From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 314 Love and Fear
A very unsurprising thing happened at Hogwarts: Harry got extra points, and it happened in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

If the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was Sirius last year, Lupin the year before, and Viktor in the first year, then it would not be surprising for him to get extra points.

But this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is Snape, the Slytherin Head who only wants to find fault with Harry all day long and even wants to take out his brain and soak it in specimen fluid.

"He got you extra points, Harry!" Ron growled excitedly as they left the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"Although it's only one point, it might be the crucial point for Gryffindor to continue to win the house cup!" Hermione was also very excited.

Harry smiled, and although he was also very happy, he had calmed down now.

As the saying goes, there must be a monster when something goes wrong.

If even a hard tree like Snape can bloom, the reason behind it must be very powerful.

"He's trying to please me," Harry confirmed.

Ron was stunned. Apparently he didn't quite understand the relationship between Snape and Mrs. White. "What? ...Why?"

"For the new Potions professor, Sirius's distant relative, Mrs. White." Hermione answered without surprise, but she soon began to feel something was strange.

"...you never met the Whites before the Quidditch World Cup, did you, Harry?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

Harry was shocked. With Hermione's intelligence, she would definitely be able to find out something, but he couldn't tell even his two best friends about his parents' resurrection. At least not before Voldemort was completely defeated.

He racked his brains, hoping to come up with a reasonable explanation.

"Definitely not." Although Ron didn't understand why Hermione asked this, he still retorted instinctively, "They must have met at the Black mansion. Remember? Before we went to the Quidditch World Cup, the summer vacation had already passed for a month!"

"Ron is right." Harry nodded in agreement and secretly gave his good friend a thumbs up in his heart.

"By the way, why are you asking that?" But Ron's next question made Harry's heart rise to his throat again.

"Professor Snape obviously likes Mrs. White. But why does he want to please Harry? The relationship between Harry and Mrs. White shouldn't be that close..." Hermione frowned and thought hard, "Even if Harry knew her more than a month earlier than us, they shouldn't be that close..."

"Mrs. White is such a sweet lady!" Harry exclaimed. "Just like... just like my mother!"

Damn it! Could Hermione figure it out?

"Oh——" Who knew Hermione looked at him with sparkling eyes, just like when she saw Crookshanks in the pet shop in Diagon Alley during the summer vacation last school year, "Mrs. White must not have any children? I can understand you, Harry."

Mrs. White, of course, had no children, but Mrs. Porter did.

Although he didn't know how he got away with it, Harry still felt a little awkward.

Neither of them noticed how far Ron had fallen.

At this time, Hermione, who was about to reach the stairs, suddenly heard Ron shouting her name.

"Hermione!" Ron ran over quickly, "You said Snape..."

"Shhh—" Harry quickly stopped him with a gesture.

Ron straightened up suddenly, quickly shook his head behind and around, then rushed over and whispered, "... like Mrs. White?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "I thought Harry had very little emotion in his head, but I didn't expect you to have even less... Harry could be said to be distracted by dueling lessons and Quidditch, but what about you, Ron? Are you born with only a teaspoon of emotion?"

"I just noticed!" Ron defended himself.

Harry wanted to laugh, but stopped himself in time. He pretended to change the subject calmly: "Although love has changed Professor Snape a lot, his love for Mrs. White is not correct. Mr. White and Sirius both told me to try not to leave them alone."

"Don't let the two professors be alone?" Hermione shook her head. "That's quite unrealistic, not to mention that Mrs. White is using Professor Snape's former classroom, and even the potion materials have to be taken from his storage room."

"How did you know that?" Harry asked in astonishment, since they hadn't even started Potions class yet.

Hermione sighed impatiently: "Not everyone is like you, not paying much attention to their studies."

As if she was afraid of leaving Ron behind, Hermione added, "Same to you, Ron."

"I think it's quite interesting!" Ron showed a vengeful smile on his face. "Just think about it, destroying Snape's love affair! And we have a legitimate reason! God! I wonder how brightly I will smile when I really succeed!"

Hermione shook her head with a hopeless expression on her face, "We are still students, and did you hear what Professor McGonagall said? There is not much time left until the OWLs! Even if we are doing the right thing, we still have to focus on our studies."

"Stop talking nonsense! Hermione!" Ron's excitement remained unchanged. "Are you coming or not?"

"Where are you going?" Hermione took two quick steps to catch up with Harry and Ron.

"Potions classroom!" Harry answered the question for Ron.

----

It was not a short distance from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the fourth floor to the Potions classroom in the basement. They had to go through several stairs and the hall on the first floor before they could find the stairs to the basement.

However, just as they arrived at the hall with the indoor fountain, Harry and the others caught a glimpse of Snape's black robe disappearing down the stairs leading to the cellar.

The three of them looked at each other and decided to catch up quickly.

But a voice stopped them.

"Hey! What are you doing? Harry? Hermione?"

The three of them couldn't tell who it was, so they turned around together. It was Ariana.

Before leaving the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, they clearly saw Ariana surrounded by a group of students in the corridor. As the first student named Dumbledore in Hogwarts in a hundred years, many people were interested in her. Many people wanted to know how Headmaster Dumbledore hid her so well. "Ariana... I remember you..." Harry said halfway, and suddenly remembered that this time they were not doing anything that violated school rules or laws related to the Ministry of Magic. This made him feel incomprehensibly justified, so he said the real purpose, "We are going to the Potions classroom."

"Potions classroom?" Ariana showed an interested expression, "But we don't have Potions class today?"

"We have some questions for Mrs. White," Hermione added.

"That's right," Ron agreed, nodding his head extra hard to make it more credible.

"I don't remember you enjoying class that much, Ron," Ariana asked suspiciously, "Are you hiding something from me? Or something particularly interesting?"

Harry didn't really want to explain what happened between Mrs. White and Professor Snape to someone he had only just met, especially when one of them was his mother.

But before anyone could say anything, Ariana rushed in front of them and ducked down to hide.

"Don't look back!" Ariana whispered, "There's someone I don't want to see! Let me hide for a while! Just for a while!"

"Someone you don't want to see?" Ron repeated. "Professor Dumbledore?"

"No!" Ariana said urgently, "You'd better pretend to chat!"

Harry and Ron looked at each other, neither knowing what to talk about.

"Quidditch," Hermione prompted.

"Remember the Wronski fake in the World Cup final?" Ron suddenly said loudly, "I remember you used it in first grade, right?"

"Yes, my Nimbus 2000 had a minor accident because it scraped against the ground. I was so sad." Harry continued, following Ron's words, "I don't dare to do that kind of high-risk action with Nimbus 2077... I might just pierce the ground!"

"Keep your voice down!" Ariana's voice sounded full of panic, "He's coming."

"I think you can handle that broom, Harry."

The three of them recognized Ivy's voice and quickly turned around to greet him.

Ivy had returned from the magical animal breeding and breeding base. In addition to studying magic and alchemy, he also had his own contract magician who needed his attention.

Because Cassandra has already upgraded her contract sorcerer to level three during this period of time, in addition to the required level two skill [Painful Magic Explosion], it is time for Ivy, as the sect leader, to grant her a magical contract blessing.

The grace of the magic contract is a reward from the sect leader to the contract master for improving his strength. Generally speaking, there are four options, namely the [Blade Magic Contract] that can create a magical link with melee weapons, the [Chain Magic Contract] which is similar to the magic pet of the mage, the shadow magic book [Book Magic Contract] that can provide additional tricks, and the [Talisman Magic Contract] that can provide attribute check benefits.

As a wizard, Cassandra had not received any weapons training. Magic was her best weapon, so [Blade Contract] was ruled out first.

[Magic Contract of Book] can only provide a few insignificant 0-level tricks, which is almost no benefit to wizards like Cassandra. Although the feature of being able to be used as a spellcasting tool may be expanded in the future, Ivy has already replaced the spell book with magic tattoos to a certain extent, so [Magic Contract of Book] is obviously not suitable.

[Magic Contract of Talisman] Not to mention, what kind of situations will Cassandra encounter in school that require her to pass attribute checks?

Therefore, [Chain of Magic Contract] became the best choice, and there happened to be many suitable magical animals in the magical animal breeding and reproduction base, and Ivy was trying to make them become the contracted animals of [Chain of Magic Contract].

Among them, the one favored by Ivy the most is the Norwegian Ridgeback Norbeta. According to the rules of the clan leader, a pseudo-dragon is also a creature that can be bound by the magician using the [Chain Magic Contract].

Taking over Norbeta from Hagrid was originally for himself, but now Ivy's strength has grown too fast, and Norbeta, who has not yet left his infancy, is obviously no longer able to cooperate with him in battle. And the Norwegian Ridgeback is obviously not a real dragon in the DND world view, so how to treat it as a fake dragon and establish a connection with his own magician is what Ivy has to consider now.

He is also developing a new form of magic tattoo, that is, pet tattoo, which can make the magic pet exist on the body in the form of tattoo. If this tattoo can really succeed, then Norwegian ridgebacks like Norbeta will have a very large body when they grow up. If such a behemoth is suddenly released in battle, even if it is not a real dragon, it will be enough to scare away many opponents.

Ivy considered the [Chain Magic Contract] of the Contractor and the pet tattoo as new and closely related topics, and is now proceeding in an orderly manner.

There is also the hybrid Pegasus Ebony in the Pegasus Ranch. It is now in a period of rapid growth, which is perfect for Ivy to cultivate feelings for it. Therefore, it is very necessary to visit them frequently at the magical animal breeding and reproduction base.

Ivy glanced at Ariana who was squatting behind the trio, pretending not to notice as she chatted with Harry and the others.

"You will definitely participate in the Triwizard Tournament, right, Ivy?" Ron asked with great interest. In fact, what he was most interested in was the prize money of one thousand gold Galleons.

"You want me to participate?" Ivy raised his eyebrows and smiled, "I heard that many warriors died in the Triwizard Tournament."

"But didn't Professor Dumbledore say that day that they did a lot of extra work to ensure the personal safety of every contestant?" Harry continued to ask, "Besides, I really don't think there is anything in the world that can be difficult for you."

"I read in Hogwarts, A History that the most dangerous item in the Triwizard Tournament was a magical creature of level XXXXX, such as a manticore, a sphinx, a mantis, or something like that." Hermione also spoke up, "Perhaps those magical animals are indeed dangerous to ordinary wizards, but to you, they are no scarier than Puffy. Not to mention that you also have a phoenix."

"Is Pu Rongrong dangerous?" Ron asked in disbelief.

"Their hair may cause allergic reactions and death in some people." Hermione nodded. "Although the probability is very small, it is definitely not zero."

"Yes, I will participate."

But it's mainly for experience points, Ivy said to himself.

Ariana, who was squatting behind the trio, felt her feet go numb, so she tried to sneak away while Ivy was chatting with them.

But just after she took a few steps, she heard Ivy's voice behind her: "Ariana, what are you doing squatting there? Did something fall?"

Ariana took a deep breath, put on a smiling face and stood up, covering her pockets tightly with her hands: "Hi! Ivy! Uh... I didn't see you just now, I just felt a little uncomfortable in my stomach. In fact, we are going to Mrs. White to get some potions! Right? Harry? Hermione? Ron?"

Although they didn't know why Ariana didn't want to see Ivy, the trio still saw the distress signal in Ariana's eyes, so they nodded in response.

"That's right." The three of them answered in unison.

Ivy found this even more interesting, just like four little kids hiding something from each other, so he pretended to be confused and said, "Stomach upset? Maybe you should go to the school hospital to see Madam Pomfrey? Maybe I have some potions that may be helpful..."

“No, no, no!” Ariana waved her hands fiercely and pushed the trio towards the stairs leading to the underground. “Mrs. White’s potion will do! You don’t have to worry about it!”

(End of this chapter)