The entire Great Hall only went through a brief burst of commotion before quickly settling down again.
After all, although Thomas's injuries had looked terrifying at first glance, he had ultimately gotten back to his feet alive and kicking.
They hadn't just watched a classmate ascend to meet Merlin right in front of them. The classmate in question merely felt that he had embarrassed himself a little.
Only one person reacted differently from everyone else.
Snape stared at Harry, who was currently surrounded by his friends, and his brows furrowed into a frightening expression once again.
Then he headed straight for the new Potions office.
He was going to camp out there and wait for that old bastard Slughorn.
One of his spells was spreading through Hogwarts again.
There was no way he believed that old man knew nothing about it.
Meanwhile, Kasenhis returned to his office without caring about any of this and headed straight for the liquor cabinet.
...
Snape walked out of Slughorn's office with a face as black as coal.
The good news was that his spell had not yet spread throughout all of Hogwarts. At the moment, it was probably only circulating within a small group.
The bad news was that the spell had most likely spread from Harry Potter.
Even worse, there was a very real chance that one of Snape's old textbooks was currently in Harry's hands.
Considering how Harry's Potions grades had shot upward this term, with his midterm result even reaching an O, and how Slughorn had practically been praising Harry as though he were the God of Potions...
One of his textbooks was almost certainly in Harry's possession.
Fuck!
At this point, the most urgent task was...
Camping out and waiting.
...
Late at night, Harry and Ginny, wrapped together under the invisibility cloak and clearly up to no good, were enjoying a little two-person nighttime excursion.
They slowly climbed out through the portrait hole of Gryffindor Tower.
The two had barely straightened up and taken two steps when the invisibility cloak covering their heads was suddenly grabbed and yanked upward by a hand.
"Well, well, well... two younglings out wandering at night. You're already this old, and you still haven't finished exploring little old Hogwarts Castle?"
Snape currently had no interest in attacking Harry's brain with those elegant yet bizarrely convoluted sentences seemingly excavated from the deepest reaches of some ancient mystical abyss.
But the sarcastic streak carved into his very bones still remained.
"Ah.. Professor."
Harry and Ginny both looked helpless, while putting on expressions that said they recognised their mistake and accepted it, though whether they intended to correct it was another matter entirely.
After all, neither of them was a first-year anymore.
They had known Snape for this long. Who didn't know who by now?
Especially Harry.
No matter how cruel or irritable Snape might look on the surface, what was he going to do?
Eat him?
Harry could practically tell Snape to his face now:
Deduct points?
There weren't any left!
Detention?
Dumbledore had already mortgaged his freedom until sometime after 2030!
"Miss Weasley, you may return now. I have a few things I need to discuss with our famous Harry Potter," Snape said dryly without forgetting to pop the P.
Ginny frowned, clearly thinking it was pretty lousy to just leave Harry here like this.
But Harry gave her a reassuring look, telling her to go back without worrying. When it came to matching wits with Snape, he had plenty of experience.
After less than three seconds of silent eye contact, Ginny finally returned to the common room.
Harry also adjusted his mindset, preparing himself for Snape's verbal storm and flying spit.
"The spell you used in today's duel..." Snape said concisely.
Harry frowned. He really couldn't imagine Snape making such a big show of waiting here, deliberately sending Ginny away and keeping him behind, just to talk about that.
"Is there a problem? After all, if Professor Kasenhis hadn't contained the spell Thomas used, it probably could've roasted everyone in the Great Hall evenly to medium rare. Mine was just an ordinary cutting spell," Harry said with a shrug, doing his best to look innocent and perfectly reasonable.
"That was not an ordinary cutting spell. In theory, without the counter-curse, that spell can make someone bleed to death!" Snape said as he slowly began circling Harry, trying to create a sense of pressure.
Harry remained completely unfazed.
In fact, he almost wanted to laugh.
But he didn't.
"But at the time..."
"That was because Kasenhis was there! He has methods and abilities ordinary wizards do not. But if Kasenhis hadn't been there, if no powerful wizard had been present, Thomas would have been left to bleed to death right in front of everyone," Snape said coldly.
"I'm sorry, Professor," Harry said, putting on an expression of repentance.
Snape wasn't fooled.
And with the map already so short there was barely anything left to unfold, he went straight for the point.
"Where did you learn that spell?"
"...On an old desk. I saw the spell carved into it. No idea who put it there," Harry casually made up.
"Do you think I'm an idiot, or do you think every house-elf at Hogwarts is as muddle-headed as Kreacher?" Snape snorted coldly.
"Then I have no idea where else I could have learned it," Harry said with a clear air of, fine, do whatever you want.
"I need to inspect... your textbooks. Your Potions textbook, Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook, Charms textbook, and... Transfiguration textbook. Tomorrow, the moment curfew is lifted, I want every one of those books delivered to my office and placed directly into my hands. Do you understand?" Snape said ominously.
"Professor, what if I lost one of my books?" Harry asked with a frown, sounding very much like he intended to fight this to the bitter end.
"Then I'll speak to Professor McGonagall, enter your dormitory, and use magic to search every inch of it. If your book is lost, I'll help you find it! Now go back to bed immediately. And forty points from Gryffindor!"
With that, Snape turned and walked away.
His broad cloak completely swallowed the faint, cold moonlight in the distance.
...
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