Chapter 73: Christmas Eve

Harry suffered from insomnia that night. He lay on the bed, blankly looking out the window from the crack of the bed curtains. He watched the snow start to fall from the tower window, drifting in the air.

Although Luo En and Neville said nothing, Harry felt that he still couldn't help but suspect whether he would have Slytherin's bloodline.

In the era of pure blood eight hundred years ago, would Cadmus's daughter or son, and Ignotus's daughter or son have married within the family? Cousin marriage was very common in the Middle Ages; was his bloodline inherited from that time?

In the quiet night, Harry tried to speak some Parseltongue. But he couldn't say a word. It seemed that only when facing snakes could he do it, as if it were an instinct.

"But I am in Gryffindor," Harry thought. "The Sorting Hat is still credible; if I have Slytherin's bloodline..."

"Ah!" a nasty little voice in his head said, "But the Sorting Hat strongly suggested you go to Slytherin; don't you remember?"

"Damn it, to hell with it," Harry turned over. "Even if I really have that bloodline, anyway, the Chamber of Secrets was not opened by me."

In tossing and turning, Harry barely fell asleep, but he didn't sleep well. He opened his eyes several times, suspecting that there was a snake under the bed, but didn't want to get out of bed to check, just forced himself to sleep again.

Friday's first class was Charms. Harry felt that he didn't wake up at all and mixed through it in a daze. When he woke up, he found that he was already standing at the door of the Potions classroom.

"Hey, Harry," Ma Erfu greeted him. "I want to tell you that because Christmas is coming soon, this week's meeting is canceled; everyone doesn't want to talk about such a heavy topic before the holiday."

"I understand," Harry thought, Christmas is coming soon; this is one of the few good news.

In the afternoon's Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Donald also used the reason that Christmas was coming soon, and after running laps as usual, he didn't teach new content, but allowed them to move freely on the playground.

"Very strange, I feel that the way they look at me is a bit wrong," Harry discovered when he was still running laps. The students didn't look at Harry much, as if they were afraid of him.

"It wouldn't be that the things at the Dueling Club spread, right?" Luo En said. "It must be that villain Ma Erfu; he can't wait to ruin your reputation."

"But doing so is no good for him," Harry said. "Just like opening the Chamber of Secrets is no good for me."

"Unfortunately, others are not necessarily thinking this way," Luo En sighed.

When they sat down at the edge of the playground, a group of Hufflepuff students were surrounding a corner. Harry could see their heads leaning together, as if there was some attractive conversation.

Purely out of curiosity, Harry pricked up his ears, concentrating on wanting to hear what they were talking about.

"Anyway," a fat boy said, "I told Jia Siting to hide in our dormitory. My meaning is, if Potter treats him as his next target, he had better hide for a while. Potter must know that he is Muggle-born; when he said he was going to Eton College last year, Potter was listening on the side."

"Have you already determined it is Potter? Ernie?" a blonde girl with a ponytail asked eagerly. Harry was surprised to notice that this was Hannah.

"Ah, ah," the fat boy said seriously, "he is a Parselmouth; everyone knows this is the sign of a mysterious wizard. Have you ever heard of any ordinary person who can talk to snakes? Only Slytherin's descendant can do this."

This caused a murmur. Ernie continued, "Still remember the words on the wall? Beware, descendants of the enemy? Potter has some grievances with Filch. Next, we know that Filch's cat was attacked, and Colin made Potter unhappy in the Quidditch match because he took photos of him lying in the mud. Next, he was attacked."

"But I never felt he was a bad person," Hannah said uncertainly, "at least he defeated the mysterious person; in other words, at least he is not completely bad, right?"

Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously, and the Hufflepuffs all bent down. In order to hear what he said, Harry leaned forward again.

"No one knows how he saved his life from the mysterious person's attack; I mean, he was just a baby at that time; he should have been torn into pieces long ago; only a true mysterious wizard can survive under such a curse," he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, "that is probably the reason why the mysterious person wanted to kill him; he didn't want to have a mysterious wizard competing with him. I really want to know what other skills Potter hasn't shown."

Harry couldn't listen anymore; he cleared his throat loudly. The students in the front row looked back, and then, everyone seemed to be scared silly the moment they saw him. Ernie's face turned bloodless immediately.

"Tell them, Harry," Hannah said anxiously. "Tell them things are not like this."

"Hi, please tell Jia Siting," Harry said. "Like him, I was also originally going to Eton College. I came from Muggle society myself, so how could I attack Muggle-borns?"

"We know, thank you," Ernie suddenly felt relieved, and then said sincerely: "I am very sorry for discussing you behind your back; I hope you don't mind."

"It doesn't matter; everyone is a bit panicked by the Chamber of Secrets; I think this is understandable," Harry said generously.

"By the way, there is one thing I want to tell you," Ernie looked very nervous. "I want to say that my family has been pure-blood for nine generations, and Macmillan is also one of the twenty-eight pure-blood families."

"I understand, Mr. Macmillan," Harry said, suppressing his anger.

"Harry, are you going home for Christmas this year?" Luo En hurriedly changed the topic.

"If I want to go to Avalon, oh right," Harry reacted. "I have to tell Ivy; the list of students staying in school is about to be handed in."

"I also have to go and tell Percy and the others," Luo En nodded. He tried hard to chat with Harry about Avalon, hoping to make him temporarily forget the bad mood brought by Parseltongue.

After dinner, returning to the common room, Harry saw Ivy who was whispering with Jin Ni, so he stepped forward and stopped her.

"Ivy, are you going back to Downton this year?" Harry said. "Because I might not go back."

"Then I won't go back either," Ivy said happily. "This way I can not miss the Roundtable Meeting."

"Alright, then Lord Crawley... wait, what Roundtable Meeting?" Harry suddenly realized something was wrong.

"It's the meeting we hold in turns using the diary, once every two weeks, to discuss who might be the opener of the Chamber of Secrets," in front of Harry, Ivy was as knowing as the diary.

"Very good, then do you hold a meeting this week? It's almost Christmas," Harry asked as if unintentionally.

"Yes, it's just that the time is changed to tomorrow night," Ivy made a face. "You originally had a chance to participate, but unfortunately you repeatedly refused the diary."

Ivy didn't know that she had been listening in on the previous few times, but this time Ma Erfu obviously didn't want her to listen in. Was he guarding against himself? Harry suddenly felt very unhappy, but he had no way. Ma Erfu told a lie to maintain his face; if it weren't for Ivy letting it slip, he wouldn't have had this reason to be unhappy.

He was also not very convenient to confront Ma Erfu directly; this would make Ivy very difficult.

"It's okay, then back to Lord Crawley, did he write a letter?" Harry changed the topic.

"Oh, he said he was busy going to Estonia on a business trip, so he didn't write you a separate letter," Ivy said. "In short, if we want to go back for Christmas, it will only be the two of us."

"Where is Estonia?" Jin Ni asked curiously. Her eyes had been on Harry.

"Don't know, some small European country," Harry didn't care about this. "You continue to talk about little girls' whispers; I have to pack up and go do homework."

Returning to the bedroom, Harry noticed that Luo En was not there. He remembered that before in the common room, he was talking to Fred and George.

Just as Harry was packing up his textbooks, Neville leaned over.

"Polyjuice Potion has been prepared," he said. "I need a partner to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle with me to investigate Ma Erfu. Hermione will disguise herself as Millicent to investigate whether there are other clues in the common room."

"Good idea," Harry agreed first, then asked with some doubt: "But, why don't you invite Luo En?"

"Luo En is my friend; I don't want him to take risks for this kind of thing; we are going to violate at least thirty school rules," Neville said.

Seeing Harry's confused expression, Neville explained: "And you are different; we are going to fight side by side against Voldemort; we cannot retreat in front of the truth because of a little risk."

"Is this what you think about Hermione and Hannah too, Neville?" Harry said. "You like Hannah, so you don't want her to take risks?"

"That's right," Neville admitted. "And Hermione is a Muggle-born; even if she doesn't look for Voldemort's trouble, Voldemort will come to look for her trouble."

"What are you thinking, Neville?" Harry was a bit irritable. "You think the two of us, plus the help of a few Muggle-borns, can defeat the mysterious person? You think this is a hero epic or a children's book?"

"But you have to know that pure-blood families are simply untrustworthy," Neville said coldly. "During the first war, they either leaned toward Voldemort or played both sides; you simply can't find sincere allies."

Harry frowned. If he remembered correctly, Longbottom was also one of the pure-blood families.

"We must fight alone; we can only do this," Neville patted him on the shoulder and said firmly.

"If you must think this way," Harry sighed. "We will go tomorrow night; Ma Erfu will organize a gathering tomorrow night; perhaps there will be more clues."

"And," Harry added, "thinking on the bright side, at least the Communist International will help us, the Chinese or the Soviets."

Neville narrowed his eyes and scrutinized him. When Harry went out, he said gloomily: "But they won't try their best; only the British will sacrifice for Britain."

"No, people with ideals will sacrifice for this world," Harry replied. ===== CHAPTER 74 =====