Chapter 403: Concealment

"That's impossible, I have classes with her almost every Saturday," Harry says decisively. "Her eyes are emerald green, I remember that very clearly."

"I saw them as emerald green too, it seems," Ron adds.

"Hmm..." Xie Nuofeiliusi is silent for a moment. "That means something caused her pupil color to change? Could it be that after learning about Snape's past, she deliberately used magic to change her pupil color?"

"But there's no point in doing that," Lu Na says. "Since Snape has already seen her wine-red eyes, wouldn't changing them to emerald green seem deliberate?"

"That's exactly what's needed—deliberateness," Zhang Qiu, who has been watching the show, suddenly speaks up. "By doing this, she can implicitly show her feelings to Snape, and Snape not objecting means he has already started to waver and hesitate."

"Then how should we write our article?" Ron asks. "Write the situation clearly, and then point out that Mia has a crush on the old bat?"

"Are you planning to push all the responsibility onto a girl?" Lu Na says with dissatisfaction.

"And Professor Snape might not agree with us doing this, because as Zhang Qiu said, he might be caught in some kind of hesitation..." Harry says, feeling very troubled.

"How about this, Editor-in-Chief Lovegood," Zhang Qiu makes a sensible suggestion, "let's change our approach. Pretend you never saw Mia and Snape in Diagon Alley, and all the information in this last section comes from an interview with Harry Potter."

"Doesn't that mean once the report is off, it's Harry's responsibility?" Ron looks a bit uneasy. "Why don't we make it a bit more vague?"

"Let's do that. We'll only reveal two pieces of information: one, Mia is participating in a new project of Snape's; two, Mia's pupil color is emerald green. Just write these two points, then add some bold speculations, stir up some excitement. I think this is a compromise. What do you think, Mr. Editor-in-Chief?"

"Children, I have no objections." Xie Nuofeiliusi agrees with Harry's opinion, and he immediately starts modifying the manuscript.

In no time, Xie Nuofeiliusi has finished rewriting the last paragraph. He is indeed a veteran editor, and his grasp of the final draft is excellent—it's the kind of level where readers can laugh out loud, and Snape won't feel offended.

After reading the manuscript, Harry also asks about the information of the original submitter. As expected, the signature on the manuscript is written as Cavin Sangster. Indeed, no matter what force is laying out a plan here, they wouldn't let Harry catch their tail so easily. The only thing that is certain is that the submitter is someone who knows Cavin Sangster, which at least rules out some possibilities.

When Harry returns to school, he notices Snape standing at the school gate, and his eyes are fixed directly on him.

"Idler Potter?" His tone is a bit heavy. "Just came back from Xie Nuofeiliusi's, hmph?"

"Ah? How did you—"

"Do you think I would be completely unconcerned and ignorant about the public opinion field?" Snape scans the others with a displeased face. "Come to my office to find me later, Potter."

"It's ruined, I seem to have disrupted the professor's plan," Harry says, looking at Snape's receding figure, scratching his head in hindsight.

"But that's not right," Ron shakes his head. "The original manuscript didn't include Mia. And how did he know we went to Lovegood's house?"

"I've got it!" Zhang Qiu suddenly reveals a mysterious smile, immediately attracting everyone's attention. "The plan Snape had disrupted wasn't actually aimed at the person behind the scenes; he originally wanted to test Mia's feelings."

"Ah?" Harry and Ron are stunned, while Lu Na's eyes light up.

"Yes, if it were just ordinary counter-moves, the professor wouldn't be so secretive; he would have told you," Zhang Qiu says, lowering her voice. "There is only one reason he did this: he wanted to take this opportunity to see Mia's feelings."

"According to that, the professor is also really... moved this time?" Harry asks, also lowering his voice.

"Eh!" Zhang Qiu suddenly straightens up and raises her tone. "Don't talk nonsense, I'm just guessing randomly, it can't be taken seriously."

"Alright, alright," Harry smiles helplessly. "I'm going to the Headmaster's office now—I'll try to forget what you just said."

As he walks on the road, Harry follows up on Ron's question: why did Snape know they had been to Lovegood's house? This question is easy to answer, of course: Mr. Lovegood and Snape have private contact. This means Snape must have seen the original manuscript, and Lovegood didn't mention this at all in front of him. What are they hiding? Zhang Qiu must have reached her answer based on this logic.

Furthermore, she deliberately skipped the reasoning process, probably to take care of Lu Na's feelings, because this fact would make Xie Nuofeiliusi look a bit... opportunistic.

When Harry arrives at Snape's office, the professor's mood seems to have eased a lot. He greets Harry to sit down in a flat tone, and then starts to explain his original plan.

"... The reason I let that article be published and reported was to cover up the importance of this project, Potter."

"You should know that in order to counter the Rider system, we have set up different projects in different places, and this project looks like the most promising one."

"When Xie Nuofeiliusi made a mess of Mia, I realized this was a good opportunity to lure the opposition to act, and then we could make the project public. According to general logic, this would mean the project between you and Mia is not important, and when we expose the true content of the project, others will only sneer at it, or even suspect that this project is just a pretext I used to train you."

"I deliberately pretended not to know Xie Nuofeiliusi and pretended not to have seen the manuscript just to reinforce this misunderstanding."

Harry listens to this explanation with half-belief, but with Zhang Qiu's analysis beforehand, he is more suspicious of whether this contains some kind of special feelings for Mia.

"But, Professor," Harry asks hesitantly, "is our project, using Dark Magic logic to improve ordinary spells, really not that important, and is it indeed just a form of training for me?"

He doesn't want to expose Snape's little thoughts, nor does he want to appear stupid enough not to see such an obvious loophole, so he just expresses a bit of doubt euphemistically.

"You are very right, Harry, you are very right. I think Yanayev must think so," Snape suddenly smiles. "Because there is a very important information gap here, which is Mia Karnstein herself. How do you know she isn't a master of magic?"

"She looks younger than me," Harry is stunned for a moment. "And I, uh, Mr. Lovegood suspects that you are just taking care of her because you like her appearance..."

"She is a vampire who excels in Blood Magic," Snape says calmly. "The true content of our project is actually researching how to make Blood Magic usable for ordinary wizards."

Harry's head feels as if it has been hit by a sledgehammer, but soon, he discovers that this unexpected hammer blow has actually cleared up all his thoughts—

What Snape is actually doing is developing magic with a vampire who is proficient in Blood Magic. This is the true project he has high hopes for.

However, under this series of operations, the world thinks he is dating, and training Harry along the way. According to the original plan, almost everyone at home and abroad would have this misunderstanding, and after Harry disrupted the situation, perhaps only a small circle of people would think of these things.

Thinking again of their course content, almost all of it is about Dark Magic of flesh and bone, rarely involving the soul, and the reason Mia says nothing is because they want to keep Harry in the dark—at this moment, although he is a bit unhappy, he can fully understand.

And Mia's pupil color, she of course used magic to cover up her original pupil color. The vampires Harry has seen all have wine-red pupils, which explains why—

No, if Mia chose emerald green when covering her pupil color, a makeup that has special meaning in Snape's heart, then no matter how many excuses about "the big picture" there are, this matter itself is an insurmountable point.

When Harry looks up again, there is already a bit of cunning hidden in his heart. At this moment, no matter how Snape explains the plan, he can be certain that there is definitely some ambiguity between Snape and Mia. Even if the diversionary tactic he spoke of is not fake at all, at least this ambiguity also exists within the tactic. Snape does not have only the goal of confusing the enemy.

"Uh, so are we going to ask Xie Nuofeiliusi to change the manuscript back now?" Harry asks deliberately.

"No need. Misleading the public is meaningless to us. Yanayev must already know that you went to Lovegood's house," Snape shakes his head. "But this is also good. With your most authentic reaction, it will be easier to make him believe it."

"Ah, is that so?" Harry nods feignedly, while he thinks in his heart, if that's really the case, what were you angry about at the school gate just now? That was obviously because the original manuscript could also serve to test Mia, and the new version directly removes Mia.

Whether he guesses it or not, all Harry can do now is play dumb, so he takes a turn and starts asking about the progress of the Blood Magic research. ===== CHAPTER 404 =====