Hogwarts: Please, Just Graduate Already!

"Keep your footsteps lighter. Mrs. Norris has very sharp ears."

"Some wizard you are. Can't you use magic to solve the problem?"

Wayne gave him a disdainful look, then cast a Lightness Charm on both himself and Cedric.

Cedric felt as light as a swallow, his footsteps nearly silent. He asked excitedly, "Where did you learn that spell?"

"Three Hundred Tang Poems. No, wait—Thirty Practical Spells. They sell it at Flourish and Blotts."

"I'll buy a copy during the holidays."

The two hurried along and soon arrived at the Trophy Room.

Sure enough, the twins had been waiting for a while. They were crouched in a corner, holding a map.

When they saw Wayne and Cedric arrive, George calmly tucked the map into his pocket.

"You're here pretty early, but the plan's changed. We need to delay it a little." Cedric frowned and asked warily, "What are you two up to this time?"

"This time, it really isn't our fault." Fred sighed helplessly and explained, "It's Lee. He got curious about what owl pet food tasted like and took two bites. He's been lying in the Hospital Wing since this morning."

"Madam Pomfrey gave him some medicine, but he's still a little dizzy. We told him to lie down for another half hour."

Wayne and Cedric both broke into cold sweats.

Was this Gryffindor? How could they be so fearless?

The most ridiculous part was that he was practically dying, yet he was still thinking about sneaking out at night. They would never be able to learn that kind of spirit.

"Are you sure he'll recover?" Wayne asked. He didn't want to spend

the whole night waiting here.

"Relax. Lee's basically fine. He's just having a little trouble telling directions apart." Fred waved it off, then asked curiously, "Wayne, did you really bully Professor Quirrell until he cried?"

There were no secrets at Hogwarts. After an afternoon and a day of gossip, practically every teacher and student in the school knew about the "little conflict" between Quirrell and Wayne.

Even Professor Sprout had called Wayne aside during lunch and given him a few words of advice.

"I know you're a good child, Lawrence. Professor Quirrell is simply too nervous. He needs some time."

Wayne had been helpless too.

"What do you mean, I bullied him until he cried? I only wanted the professor to demonstrate a spell. Who would've thought he'd break down?"

"Be nicer to our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor." Fred patted Wayne on the shoulder. "You'll only be seeing him for this one year."

"Maybe he's just wary of Vampires." Cedric, ever the honest one, was still defending

Quirrell. "He ran into a Vampire in Romania over the summer. It looked like it scared him badly."

"Whatever the reason, Quirrell won't be around after this term ends anyway." George shrugged.

"In fact, no one has ever managed to hold that position for two years." Wayne grew interested. "Can you tell me about the previous Defense Against the Dark Arts professors?" He knew Voldemort had put a Curse on the position, and he knew the fates of several later professors, but he truly had no idea why the earlier ones had left.

Lee Jordan had not arrived yet, and with nothing else to do, the twins began taking turns recounting the miserable fates of the previous two Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.

"When we first started school, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was called Olivier Knight. He was an old man who seemed pretty decent."

"But after Easter, Ministry of Magic Hit Wizards suddenly came to Hogwarts with a warrant."

"Professor Olivier had a bad habit: he drank too much. That time, he got a little too drunk and actually beat the Minister for Magic into a serious injury."

"Because of that, Millicent Bagnold couldn't serve another term due to health reasons, which was how the current Minister took office."

Cedric nodded in agreement. "My dad said the same thing. He also said Bagnold curses Professor Olivier every day at home."

Wayne listened with his mouth agape. What kind of absurd butterfly effect was this?

A professor had actually beaten the Minister for Magic into early retirement. If Voldemort found out, would he laugh himself to death? "What about last year's professor?" Wayne pressed.

This time, the twins and Cedric all wore extremely strange expressions, as though it were something difficult to say aloud.

"Last year, it was Montague Kerliff. He was Headmaster Dumbledore's friend," Cedric said slowly.

"What did he do?"

"No, he didn't beat up the Minister for Magic, and he wasn't a Dark wizard either..." George shook his head, trying hard not to laugh, but he finally failed.

"Kerliff had a severe mental illness. It wasn't until before the final exams, when he accidentally left his St Mungo's diagnosis in the classroom, that Charlie saw it."

Cedric picked up the story. "The whole school went wild then. A mentally ill person... had taught for an entire year, and no one had noticed."

"The doctors at St Mungo's went mad too. They searched all over Britain, even went to neighboring France to look for him, but it never occurred to them that he was at Hogwarts."

At that point, he could not help laughing as well.

Wayne could already imagine how chaotic the scene must have been.

"Then why did Dumbledore agree to let him teach?" Wayne asked in confusion. "Who knows? Maybe no one was willing to apply for the position anymore. Even someone mentally ill was probably better than canceling the class." George said indifferently.

"Anyway, both of those professors were much better than Quirrell. At least they taught us some real things."

"Even if Kerliff was mentally ill, he hadn't forgotten how to use spells."

"Who knows what Quirrell was thinking? He was doing perfectly well teaching Muggle Studies, so why did he have to come here and seek death?"

Everyone agreed that Defense Against the Dark Arts professors were one-year hires. They did not believe Quirrell, who had taught for several years already, did not know that.

They could only chalk it up to him refusing to believe it. Bang!

A huge noise came from upstairs, and all of them perked up.

Fred jumped to his feet. "It must be Lee. He's drawing Filch away." Sure enough, they soon heard Filch roar.

"Dungbombs again! I'll catch you and put you in detention! A whole year of detention!" The voice grew farther and farther away. Clearly, Filch had headed upstairs.

"Let's hurry. We don't know how long Lee can hold out. Watch out for Filch's cat."

They pushed open the Trophy Room doors. The twins ran out first, with Wayne and Cedric right behind them.

In the silent corridor, the four crept up the stairs on tiptoe.

At every corner, Fred poked his head out first to check whether Mrs. Norris was nearby before letting the other three follow.

And every time Wayne passed through a new place, the system gave a timely notification that he had earned points.

However, those rewards were one-time only. They could only be obtained the first time he reached a place while sneaking out at night.

By the time they reached the fourth floor, they could already smell the Dungbombs.

Wayne covered his nose in disgust. "Couldn't you pick a method that wasn't so mutually destructive?"

"It's the simplest and most effective one." Fred spoke as they walked. "Filch is a clean freak. If he can't catch anyone, he'll definitely clean up the Dungbombs first before coming back. That gives us more time."

Cedric was impressed. "You really are experienced."

It seemed he still had much to learn on the path of sneaking out at night! Don't assume Hufflepuff only produced honest children. The troublemakers in their year were all more or less the same; it was merely that one's environment and heritage influenced them.

That was why Hufflepuff students seemed much more well-behaved than those from the other Houses. The group soon reached the destination of their trip: the end of the fourth-floor corridor. "There was originally another stretch of corridor here, but since this term began, it's turned into a door."

Cedric said this, and the twins nodded as well. They were all extremely familiar with the castle's main areas.

"Are we really going in? What if it's dangerous like Dumbledore said?" The honest boy swallowed nervously.

Fred looked down on his cowardice. "What are you afraid of? This is a school. It's not like the Headmaster would bring in a Troll or something, right?"

As he spoke, he reached for the doorknob, only to find the door was locked. "Alohomora."

He said they should forget it, but his body was very honest.

Cedric moved faster than anyone, pulling out his wand first and using the Unlock Charm.

"What do you think is inside?"

"No idea, but there must be something valuable. A powerful spell, a treasure map? Anything's possible... Holy—!"

Fred sharply sucked in a breath. He did not finish speaking because he had already seen what was inside.

At the same time, he understood why Dumbledore had given them such a stern warning. Once the door opened, there was no room beyond it, only another corridor.

A dog sat there, its six eyes glaring fixedly at them.

Purely in terms of numbers, it was eight eyes against six, so Wayne's group actually had the advantage.

But the dog was enormous, filling every inch of space from ceiling to floor. It had three heads, each wearing a vicious expression, with thick drool dripping from their mouths. A foul stench hit them in the face.

"Merlin's woolen socks... Is that a Three-Headed Dog?" Cedric groaned. If there had been a fence or some other protective barrier between him and the Three-Headed Dog, he would have been thrilled. Three-Headed Dogs were very hard to see in the British Isles.

They usually roamed around Greece.

But now, Cedric could even feel its foul breath, warm as it slapped against his face.

They were practically touching. How could he possibly be happy?

George decisively turned around to open the door they had just closed, but the Three-Headed Dog moved faster. It roared and rammed one of its heads toward them.

George jolted in fright and actually snapped the doorknob off! "Protego!"

An invisible wall rose between the four of them and the Three-Headed Dog. The lunging dog head slammed into it heavily, howling as it staggered back several meters.

But that little bit of damage did not do much to the thick-skinned Three-Headed Dog. It merely shook its head and returned to normal.

"What are you standing there for?" Wayne shouted. "Fix the lock and run!" "Oh, right!"

Only then did the other three snap back to their senses. In a fluster, they placed the handle back and cast the Mending Charm.

But because they were too nervous, they failed several times.

Wayne could not be bothered with them. He had studied magic for so long, and he had come here today to find a suitable target to practice on.

"Stupefy!" "Expelliarmus!" "Diffindo!"

Multicolored lights shot from Wayne's wand and struck the Three-Headed Dog. The space was too cramped for the giant beast to dodge.

Bang!

A Stunning Spell struck the left dog head and knocked it unconscious on the spot. The twins stared in shock. Even after Cedric fixed the doorknob, they did not say anything, only watched blankly as Wayne beat up the dog heads.

They knew most of the spells he was using, but while those spells were useful against people, using them on a Three-Headed Dog with both magical and physical defenses would probably be little more than scratching an itch.

Wayne was way too monstrous!

Cedric, with his sharp eyes, also noticed a trapdoor in the floor where the Three-Headed Dog had retreated. What was beneath it?

Though curious, this was not the time to explore or solve mysteries. Cedric quickly pulled open the door.

"Wayne, run! Filch will be here soon!" "That's it?"

Wayne was the one left wanting more.

But seeing the other three already waiting outside, he cast one final Cutting Charm, leaving deep gashes in the floor as a warning to the Three-Headed Dog, then ran out as well. Once the door closed, the beast's roars vanished, and the group finally breathed a sigh of relief. Then they looked at Wayne as though he were a monster.

Their stares made Wayne feel uneasy, and he could not help hugging his arms. "What are you looking at me for?"

George examined the boy. "Are you some ancient monster who turned into a child and came to Hogwarts to relive your childhood?"

Wayne's face darkened. "Your imagination is on par with Rita Skeeter's." "That Daily Prophet reporter? Mum says she's a clown. She actually called Dumbledore an old madman."

"I'm just a little more diligent than you, with a tiny, tiny bit more talent." Wayne held up his fingers with only the slightest gap between them.

"Alright, we've been through the corridor. Let's all go back to our dormitories."

"What's the hurry?" Fred shook his head. "I just got scared half to death. I need something sweet to recover."

"I'll go get Lee. We can have a midnight snack together before heading back."

In the end, the three found Lee Jordan inside a suit of armor on the fifth floor.

"Filch has practically gone mad. He chased me from the fourth floor to the Seventh Floor. I jumped into a secret passage and got back to the sixth floor, then he caught up with me again."

In the kitchen, Lee Jordan spoke animatedly while eating a sandwich. Escaping Filch seemed no less thrilling to him than surviving a battle of swords. Combined with his unique racial talent, he sounded like he was rapping.

The House-elves thoughtfully prepared a large Round Table for them, covered with food and drinks.

After finishing a sandwich, he said worriedly: