Chapter 269: Clever Plan

Early the next morning, when Harry saw the class schedule, he suddenly felt that talking or whatever wasn't very important—two History of Magic, two Potions, Muggle Studies, two Defense Against the Dark Arts, his courses were packed full.

"I really hope Fred and George can research Skiving Snackboxes as soon as possible," Luo En sighed.

"Actually, a version has already been researched. Just a small piece will make you vomit non-stop," Fred leaned over. "Just one Galleon."

"That's not cheap," Luo En protested. "I'll pay six Sickles at most."

"One Galleon is only because it has no antidote. To be precise, you vomit non-stop, so you can't swallow the antidote," George shrugged. "We originally planned to sell it for three Galleons."

"But I'm your own brother," Luo En said discontentedly. "Can't you give me some discount?"

"Of course, if you buy a lot at once, of course there's a discount. Three Galleons for one, ten Galleons for three, not bad, right?" Fred said while forking a piece of smoked fish.

Before Luo En could figure out his fingers, Harry had stuffed the class schedule into his pocket and then led him toward the classroom.

"If it were previous years, of course it wouldn't matter much. Copying Zhang Qiu's notes would get by," Harry said. "But this year there is the OWL exam. For the sake of exam results, you should listen to the class properly."

"What's the use of doing well in exams?" Luo En said discontentedly. "It's just finding a job. Have you considered giving up these exams? After all, you have such high prestige, you can live well even without exams."

"How can I live well?" Harry said discontentedly. "As far as I know, there is only one profession that doesn't need to look at exam results, and that is the Dark Lord."

History of Magic is recognized as the most boring course. Professor Binns speaks with a wheeze, dragging his tone, and can make people drowsy within ten minutes. If the weather is just right and hot, this process only takes five minutes.

The content of this class is the Giant War. The Giant War in the wizarding world is inherently uninteresting, nothing more than some brainless big fools fighting each other. Compared with things like Jotunheim he heard in the Muggle world, it can be said to be boring to the extreme.

When Harry felt that he was about to be unable to resist the sleepiness, he made a decision: instead of spending this hour and twenty minutes in a dream, he might as well think carefully about the countermeasures for talking to Malfoy.

In Malfoy's cognition, should Harry know about the existence of Horcruxes? For Lu Xiusi, this is obvious, otherwise where would he gather Death Eaters and talk about collecting Horcruxes? He was originally based on Harry's claim of resurrecting Voldemort to do so.

However, for Draco, he might not necessarily know about this. The reason is very simple: if Lu Xiusi wants to hide the diary first to avoid the Death Eaters finding all the Horcruxes too quickly, then he will definitely try his best to cover up the existence of the diary. Therefore, Lu Xiusi would definitely not tell Draco about the Horcruxes. This is to avoid him suspecting the diary. This kind of thing, the fewer people who know, the less risk of leakage.

However, Harry pondered, his basis for concluding that the diary is also a Horcrux has two points: first, Tom Marvolo Riddle in the diary is Voldemort himself; second, when Zhang Qiu wrote the Orthodox Descent of the Divine Alliance Talisman on the book, she found that it might harbor a soul.

According to Sirius's intelligence, Lu Xiusi, while already responsible for guarding a big snake, might not necessarily suspect that the diary Voldemort gave him in his early years is a Horcrux. He would probably suspect that it is just something that harbors thoughts like a portrait, and might not necessarily have chatted with the diary to the point of exchanging names.

And although Draco knows the owner of the diary is Tang Mu, he might not know Voldemort's real name. Lu Xiusi wouldn't quietly tell his child such things (even he himself might not necessarily know). Moreover, if Draco doesn't know about Horcruxes, he wouldn't think about it at all.

So, for Harry, first of all, he must probe whether Draco knows the diary is a Horcrux. If a fifth-year student has the concept of Horcruxes, it is mostly because he heard Harry's rhetoric about Voldemort. Harry suddenly realized that Draco's source of information could only be Lu Xiusi, so once Draco seems to know about Horcruxes, he is mostly acting to him, wanting to trick him into taking out the diary.

Consider this worst-case scenario first. What if Lu Xiusi and Draco are in cahoots? However, thinking about it from another angle, Lu Xiusi's purpose is to maintain the diary not being known by others, so as to facilitate his slow winning over of Death Eaters. He might even intend to let Draco deliberately reveal flaws, thereby inducing Harry to take away the diary and hide it.

There is a very wonderful information asymmetry in that Lu Xiusi must think Harry is committed to collecting and destroying Horcruxes, and would absolutely not want to risk letting the Death Eaters gather all the Horcruxes. Therefore, he must think Harry values the diary very much. But in fact, Harry never worries about whether the Death Eaters gather all the Horcruxes. On the contrary, if the diary appears in Draco's hands and is talked about at the Death Eater meeting, it should be Lu Xiusi's turn to be in a dilemma.

When the Death Eaters find that all the Horcruxes are complete, and only the ring is in the hands of the Order of the Phoenix, how much price will Lu Xiusi have to pay to convince Bella not to go to war for the time being? Or, how should he win over Regulus and Snape, so that they also refuse to resurrect Voldemort? Moreover, what is even more wonderful is that he also has Hofa, an ant on the balance. As long as he operates properly, he can definitely blackmail Lu Xiusi for a large sum of money through Sirius without starting a war.

Of course, consider the more optimistic situation, that is, Draco and Lu Xiusi haven't communicated. He is really having a falling out with his family for personal reasons. Then, he just needs to talk to him about student clubs, and let him add weight to Lu Xiusi bit by bit, which is a good plan. As for the Horcrux and diary plan, it can be left to a more suitable time to ensure that Sirius can get the greatest benefit from it.

When Professor Binns announced the end of class, Harry happened to straighten out his thinking for dealing with Malfoy. He felt refreshed. Turning his head, he saw Luo En, who was sleepy, grabbing his quill in vain, and more than half of his parchment was ghost

Just as Luo En was continuously expressing his dread of Potions class, and Harry was pondering where to make up for the missed lesson, someone rounded the corner and appeared before them—it was Zhang Qiu.

"By the way, Harry, did I forget to tell you about the OWL?" she said, "Do you want my notes from last year?"

"That's a godsend," Harry nodded toward her, "You saved our lives."

"But weren't you at Beauxbatons all last year? Are your notes really okay?" Luo En asked suddenly, "And speaking of which, how did you do on your exams?"

"Of course, I got all Os," she said coldly, "Fine, goodbye!"

Watching Zhang Qiu walk away, Harry said listlessly, "How many more times are you going to provoke her? You idiot."

"I was just trying to take the opportunity to congratulate her," Luo En shrank his neck, feeling a bit guilty, "but she's become a bit lacking in a sense of humor."

They stopped the topic in time and walked quickly to the dungeon classroom. Now that Snape was Headmaster, the discipline in the entire class was incomparable to previous years; almost everyone, regardless of whether they approved of this Headmaster, pretended to be very serious about listening to the lecture.

"I must remind you that this year is a very important one," he said sternly, "If any of you fail to achieve a passing grade in the OWL exams, then I will be... very angry."

His gaze fell on Luo En's face, and he had to shrink toward Harry's side.

"Good, then today we will discuss a potion common in exams: the Draught of Peace; it can calm and soothe those restless and anxious emotions," Snape nodded slightly, "This is not only a key point for the Potions exam, I believe it also has a very important role in other exams."

Snape waved his wand, and the brewing steps for the potion appeared on the blackboard. Harry quickly read through it and then began to carefully prepare it according to the steps.

"Look at what kind of thing this is in your cauldron!" Snape's voice suddenly rang out, "You look absent-minded, Draco."

Harry saw Draco nervously fiddling with his cauldron, while Pan Xi leaned in close to his side, gently stroking his back.

"Before I lose my temper, there is still time to redo a batch," Snape said, and then began to patrol the classroom again.

Although Draco was not a top student, he wouldn't make mistakes when following the steps of potion-making. If he really had something on his mind, it would explain this well.

However, a voice in Harry's heart asked him, how can you be sure he isn't acting for you to see?

Harry observed Draco carefully with a scrutinizing gaze, wanting to see some clues. Suddenly, his attention shifted to Pan Xi beside Draco, and immediately after, he spotted Daphne Greengrass in the crowd.

If Draco was preparing to act, then he certainly wouldn't be willing to present the diary at a Death Eater meeting. Harry thought, this was a loophole he hadn't noticed before. But now, there was a clever way to avoid the question of whether Draco was truly having a conflict with his family or playing a trick.

Regardless of whether he was acting, he couldn't drag Pan Xi along to act with him. Because the most critical issue was Greengrass; judging by Daphne's appearance, her sister certainly wouldn't be ugly, and at the very least, defeating Pan Xi would be easy. So, as long as he steered the topic toward Draco's marriage, Pan Xi would definitely be happy to ruthlessly undermine Lu Xiusi.

Even better, if the person chosen to challenge Lu Xiusi with the diary at the Death Eater meeting was changed from Draco to Pan Xi, it would not only seem more reasonable to others, but to Lu Xiusi, the problem would also appear much more serious.