CHAPTER 26: THE NORMAL DAY OF SEPTEMBER

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WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

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Richard was walking down to the Great Hall alone in the morning, the atmosphere were normal in Hogwarts, there were no incidents yet except the car accident. Richard entered the Great Hall and sat on the long table.

"Hello Richard." Said a girl suddenly from behind, he looked back and saw Cho Chang smiling at him..

"Oh, hello Cho, how've you been?" asked Richard while moving to make some space for the girl.

"I'm quite well, I noticed you never came to the place where we used to train again, are you busy these days?" questioned back the girl while taking food from the table.

"Oh, that, sorry, I moved to another classroom," said Richard, earning a disappointed look from the girl, "Last time I went there, some seniors were doing some… questionable activities there, I don't want to train in the same place as them, so I moved…"

The girl looked at Richard with confusion, "What kind of activities are we talking about here?"

"Sexual ones…" Richard said weakly, Cho then blushed a bit and said, "Well, thank you for telling me that, I'll move too then… Where did you move?"

"It's on the edge of the corridor." Richard answered, "We can practice there if you want, the usual times right? Wednesday evening when we are free? I usually used that classroom with some of my friends from other house, but it's on the weekend."

The girl nodded, "Okay, I'll meet you there then on Wednesday."

Richard continued to eat, before the owls came in, one of the owl then dropped a letter to Richard, earning a curious look from everyone in the Ravenclaw.

He saw the seal and saw that it was from Ed, he opened the letter and began to read it. When he read the content of it, he made a bizarre expression, causing the Ravenclaws to be even more curious. Richard then suddenly stood up, surprising everyone, then he walked to the Gryffindor long table while still reading the letter with a strange expression, he stopped at Harry, now he's making the Gryffindors confused at his attitude, Richard looked at Harry, and gave the letter to him.

Harry, who was also confused, took the letter, he looked at everyone around him questioning what's happening, but all he got was a shrugged, after that, he read the letter, he made a surprised expression, then changed to the bizarre look that Richard has before.

"Wow, I already know that Lockhart is a liar, but I didn't know that it is this horrible…" whispered Harry, "And what's this about Malfoy?" he questioned Richard.

"Dunno." Richard shrugged, "Give it to your friends Harry."

Harry gave it to Ron; he read it and made the same bizarre expression as the other two. "Is this true?" he asked, "Then we should report him!"

Richard shook his head, "We don't have any proof Ron, so it's useless if we report him."

"Well, what is it?" Hermione impatiently asked, she snatched the letter and read it, at first she made the same expression as the other three, but then she changed it into an expression of worry, it's because she read the sentences about her in the letter, when you read it, it sounds like he doesn't care about it, but she can tell in the way the sentence were arranged that Ed was a bit mad because of it. Seeing that they won't hear the content of the letter, the crowd returned to their things.

"Then what do we do?" asked Harry, "We can't just let him ran around school…"

"Right now?" asked Richard, "I say just collect proof, watch him, and once he did something suspicious, report him."

Harry nodded in agreement, "Then what about the Malfoy thing? Do we watch him also?"

Richard shrugged, "I mean, sure if you want, I'll watch him occasionally though, not every day."

"Okay then." Harry casually said.

"Wait!" said Hermione, "Are we going to ignore Ed's sentence about me here?"

"Well," Richard said, "It's your problem Hermione, not ours…"

"It's your fault that you told him!" she accused Richard.

Richard raised his hand as a sign of giving up, "Hey, I'm just telling the truth, now, can you give it to me please, I need to give it to Daphne, she needs to know too."

Hermione hesitantly give the letter to Richard and continue to worry about the content the letter with the other two.

"Don't tell anyone that you don't trust Harry." Warned Richard, "If they spread it, almost all the girls will hate you, and Lockhart will try to corner you to obliviate you." He whispered to the boy-who-lived.

Harry nodded weakly and continued to eat. Richard walked away from them, letter in hand, he looked at the Slytherin's long table, and he saw that Daphne was looking at him, he signalled her to get out of the Great Hall, and he himself exited the hall. After that they talked about the letter in private.

"What's going on?" asked Daphne curiously. "Is that from Ed?" she continued while pointing at the letter.

"Here, read it." Said Richard while offering the letter to Daphne.

Daphne took the letter and read it, she read it carefully, at first her face was normal, but then she made a confused face.

"Why Draco? Did something happened?" asked Daphne curiously.

Richard shrugged. "Dunno, can you watch him? I'm not exactly close to the guy."

"Sure." Daphne said casually, "I'm curious about this anyway."

Richard nodded, "Great, all right, see you at the classroom this evening."

Daphne just hummed and the two went back to their respective long table. While that was happening, Harry talked to his two friends, Ron and Hermione.

"What do we do about this then? How do we find proof that Lockhart's obliviating people for stories?" asked Harry.

"Well, we can't." Said Ron, "Unless you caught him doing the deed, it's impossible to find a proof."

Harry sighed in disappointment, then turned to Hermione, who has a blank expression. "What about you Hermione? Got any ideas?"

Hermione snapped out of her thoughts, "Hm? Oh, no, I don't. Richard's right, we just need to collect proof slowly."

Harry sighed again, then he suddenly had a bright idea, "If we can't proof that he's a liar, how about we made his life miserable here? He'll slipped out one way or another." He said excitedly.

Ron grinned, he nodded in agreement, and looked at the twins beside them, who didn't even listen to their conversation, and tapped their shoulders.

"Hello Fred, George." Said Ron, "I've got an idea for you, mind listening?" he asked the twins with a wide smile on his and Harry's face.

The two got curious by the two's behaviour and listened to their ideas.

On the afternoon of that day, Daphne was walking to the Quidditch field with her first-year sister, Astoria Greengrass.

"You shouldn't go Astoria, what if you passed out because of exhaustion? We need to get back." Daphne scolded her sister, but she ignored it and continued to walk to the Quidditch field, she had a smile on her face, excited to see Quidditch in school.

"Come on Daph," said Astoria, "It's Quidditch! I want to see our house practice."

Daphne just sighed tiredly and followed the cheerful girl, but when they arrived there, the two saw Gryffindors and Slytherins facing each other. Daphne saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione talking to Draco.

"What's going on?" asked Daphne to the Slytherins on the field, with a worried Astoria behind her.

"Oh Daphne, Astoria." Said Flint, "They were just complaining about Malfoy being the new Slytherin seeker."

"And?" asked Daphne, but before Flint could say anything, Hermione commented in front of Draco's face, "At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," she said with an annoyed face, "They got in on pure talent."

Draco looked at Hermione in the eye and said smugly, "No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood." He spat.

The Gryffindors then shouted at the pale boy angrily, Astoria gasped in disbelief that Draco said a terrible curse word to another student.

"Astoria," said Daphne sharply, "Don't ever call someone like that, do you hear me? I don't care if father says otherwise."

Astoria nodded weakly, then Daphne walked to Draco, but before she could explode at him, Ron shouted at the pale boy.

"You'll pay for that Malfoy!", then a loud bang echoed, green light shot out from Ron's wand, but it's the wrong end of the wand, causing it to hit Ron, he then fell to the grass, groaning.

"Ron!" shrieked Hermione, "Are you All right?"

Ron then wanted to speak, but he can't, instead he threw out slug from his mouth, causing everyone to flinch in disgust.

The Slytherins except Daphne and Astoria laughed, Daphne snorted and said to Astoria, "Let's get out of here Astoria, I told you it's a bad idea, especially because of your sickness, come on, you need rest."

Astoria relented, following the blonde girl back to school. In the way, Astoria asked the Daphne,

"What's the meaning of that word Daph?" asked Astoria.

"It's an insult for a muggle-born." Daphne scowled, "Don't use it in a sentence okay?"

Astoria nodded weakly, following her sister.

'Is this why Ed asked us to watch Draco?' Daphne thought, 'It should be more serious than this right? There's no way he'd asked us to watch that tosser just for this…'

In the evening of that day, Richard and Daphne were practicing spells in their usual classroom.

"So, I heard what happened on the Quidditch field, you didn't get detention?" asked Richard.

Daphne snorted, "Of course not, I didn't even join in, Potter and Weasley got it though."

"Speaking of the two…" Richard diverted the conversation, "What happens to 'inviting Potter' to the study sessions."

"They probably wouldn't want to join in now…" said Daphne weakly, "After this afternoon's debacle, they won't join if I offer, even Hermione stopped coming now."

Richard shook his head, "So no new member?"

"Nope." Answered Daphne.

"I mean, we can try right?" pushed Richard.

"YOU can try it, I obviously can't" answered the girl dismissively.

Richard just sighed and continued to throw spells at a dummy that he transfigured. After a couple of minutes, Daphne suddenly exclaimed.

"Oh no!" said Daphne, "It's already evening, Richard, why didn't you tell me? She needs to go to Madame Pomfrey…" continued Daphne, but she whispered on the last part, so Richard wouldn't hear it.

Richard was surprised too, "I didn't noticed also, is it because it's still September that the sky was not as dark?"

"Come on," said Daphne, "Before curfew starts." She continued while packing her things, Richard did the same and the two exited the room, they both run at the same direction at first, but Daphne suddenly stopped.

"Daph?" questioned Richard, "Something wrong?"

"I sense something." Said Daphne, "Is that a… snake?"

"A what?"

"A Snake."

"There's no way that there's a snake in Hogwarts." Answered Richard, "How can you 'sense' a snake anyway?"

"I'm sensitive to nature Richard." Daphne explained in annoyance, "Beasts and Creatures included."

"So, you can sense animals?"

Daphne nodded "In a way.", she looked around, as if trying to sense the 'snake' again," It's a big snake… its slithering across the school." She continued.

"Are you sure you're not sick or something Daph, because you look kind of mental right now…" commented Richard.

"It's gone now…" said Daphne, "Should we go and search it?"

"What, of course no!" said Richard, stopping the thought of searching it, "Even if there's a giant snake in the school, we can't just search for it, we'll die if it's a big snake."

Daphne just went silent, she thought about her business with madame Pomfrey and continued to walk, not speaking a single word. The two then split up to their respective common room.

Meanwhile in the Beauxbatons, Ed was practicing the space sensing with Gilligan in the suitcase.

"Focus Ed! Feel the space around you, use your own fluctuation and make a wave out of it, then pull that wave back, after that, gather the data of that wave and construct it in your head to make a general idea of the place." Instructed Gilligan.

Ed did as Gilligan said, he fluctuate his space magic from his body, made it into some sort of wave, and echoed it through the room, then he pulled it back to make the general idea of the place, like an echolocation. And he'd done it, he felt the space around him and can sense the room.

"I think I did it…" he said to Gilligan.

"Really?" Gilligan questioned, a bit surprised, "Then can you tell me what's behind that shelf?"

Ed nodded and scanned again, he saw it, a short stick was put behind the shelf.

"A stick?" said Ed, causing the owl to nod, "Good" Gilligan said, "You just have to train to expand the area of your sensing, and with that method, you can also sense your family's blood and space fluctuations."

Ed nodded, "So I need to train this until I can sense outside of this universe?"

"Yes, you still need a lot of practice Ed." Answered the owl.

Ed sighed heavily, he sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, then he looked at his mark on his hand and asked Gilligan, "You think I can find them? my parents I mean."

"You can." Gilligan shortly answered.

"What about the Council of Worlds? What can we do about the 'crime', can we cancel it?"

Gilligan pondered a while, before saying, "I have an idea, but that is for later Ed, for now, you just have to focus on learning Alchemy and Enchanting."

Ed nodded, "Speaking of Enchanting…" said Ed weakly, "If I use my blood for enchanting, can I still sense it? So, it acts like a coordinate."

"Possible," Gilligan nodded, "If you made a specific enchantment just for it being a coordinate, maybe it will work."

Ed sighed in relief a little bit, "All right then," said Ed while standing up, "I'll go back outside, good evening Gilligan."

Gilligan hummed and disappeared, Ed then walked to the ladder and exited the suitcase. After that, instead of sleeping, he picked the book about enchanting, and read it carefully. Ever since he got Baldeth's gift, he can absorb knowledge quickly, Baldeth sure didn't lie, because he felt like genius among geniuses in terms of learning.

A couple of hours later, he stopped. He walked to his bed and lay on it, then he closed his eyes, drifting to the land of dreams once more.