Chapter 252: Echoes from the chimney

"What?!" Hearing Ivan's words, Colin's open mouth could fit an egg.

He couldn't believe that Sirius Black would become Hogwarts' Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Seeing Colin's expression, Ivan knew that Sirius had another admirer.

In fact, young wizards who were as surprised and excited as Colin were not in the minority.

Soon after, Sirius Black was announced as Professor Lupin's successor as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and the whole castle exploded with joy.

Everyone was delighted, and rejoiced that a legendary figure like Sirius Black had become a professor at the school, and even many students from Slytherin House were looking forward to it.

At dinner that evening, the atmosphere in the Great Hall was undoubtedly warm.

As Sirius entered, there was a long applause in the Great Hall, and everyone craned their necks and looked at him curiously to see what he looked like.

The chatter continued, and it was only when Dumbledore stood up and spoke that the Great Hall fell silent.

Dumbledore looked older than he had a few days ago.

The trial of Peter Pettigrew by the Wizengamot over many days seemed to have taken a lot out of him.

Yet his gaze still shone, and through the semi-circular spectacles, his light blue eyes seemed to see through people's hearts.

"Welcome!" said Professor Dumbledore, candlelight glowing in his beard. "After the Christmas vacations, I am very happy to see you at Hogwarts. Before we begin our banquet, I will introduce a new teacher, Professor Black, who will succeed Professor Lupin as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Dumbledore's voice just fell, and deafening applause filled the room.

The applause at the Gryffindor table was especially enthusiastic. They went so overboard that Harry and Ron's palms turned red.

Sirius stood up and waved, he was sitting next to Hagrid on the other side, next to Professor McGonagall. At the teachers' table, besides Snape, who looked disgusted as if he had swallowed a fly, all the other teachers smiled and clapped.

"Look at Malfoy!" Hermione suddenly whispered in Ivan's ear.

Ivan saw Malfoy looking sad at the Slytherin long table.

Instead of looking at Sirius, he looked at him and Harry with disgust.

Noticing Ivan's stare, he hurriedly shifted his gaze elsewhere.

Ivan was not surprised. In Professor Lupin's case, Lucius Malfoy took great risks and conducted the werewolf riots on the basis of Peter Pettigrew's plan, because he wanted to expel Dumbledore from Hogwarts.

At the trial, Peter Pettigrew told all. He confessed that he was controlling Ron to write to Lucius Malfoy, hoping that Lucius would help him deal with Lupin, occupy Dumbledore and prevent him from returning to the castle at the crucial moment.

Although everyone suspected Lucius of orchestrating the riots behind the scenes, there was no further evidence. Lucius would not admit that he had received the letter from Peter Pettigrew and the Ministry of Magic had not caught the werewolves together with Gon greyback, they had not a single hair.

Under such circumstances, Lucius finally escaped punishment.

Of course, he also paid a heavy price. Fudge and those politicians were not so easy to buy, and he needed to offer an astronomical fee of galleons in order to impress them.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for Lucius was not the gold, but losing the opportunity to defeat Dumbledore, squandered in vain by Peter Pettigrew. If he could have known the truth earlier, he would never have been as foolish as Pettigrew, who had been defeated by several twelve or thirteen year old wizards.

Lucius currently abhorred Ivan, Harry and the others, and hated them to death.

With that, it was only natural that Draco had no goodwill for Ivan. His attitude was much worse than usual, and no doubt he wondered how to deal with Ivan.

But Ivan didn't care. At Malfoy's level, if he wanted to provoke him, he was asking for trouble.

That night, the Gryffindor Common Room was still talking excitedly about Sirius becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Everyone was anxiously awaiting his first class.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until Thursday that the second years had their Defense Against the Dark Arts course.

The discussion about this lasted until Harry pulled out his broom. Almost in an instant, he was surrounded by people dying to see the firebolt.

"God, this is a firebolt! I've seen it in the window of Quality Quidditch Items in Diagon Alley. The price of this broom was astronomical, where did you get it?"

"Will you let me try?"

"Have you ridden it yet, Harry?"

"Can I hold it, Harry?"

The firebolt was passed around and admired from all angles.

When they learned that the broomstick was a Christmas present given to Harry by Sirius Black, the crowd immediately erupted into more intense exclamation, and everyone looked forward to the experience of Sirius becoming the teacher of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

"I don't get it, it's just a broomstick, and it turns them all on like that." Hermione frowned and said as she sat on the couch in front of the fireplace checking her Christmas homework.

"It's the most expensive broomstick in the world, more expensive than all the brooms in the school put together!", Ivan sat on the couch next to her, looking at the book he had just borrowed from the library about vampires. He looked at Hermione's long scroll. "You have a mistake here. The ingredients in the shrinking potion include pufferfish eyes."

"Oh!" Hermione's quill hastily dropped onto the parchment.

"Seriously, you're not planning on going to that many classes next semester, are you?" asked Ivan.

"I know," sighed Hermione, "This time-turner is driving me crazy, I have to be in different places at the same time, and it's hard for me not to be seen. I can't take it anymore. I'm going to drop Muggle Studies and Divination classes next year. With that, I'll have a normal schedule."

"Next year?!" Ivan immediately noticed the timing Hermione said.

"I should finish what I started, Ivan!" Hermione looked back at her magic record and continued, "I should live up to the expectations Professor McGonagall had of me. You know, she did a lot of hard work to help me get this time-turner, and she also helped us a lot."

Seeing Hermione's determined eyes, Ivan didn't know what to say.

Hermione was right, thanks to the help of this time-turner, they were able to catch Pettigrew, and otherwise, the situation would have been disastrous.

I wasn't against Hermione's insistence. He just didn't want her to be so tired, and he wished she was more concerned about her health.