magic that requires ‘love’ as a medium to trigger. It deflected Voldemort’s spell, making him suffer the consequences of his own actions.” Dumbledore said some things, but with some reservations.

However, Harry still grasped the key point: "Ancient magic? Ivy... once said he was an ancient magic wizard..."

“That’s right.” Dumbledore nodded in agreement. “Mr. Doom does indeed possess many powers that I am unaware of. Perhaps you could ask him again.”

Harry made a mental note of this, and then asked his third question: "That day... I stepped through that door, but I have no recollection of anything that happened behind it... What happened?"

Dumbledore hesitated for a moment, then stuffed the remaining egg tart back into his mouth: "Behind the door is a challenge set up by Professor Victor. That challenge showed you some unpleasant things, which greatly disturbed you, so I asked him to erase your memory."

Dumbledore pulled a small bottle from the pocket of his robe. Harry immediately recognized it as the bottle Snape used to store potions. The bottle was now empty of potions, replaced by a silvery substance that looked very thin and shimmered with light.

“It contains your memories.” Dumbledore handed the bottle to Harry, who tried to uncork it but failed.

“I sealed it with magic. When you can open the bottle on your own, you'll be qualified to know everything.” Dumbledore smiled and stood up from beside Harry's bed. “Enough questions have been asked. Now it's time to enjoy the food and the friendship of your friends!”

Chapter 140 Year-End Banquet

The Great Hall at Hogwarts was newly decorated in Slytherin's green and silver to celebrate their seventh consecutive House Cup victory. A huge banner depicting the Slytherin Snake hung on the wall behind the main seating area.

The final Quidditch match is over, and the five young wizards who participated in the challenge have left behind their own legends in the castle. All the activities that could change the House's ranking are no longer available.

The students were making a lot of noise in the auditorium, celebrating the end of the semester and the start of summer vacation.

After Dumbledore entered the Great Hall, the noise gradually subsided.

“Excellent! I’m sure everyone is eagerly anticipating it, both the food on the table and the summer vacation a few days from now,” Dumbledore said excitedly. “But before that, we have some things to do. First is the House Cup awards ceremony, and the scores for each house are as follows: fourth place, Gryffindor, 177 points; third place, Hufflepuff, 282 points; Ravenclaw, 326 points; Slytherin, 377 points.”

Due to Dumbledore's earlier instigation of "legal night outings," all four houses had points deducted to varying degrees. However, even so, Gryffindor still trails Slytherin by two hundred points.

Then a thunderous cheer and stomping erupted at the Slytherin table.

"Yes, yes, everyone did a good job, including our dutiful professors. They deducted quite a few points from all the students who went out at night, didn't they?" Dumbledore made a good-natured joke, but no one agreed with him. For both students and professors, being penalized for going out at night and having to patrol and catch students who went out at night were not pleasant experiences.

Dumbledore didn't seem embarrassed at all. He continued, "I'm sure you've all heard that a group of brave first-year students successfully made it through the room at the end of the fourth-floor corridor."

“So,” his gaze lingered for a moment on the Slytherin table and the Gryffindor table, “there are some points that must be added.”

"Okay, let me see..."

"First, thanks to Hermione Granger's calm and collected actions, they made it through Professor Sprout's giant devil's net..."

The students at the Gryffindor table all turned their attention to Hermione and gave her a grand round of applause, while Hermione herself buried her head in her arms.

"Then the Seekers from both houses worked together to get through Professor Flitwick's Flying Key room..."

The cheers in the Great Hall stopped because Dumbledore's account differed from what they had heard. However, considering the forced cooperation in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, everyone could accept it, and some people sparsely applauded.

"Faced with Professor McGonagall's giant chessboard formation, Cassandra—Miss Worley—quickly overcame the challenge in a way never seen before, subduing the White King and Queen with a single spell..."

Cheers erupted again from the Slytherin table, with some even banging their cutlery on it, while Cassandra simply tossed her blonde hair aside.

"Faced with the terrifying undead troll, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter set aside their differences and lent a helping hand to their companion, successfully saving a life. Draco Malfoy also directed his friends to set the troll's head on fire. It was from that moment that I realized they weren't just students from two different houses, but members of the Hogwarts team!"

During the first part of Dumbledore's speech, Malfoy slid completely under the table, with only his forehead showing. But when he talked about "setting the troll's head on fire," he sat back down in his chair, completely at ease.

"Finally, thanks to Hermione Granger's calm reasoning, Mr. Harry Potter and Miss Cassandra Worre bravely reached Professor Victor's exclusive test... Yes... they succeeded! They passed all the tests! Because of their united efforts along the way, I believe they all deserve the final reward!"

"Therefore, I will award each of them two hundred points!"

As soon as Dumbledore finished speaking, the sound of a large number of gems falling into an hourglass came from the entrance of the Great Hall, continuing like a waterfall for quite a while.

Everyone was stunned by the news. This was probably the largest bonus in Hogwarts history, with a full thousand house points given away by Dumbledore with a single sentence.

The quick-thinking students realized that because Gryffindor had one more student participating in the challenge than Slytherin, the two houses had completely tied the gap in this bonus point event, with both reaching an astonishing total of 777 points.

The Great Hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone held their breath, waiting for Dumbledore to announce the winner of the House Cup.

"I've spent most of my life in Hogwarts Castle, and this is the first time I've seen two houses with the same grades," Dumbledore said with a smile, adjusting his half-moon spectacles. "Unfortunately, there's no longer enough time or reason to change those grades..."

The young wizards in the Great Hall looked at each other, none of them knowing what was going to happen. Snape, sitting at the staff table, frowned and glared fiercely at Harry, who was sitting among a group of Gryffindors.

Dumbledore raised a hand and said calmly, “Given the Hogwarts spirit of unity shown by the five young wizards, it shouldn’t be difficult for the two houses to share this year’s House Cup. Let’s add some decorations to the Great Hall!”

Half of the green ribbons hanging in the Great Hall turned bright red, and the silver ones turned gold; the enormous Slytherin snake had to give way half its space to share the throne with a majestic Gryffindor lion. Dumbledore pulled out his wand and pointed it, and the House Cups in front of him gleamed as they became a pair, apparently to be given to each of the two houses.

"Now, everyone can cheer!" Dumbledore led the applause, and only then did other voices begin to emerge in the quiet hall.

The Gryffindors thought about it and decided it was acceptable. After all, they were in last place just a few minutes ago, so being tied for first place now wasn't bad.

Slytherins could accept it, of course. Dumbledore had already openly favored Gryffindor, but at least they were still in first place. Although there were more people, they could still squeeze in.

Snape rose from the faculty table, shook hands with Professor McGonagall, and forced an awkward smile.

The most surprised person in the Great Hall was Ivy. He never expected that Dumbledore would come up with the idea of ​​uniting the four houses. In Hogwarts, which had become increasingly divided in recent decades, this was almost an impossible thing.

It seems Dumbledore is indeed starting to feel a sense of crisis. In this troubled school, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Chapter 141 Construction Team

During the summer of 1992, Ivy remained at Hogwarts, but not as a student; instead, she worked as part of the "Hogwarts Magical Creatures Breeding and Construction Team."

Large-scale construction projects are always a very costly undertaking in terms of manpower and resources, no matter the world.

Not to mention the "base" that Hogwarts is going to build.

Through the efforts of several pure-blood family members at the Ministry of Magic, Cornelius Fudge readily granted Hogwarts a large plot of land near Hogsmeade for construction purposes.

Including a large flat area, a section of river flowing into the Black Lake, and a small barren mountain, in Hagrid's words, there's enough space to raise ten more fire dragons!

It is said that the design drawings of "The Base" were repeatedly considered by the design master, but in Ivy's opinion, they did not reflect any mathematical beauty at all. They were neither regular nor elegant, but rather full of wizarding inexplicability and whimsy, just like the crooked private shops in Diagon Alley.

Ivy expressed her strong opposition to Dumbledore and intended to personally oversee the first phase of the "Foundation" construction.

Although Ivy didn't have the experience of wearing ice cream cone-shaped roadblocks on his head and being assigned to the "Civil Engineering" department, his omnipotent magic allowed him to reshape the world at will.

At least the sand and stones were quite obedient, much better than Dumbledore.

Yes, Ivy even recruited the headmaster of Hogwarts as a member of her construction team, and other professors at the school also fell victim to Ivy's clutches.

As headmaster, Dumbledore was responsible for expanding the magical domain of Hogwarts Castle, bringing this vast new area under his jurisdiction to prevent unsuspecting Muggles from trespassing.

The magic inherent in this ancient school is far more reliable than the spellcasters sent by the Ministry of Magic. With it around, Hogwarts professors don't need to frequently cast Oblivion Charms on nearby Muggles like researchers working in dragon sanctuaries in Romania and Bulgaria.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms professor, is responsible for casting spells on various parks to provide a suitable environment for magical creatures to live in and to prevent them from escaping.

Ivy, the Potions professor known for his strategic planning and exceptional logical thinking, was assigned to adjust the layout of the park, with Herbalism professor Sprout as his advisor. Ivy suggested that they group symbiotic magical plants and magical creatures together as much as possible, such as the Guardian Tree and the Bowtruckle.

As for Professor McGonagall, who was most skilled in Transfiguration, she and Ivy completed the paving of the road and used stones provided by the Ministry of Magic to create statues and fences in the same style as those in the castle.

“Professor Victor.” Professor McGonagall walked over, looking travel-worn. Her wizard robes were undoubtedly stained with dust from the construction work, but she didn’t seem to care and even had a rather pleased smile on her face.

“Professor McGonagall.” Ivy looked up from the blueprints and gave her a brief greeting.

"I just directed the group of statues to their designated positions. What's next?" Professor McGonagall seemed quite satisfied with the effect of the "Stone Carts Move" spell, and even wanted to use it again.

"Oh! Let me see..." Ivy looked down at the design drawings and searched through them. "It's the Fire Crab area, right? Then the next one is the Pegasus area!"

"Sylvanus finally finished tidying up that lawn?" Professor McGonagall pushed up her glasses. "I saw him there earlier with a few Nifflers, searching for something! They said it was some kind of weapon from the goblins a hundred years ago..."

Professor Celticburn's actions were inspired by Hagrid, who told him about Ivy's battle with the goblins near Hogwarts over a hundred years ago.