Chapter 298: Time Management

Harry returned to the dormitory an hour later than usual. Luo En and Neville stared at him with those strange eyes again.

"What did you go do?" Neville asked with burning eyes.

"I and Zhang Qiu..." Harry noticed Neville's eyes light up all of a sudden. "Discussed the domestic situation, and then wrote homework together."

"And then?" Neville was a bit disappointed, but still asked persistently.

"Then I came back." Harry shrugged.

Luo En couldn't help laughing, and Neville said with a confused face: "Didn't you talk to Malfoy about emotional problems? Pan Xi should have told you, right?"

"Right, I know, but first of all, the domestic situation is more complicated, and secondly, there is more homework," Harry revealed a smile. "We got along very happily, but it was too late today, so I thought, next time."

"I say, you have to lose a Sickle to me." Luo En patted Neville on the shoulder.

Neville unwillingly grabbed a handful of change from his robe pocket, then said with dissatisfaction: "You can't do this, Harry, you can't."

In the rest of the week, they made two more bets when Harry returned late, and Luo En always won. Because he knew that Harry had to wait until the newspaper didn't have news and the teacher didn't give homework before he would consider kissing; and Zhang Qiu's personality wouldn't take the initiative to invite a kiss, and she actually valued news and homework quite a lot.

By Friday, just when Luo En was looking forward to the weekend, Harry felt a bit uneasy in his heart. The weekend meant three meetings plus one activity for him. If he was unlucky, these things added together would fill the two days completely—he didn't even dare to guarantee he had enough time to finish his homework, let alone participate in Quidditch training.

What made him feel even more annoyed was that this Order of the Phoenix meeting not only took a very, very long time, electing a series of positions that he didn't know were useful or not, but also didn't achieve any decent progress in serious matters. When several young members reported that the Horcrux was not here or there, and Doge encouraged them by saying "at least we ruled out wrong answers," Harry pessimistically thought that if Lestrange moved the Horcrux again to a place the Order of the Phoenix members had checked, it would become dark under the lamp.

The election took too much time, so when Harry returned to school, he could only eat something hurriedly and then immediately go to participate in the Deng Buliduo's Army gathering. Kleist patiently explained the techniques of the Disarming Charm to the students. These contents might be a bit novel to Harry, but to those students who had been fighting in the Dueling Club in the fourth year, they were just basic skills.

When the Deng Buliduo's Army activity was nearing its end, he saw Zhang Qiu walking toward him. Harry was sure she originally intended to say something, but Zhang Qiu saw the exhaustion on his face that he couldn't hide, so a thousand words turned into a "get some good rest."

The next day, Harry seized the time to write some homework, and then he had to go to Malfoy Manor to sit in a meeting with a group of annoying Death Eaters, especially since there was a White House agent William and a Ministry of Magic special envoy Umbridge mixed in.

Umbridge looked much more honest. She just smiled falsely, sat there, and didn't say a word. And William tried to instigate the Death Eaters to launch another attack on Deng Buliduo's reputation, but was rejected by Lu Xiusi. Along with that, Sirius and Harry also immediately expressed support for Lu Xiusi's rejection, so this matter was shelved.

This counted as some good news, Harry thought. Although the Order of the Phoenix failed to achieve decent progress, the Death Eaters didn't either. And, at least the Order of the Phoenix failed because of methods, ability, or luck, while the Death Eaters were completely because of an incorrect attitude—they actually didn't care about the Horcruxes, but were staring at their own interests with different ghosts in their hearts. Hoffa should have been the one most concerned about the Horcruxes. Harry felt that according to the persona, he should scold them, but he was worried about really waking those two up, so he just pretended to be sulking.

The only time in the whole weekend that made Harry feel a little relaxed was the three hours at Torchwood on Sunday night. Although Draco and Pan Xi couldn't be considered true friends, at least it was quite relaxed when being with them, without any pressure.

When Harry opened his eyes and found that the new day was Monday, he felt a bit confused: why did it feel like he hadn't rested at all, and new things started to follow one after another?

Despite the sleep-catching in the History of Magic class, Harry still felt a bit listless. Even the Potions class, which was always a sure thing, had flaws in the potion he made due to a momentary negligence.

"Potter, stay after class." Snape looked down at him from above. This professor who should have been busier than Harry was full of energy at this time, and there was no sign of fatigue at all.

"Alright." Harry felt a bit guilty. Since the start of school, this was the first time the two of them had talked alone.

"I noticed your mental state is not good." Snape said while tidying up the lesson plan. "Too busy, eh?"

"Yes." Harry said a bit embarrassedly.

"I think you need some time management." Snape said. "Hoffa doesn't need to go every time, right?"

Harry's heart was grabbed all of a sudden. He looked at Snape in horror, a question churning in his mind: was it only Snape who knew, or did other Death Eaters know too?

"For a qualified wizard politician, Legilimency and Occlumency are essential skills." Snape said in a measured tone. "If you can't learn such profound magic, then remember, you must keep calm at all times."

Harry's cold sweat gradually stopped flowing. He quickly realized that perhaps only Snape discovered this point, because only Snape was in contact with both Harry Potter and Hoffa Bach.

"You have too much opinion on William, this is one of the flaws." Snape said in a low voice. "But fortunately, only I have discovered this point so far. I don't think Lu Xiusi or Bella will think in this direction. They will only suspect that Hoffa has a connection with Yanayev."

"The more you go, the more flaws you have, this is one thing; your energy can't keep up, brain fatigue, this is another thing." Snape continued. "And the Order of the Phoenix, a few old antiques with a bunch of idiots, you won't really count on them, right? Then you don't need to go every time."

"You are right, sir." Harry echoed. He indeed began to feel disappointed in the ability of the Order of the Phoenix.

"If you want to become a leader, a very important point is to understand which work can be given to others, and which work is indispensable to you." Snape narrowed his eyes slightly. "If you just want to get through this year, then you will only be busier in the future, understand?"

Perhaps Snape himself had just realized this truth, Harry thought with some ill intent. However, this didn't hinder him from humbly admitting: Snape was right.

"By the way, I would like to ask, about the Senior Investigator matter..." Since he was here, Harry wanted to ask.

"I think you need to leave quickly, if you don't want to miss lunch." Snape avoided this topic.

Harry obediently said goodbye to him, then walked toward the Great Hall. In fact, if Snape avoided talking about the investigator, this exactly showed that the investigator matter was his idea.

Of course, the time management Snape mentioned was also very important, Harry thought he was right. In fact, during the summer vacation, the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix also held meetings, but Harry didn't go every time back then. And recalling, from the summer vacation to now, these two groups almost still hadn't achieved any progress. If the Death Eaters were because of different ghosts in their hearts, then Harry suspected that the situation of the Order of the Phoenix might be more similar to Torchwood: find a theme as an excuse, and then gather together to chat—if the topic chatted about was profound, it would make one look very powerful, that's all.

If these two meetings were dropped, there would still be Deng Buliduo's Army and Torchwood. And the people of Torchwood were already racking their brains to master Deng Buliduo's Army, and Harry thought that Deng Buliduo's Army was not only not necessarily useful, but even not necessarily reliable: if he needed to lead a student combat team to fight against the Death Eaters, he would rather choose to find people from the Lionheart Society.

Considering that the essence of Deng Buliduo's Army was the product of Harry's own compromise to Torchwood, he realized that the Deng Buliduo's Army activity on Saturday night didn't need to be attended every time either. But he didn't have much else to do with this extra time. He couldn't let the children see the leader of Deng Buliduo's Army sitting in the library writing homework during the Deng Buliduo's Army activity, right?

Then the answer was obvious. At this time, he could go on a date with Zhang Qiu in the Chamber of Secrets, or go to Gilneas to have fun.

After putting down these pressures he imposed on himself, Harry happily discovered that he could actually enjoy campus life like an ordinary student, write homework, play Quidditch, go out for a trip on the weekend, how happy and free it was.

However, Harry couldn't help but think again, according to what Snape said, what things were "indispensable to me"?

More importantly, one of the important reasons that allowed Harry to enjoy campus life safely was that the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix were more incompetent than he imagined. These two seemingly powerful organizations were really unsatisfactory in terms of efficiency. After the most impulsive, tense early stage, they now almost had no desire to go to war, just pretending while tacitly understanding, while fighting wits and courage around the Horcruxes—no, rather than fighting wits and courage, it was better to say it was chickens pecking at each other.

In this situation, Harry couldn't help but think, should he put down his worries and return to a peaceful life, or, could he start to take the initiative to lay out and seriously plan a plan to completely solve the Death Eaters? ===== CHAPTER 299 =====