The screening

The students got off the express and looked quizzically at the teachers waiting for them at the station, under the premise of escorting them safely.

Or at least that's what they said.

Meanwhile, several of the teachers seemed severely disappointed to notice the absence of several students to whom they paid special attention. They didn't know if their families were too afraid to send them to Hogwarts or had some other legitimate reason justifying their unreported absence.

They grouped the students by year, omitting the traditional boat approach across the Black Lake and escorted them all the way to the castle on foot to everyone's surprise.

When one student asked Professor Sprout what happened to the carriages, she explained that the thestrals flew away a week ago for unknown reasons and they couldn't use them until Hagrid found and retrieved them, so they had no choice but to walk all the way this year.

They should consider it a field trip!

What the students did not notice was that reaching almost the end of the road, Soisen's eyes turned golden as he led the seventh year group and the surroundings around him rippled like water for an instant.

The teachers watched in amazement as the students, who were advancing chaotically in their own circles of friends, suddenly lined up without seeming to be aware of the change as they continued to talk to people who were no longer on their side.

-"Fortunately he's on our side," thought Professor Sinistra as she adjusted the collar of her robe with her finger.

Soisen had been giving it a lot of thought and creating an individual illusion for each person taking into account every little reaction and word would leave him exhausted before he reached Hogwarts, so he used a different but familiar principle to build the illusion.

The Resurrection Stone creates a projection of the dead based on the memories of the wearer of the stone, and builds a personality based on the memories and what the wearer expects them to respond to.

No matter what, if a person using the stone asks the ghost a question that he should know, but that he personally does not know, the ghost will give a logical evasion or answer what that person believes should be the answer unconsciously with conviction.

That proves that the stone is not as fantastic as the legends say and is closer to a cursed object meant to torture the mind than anything else.

Next, Soisen recreated a scenario with the path to Hogwarts by subtly altering the distances to trick their perceptions and created several "NPCs" following the same principle as the Resurrection Stone.

All students in the same year have a more or less lasting impression of the people they share lessons with for so many months, so even if there were people with Occlumency activated, his magic would have a "database" by gathering everyone's impressions from each other's perspective.

Combining his talent and magic for illusions with legeremancy gave truly godly results that even he got chills down his spine.

The magical community is lucky that the dark path is distasteful to him.

The screening process went almost without incident, some were rejected by the enchantment so hard that they would wake up from the illusion and the teachers had to personally knock them out before they could take their wand.

And each rejection hurt them more than it hurt the students, or so they said.

You have to know that unlike in the past, Hogwarts now houses about twelve hundred students each year. That's thirty-five students in each year, being seven years from entrance to graduation in five houses.

But after eliminating rejects and absentees, this year's number only reached six hundred and forty-three.

Practically half were missing or pushed to the dark side, which was a great pain in the hearts of the teachers.

Perhaps if they had been more involved, if they had paid more attention, could they have changed that balance?

Even Soisen didn't expect the numbers to be so high. His estimates were that just over a hundred would be rejected and there would be only a few dozen absentees.

It seems he underestimated Voldemort's influence on the minds of Britain's wizards and witches.

The worst thing was that among those who passed the spell, there were still possible spies or time bombs, so in reality things were not as balanced as they seemed.

-We've already sent the last student to the Ministry through the Fluo Network and we've blocked the connection," Hooch reported as she descended the stairs.

-It's your turn, Headmistress McGonagall," reminded Soisen as she let the illusion dissipate in the Great Dining Hall, causing the students to be disoriented for a moment trying to figure out what had just happened.

Minerva didn't wait too long and soon stepped into the role of headmistress, explaining that this year the school had a new special security measure and so several students would need to spend some time reflecting, unable to join this year's school term.

The students looked around the empty spaces in the Great Dining Hall in a daze.

Were there really that many people wrong, how scary!

At the same time, they were much calmer knowing that the threat was no longer around and were secretly a little proud of having passed the pop quiz.

Minerva did not mention the circumstances of the possible infiltrators, only asking them to be on the lookout for anything stranger than usual in the school and always move in groups of at least three.

He also reminded that the prefects will be doing a roll call every night to check their status, so it is imperative that everyone is in their common room on time and no one should think about wandering around at night or they will be severely punished.

As he explained the rest of the measures, many noticed that Soisen was sitting at the teachers' table, but they didn't think too much of it because after all, the castle was his and he could sit wherever he pleased.

Perhaps because it was his last year, the teachers decided to turn a blind eye.

Now, that didn't lessen the huge surprise when it was announced that Soisen was graduating early and would be serving as Potions teacher throughout this year as a temporary measure.

Looking at the expressions of Ginny, Hermione, Silvia, Neville and the rest, he signaled for the waiting house elf to appear and take the pictures, after which he slipped away to develop them without waiting for the surprised people to react.

These photos will end up in an album next to the ones he took on the express when they found out he made Nico Ravenheart.

He'll call it: The Album of Revelations!

When he's in a bad mood in the future, he'll just have to pull it out for a good laugh to lift his spirits.

Now, let's see how the next few days go at school.