Although Eda's influence was not yet enough to truly calm everyone, it was enough to make the crowd quiet down for the moment, preventing the situation from escalating further and making everyone even more uneasy.
The Gryffindor students were all watching the people around them, making sure no one went missing or was attacked. The slightly older students were also comforting those nearby; having experienced more, they were better able to keep themselves calm.
Fortunately, Dumbledore arrived quickly. Following behind him were Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and Professor Lupin.
Before Dumbledore could speak, the students spontaneously made way, allowing the professors to pass through. Dumbledore swiftly glanced at the destroyed portrait, then turned around, his expression grave.
"We need to find her," Dumbledore said. "Professor McGonagall, please go find Mr. Filch at once and have him search every painting in the castle to look for the Fat Lady."
"Good luck!" a voice cackled with laughter.
It was Peeves, who loved causing trouble. He bounced about over everyone's heads, and at the sight of this misfortune and distress, he was as gleeful as ever.
"What did you say, Peeves?" Dumbledore asked calmly. The smile on Peeves's face faded a little—he did not dare to mock Dumbledore.
Eda, however, did not have the headmaster's broad-minded tolerance. She spoke with a hint of threat: "If you know where she is, you'd better say it quickly!"
"Annoying Twist! Ugly Twist!" Peeves was not afraid of Eda at all. Peeves was not a ghost; more precisely, he was born along with the school itself.
Every caretaker the school had ever had wanted to drive Peeves, this prank-loving nuisance, out of the school, but none had ever succeeded.
In 1876, the school made its last attempt. The caretaker at the time devised an ingenious trap, but not only did he fail to drive Peeves away—he actually enraged him instead.
Peeves, consumed by rage, once went on a rampage through Hogwarts carrying several scimitars, a few crossbows, a large-caliber muzzle-loading gun, and even a small cannon, firing at random purely for his own amusement. As a result, the castle had to be evacuated for three days, until Peeves finally calmed down.
In the end, the headmaster at the time signed an agreement with Peeves, and only then did he hand over his weapons and stop shooting at students. What Peeves had done was far more outrageous than anything Eda ever had—how could he possibly be afraid of her?
Aside from the Bloody Baron, the only person who could truly make Peeves feel fear was Dumbledore.
Peeves switched to a fawning, ingratiating tone and said eagerly to Dumbledore, "She's shy, Headmaster. Didn't want to be seen. She's in a dreadful state. I saw her run past a painting of a map of Argyllshire located on the second floor, sir, hiding in the bushes. Crying her eyes out, she was."
"Did she say who did it?" Dumbledore asked softly.
"Oh, she did, Professor-head," Peeves replied, though his expression carried more than a hint of malicious glee.
Peeves suddenly flipped upside down, grinning at Dumbledore through his legs as he went on, "He wanted to get in, but she wouldn't let him. He got very angry, and then it turned into what you see now."
The explanation was a bit roundabout—Peeves had deliberately phrased it that way—but everyone still understood what he meant.
"Sirius Black!"
No one knew which student said it first, but soon the name was being repeated by others. Everyone now believed that the person who had tried to break into the common room was the escaped convict Sirius Black.
"That's right, that's right, it was him!" Peeves said, pretending to be frightened. "His eyes and his soul are as dark as his name—Black!"
Peeves confirmed everyone's suspicions, and the name Black instantly made the castle on Halloween feel icy cold. With such a murderer appearing inside the school, how could the students not be afraid?
Professor Dumbledore led all the Gryffindor students back to the Great Hall. Black was still wandering somewhere in the school, and the Gryffindor common room was no longer safe.
Ten minutes later, the students of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin also returned to the Great Hall, each of them looking confused.
"I and the other teachers need to conduct a full search of the castle," Dumbledore announced loudly. "For your own safety, I'm afraid you'll have to spend the night here. I ask the prefects to guard the entrances to the Great Hall, and I entrust the Head Boy and Head Girl with maintaining order. If anything happens, report it to me immediately."
At this moment, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick closed all the doors of the Great Hall, and after conjuring several hundred sleeping bags, Dumbledore left as well.
The Great Hall immediately filled with chattering discussion. The Gryffindor students told those from the other Houses what had just happened.
Eda did not stay in the Great Hall like the other prefects; she followed them out. Seeing Eda come out, Dumbledore thought for half a minute before saying, "Be careful. Black is no ordinary wizard."
The headmaster's reminder seemed somewhat unnecessary. A wizard who had destroyed an entire street with a single spell was someone Eda would treat with caution no matter how confident she was—confidence was not the same as arrogance.
The professors scattered to search every corner of the castle. Professor McGonagall wanted Eda to stay by her side, but Eda had already vanished in a flash. It was better not to let Professor McGonagall know where she planned to search; she was afraid her dear professor's blood pressure might spike.
Although Eda often said that only fools believed Hogwarts was the safest place, the protective magic around Hogwarts was indeed abundant. Hogwarts was not protected only by walls and the Black Lake; it also had Anti-Apparition charms and all kinds of magical arrays safeguarding the school.
Now, there was also a large group of Dementors drifting around outside the grounds. Under these circumstances, unless Black had some unknown means, it would be impossible for him to simply appear inside the school out of nowhere.
What Eda was going to search now were the vulnerabilities that Black might be able to exploit—the secret passages of Hogwarts.
The Marauders knew these passages and had drawn them on the Marauder's Map; Eda and the twins knew these passages and used them frequently; even Filch knew several of them.
It wasn't impossible for Sirius Black to know a few of these secret passages—he might even know some that Eda herself didn't.
Eda searched through every secret passage in the castle that she knew of, but found nothing. She also ran into Snape and Filch, who were likewise searching the passages, and they too came up empty-handed.
However, Eda did notice something interesting—Snape's unusual behavior.
Ever since Harry enrolled in 1991, Snape's expressions had become "rich and varied," but this was directed only at Harry; no one else could see it. Even if others did notice, they couldn't tell what Snape's expressions meant.
It was only because Eda often interacted with Snape that she was able to notice the difference.
At the opening feast this year, Eda noticed that there was yet another person who made Snape's expressions come alive—yes, Remus Lupin. Unlike the obvious contempt he had shown for Quirrell before, so obvious that even the blind could see it,
Snape's expressions this time were much more subtle: disgust, hatred, and it even seemed to be mixed with a trace of shared misery.
For a moment, Eda thought her own eyes were failing her and that she had seen it wrong.
Tonight, at the Gryffindor Tower, Eda realized that Snape was doing his utmost to suppress his anger. This was a state of Snape she had never seen before; not even that cross-dressing troublemaker had managed to anger him to this extent.
The Potions professor couldn't possibly be this furious because of the Fat Lady, could he? It seemed that there was indeed a story between Snape and Black!
It was around three in the morning when the professors finally concluded their search, yet no trace of Black was found in the school. Sirius Black was like a ghost—appearing in the castle out of nowhere, then vanishing just as suddenly.
Eda returned to the Great Hall and patrolled there together with the other prefects. However, her mind wasn't on the patrol at all; even when someone stayed awake and secretly talked about Black, she didn't interfere.
The baffling behavior of the escaped Azkaban prisoner filled Eda with too many questions.
Why had Black chosen to act today? Was it because he knew it was Halloween and that there would be no students in the common rooms? Or had he lost his sense of time and not known that it was Halloween at all?
Eda tried to put herself in his shoes, attempting to think from Sirius Black's perspective, to unravel the confusion in her mind.
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