Chapter 255: The calm before the storm

Considering Malfoy's threats and other threats from the Slytherins, Harry and Ron finally persuaded Hermione, who enthusiastically invited Ivan to participate in the war between the two Houses.

"What happened in the morning?" asked Ivan quizzically. "How was Sirius's Defense Against the Dark Arts class? wasn't there something unexpected?"

"The course went smoothly, and showed us a Banshee, a very interesting dark creature, always making a screeching, miserable sound. However, there was something inappropriate, even though it caused no real harm." Hermione explained. "It was Sirius, he made no secret of his displeasure with the Slytherin students in class and deducted many points from them, maybe over a hundred..."

"Sirius is not to blame, Malfoy was too much of a provocateur." Harry argued, "He got into Sirius' class and didn't do what he was told to do."

"I know, but Sirius is still too emotional. He's a professor now and should treat all students with the same fairness as Professor McGonagall." Hermione pouted, which made her sound like Professor McGonagall.

"Bloody hell, do you really know what you're talking about?" Ron shouted in surprise. "A professor who is biased towards Gryffindor is the greatest expectation of my life, now you're telling me you expect me to be fair!"

"Sirius didn't do much. Think about Snape, how he treated everyone before, if it was him..." Harry added.

"Snape deducted at least two hundred points from Gryffindor this morning, and even scared some girls to tears." Ivan talked about what had happened in the morning Potions class.

"I knew it would be like that. Bloody old fool," Ron said hatefully.

In short, due to Snape's duel with Sirius, his unreserved indignation and other long-standing grievances, hostility between Slytherin and Gryffindor reached an all-time high.

The following week, students from both Houses were wary. Everyone entered the castle two at a time, fearing any accidents.

Although they were on alert, nothing really happened.

With the intervention of Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, the castle had strengthened its management, and neither Harry nor Malfoy had a chance to fight the so-called House War.

As time passed, Snape and Sirius also held back, and their deductions to Gryffindor and Slytherin slowly ceased, but Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts became the two favorite and most hated classes for Gryffindor and Slytherin students.

Compared to the very distinct Potions class and the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class was unexpectedly well received.

At Ivan and Hermione's suggestion, Hagrid chose a fire salamander as the magical creature for the first class of the new semester. He had made a bonfire full of salamanders for their enjoyment, and they spent an unusually good lesson gathering dry wood and leaves to keep the fire burning while the flame-loving lizards ran up and down the crumbling white logs.

Almost everyone reflected that this was the best lesson Hagrid had ever taught.

A week after the start of school, Ravenclaw and Slytherin played a Quidditch match, Slytherin won the match, but the score was very close.

According to Wood, this was good news for the Gryffindor team, because otherwise, even if Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw, they would still be in second place.

This game allowed everyone to focus their attention on the Quidditch match, and compared to the illusory War of the Houses, they found that it might be more practical to score the result this way. Gryffindor lost to Hufflepuff earlier, but because of Harry's fire arrow, they were still the favorite team to win the title this year.

Currently, the Gryffindor Quidditch team had to train at least five times a week.

In the cold January wind, Harry was flying outside for five or six hours almost every day, and he didn't even have time to finish his homework.

Ivan also felt he was short on time. He had reached a dead end in his research on magic and needed to invest more time. Tom Riddle's journal gave him guidance last year.

Ivan had done all the research related to it. And now he was working hard to study the Dark Magic books he had taken from 12 Grimmauld Square.

Those magic books, especially 'Secrets of the Darkest Art', were very deep and complicated. There were many things that Ivan could not understand at all.

He couldn't ask Dumbledore or Sirius about those dark magic books. He had to investigate on his own. He spent more and more time in the library, and Mrs. Pince, the librarian, looked at him more and more strangely.

With Sirius' approval, most of the books Ivan borrowed and referenced were very old and unpopular magical books, all of which were Restricted Section books. These books were not meant to be in the hands of twelve-year-old wizards. Even adult wizards rarely used them.

The only one busier than Ivan was Hermione. She had chosen so many classes that it seemed the immense workload was finally getting to her.

Every night, if she wasn't studying in the library with Ivan, she could definitely be seen in a corner of the common room, with several tables full of books, Arithmancy letters, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file after file of extensive notes.

Besides Ivan, she hardly spoke to anyone and freaked out when she was interrupted.

"What happened to the two of them?" Ron finally couldn't help yelling at Harry one night. "I've never seen anyone busier than Ivan and Hermione, not even Percy, who is preparing for advanced exams, which is a grueling experience. The books they read in two days are way more than I've read in a semester."

"I don't know!" Harry didn't look up. He was finishing a nasty essay on undetectable poisons for Snape, "How about we borrow Hermione's Potions class assignment?"

"You'd better not, she won't agree." Ron looked back at Hermione. She was barely visible behind a stack of books.

"Hermione is so strange, how can she get to so many classes?" Ron continued. "I overheard her talking to Professor Vector, the Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were talking about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't have been there, because she was with us in the wizarding creatures class! And Ernie McMillan told me that she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them!"

Harry knew why, but he had to keep it a secret.

He couldn't talk about the time-turner, and he really needed to get on with Snape's essay right now.

Although the confrontation between Snape and Sirius had apparently calmed down, it was still an angry current. Harry had to be more careful. Right now, if he had any weaknesses that fell into Snape's hands, it would be hard to see.

"What if we ask Ivan for help? He'll borrow Hermione's homework for us. She certainly won't turn it down." Harry transferred the subject.

"That's a good idea, but only if we can find Ivan," Ron said. "Besides Hermione, I also want to know what Ivan is doing these days. He's in the library every night, I saw him there several times. He's always there with a thick magical book that no one can understand."