Half an hour later, in Dumbledore's office.
All of Hogwarts' professors had arrived, forming a tight circle around Roy, who sat uneasily across from Dumbledore. Their furious, dissatisfied stares made him unable to sit still.
In a corner of the office sat a girl wearing only a nightgown. She was barefoot, her fair feet covered in mud and dust. The anger had yet to fade from her face as she glared resentfully at the black-clad figure in the center of the office, though she also felt a tiny bit smug.
Dumbledore was the first to break the silence. Sitting at his desk and looking at Roy across from him, he rubbed his forehead with a headache, coughed a few times, and posed a soul-searching question to the restless boy.
"I say, what were you doing sneaking into Slytherin's common room in the middle of the night? Did you have to make it so that the entire school couldn't sleep?"
Roy had truly left Dumbledore speechless. Both annoyed and amused, he reached out and patted the pile of equipment on his desk.
"Uh—I..."
Roy had barely begun to explain when Dumbledore interrupted him. It was already so late, and he truly did not want to listen to any more of Roy's nonsense.
"Forget it. Don't say anything. I don't want to hear it. Hufflepuff loses fifty—uh—no, one hundred. Deduct one hundred points."
Dumbledore directly pronounced Roy's sentence. Roy's heart sank. Tomorrow morning, he would have no face left to show his fellow Hufflepuffs.
Upon hearing Dumbledore's judgment, the happiest people present were Snape and Aisling, the two Slytherins. The moment she heard that Hufflepuff had lost one hundred points, Aisling's anger toward Roy vanished completely. She even wanted to walk up, pat him on the shoulder, and say, "Well done."
Professor