Hogwarts: Harry Returns from Azeroth

Chapter 200, page 199: Sirius Black vs. Snape

Even though every student has used their imagination to the fullest, the most eye-catching boat in the Black Lake still belongs to that man—Gidero Lockhart.

He placed a life-size statue of himself directly on the bow of the ship. The wooden statue would wave to the surroundings and occasionally let out Lockhart's triumphant battle cry. This was Lockhart's warship.

As for the decorative spells that make the warships even more dazzling and eye-catching, as well as the blooming flowers and overwhelming perfume, needless to say.

It wasn't just speculation; Harry was quite certain that many older students... the boys had their sights set on Lockhart's warship and wished they could sink it right now.

Aside from Lockhart's warship, the two pumpkin boats carrying Sirius Black and Snape were the most eye-catching sights.

Sirius's pumpkin boat is decorated in a very Gryffindor style, which can be simply put as a lot of gold and red decorations. On the surface of the pumpkin boat, there is a majestic lion that is constantly leaping around, intermittently letting out bursts of lion roars, uh... and Snape's voice calling for his death.

Without a doubt, it was Sirius Black's voice.

At this moment, he was wearing a captain's tricorn hat that had been conjured by a transformation spell, with one leg straddling the edge of the pumpkin boat, turning his head to give orders to his crew members.

Snape also had his own crew. Draco and his two friends volunteered to offer their pumpkin boats, which Snape then magically modified. The boats were green, with a silver snake swimming on them—Slytherin students really liked that.

To prevent the two men from fighting before their boats even left the shore, Harry arranged for them to enter the water at two far apart positions, but this did not prevent the two captains from heading straight for each other from the moment they entered the water.

To prevent the students from using uncontrollable magic in their excitement, Harry specially provided each pumpkin boat with many water bombs laced with dye. They wouldn't cause any harm to people, but once launched, they would be enough to damage the pumpkin boats... and unless the corresponding removal potion was used, anyone hit by them would never be able to swim out of the Black Lake with their original skin color.

Hagrid sounded the horn again, signifying the official start of the First Black Lake War.

Somewhat surprisingly, but not entirely unexpectedly, Lockhart's pumpkin boat became the first ship to sink in the Black Lake, and the male students unanimously launched a concentrated attack on it immediately after the battle began.

Upon noticing this situation, many female students quickly rowed their boats towards Lockhart to protect him. The male students, of course, would not allow this to happen. Thus, in a very short time, the two sides were divided into two distinct camps, constantly attacking the enemy's pumpkin boat with spells and water bullets, which was somewhat like a naval battle.

It was extremely intense, but after two pumpkin boats crashed into Lockhart's warship and sank together, Lockhart could only swim awkwardly to the shore amidst the deafening cheers of the male students—his body covered in brightly colored flowers.

Perhaps they had been fired up in the battle just now, or perhaps they had become completely absorbed in the game, so when Sirius and Snape finally approached each other from two different directions, apart from the fleets they were leading, no students in the distance were paying attention to them.

The two captains merely exchanged a glance at each other at the bow, without even uttering a few more harsh words, before unleashing a series of spells from their wands at each other—the target was definitely not the ship Harry had specified, but the other person himself.

The red and green spells collided with the translucent shield, creating various sparks, while Sirius and Snape's crew were not idle either, frantically firing water bullets at each other.

Harry had to grab Professor McGonagall's arm to keep her on the shore, otherwise the furious old professor would have surely rushed into the lake to drag those two irresponsible adults out... well, maybe the rare and unusual thing of putting the professor in solitary confinement would have happened.

Although the more likely scenario is a pay cut.

Harry had a great time playing all day. Although he had asked the wind elementals to blow away the clouds near Hogwarts so that the sun could shine directly on them, the temperature was still a bit low for the season, and the lake water was quite cold.

Even so, many students did not choose to swim ashore immediately after their pumpkin boats were sunk. Instead, they swam around in the water and splashed each other with water. It was a bit of a hardship for the giant octopus in the Black Lake, whose tentacles kept dragging this one and that one. The students laughed and dodged its tentacles, having even more fun.

In the end, no one cared about the rules Harry had announced beforehand, and Harry didn't stop them. He just chatted with a few other professors who had come to watch the fun on the shore, and they all laughed together as they watched the students splashing in the water, their bodies covered in colorful stains.

No one knows how Snape left. All that is seen is that his pumpkin boat and Sirius's pumpkin boat collided with each other. After their crews had already jumped ship, the two adult men fought each other on the two pumpkin boats that were interlocked and slowly sinking, until they were submerged.

Harry waited until Sirius, covered in greasepaint, swam back to shore alone. His beautiful long curly hair was no longer the original brown color, but a strange mixture of purple and pink. Needless to say, his face, which Snape would focus on, was covered in bruises and swellings—completely undetectable. The magically created greasepaint did not become a dirty color after mixing; instead, the pieces remained clearly separated, leaving Sirius with a large, smeared face.

"I didn't lose! Harry! Aha!" Like a big dog that had just come ashore, Sirius shook himself violently, his disheveled appearance unable to conceal his inner triumph. "He ran away! He escaped! I won!!"

"Okay, okay, I got it," Harry said helplessly, dodging the water droplets Sirius threw at him. He then avoided Sirius's charge to prevent himself from getting stained with the colors. "You should go back and wash yourself first. There's hot water at home."

Sirius's eyes and half his face were swollen, even the thick camouflage couldn't cover it. Harry forced his godfather to drink an entire bottle of cold medicine, and in doing so, he had to patiently listen to Sirius boast for quite a while about how he had beaten Snape up in the water. Having become quite adept at handling Sirius's sudden and intense emotions, after calming him down and letting him return to his office, Harry turned around to see Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick watching him, trying not to laugh.

"...He was like this when he was still in school, right?" Harry said with a hint of helplessness.

"More or less," Professor Sprout chuckled. "But back then he was very conscious of his image, and many girls were pursuing him."

“Clearly, life in Azkaban has changed him,” Professor Flitwick said with a smile, then sighed. “But it’s clear that Sirius is doing quite well now. You’ve taken good care of him, Harry.”

“Oh, that’s quite right,” Professor Sprout said with a smile. “If you compare the two of them side by side, our Professor Potter is more like the godfather, haha.”

“That’s nothing to be proud of,” Harry shook his head and said. “I’d rather he show some maturity soon, otherwise he’ll have a hard time finding a witch he likes to marry in his current state.”

“Pfft, such worries… Haven’t you noticed, Harry?” Professor Flitwick laughed heartily. “You’re becoming more and more like Sirius’s godfather, even worrying about his marriage.”

“Don’t worry, Harry,” Professor Sprout comforted him. “Sirius is indeed a handsome boy, he won’t have trouble finding a wife—and wizards live long lives, he’s still very young.”

"I hope so," Harry sighed softly.

As darkness fell, the students finally climbed out of the Black Lake, reluctantly, to Hagrid's calls—their faces were red from the cold, their hands and feet were icy, but they couldn't hide the excitement on their faces.

Both men and women were chattering excitedly about the naval battle that had taken place on Black Lake that day, or boasting about how many shells they had hit enemy ships with, or how many people they had painted with paint. Then, with excited expressions, they were given a bottle of cold medicine, and as a result of the medicine's effects, a lot of white smoke came out of their ears, like a steaming train.

Perhaps to teach these children who didn't cherish their bodies a lesson, Madam Pomfrey brewed this batch of cold medicine to be very unpalatable. As a result, the students could only walk into the castle with a bottle of medicine used to remove the paint from their bodies, their faces contorted in pain and their tongues sticking out.

They had to clean themselves before the Halloween dinner began.

Ron and his two friends did all this in Harry's office. Hermione had previously given Ron an ugly cat to comfort her friend who was heartbroken over losing her pet, so Ron would not receive any Christmas presents this year.

Hermione asked Harry to take her to the pet shop in Diagon Alley to choose this cat. It was a mixed-breed cat-raccoon with magical animal blood, making it very intelligent. It also had a bright yellow coat, a long tail, and a large face that looked like it had been punched in the face, with its features slightly sunken inwards.

Although there were many other pets in the pet shop, and the two had initially planned to give Ron an owl, since Ron had complained many times that his shared owl, Airol, was too old, and Percy had a new owl to deliver his letters, etc., Hermione changed her mind the moment she saw the cat.

Ron... Ron was indeed very happy when he received the cat. Although he complained that the cat was ugly and not cute at all, judging from what Harry saw, Ron really liked the cat and even named it Crookshanks, following Hermione's suggestion.

The evidence is that Crookshank doesn't resist being held in Ron's arms at all. With its cat-raccoon bloodline, it can tell whether the people around it have good intentions towards it. Since it doesn't resist Ron's embrace and its new owner, that speaks volumes.

Not at all disgusted by Ron's paint-covered appearance, Crookshanks even jumped from the top of the cabinet onto Ron's back, and after being petted by Ron a few times, he also got painted with these colors—so the man and the cat even took a bath together.

“It seems he has indeed moved on from Scabbers, well, I mean Peter Pettigrew,” Harry remarked, sitting on the first floor of his office, where he could still hear Ron laughing as he played with Crookshanks in the second-floor bathroom.

“Although it doesn’t look very cute, Crookshanks is really smart,” Neville agreed. “It seems to be able to see what’s making Ron unhappy, and then easily wins Ron’s heart and makes him forget about that stinky rat.”

“I agree with the second half of what you said, Neville. After all, Crookshanks is really smart,” Hermione retorted. “As for the first half—I think Crookshanks is cute and handsome. If we weren’t picking out a pet for Ron, I would want to have it myself.”

“You’re right, Hermione.” After being friends for so long, Neville knew exactly what it meant not to argue with Hermione when she was serious. He changed the subject, “By the way, are you sure we can come with you? Harry, Nick didn’t invite us, did he?”

“Don’t worry, since it’s a birthday… uh, death anniversary celebration, Nick certainly won’t refuse to have more people come to celebrate with him, otherwise he wouldn’t have invited me,” Harry comforted him. “Besides, aren’t you all curious about the difference between a party for the living and a party for the dead? This is indeed a safe and good opportunity.”

“A safe opportunity? Is there an unsafe one?” Hermione scoffed. “Speaking of which, why do ghosts celebrate the day they were killed? I thought they would be very reluctant to talk about their own deaths… At least I wouldn’t want to think about it if I were murdered.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s been too long?” Neville said, recalling Nick’s past behavior. “Anyway, Nick has never shied away from his death. When we first enrolled last year, he even used the image of himself turning his head off to scare us.”

(End of this chapter)