Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 93 Daphne's Wrath

When the three found Hagrid, he was sitting at the door of the cabin, processing game he had hunted in the game field. He seemed to be in a good mood, humming an unknown tune as he gutted a rabbit.

Upon seeing Harry and his two companions, Hagrid looked on with surprise: "What brings you all here? Don't you have final exams to study?"

Harry skipped the pleasantries with Hagrid and went straight to the point: "Hagrid, I have a question for you. Do you remember the details of the night you won the Norbert in the card game? Like, who lost it to you?"

Hagrid frowned and carefully searched his memory.

"A weirdo who refuses to take off his cloak and hood, but almost everyone at the Hog's Head is like that. It's me, the guy who shows his face, who's the weirdo there, ha ha!" Hagrid laughed heartily.

Upon hearing "cloak" and "hood," Harry felt his scars begin to throb again.

He eagerly pressed on, "So how did you... um, get together? He couldn't possibly be going around shouting about the dragon egg, looking for people to gamble with, could he?"

When the topic turned to dragon eggs, Hagrid became even more excited. He tossed aside the rabbit he was holding and began telling Harry and the others the story of that night.

"After a long day at work, ordering a large hot beer at a bar and playing a couple of rounds of cards is the ultimate pleasure for an adult wizard—that's how I met that dragon vendor."

When Harry heard the words "dragon vendor," he nearly fainted: Hagrid was great in every way, except sometimes he was just too careless. Dragon vendor? How could he even think of that? A dragon fruit vendor would be more like it!

Unaware of how outrageous his words were, Hagrid continued recounting his ordeal: "We played a few rounds together, drank quite a bit, and ordered some barbecue. That's when things got exciting. You know, playing cards and gambling go hand in hand—don't follow my example—and then I got lucky and won several rounds in a row. Finally, he got desperate and bet a dragon egg, or Norbert, on the table..."

Hagrid paused for two seconds, as if trying to keep the audience in suspense, before revealing the well-known answer: "And then he lost again!"

"After losing, he sobered up a bit and was quite regretful. He hoped I would give him some time to raise some money. He was unwilling to hand over the dragon egg to me because he felt I couldn't control the dragon, and that it would run away and cause trouble for him. I couldn't let this golden opportunity slip through my fingers, so I told him that I was the guard of the hunting grounds here, and that I could even keep three-headed Luwei under my control, so a dragon was nothing..."

Harry felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over his head.

"And then? Is he very interested in Lou Williams—?"

"That's right, everyone would be interested in a three-headed dog! I told him that there's a way to deal with any animal, for example, Luwei only needs to—" Hagrid slammed on the brakes, his face suddenly showing a look of horror.

"Damn it, I shouldn't have said all this to you. That's enough, you should go back and study for your final exams!" Hagrid pushed and shoved the three young wizards out of his yard.

"Hagrid, Hagrid!" Harry called in vain, but Hagrid went straight back into his room and didn't respond no matter how much he called.

Harry felt himself being swallowed by despair.

Having witnessed everything, Daphne finally understood what had happened. After a moment's thought, she made a decision: "We must go find Rice."

"We must go find Dumbledore."

She and Harry said it in unison.

Daphne: ...

Harry and Ron: ?

The three of them were silent for a moment before Daphne awkwardly said, "Ah, indeed, it seems like asking Dumbledore might also work."

Upon reflection, she realized that in this situation, she should indeed contact Dumbledore immediately, since he was the headmaster. What was wrong with her? Why did she instinctively want to find Rice to solve the problem?

"Finding Rice is fine, but we need to find Dumbledore first—let him know that Hagrid told a stranger how to subdue Fluffy. I'm sure that cloaked fellow was either Snape or Voldemort. Besides that, we also need to tell him what happened in the Forbidden Forest that day. I believe Ferrenze will testify for me, and hopefully Dumbledore will believe us. That way, we might be able to stop Snape before he steals the Philosopher's Stone. Where is Dumbledore's office?"

Harry realized at the very end that he didn't know where Dumbledore's office was.

"Wait, how does this involve the Mystic and Professor Snape?" Daphne shuddered instinctively upon hearing the name. She didn't understand why this matter was related to the Mystic and why Professor Snape was involved.

Harry and Ron then remembered that Daphne was a Slytherin.

"It's like this..." Harry told Daphne his reasoning, believing that once she heard his explanation, she would believe him and see Snape's true nature.

Daphne looked completely bewildered.

"You have absolutely no evidence!" Faced with Harry and Ron's unfounded accusations against Professor Snape, she couldn't hold back any longer. "To conclude that Professor Snape was going to steal the Philosopher's Stone based solely on subjective conjecture?! And I need to remind you, the Man Who Revealed vanished into thin air ten years ago!"

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with helplessness.

"But think about it, Snape targeted Harry for an entire semester—" Ron joined in trying to persuade Daphne.

"So what? Where's the evidence?!" Daphne's two long eyebrows shot up, her eyes blazing with fury.

"When the game ended, I saw something in the Forbidden Forest..." Harry recounted to Daphne the conversation he had overheard between Snape and Quirrell.

"He's coercing Professor Quirrell; he wants Professor Quirrell to help him obtain the Philosopher's Stone!"

Daphne: ? ? ?

"Coercion, Quirrell?! Do you really think Professor Quirrell is as clueless as you are about where Dumbledore's office is?!"

"..."

Sure enough, you can't reason with a Slytherin.

Sure enough, you can't reason with two Gryffindors.

The three of them sighed in unison.

"So what? What are you planning to do? Go and report us to Snape?" Harry looked at Daphne with a rather unfriendly gaze.

Daphne nearly jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on: "What do you take me for?! I'm going into the fourth-floor corridor with you right now! I'm going to show you who the intruder is before I'm done!"

At this point, Daphne, enraged by Harry, had made up her mind to intervene, and the three of them ran towards the castle together.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Update delivered, goodnight everyone~

(End of this chapter)