A Hectic Life

Late at night, Harry had another nightmare.

This time, he was on the Quidditch pitch.

The sky was overcast, rain pouring down so heavily that he could barely see anything.

Bludgers and the Quaffle whistled past his ears. He did everything he could to find the Golden Snitch, only to suddenly see Professor Li Wei in the teachers' stands, facing him with his lips moving continuously.

The next instant, the Quaffle and Bludgers, which had been flying elsewhere, suddenly changed direction and smashed into his arms from both sides!

"Hiss!"

Harry jolted awake in pain. Everything around him was pitch-black.

He instinctively moved his arms. They were fine, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, Harry suddenly heard a soft call beside him.

"Harry Potter, Harry—Potter."

Harry instinctively turned his head, his heart skipping a beat—a hideous gray elf was crouched at his bedside, watching him carefully with especially prominent eyes.

"You're—Dobby? Why are you here?"

"Harry Potter, you must beware of Professor Li Wei! He deceived Dobby! He clearly said he would deal with the Basilisk! But he still let the Basilisk appear!"

"Professor Li Wei?!"

Harry's expression changed. Still in his pajamas, he quietly climbed out of bed.

"Let's talk outside. Don't wake them."

"It's all right. Dobby has cast a Sleeping Charm on them. They won't wake up."

"You—"

Harry turned to look at Neville, whose snoring shook the room, then frowned at Dobby.

"What did you mean by that? Tell me in detail."

"It was like this."

Harry soon learned everything from Dobby, including how Dobby had stopped him from returning to school and had tried to attack him during the Quidditch match.

"It was you! You sealed off the barrier at the platform at the start of term and stopped Ron and me from getting through! Do you know that Ron got a Howler from his mother because of it, and his father was investigated?

"And once wasn't enough—you actually tried to attack me and ruin my match!"

Harry angrily raised his wand and pointed it at Dobby.

"You'd better never appear before me again, Dobby. Next time we meet, I'll attack you."

Dobby smiled faintly. "Dobby is used to threats of death. Dobby hears them five times every day at home." He blew his nose with a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking so pitiful that Harry's anger involuntarily ebbed away.

At the same time, even more questions arose in his mind.

So he had originally been meant to be attacked during today's Quidditch match, and it was Professor Li Wei's house-elf who had protected him?

And yet he had suspected him. A powerful sense of guilt began to well up in Harry's heart.

Then he learned more from Dobby—the Chamber of Secrets had been opened once before, and someone was plotting something. But Harry no longer believed that person was Professor Li Wei.

Yet no matter what, Dobby refused to reveal that person's name. After tormenting himself several times and repeatedly urging Harry to leave the school at once, Dobby escaped while Harry pressed him for answers.

The next day, Harry told Ron and Hermione about it.

Hermione looked both pleased and troubled.

She was pleased because they had ruled out a wrong answer—since the Chamber of Secrets had been opened before, Malfoy could not be Slytherin's heir, unless there was more than one heir. But that possibility should have been extremely low.

And since Barton, Professor Li Wei's house-elf, had helped Harry, the three of them truly no longer wanted to suspect him.

Even Ron said nothing this time. Harry, meanwhile, had already begun to feel favorably toward Li Wei, since he had protected him—if things had gone as Dobby said and a Bludger had sent him to the hospital, and he had also lost the Quidditch match, Harry felt he would have been furious to death.

The matter of the Chamber of Secrets seemed to have suddenly reached a deadlock, and Harry decided he would no longer follow Professor Li Wei.

But aside from that matter, they had plenty of other worries.

With the arrival of November, every student at Hogwarts became busy.

Not to mention the upper years. Seventh-years were anxious to secure a good future after graduation; even the laziest wizards grew anxious at that age. Though it was not especially useful.

The sixth-years might have been a bunch of pure-blood scions, but after Li Wei had beaten some sense into them, they studied harder than ever. Four of them had even changed their original ambitions to become Aurors. With Li Wei around, they believed they could absolutely earn an O in Defense Against the Dark Arts on their N.E.W.T.s, while improving in Charms as well.

The fifth-years had been studying until they were dizzy since the beginning of term. After Professor Li Wei released his self-written workbook, One Year to O.W.L.s, Three Years to N.E.W.T.s, in the second week, they went completely mad!

There were naturally some students who became exhausted or driven mad by studying and simply gave up, but with everyone else studying like crazy, they were eventually forced to join the rat race as well.

They had no choice but to compete, because after doing the so-called "past-paper tests" issued by the professor, they discovered that students their own age were improving markedly. Their year's O.W.L. results might be explosively better than those of previous years.

If everyone else got an O or E in Defense Against the Dark Arts while they only got an A—or even failed—that would feel truly awful.

As for the lower years—

Hermione and Cedric not only had to keep up with their regular studies, but also complete the extra assignments from Li Wei's study group. At the same time, they had to steal moments amid their busy schedules to brew Polyjuice Potion out of sight of the others. They were busy beyond belief.

And they were not even sure whether they would get a chance to use the potion.

Harry, Ron, and the other wizards were driven frantic by the newly introduced monthly exams—at the end of the month, they would face their first test, and the point gap between first and fourth place was simply enormous.

At present, thanks to Harry winning the Quidditch match, Gryffindor was temporarily in first place in the House Cup, fifty points ahead of second place. But the gap between the other two Houses was not large either.

The Ravenclaw students were eyeing the lead greedily—there were still seven months left in the school year. Excluding holidays, and counting the final exams at the end of the year, there would be at least around four monthly exams left—that was two hundred points!

In fact, they only needed seventy-five points to catch up with Gryffindor. Any additional points would give them room for error—useful in case Professor Snape went crazy and deducted points from them at random.

Their calculations were loud enough, and their determination to study was even more obvious.

Whether in the library, the Great Hall, or on the grass by the Black Lake, Ravenclaws studying could be found everywhere at any time.

Students from the other Houses could not sit still either. Seeing their behavior, Li Wei began to wonder whether the House Cup had put some sort of curse on these students.

Nearly every student was going mad over that intangible honor, leading to many incidents afterward that left him torn between laughter and tears.