HP North Star's Radiance

"Idiots!" Snape snapped at them. "Fools! I think you two must not have taken Miss Prince's words to heart, which is why those students had the opportunity!"

Praris frowned and repeated, "An opportunity to exploit—is there something wrong with my testing facility?"

“No,” Snape said in a cold, mocking tone, “it was my office. They smashed the windows, set fire to the desk, and burned all the rare herbs you needed for your experiments to ashes.”

"What! Some of the medicinal herbs in there are priceless!" Praris exclaimed in surprise, immediately turning to look at the Carlo siblings. "I've already informed the two professors!"

Do we need to report it? Yes, we do.

Yesterday evening, Prarese, acting as if the whole world was against persecuting her, went to explain her "seed" plan to the Carol siblings—to keep only a small portion of the herbs in the abandoned classroom, and hide the rest in Snape's office, where his magical defenses were located.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

When Praris said that, Alecto thought she was being difficult.

"No!" she said frantically, "I have to go and assess the losses!"

“Come back—” Snape called Prarese back, “Does counting losses reduce losses?”

Prareas silently walked back to his seat, looking restless and unable to sit still. Snape scolded him, "Did the chair bite you?!"

“This can’t be entirely our fault!” Alexios wasn’t about to accept blame so easily. “Headmaster Snape, why were those students able to break into your office so easily?”

Praris immediately stood up and retorted loudly, "The gentleman wasn't even at the castle last night, how can you blame him for that?"

"Besides, I just heard it all. They jumped in through the glass window! For three-quarters of the year, office windows are submerged by the Black Lake. Who would cast a defensive spell on their windows—to protect them from mermaid attacks?!"

The feeling of having someone leading the charge and providing support is surprisingly quite nice.

“Indeed!” Snape said in a cold and slick tone. “Alecto, nobody wants this to happen, and shifting blame won’t solve the problem.”

"The office is inside the castle with only one door, heavily protected by defensive magic, but opening it from the inside is ineffective. After all, defenses are meant to be outwards; am I supposed to prevent those herbs and potions from coming to life?"

"Most importantly, after all this, you haven't even caught a single person?"

“My sister got stuck!” Amicus protested. “Those kids were causing trouble upstairs, and Filch couldn’t handle it, so he called for Alecto.”

"And what about you?" Snape said coldly. "What are you doing?"

Amycus was speechless—he was asleep at that time. Seeing his embarrassed expression, Snape gave a mocking sneer: "If I remember correctly, didn't I specifically tell you about this?"

With Snape away from school, patrols would be much less frequent. Before leaving, he specifically instructed Amycus not to let his guard down.

“Headmaster Snape!” Alecto said through gritted teeth, “I almost caught up with those two bastards, but someone secretly helped them!”

"Oh?"

“I had already chased them into the underground corridor,” Alextot still gritted his teeth with rage when he thought about it. “I saw their feet peeking out as they ran, and I had already raised my wand, aiming it at one of them. Just then, all the torches in the entire underground corridor went out!”

The sudden darkness caused Alecto to lose sight of his target, and he was quickly shaken off by the two men.

She immediately deduced that the two people must be from Hufflepuff, and using her fluorescent flashlight, she chased them to the entrance of the Hufflepuff common room.

Alecto's judgment was correct, but she didn't know how to get into the Hufflepuff common room, so she angrily kicked the wooden barrel next to her and got sprayed with vinegar in her face.

“You mean—” Snape said meaningfully, “that there was a hidden wizard with extraordinary abilities who extinguished all the torches underground in an instant, is that right?”

Chapter 255 The Invisible Ghost

Alexo grinned angrily and said bitterly, "It must be, it must be... Maybe it was that ghost who knocked my brother's wand away in class!"

This has become a story circulating in private. Some believe that a powerful, hidden ghost lurks in the castle—perhaps the resentful spirit of Dumbledore—protecting Hogwarts students from Death Eaters in crucial moments.

When a person's life is always sunny, peaceful, and smooth, they will scoff at things that are ethereal and unrealistic. But when darkness falls and they encounter setbacks, they will place their hopes in the mysterious.

Moreover, this explains why there is still no portrait of Dumbledore.

But in fact, Prareas believes that you don't need to be very powerful to do these things; you just need to master a few techniques.

“Ridiculous!” Snape snapped at Alecto in his icy voice. “I told you, not a single ghost has appeared in the school!”

The Carol siblings weren't entirely convinced of this. If there really were new ghosts, they could simply ask Barrow the Bloody. Since Snape, who had been the headmaster of Slytherin, was certain there weren't any, then there weren't any.

But these two incidents couldn't be explained, and the two of them needed an explanation, so they could only shift the blame onto an unknown ghost.

Alecto glanced away, inwardly cursing Snape to the core.

She thought, as the murderer, Snape certainly couldn't admit to it!

Damn it, why isn't Dumbledore's ghost taking revenge on Snape? Instead, it's been targeting her and her brother! He was senile when he was alive, and he's still not lucid even in death!

Seeing the tense atmosphere, Prarese stepped in to smooth things over: "The ghost incident was just the students' way of making merry when they were powerless. Who can say that this wasn't due to the good management of Mr. Snape and the two Professors Carlow?"

Upon hearing this, the Carlo siblings' expressions softened slightly, but not by much.

"Undeniably, those students were cunning, and we were unable to find any evidence against them. Now, the most important thing is to handle the aftermath properly, minimize the losses, and prevent this from happening again."

"Fortunately, I had made two preparations. There was still a small amount of herbs in the classroom, so there shouldn't be any problems. I can barely keep up with the research. If it happened again, I wouldn't be able to make any progress on my experiments."

Praris whispered, "I think the Dark Lord won't allow a second failure, will he?"

As soon as she finished speaking, the entire office fell silent. The Carol siblings could almost imagine the methods Voldemort would use to punish them!

“Miss Prarese is right.” After a pause, Snape’s eyes flashed coldly as he commanded, “Now, go and take stock of the damage, check for any usable herbs, and make sure no other items are missing or damaged.”

"As for the two Professors Carol—" Snape warned, "It's a grave mistake for a wizard to patrol alone, without a partner or backup! Such a thing must never be allowed to happen again!"

Snape's underground office.

Praris looked down at the table, its surface charred black; it was clearly unusable. On the table lay the ashes of herbs, burned by magic.

Seeing this, Praris's lips curled up slightly, and he was in a good mood.

Aside from Hannah Abbott, no one knew what the burned herbs looked like. The office was so dark, and the situation so urgent, there's a good chance she didn't even see what was on the table before starting to burn them. Besides, how could this DA tell the Death Eaters what she saw and heard?

Since that's the case, Praris can make things up at will; she can just write whatever good stuff she wants in the accident report—no wonder she specifically applied for a new batch of raw materials after the first phase of the experiment.

Of course, Praris's childhood instilled in her a good habit of not wasting things. Of the things Hannah burned, aside from the thin layer used for disguise, there were almost no rare herbs. Even among the herbs used for disguise, some were merely rare, practically useless!

Praris walked to the window, restored it to its original state, and reapplied the protective magic she had removed.

Okay, now she has to act out a bad woman who is impotent, furious, moody, and neurotic, and she also has to write the accident report.

Hogwarts Library.

Pansy gently touched Daphne's arm and winked at her. Daphne closed her eyes and shook her head.

Praliss had been looking very unhappy ever since Amycus Caro called her into his office. She looked better even when Draco was breaking up with her.

Praris sat in his seat, writing something on parchment at an extremely slow pace.

She frowned, bit her lip from time to time, and occasionally held her breath for a few seconds because she was lost in thought, then exhaled heavily when she remembered she should breathe.

She would sometimes touch her forehead with her left hand, sometimes prop her cheek with her right hand, sometimes cover her mouth with her hand, and sometimes unconsciously rub her quill pen.

Even if Pansy imagined Merlin battling the British Prime Minister, he couldn't fathom what could possibly cause Prarese such a dilemma.

"Is it difficult to write?" Pansy asked in a breathy voice.

Praris quickly covered the parchment with his hand and gave a dry laugh: "It's alright. It's alright."

—All of this came to the attention of the DA members in the library.

“You didn’t see what Prince looked like!” Leo exclaimed dramatically. “She looked like she was struggling to write Snape’s obituary!”

That's really awful.

If Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who knew about Prader's relationship with Snape, were here, they would definitely stop Leo from saying that. Unfortunately, there are no "ifs".

To others, Snape and Prader were just Professor X and his favorite students, similar to Malfoy, but she was more capable and therefore more valued by Snape.

Since Snape was the murderer of Dumbledore, then Prader is Voldemort's henchman. The master and apprentice were in cahoots, completely in cahoots!

Upon hearing Leo's words, Neville and Ginny both frowned instinctively, yet tacitly condoned DA's revelry. This was not the time to spoil the mood.

Ginny cleared her throat, raised her glass of drink, and shouted, "To our brave and fearless warriors—Hannah and Ernie!"

When her name was called, Hannah lowered her head shyly and whispered, "I didn't expect I could do it..."

Ernie, on the contrary, clenched his fist and pounded his left chest, laughing as he said, "To Hufflepuff!"

Everyone clapped excitedly, so enthusiastically that one wondered if their hands were numb. The Hufflepuffs who had won the honor were even more excited, like wild monkeys in the mountains, letting out strange shouts.

Ginny waited a moment, then made a pressing motion with her hand. Seeing that all the DA members had gradually quieted down, she raised her glass again: "A toast to all the partners who participated in the operation last night! You guys did a great job!"

Seamus shouted from the side, "Homage to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw!"

Everyone present cheered with joy. It was a rare victory, ingeniously designed, with no one injured. It dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Death Eaters and Slytherins, and to some extent disrupted Voldemort's plans.

To celebrate their victory, the boys and girls held hands and danced in circles, like happy little birds hopping around. Padma and Parvati, hand in hand, swayed from side to side as they sang a song by Setina Warbeck.

Hannah, who was somewhat tone-deaf, still sang in a low, muffled voice that only she could hear, her round face flushed as she clapped along with Susan to keep the rhythm for the Petit sisters, feeling both happy and helpless.

Anthony and a few other Ravenclaws boasted about how they and the Gryffindors had miraculously walked Alecto back and forth the previous night. He said, "Like walking a dog!"

In this extremely simple celebration, everyone was so happy, and feelings of happiness seemed to fly everywhere like dust. It was hard to imagine that this was Hogwarts in 1998, a Hogwarts student under the rule and oppression of Death Eaters.

Neville and Ginny sat on the floor against the wall, smiling as they watched everyone shake off the gloom of the past few weeks. They exchanged a glance, and Ginny raised her glass: "To our Miss Talia."

"To our Miss Talia."

Neville repeated Ginny's words, and his glass clinked against Ginny's glass.

However, under the shadow of war, happiness was as rare as a sunny day during London's rainy season.

Prares ultimately submitted three reports.

The first document is an accident report, which objectively and accurately describes the entire process of the accident, along with a detailed loss report.

The damage report was very well measured. Not many medicinal herbs were burned, but they were all expensive and rare varieties, with lavender being an exception.

Prarese couldn't make things seem too serious, or Professor Snape would be punished, nor could she act as if nothing had happened—she also needed to pave the way for a complete halt to the experiments.

The second document was a detailed experimental research report.

Over the past few days, Prarese has conducted several radical experiments, focusing on a system where each side has its own advantages and disadvantages, regardless of the consequences for the other.

Several potent formulas intervene in emotions and the mind, almost touching the boundaries of the soul, but the side effects are more colorful than Merlin's floral underpants:

Some people may experience symptoms of extreme mental excitement, leading to continuous insomnia. Even when they are so tired that they are almost unconscious and extremely exhausted, they still cannot fall asleep.

Some of these methods seem to restore the test subjects to normal, but their actual effect is even more sedative than tranquilizers, directly emasculating the subjects' emotions and making them numb and indifferent—which is absolutely unacceptable to wizards whose emotions are highly linked to magic.

Some may experience memory and cognitive confusion, such as not being able to find their way back to the nest, not recognizing their own kind, forgetting how to call out, and so on.

"Research shows that any attempt to deeply intervene in the fundamental aspects of the mind has a very high probability of leading to irreversible depletion of magical power, and even memory, mental, or cognitive disorders. This confirms the dangers of this field. Researchers recommend a long-term and gradual approach to repair."