Chapter 154

Chapter 154

As the saying went, grandmothers lived to a hundred because they never pried into matters that did not concern them. At Hogwarts, the urge to court death was hardly confined to Gryffindor.

Sometimes curiosity could kill a badger as well.

“Get out!” Snape roared.

Suer scrambled out of the Potions office. Fortunately, it was nearly midnight and they were beneath the castle, so no one witnessed his panic.

“Oh-ho. So this is where Snape lives.” Snape had been beside himself with rage and looked ready to cast Avada Kedavra and lay Suer out on a slab, but Suer had escaped alive.

“Should I hide in the Room of Requirement for the next few days?” Suer emerged from a dark corridor after transforming, one paw beneath his chin and thought gleaming in his lively eyes.

“All I did was see a photograph of him with a girl on his bedside table. Surely the professor isn’t that petty?”

“Hmm… This is enormous news. It would shake the whole castle! I absolutely have to share it with Hermione…”

“Snape actually treasures a photograph of himself with a girl… Oh-ho-ho… Could she have been the old bat’s first love?”

“Wait. No.” Suer abruptly realised something. “Snape, photographed with a girl…”

“Was that girl Harry’s mother?”

“So Harry’s mother really was that beautiful? Yet Harry didn’t inherit any of her looks, did he? Apart from those green eyes…”

“What a pity, Harry. If you had inherited even a fraction of your mother’s appearance, Snape might not treat you so harshly.”

Shaking his head and entertaining wild thoughts, Suer reached the Room of Requirement on the eighth floor.

After a practised sequence of movements, he returned to human form and plunged face-first into the soft bed.

Weariness rising from the depths of his soul sent him swiftly to sleep.

Outside the castle doors, in a quiet corner, something seemed wrong with the empty air. A vague distortion rippled towards the castle.

Anyone listening closely could have heard whispers within it.

When Suer woke blearily, he had no idea what time it was outside. He knew only that his stomach felt painfully empty.

He therefore got up, became a badger and went to the kitchens for food, completely forgetting that the Room of Requirement could bring food there from the kitchens.

Just as on the previous day, a pair of hands caught him when he passed the statue useful for hiding.

It was Hermione, and she was carrying food.

Oh, she truly was an angel.

Munch, munch…

Suer swallowed his food and looked at Hermione. “You’re saying someone has driven Dumbledore out of the castle?”

“Yes.” Hermione nodded worriedly. “Harry and the others heard it when they secretly visited Hagrid yesterday. The headmaster will leave the castle before long.”

“If the headmaster isn’t here, who will stop the basilisk when it emerges?”

“Don’t worry…” Suer drained his pumpkin juice with several large gulps. “Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick and Professor Snape are all masters of magic. Any one of them could handle a basilisk.”

“I hope so.” Hermione nodded, but the worry in her expression did not fade.

“There’s something else. Harry suspects that Dumbledore’s final words contained a deeper meaning. He repeated them to me, and I want your opinion…”

“Hmm?” Suer tilted his head.

“I shall only truly have left this school when no one here remains loyal to me… At Hogwarts, those who ask for help will always receive it.” Hermione carefully repeated every word she had heard.
“Do you think the headmaster meant something else? Perhaps he won’t truly leave the castle and will appear at the crucial moment to catch the basilisk?”

“Then what does betrayal mean? And who should Harry ask for help?”

Another young wizard bewildered by a man who spoke in riddles. Suer could not help sighing.

That was Dumbledore for you, the old bumblebee.

“Perhaps. Dumbledore is only leaving the school temporarily; he hasn’t resigned. There’s no need to worry. He might suddenly appear at the very end.”

“As for help, perhaps he meant that Harry should go directly to a professor when he encounters something he can’t solve. Professor McGonagall and the others are very dependable.”

Hermione lowered her head and considered this for a while before abruptly looking up at Suer.

“When you say ‘the others’, does that include Professor Snape? And could the betrayal the headmaster mentioned mean –”

Poor Snape. Someone suspected him every year. Becoming a professor only to be treated like this was rather tragic.

“Who knows?” Suer answered evasively. “Everything will become clear in the end.”

Hermione was plainly dissatisfied, but she allowed the matter to drop. There were so many people in the castle that surely nothing too serious could happen.

“By the way, there was one part of this book I didn’t understand when I read it yesterday…”

Hermione left at noon. While waiting for her to bring lunch, Suer secretly slipped back into the Hufflepuff common room.

The young badgers wondered why a strangely marked little badger had appeared in their common room, but after one glance, they paid it little attention. Presumably some older student had bought a new pet.

Morn also saw Suer in badger form and felt that the animal looked strangely familiar. A moment later, however, the wizard sitting across from him reclaimed his attention. Morn had to resolve the crisis on the chessboard or lose his final bag of snacks.

Careless Morn had not locked the dormitory. Then again, that was normal in Hufflepuff. Suer returned to the room without difficulty.

He had come for the books about Occlumency that Dumbledore had lent him. After Professor Snape’s intensive training, Suer had developed a vague sense of how to use several of the countermeasures described within them.

No wonder every book claimed that the most efficient way to learn Occlumency was to have an opponent use Legilimency upon you.

Suer had just stuffed every book into his pockets and returned to his Animagus form when the dormitory door opened.

He jumped in fright.

Morn looked as sour as though someone had stuffed a Dungbomb into his mouth. Then he noticed the badger frozen in place.

He waved both hands and muttered continuously, “Shoo! This isn’t your owner’s dormitory… Go on… If you hadn’t appeared and disrupted my thoughts…”

“Go back to your owner…”

Was that any way to treat someone?

Suer reared onto his hind legs, bared his teeth at Morn and glared.

Then he scampered out of the dormitory.

Morn remained alone, trying to interpret the badger’s final look…

Mockery? Contempt?

Bloody hell, now even a little badger dared bully him?