Anomaly (Thanks to the Little Demon of Nanshan for the Power of Love, Thank You)
The evening breeze of May swept through Hogsmeade Village, dispelling the lingering chill of late spring. In the distance came the hooting of an owl, probably a mail owl that had just been released by some shop.
Su Yu pushed open the wooden door of the tavern, and Ginny followed him out. The girl's hair was gently lifted by the evening breeze, and she still had a faint smile on her face after drinking Butterbeer. The two walked side by side on the stone path back to Hogwarts.
"What are your next plans regarding Ranrok, the one Lodgok mentioned?"
"To be honest, I'm not quite sure either," Su Yu said, lifting Kurama from his shoulder and placing him on Ginny's. Ginny's shoulders were a little narrow, and Kurama shifted uncomfortably for a couple of moments before settling down. "Hogwarts is so big, who knows where he's dug all the way to?"
Feeling a bit hot, Su Yu took the scarf off her neck and draped it over her arm. "Let's go back and discuss it with Ka-jie first, and see what she says."
Ginny nodded, lifted Kurama off her shoulder and held him in her arms. Kurama didn't struggle, resting his chin in Ginny's arms, his amber eyes half-closed.
"Oh, right," Ginny suddenly remembered something, "Madam Rosmerta just said that she heard from the village wizard that things at Gringotts have been slow lately, and a lot of people are complaining about it, but no one knows why."
"Could it be that Gringotts was also involved in this?" Su Yu pondered, stroking his chin.
"I'm not sure, but it's very likely. The Gringotts Goblin have always been efficient, and this has never happened before."
Upon hearing this, Su Yu maintained his steady pace, his gaze sweeping lightly across the path stretching ahead. Ginny, not being one for sentimentality, smiled and changed the subject, talking about the Gryffindor Quidditch team's recent training sessions and the funny things her teammates had done. Su Yu listened patiently, occasionally offering a soft reply, his steps leisurely. The two chatted and laughed as they walked slowly towards Hogwarts Castle along the twilight-drenched path.
The castle's outline became clearer in the twilight, its towering towers and staggered roofs exuding a unique solemnity in the darkening sky. Su Yu glanced at the castle gate ahead, where the guarding knights stood silently in their armor. Everything was as usual, as if the Goblin conspiracy lurking in the shadows was nothing more than an insignificant ripple, unable to stir up any waves.
The two walked down the Dali steps of the castle into the Entrance Hall. Warm yellow wall lamps illuminated the spacious area, and groups of students chatted and laughed as they returned to the college's common lounge, filling the entire Entrance Hall with a lively atmosphere.
Su Yu and Ginny parted ways in the hall. Ginny walked towards the Gryffindor staircase, turning back to wave at him before leaving, her eyes full of joy.
Su Yu returned to the Slytherin common room and told Ka-jie and the others about the situation, asking them to pay more attention during training. If all else fails, they will have to investigate step by step.
Incidentally, Su Yu also found Isolde the next day. It was only ten minutes before the end of the Defense Against the Dark Arts. There were still a few students packing up their books in the classroom. Professor Graves had already left, Isolde Rozier was standing by the podium, organizing the magic scrolls used in class.
She remained the same as always, with her long, dark hair neatly draped over her shoulders, wearing a dark trench coat, her eyes and brows cold and beautiful, her temperament calm and composed. The surrounding noise seemed irrelevant to her, and she exuded an aura of detachment yet competence.
However, after listening to Su Yu's story, Isolde also brought some bad news. Because Su Yu and Ginny had skipped class to investigate these past two days, they hadn't paid attention to the strange situation that had occurred at Hogwarts Castle.
The Charms was the first to encounter problems.
Professor Flitwick stood on the podium, wand in hand, patiently demonstrating the essentials of the Levitation Charm to the younger students.
"With a gentle flick of his wrist, the incantation is pronounced clearly. Focus your attention and guide the magic towards the target..." As he finished speaking, the quill pen on his fingertip floated steadily in the air, light and stable.
But when it was the students' turn to practice, the Levitation Charm, which was originally very basic, went out of control one after another.
After some students finished reciting the incantation, their quills did not float up but instead slammed heavily onto the table with a crisp "smack." Other students lost control of their magic, and their quills shot towards the ceiling, crashed into it, and then scattered haphazardly. Still others had their magic run wild and chaotic halfway through their incantation, frightening their classmates who quickly moved away.
Professor Flitwick frowned and corrected the students again and again, but no matter how he adjusted them, the students' spells continued to fail, even those who usually excelled in spells made mistakes repeatedly.
The classroom was in chaos, with quills flying everywhere and magical energy fluctuating erratically. Professor Flitwick used every method he could to quell the disturbance.
This situation occurred not only in Charms in the following days, but also in Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Herbology, all of which experienced abnormalities.
In the Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall personally demonstrated how to Transfiguration a match into a silver needle. However, when the students tried, the matches either turned into tiny black charcoal or a wisp of pungent black smoke, failing to Transfiguration properly at all. In the Herbology, the normally docile magical plants suddenly became extremely aggressive, their vines twisting wildly and nearly entangling the students watering them. Even the carefully tended Mandrake emitted sharper and more agitated cries than usual, throwing the entire Herbology classroom into chaos.
Besides the uncontrolled spells in the classroom, the castle's own space also began to exhibit inexplicable disorder.
The staircases that were usually fixed began to change positions without warning. Some students who could walk smoothly on the staircases in the morning found that when they passed by at noon, they turned in a completely unfamiliar direction, leading directly to an unused room on the top floor of the castle. Some students even accidentally stepped on the displaced staircases and almost fell into the empty mezzanine of the tower.
Several corridors that were originally unobstructed will be firmly sealed off by an invisible magical barrier without any warning.
Whether students tried to break the barrier with their wands or teachers worked together to cast spells, they could only open the barrier for a few minutes before it closed again. The corridor on the fourth floor near the restricted area and the passageway near the Room of Requirement on the Seventh Floor were blocked one after another, making students very careful when they went out, for fear of accidentally entering the blocked area.
The ghosts in the castle also became restless. The ghosts that used to drift leisurely no longer stayed in their familiar areas, but instead scurried back and forth in groups in the corridors, chattering and discussing with a tone full of anxiety and unease. Even Peeves, who loved to play pranks, reduced his usual antics, hiding from time to time on the chandelier in the corridor, vigilantly looking around, and behaving more and more strangely.
Numerous other unusual phenomena appeared one after another in daily life.
In the Great Hall, food laid out on the long tables would mysteriously disappear in small portions without anyone touching it. Whether it was sweet cakes, steaming roast meat, or fresh fruit, they would vanish without a trace. The windows of the student dormitories would open and close automatically in the middle of the night, making creaking noises, and even locking them with magic was useless. The knights' armor in the castle corridors would move slightly at night when no one was around, making a harsh metallic scraping sound, but the professors on night duty could not find anything unusual when they patrolled.
The entire Hogwarts was shrouded in an invisible, eerie atmosphere. The students, who were initially curious, gradually became uneasy, discussing these strange events in private, speculating whether something was wrong with the castle or some unknown force was at work.
The professors also sensed something was wrong and frequently gathered to discuss the matter, but they were unable to find the root cause of the anomaly. They could only do their best to maintain order on campus and calm the students down.