Chapter 390: The Professor's Transfer

It was Harry's first time encountering a difference between so-called "assignments" and ordinary teaching; Snape seemed to have never assigned homework, and his only classmate had absolutely no desire to communicate with him. Aside from knowing he had to invent a spell as soon as possible, Harry only received a reading list.

Furthermore, over the next few weeks, he only saw Snape for that brief moment on Saturdays; at other times, he couldn't even find him during meals.

Harry had once felt that Snape's ideas were very visionary, but ever since they encountered an enemy suspected to be "Night Rogue" near Hagrid's hut, Harry hadn't seen anything related to Kamen Riders in the school. As time passed, he even began to suspect that Snape had already found a way to deal with the Riders, and there was no need to worry about his own spell anymore.

In mid-October, when they went to Hogsmeade for the first time, a wild wind was blowing outside. Harry and Luo En layered on several sweaters, then put on cloaks, scarves, and gloves. They ran into Zhang Qiu and Marietta at the school gate, so they walked toward Hogsmeade together.

"It's really cold out here," Marietta greeted first. "Hi, Harry, Luo En."

"Hello." Harry and Luo En nodded at her in unison.

"I really want to ask, are you really the Half-Blood Prince?" Marietta leaned in close to him curiously. "Last time you used Levicorpus—"

"What about that spell?" Harry had indeed used it once or twice while pondering spells himself.

"That was invented by the Half-Blood Prince," Marietta said mysteriously.

"Give it a rest." Harry shook his head. "As far as I know, this was a very popular little joke twenty years ago. You should have a limit to your fantasies; don't attribute every good thing to that Prince."

"It's not a fantasy." Marietta gave him a dissatisfied look.

Along the way, no one spoke. They just wrapped their faces in scarves and walked along the cold, deserted road. Harry felt a bit regretful; he wondered if he had said the wrong thing, but Levicorpus was certainly not a rare spell. He thought to himself that Sirius and Lu Ping had both used it.

Harry glanced at Zhang Qiu. He felt a bit embarrassed to mention the Riders. Zhang Qiu had written letters to get him the belt and the empty bottle, but Harry couldn't even buckle the belt around his waist. Whether it was the new belt or Luo En's belt, once it was in Harry's hands, it had absolutely no reaction. This always made him feel like he had let down Zhang Qiu's good intentions.

Finally, when they squeezed into the Three Broomsticks pub, perhaps because they no longer had to worry about the cold wind blowing down their throats, or perhaps because they saw something different, Zhang Qiu started a new topic: "Look over there."

Following Zhang Qiu's gesture, Harry saw Hermione and McLaggen in the corner.

McLaggen clearly felt very good about himself; he kept blabbering on and on, while Hermione looked at him from time to time, then at the bar, tapping the table with one hand, looking distracted.

"This is quite surprising." Harry nodded. "Hermione can actually tolerate this big oaf."

"I thought you were going to say, there's actually someone pursuing Hermione." Luo En said sourly. "But, once I saw it was McLaggen, I wasn't surprised at all."

"Do you have an opinion about McLaggen?" Marietta asked curiously.

"Not really, how should I put it, he's definitely not a bad person," Harry said with a complex expression, "but he just makes it easy for people to dislike him."

"We call this emotional intelligence." Zhang Qiu brought over four butterbeers. "This kind of person clearly has low emotional intelligence; he can't distinguish other people's emotions, so he easily annoys people."

"Oh, really? Then my emotional intelligence probably isn't high either." Marietta said slyly. "Otherwise, why would I feel that Luo En seems a bit jealous?"

"Yeah, of course I'm not happy. In such good weather, our Keeper isn't even training." Luo En said stiffly. "He should be working twice as hard; the new recruits these days are getting more and more disobedient."

"Good thing the Keeper doesn't really need the cooperation of teammates." Harry sighed. "Let him be."

Just as they continued to observe McLaggen and Hermione's terrible date, the welcoming wind chimes rang again, and two tall figures appeared at the door.

"Slughorn and Tsugami Shouichi?" Zhang Qiu demonstrated the standard pronunciation of the new teacher's name for Harry again. "Why did they get together?"

"That's not hard to guess; Snape wants to win him over." Luo En was now able to see a bit of social nuance.

"But that shouldn't be Slughorn." Harry shook his head. "Forget it, let the professors' business be."

"Haha, children." The two professors walked toward an empty spot—the table next to them. Slughorn had already greeted them in a booming voice. "Harry and Luo En, such classic good friends! You've rarely come to the Slug Club lately!"

"Ah, that's because we," Harry pretended to be helpless, "we have to attend Quidditch training, Professor."

"Yes, Harry and I are preparing to transition to Beaters; we have to train hard." Luo En chimed in with a serious air.

In fact, the real reason was that they didn't like the atmosphere of the Slug Club. Slughorn was too utilitarian; after learning that Belby didn't have a good relationship with his successful uncle, he immediately treated him with cold indifference. Although Harry didn't like Belby's airhead nature either, he still felt Slughorn went too far. It was from that time on that he stopped getting close to Slughorn.

"Alright, alright, oh right, that's Hermione." Slughorn waved his hand, not minding at all. "Her performance in class is truly brilliant; she has overshadowed you several times. Of course, I can tell you might be letting her win..."

"I'm not." Harry said dryly. "Hermione might have suddenly had a breakthrough this year; she has come up with several brilliant ideas that I have never even seen before."

"Is that so?" Slughorn leaned down and looked at Harry. "She hopes I will write a recommendation letter for her. Aren't you helping her because of this?"

"I didn't deliberately let her win." Harry was very happy to help Hermione at times like this. "But she is indeed excellent; I think she deserves it."

"Alright, I'll go see her." As Slughorn stood up, Mr. Shouichi from the other side leaned over.

"Are you talking about the girl over there?" he asked. "I remember her, a very excellent child, her name is Miaoli, right?"

"It's Hermione." Harry corrected.

"Eh? Alright, then is the one next to Mo Li her boyfriend?"

Harry unexpectedly discovered that this professor seemed quite easy to get along with in private.

"No, just a," he explained for the professor, "uh, suitor, I guess."

"Oh—is that so." Shouichi stretched his neck and looked over. "But Hermi seems a bit unhappy, doesn't she?"

"Indeed, McLaggen is quite annoying sometimes." Luo En said coldly.

"Very well, I'll go teach him a lesson."

"Ah?" "What?" "Don't, don't, don't!"

The four students grabbed the somewhat impulsive professor together. Harry felt his thought process was a bit abnormal.

It didn't require anyone else to intervene. After Slughorn's interruption, Hermione found an excuse herself and pushed the door open to leave alone, leaving McLaggen staring foolishly at the unfinished beer in front of him. Moreover, judging from the fact that he would giggle foolishly from time to time, perhaps he still thought this date was very successful.

Slughorn returned to the table on this side, sat down with a thud, and poked Harry in the chest affectionately.

"I just invited her to the Halloween party. What do you think? Should we hold a masquerade ball?"

Zhang Qiu stopped her hand holding the beer and looked at him calmly.

"I heard you had a great time when you were at Beauxbatons. I think that's very interesting," Slughorn continued. "Snape is still the same, planning to just hold a dinner party and end it hastily. I said how can that be? Eating without exercising will make you fat, haha!"

"Of course, I mean, it's still limited to members of the Slug Club," Slughorn looked at them with a smile, "but you can bring a dance partner. How about it?"

Harry glanced at Zhang Qiu, but she seemed to be daydreaming, so Harry poked her.

"Ah, what? A ball? I have no opinion." Zhang Qiu said.

"It's a masquerade ball." Slughorn repeated.

The expressions of both people were a bit off. Harry suddenly realized that "masquerade" and "masked rider" were homophones.

"Ah, Luo En, who are you planning to bring?" he spoke up to interrupt.

"Me?" Luo En subconsciously glanced at the gate. "Haven't thought about it, whatever."

"How can you say whatever." Harry tried to use a teasing tone. "There's still a big girl with shining eyes right here."

"Alright, Mary, are you willing to go with me," before Luo En finished his sentence, Marietta immediately grabbed his hand excitedly.

"I'm willing, of course I'm willing, to be precise, I'm flattered!" she said incoherently. "Have you decided what clothes to wear? I have a purple velvet robe—"

"I'll emphasize again, what you are attending is a masquerade ball." Slughorn said unhurriedly.

Harry's eyes darted between him and Zhang Qiu, then he immediately stood up and said, "Then we really have to go back and pick carefully; ordinary clothes won't do, Luo En!"

The four students left the pub in a hurry. In front of Marietta, Zhang Qiu said with dissatisfaction, "That was definitely a probe; it was too obvious, one could even say it was a warning!"

"But was that also a warning?" Harry stopped his steps. "Or, was Slughorn actually hinting and reminding us just now?"

Not far away, in the bleak autumn wind, stood a silver-black Rider, the red pipelines on his body glowing faintly. ===== CHAPTER 391 =====