At Hagrid's startled exclamation, Hermione's heart lurched, and a bad feeling welled up inside her.
Sure enough, when she took the binoculars from Hagrid and looked up at the sky, Harry was struggling to stay on his wildly bucking, careening broomstick.
Lin Yue hadn't missed the perilous scene unfolding high above, either. As she watched Harry "fight for his life" in the sky, an obvious conclusion flashed through her mind.
Someone was trying to hurt him. Even after reaching that conclusion, Lin Yue felt no worry or anxiety.
Unlike Hermione, who anxiously swung her binoculars toward the professors' seats and muttered something under her breath, Lin Yue calmly turned her gaze toward the professors.
She'd reached the same conclusion as Hermione: to use magic to affect a broomstick, unless one resorted to brute force, only a professor could do it.
Sure enough, she saw Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell both staring intently at Harry high above, their lips moving as they muttered spells.
"It's Snape!" Hermione was so frantic she'd stopped calling him Professor. "He's casting a curse on Harry. He has to keep his eyes on Harry to do it—I read that in a book!"
With that, she tossed the binoculars to Ron and hurried to her feet, ready to go over to the professors and do something to stop Professor Snape.
Lin Yue watched Hermione pass in front of her, then quickly reached out and grabbed her by the arm.
"Lin Yue? What is it? Whatever it is, we can talk about it when I get back. Snape is hurting—"
"Professor Snape is protecting Harry." Lin Yue looked at Hermione, her face expressionless.
"What?" Hermione froze.
"He and Professor Quirrell are both casting spells. Professor Quirrell is casting a curse, and Professor Snape is casting a countercurse. I can read their lips."
Lin Yue delivered the explanation in a rush, without a trace of emotion.
Hermione bit her lip after hearing Lin Yue's analysis. "All right, I understand!"
Lin Yue nodded and released her. She watched calmly as Hermione hurried toward the professors.
Turning her gaze back to Harry high above, Lin Yue reasoned that, given Hermione's personality, she'd most likely try to interfere with both professors, just to be safe.
Lin Yue thought about it without a ripple of emotion, while keeping her eyes fixed on Harry, who was now clinging to his broomstick with only one hand.
"Come on, Hermione!" Ron stamped his feet beside her, frantic with worry. The contrast between them was striking.
Things went exactly as Lin Yue had predicted. After running up to the professors' stand, Hermione quietly set fire to the robes of both Professor Quirrell and Professor Snape.
Although Lin Yue had said that Professor Quirrell was the one trying to hurt Harry and Professor Snape was saving him, what if she was wrong? If Hermione got it wrong, Harry could die.
So Hermione decided to target both professors. That way, neither the good spell nor the bad one would continue, and Harry's broomstick would return to normal.
Of course, if she later found out that Professor Snape really had been trying to save Harry... Hermione would buy him a new robe and apologize. But for now, she was sorry—desperate times called for desperate measures!
Blue flames rose from the hems of Professor Quirrell's and Professor Snape's robes at the same time. They both stopped casting their spells and jumped up to put out the flames.
Meanwhile, Harry managed to climb back onto his broomstick. When Hermione returned to her seat, she immediately turned to Lin Yue, curiosity written all over her face.
"You can read lips, too?"
Lin Yue nodded calmly. "I can."
"Why did you learn that?" Hermione was even more curious. Lin Yue seemed to have a rather broad range of knowledge and skills.
Lin Yue watched Harry repeatedly make retching motions on his broomstick, her expression still mild, and continued answering Hermione's question. "There were a lot of people at my old school, and the classrooms were huge. I couldn't hear the teacher from the back rows. If I couldn't read lips, I couldn't follow the lessons."
Hermione's expression turned briefly peculiar. She couldn't hear the teacher from the back rows? How huge had those classrooms been?!
But then she thought about the population of the country Lin Yue came from... Ah, now she understood.
"All right..." Hermione nodded and turned to look up at the sky. Then she saw Harry spit out the Golden Snitch.
"Did Harry swallow it?" Hermione gaped.
Lin Yue shook her head, her voice devoid of emotion. "He probably swallowed it by accident and it got stuck in his throat. But your house won."
Hermione was a beat slow to catch on. Seeing the Gryffindors around her jumping to their feet and cheering, she joined in.
"That's right! We won!"
As Hermione jumped up and down beside her, celebrating with delight, Lin Yue turned back without a hint of reaction and quietly gazed at the grass on the Quidditch Pitch.
The Quidditch Match was over, and of course the victorious Gryffindors had to celebrate.
Besides, it was Harry's first Quidditch victory, and as his friend, Hermione couldn't miss the celebration.
So after offering Harry a perfunctory, emotionless "Congratulations" and "I really enjoyed your match," Lin Yue parted ways with Hermione and the others.
She hurried to the Library, briskly opened the book in front of her, and began to read.
The Little Eagles of Ravenclaw who had been secretly following her finally breathed a sigh of relief. The moment the Quidditch Match ended, she'd gone straight back to studying without missing a beat. Sure enough, she was still the Lin Yue they knew.
But this also made the Little Eagles realize that Miss Granger of Gryffindor... probably held a special place in Lin Yue's heart, even if Lin Yue herself didn't know it yet.
As for the large group of people secretly following her, watching what she did, and having all sorts of thoughts about her, Lin Yue had no idea.
At that moment, she was reading through the book in her hands, page by page, like a machine.
To make up for the study time she'd lost to the Quidditch Match, she hadn't even gone to lunch.
Hermione, who was celebrating the victory with her Gryffindor classmates and hadn't gone to the Great Hall for lunch, had no idea.
Otherwise, she would definitely have dragged the person who only had eyes for books off to eat a proper lunch. Even if they only ate for three and a half minutes, at least they'd have eaten their fill.
Lin Yue spent the entire afternoon and evening reading in the Hogwarts Library. She used both lunch and dinner to make up for her lost study time.
Even so, she still hadn't made up nearly an hour of it.
After packing her schoolbag and putting in the books she wanted to read back in the Dormitory, Lin Yue hurried toward Ravenclaw Tower.
She hadn't made up almost an hour of study time. The time she'd spend sleeping tonight should just about make up for it, Lin Yue reasoned.
Back in the Dormitory, Lin Yue sat at her desk, opened a book, and started reading. Qiuzhang and Marietta had been about to gossip about her and Miss Granger, but they promptly fell silent when they saw her.
One after the other, they went to the washroom to shower, then sat on their beds and started reading, ready to go to sleep as soon as they felt drowsy.
By one in the morning, Lin Yue was still turning the pages of the book in front of her. She didn't feel sleepy, but her eyes had begun to grow dry and sore, and even the corners of her eyes were starting to ache.
She stood up and went into the washroom. After wetting a towel and wiping the corners of both eyes, she waited until her vision cleared again, then returned to her desk and started reading.
After finishing another book, Lin Yue closed it. The thought of using her study time to watch the Quidditch Match that day suddenly popped into her mind.
Without hesitation, she placed her right hand on her left arm. In an instant, she gave herself another bruise.
She kept reading until Sunday morning. After putting the book away in her schoolbag, Lin Yue picked it up and stood. Before she could steady herself, her feet wobbled, and the world spun before her eyes...
She reached out and grabbed the bedpost beside her. Head bowed, she panted for a long while before recovering.
Remembering that she hadn't eaten lunch or dinner the day before and had studied all night, Lin Yue immediately concluded that she might have low blood sugar.
Without feeling any self-pity or sadness, Lin Yue shouldered her schoolbag and hurried to the Great Hall.
When she entered the Great Hall, the sunlight made her face look even paler than usual, and she appeared rather weak.
After five minutes, breakfast finally appeared on the long tables, and Lin Yue began eating quickly.
As she ate, some color slowly returned to her pale face, and her mind gradually cleared from its dizzy, spinning haze.
She finished breakfast in three and a half minutes as usual, shouldered her schoolbag, and hurried to the Library. She sat in her usual seat and read for a little over an hour.
Then Hermione and the others came over. "Lin Yue, sorry to interrupt your studying, but... could you come with us to see Hagrid? We need to discuss something, and we need you there too."
Lin Yue looked up at Hermione, her eyes as still as an ancient well. This would take up her study time again, but it was fine. She only needed to accept the punishment and make up the time later.
The thought surfaced automatically in her mind. The logic was airtight. Lin Yue nodded, stood up, and followed Hermione and the other two out of the Library.
When they reached Hagrid's hut, Harry stepped forward as their representative and knocked on the door. "Hagrid, it's us."
A moment later, the door opened, revealing Hagrid's beaming face beneath his thick beard. "Oh, welcome, welcome! Come on in."
He stepped aside to let the four children in, poured each of them a cup of tea, and thoughtfully added extra milk and sugar to Hermione's and Lin Yue's.
"Snape was trying to hurt you yesterday, Harry!" Ron took a sip of tea, then turned to Harry and rushed through his account of what had happened.
"It was Professor Snape, Ron," Hermione corrected him sternly. Now that she knew Professor Snape probably hadn't been trying to hurt Harry and had instead helped him, she chose to keep showing him respect.
She also felt a little ashamed that she'd been so quick to judge the day before and had called Professor Snape by his name.
"All right, Professor Snape..." Ron sighed, his voice strained.
"And besides," Hermione said, taking a sip of tea and finding it surprisingly good, "maybe Professor Snape wasn't trying to hurt Harry, right?"
As she spoke, she turned to Lin Yue, hoping she would explain.
Feeling Hermione's gaze on her, Lin Yue began explaining mechanically.
"Professor Quirrell and Professor Snape were both staring intently at Harry's broomstick and casting spells at the same time."
"Based on their lip movements, Professor Quirrell was casting a curse, and Professor Snape was casting a countercurse."
As soon as Lin Yue finished speaking, Ron stared at Harry, dumbfounded.
"Merlin's Quaffle... So old Bat—" Ron felt Hermione's gaze and abruptly stopped himself. "Professor Snape was protecting you?"
Harry looked just as baffled. He nodded, his expression conflicted. "If Lin Yue says so... then I suppose he was. This is just so... unbelievable."
"But why would Professor Quirrell want to hurt you?" Hermione pressed her lips together and looked at Harry.
Before Harry could answer, Hagrid broke in. He had only just realized what the four children were talking about.
"What? How could that be? Professor Quirrell? He hasn't got the nerve to hurt Harry!"
"Maybe he's pretending?" Hermione shook her head, disagreeing.
Harry sighed and spread his hands. "I don't know why he'd want to hurt me either."
"But..." Ron furrowed his brow. "Professor Snape wants whatever's being guarded by the Three-headed Dog on the fourth floor, doesn't he?"
He was now thoroughly confused about which of the two professors was good and which was bad. On one hand, Lin Yue had always seemed reliable, and he instinctively believed her. On the other, Professor Snape was suspicious too. It was all so... contradictory.
Hermione fell silent as well. She'd heard Harry and Ron say that on the day of the Halloween Troll incident, they'd seen Professor Snape heading toward the fourth floor.
And the next day, Professor Snape had bite marks on his leg...
"Nonsense! Why would Professor Snape want to steal what's in there?" Hagrid immediately objected to Ron.
"He helped protect it, too. He couldn't possibly be trying to steal it."
At that, Hermione narrowed her eyes. Hagrid seemed to know something... She discreetly gave Harry a look, telling him to pry for information.
Harry immediately caught on and tried to provoke Hagrid into revealing what he knew.
"But Professor Snape really did try to get past the Three-headed Dog, and it bit him!"
"Wait, how do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid finally caught the key words on the second time around.
"Right, Professor Snape wanted to get past Fluffy and take whatever it was guarding!" Harry kept trying.
"Impossible! You don't need to worry about this anymore. It's between Headmaster Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel..."
Hagrid cut himself off, while Harry wore a triumphant smile.
Hagrid slapped himself on the mouth twice, angry at himself for accidentally letting it slip, then ushered the four children out of the hut.
"All right, now we just need to find out who Nicolas Flamel is, and we'll know what's in the Forbidden Corridor on the fourth floor."
Hermione spoke with a cheerful smile. Lin Yue listened quietly beside her. The moment she'd heard the name Nicolas Flamel, she'd already found information about him in her mind.
But no one had asked her yet, had they? So she automatically concluded that they didn't need her to tell them.
Before you continue