Skynet

Time at school was always easy and comfortable. It was nothing like working outside, like a puppet wound tight, constantly scrambling to make a living. Before Amosta even realized it, two weeks had flashed by. Tomorrow would be the first day of the new term.

Generally, Hogwarts only held a start-of-term feast on the night before each school year began, to celebrate the young witches and wizards enrolling and the beginning of a new year.

There were usually no celebrations at the start of the new term, but this year was different. Because of the terrifying attacks last term that had left everyone deeply unsettled, Headmaster Dumbledore had broken with tradition and decided to hold a feast in the Great Hall that evening to lift everyone's spirits.

Professor Snape strode along the third-floor corridor. The moment the nearby young witches and wizards spotted the cold-faced, fearsome Potions professor, they hurriedly stepped aside, desperate to keep out of his way.

Snape himself was accustomed to such scenes. He did not spare the students a single glance as he swiftly rounded several corners and stopped outside a classroom that had gone unused for years.

"Come in, Professor Snape."

The voice that suddenly came from within the classroom made Snape pause just as he was about to knock. He pushed the door open as instructed and saw Amosta standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded, smiling at a wall.

"Headmaster Dumbledore asked you to invite me to the feast?"

Snape entered the room and casually shut the door behind him. With a sneer, he said, "It seems that, like our great headmaster, you are becoming nearly omniscient, Amosta?"

"I saw you leave Headmaster Dumbledore's office and head straight here without going anywhere else, so I more or less guessed."

Amosta raised his brows and pointed at the wall, proudly displaying the results of his work.

"Take a look, Professor Snape. I stayed up for several nights brewing without sleep, ran all over the castle under a Disillusionment Charm, and finally got every image calibrated before the day school started. If I were to assess it myself, I'd say the results are very good!"

Snape ignored Amosta's self-praise. He turned to study the wall, which had been divided into hundreds of tiny squares, each one flickering with an image. After watching for a few moments, even his expression changed slightly.

In those images, Harry and Ron were leaving the Hospital Wing. They were going to tell Hermione about that evening's feast and ask whether she wanted to attend.

Crabbe and Goyle were waiting outside the Owlery for Draco Malfoy, who had just gone in. Before long, Malfoy emerged, grumbling with owl feathers stuck all over his hair. He clutched a letter in his left hand while tossing an owl onto the rafters with his right. Crabbe and Goyle burst out laughing at the sight, and Malfoy looked rather pleased with himself because of it.

At the statue of the humpbacked witch in the fourth-floor corridor, a thin, dark-haired boy with a head full of curls was keeping watch for someone. He whispered something to the statue, and then the witch's hump opened. Two identical red-haired boys crawled out one after the other. They happily high-fived their friend and showed off the Butterbeer they had bought from The Three Broomsticks Inn.

Filch had just caught two first-year students secretly throwing Dungbombs into a lavatory. He viciously grabbed them by their collars and dragged them toward his office. On the way, he encountered Percy scolding Sarian Pox for secretly using the Leg-Locker Curse on Padma Patil, causing Patil to fall into a puddle outside the second-floor lavatory.

So she, too, was seized by the collar and hauled off to Filch's office.

Neville carried the Bubble Branch Uncle Arge had given him into Professor Sprout's office. Professor McGonagall stood outside her own office as well, her face stern as she watched a wizard in turquoise robes walk away, his golden hair flowing and his smile brilliant.

One flickering image after another clearly displayed everything currently happening at Hogwarts before Snape. He stared at the people in those images, watching them walk about or chatter animatedly. Finally, when he looked back at the smiling Amosta, his expression had changed.

Indeed, on the night Amosta returned to school, he had told Snape what he intended to do.

But Snape had to admit that at the time, he had not paid much attention to the fanciful scheme dreamed up by his prized student. Only now, with Hogwarts laid out so vividly before him, did Snape understand how formidable it was.

"How did you do it?"

Snape lowered his voice unconsciously, and there was even a trace of alarm in his eyes. "I know you set up plenty of little things around the castle... how did you keep them from being discovered?"

"Very simply," Amosta said with an easy expression. "I put Disillusionment Charms and several powerful protective spells on every Panoramic Telescope. The young witches and wizards definitely won't find them. Even the professors won't notice them unless they deliberately search."

They really could not be detected. These things were unlike a wizard's gaze; they did not make anyone feel the slightest sense of being watched. Snape considered himself vigilant, yet all the way here, he had not sensed at all that he was under surveillance.

"...Actually, the principle behind these things is very simple. It's the same as WWN, Wizard Wireless Broadcast. Both transmit signals through magical magnetic fields. The only difference is that my system transmits images, while the broadcast transmits sound."

Amosta shrugged as though he had merely brewed a boil-curing potion that even a first-year could manage, as though there were nothing to be surprised about. In a casual tone, he explained to Professor Snape, "The greatest difficulty I encountered was that Hogwarts's magical magnetic field is too chaotic and too powerful, which interfered with the stability of signal transmission. So I spent an entire afternoon modifying the Interference Charm and calibrating those telescopes according to the strength of the magical magnetic field in different parts of the castle... it exhausted me. Honestly, the next time you see Dumbledore, could you ask whether I can get some overtime pay?"

"Speaking of Dumbledore—"

Snape's face was waxen, his expression shifting uncertainly. "Does he know about this little setup of yours, Amosta?"

Amosta did not answer, because he saw Percy Weasley, with the Weasley family's distinctive red hair, slipping into the basement of Ravenclaw Tower while on patrol. His behavior was highly suspicious.

He immediately stepped up to the wall and searched carefully. Near the corner of the wall by the window, he found the corresponding image. In it, Percy was embracing and passionately kissing a beautiful girl with long brown curls.

"Tut, tut!"

Amosta marveled, "Being a prefect really is convenient. If I'd been a prefect back then, I wouldn't have needed to... well, I forgot, I didn't have a girlfriend."

After making his joke, Amosta answered Professor Snape's question.

"Maybe he knows, maybe he doesn't. I'm not sure either, Professor Snape. Ever since I came back, the headmaster's reaction has been rather different from what I expected. I thought he would keep a close eye on me, but instead, he barely pays any attention to me at all. Do you know why?"