Chapter 68 The Alliance of the Sober

Chapter 70 The Alliance of the Sober

On Monday at Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest incident was cleverly characterized by Dumbledore as "a disturbance caused by a prank prop going off."

At the Gryffindor table, Harry and Ron, though listless, were trying to convince themselves that it was just an extremely realistic fireworks show.

At the other end of the long table, Ron was surrounded by a group of first-year boys, waving their forks around with red faces and thick necks, making the atmosphere at the table lively and bustling.

"Listen to me, listen to me!" Ron said, spitting as he spoke, his voice so loud that even the Hufflepuff table next door could hear him. "Last night's fireworks show was amazing."

Red, green, and gold—they were exploding everywhere.

I was standing right next to Harry, and I didn't even blink!

Harry was so scared his legs went weak, but I was perfectly fine and rushed over to see what was going on!

It must be that the prank prop Fred and George secretly gave Parvati went off by accident! Otherwise, how could it be so realistic?

Luckily, I, Ron Weasley, am naturally daring. If there really were a dark magic monster, I'd blast it away with a single wand! Hahaha!

Seamus Finnigan laughed so hard he almost fell over, slamming his hand on the table. "Ron, you're exaggerating way too much! I bet you were as white as a ghost, clinging to Harry's robes like a madman!"

Dean Thomas, munching on bacon, chimed in with a broad smile, "It was really exciting, like a magical fireworks display. How about we have another one like that before our next Quidditch match?"

Neville Longbottom shrank to one side, muttering to himself, "I—I still feel like something's not right—"

What if it's not fireworks?

Ron immediately waved his hand, interrupting him: "Neville, you're such a coward! Professor Dumbledore said it was an accident! Anyone who mentions monsters again, I'll pour pumpkin juice over their head!"

A burst of laughter erupted, the sounds of forks clattering and bread tearing mingling together, barely masking the terror of the previous night as a thrilling weekend memory.

Harry smiled helplessly and shook his head, but did not refute it. He just lowered his head and gulped down pumpkin juice, as if he wanted to swallow the shadow of that green light as well.

But the people in the library didn't think so.

Hermione Granger closed the book on the evolution of modern magic laws in front of her and looked at the Pettier twins.

They looked terrible.

Parvati's dark circles were so heavy it looked like he'd been punched, yet he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was holding the "History of Magic" upside down in front of him.

Meanwhile, Padma, a Ravenclaw, was still nervously flipping through the book.

Although they escaped punishment, it was as if half of their souls had been torn away and left behind in that mud pit last night.

Hermione took a deep breath, closed the book, and walked straight toward the distraught sisters.

The book was placed on the table, startling the twins so much that they trembled like frightened rabbits.

Parvati even instinctively reached for her wand.

"Granger?" Padma recognized the person and barely managed to calm his wildly beating heart. His tone was wary and weak. "If you're here to accuse us of implicating Potter last night, you don't need to."

Professor Dumbledore has already said that it was just an accident —

"Come on, Padma." Hermione pulled out a chair and sat down opposite them, lowering her voice. "Dumbledore can convince Harry and Ron, those two idiots who only believe in fairy tales, but he can't keep you in check."

"You're a Ravenclaw. Tell me, what kind of high-level prank fireworks could stop a centaur's arrows?"

Padma's breathing began to quicken.

"Hermione, stop—" Parvati covered her ears in anguish, tears welling in her eyes. "The headmaster said it was a hallucination! We were just too scared to see clearly! Why are you forcing us to relive those moments!"

"Because if you continue to deceive yourselves, next time it will be all of us who die!"

Hermione's voice suddenly turned stern, but her eyes, usually filled with a thirst for knowledge, were now burning with anger, beneath which lay a trace of sorrow that only they could understand.

She leaned down, approaching the two sisters on the verge of collapse across the table.

"When I rushed in with Hagrid, the smell—a mixture of rot and blood—was so strong it made me want to vomit."

And those trees weren't cut down, they were blown apart! Tell me, what kind of fireworks could blast a tree half a meter thick in half?

This is not an illusion, Parvati. What you faced last night was a real killer capable of using the Unforgivable Curse.

As for the principal, for some reason we don't know—I suspect it's part of a political maneuver—he's been hiding the truth from us.

Padma's psychological defenses completely collapsed.

She covered her face, her voice trembling as she suppressed a sob, and said, "I know—I know everything! My reason tells me it couldn't be a prank—that green light—that green light almost grazed my scalp—that green light made me feel like I was dead—"

"Me too—" Parvati hugged her sister, crying uncontrollably, "Harry and the others are still laughing, they're still talking about Quidditch—but as soon as I close my eyes, all I see is that dark shadow floating in mid-air—I'm so scared, Hermione, I'm so scared—"

Seeing the two people in front of her who had dropped their pretense and were now crying their hearts out, Hermione's tense shoulders finally relaxed a little.

In this castle shrouded in blind optimism and authoritarian lies, she finally found two people who could share that real fear.

Fear is not shameful; what is shameful is turning a blind eye to the abyss that is right before your eyes.

Hermione took a parchment from her robe pocket and pushed it in front of them.

"This is a simplified version of the powerful Exorcism Charm rune, along with a scent-altering formula made with white sage and styrax." Hermione's tone regained its composure. "Harry and Ron are lost in their savior fantasies and can't be counted on."

Since the Ministry of Magic and the headmaster are playing with our lives, we must protect ourselves.

Padma stopped crying, her eyes red, and looked up at Hermione in disbelief: "You—you're going to help us? Why?"

"Because we're in the same boat now. I'm Muggle-born, and you're the scared perpetrators. If something really happens, we'll be the ones abandoned the fastest."

Hermione looked Padma straight in the eye and revealed her true purpose for the day: "But I need you to be completely open with me."

"Parvati, last night, that glass ball that completely changed the course of the battle, emitting a blinding red light and grotesque sound effects—who gave it to you? Don't tell me it was the Weasley twins; their alchemy skills aren't up to creating living, shapeshifting creations that can automatically track and levitate."

Parvati froze, instinctively clutching her pocket, her eyes darting around.

But under Hermione's watchful gaze, and driven by her own will to survive, the Gryffindor girl swallowed hard and finally uttered the name: "It's—it's Lucian. Lucian Ashford. He said there would be a surprise if you smashed it."

"Lucian Ashford —"

Hermione chewed on the name over and over again.

In that instant, a surge of complex emotions welled up within her—trembling, gazing upwards, and a secret sense of identification—like a tidal wave. She remembered his composed posture leaning against the Gothic lattice window, the nonchalant look in his eyes as he handed her "Alchemy and the Reshaping of Origins," the glistening sugar in the sunlight, and most importantly, his hand pressing down on her trembling fingers as he uttered those words, each one sharp and deliberate, words that shattered her worldview: "What you've leveraged isn't wisdom, but rather your innate privilege."

"The world is favoring you."

"Fate will forcibly turn deadly poison into sweet icing and feed it to you itself."

At that moment, she thought she had just been pulled through a forbidden door.

Now, she suddenly realized that this had gone beyond the scope of alchemy.

Lucian Ashford, the boy who always seemed out of place, appeared to see something else entirely.

He didn't seem to be solving a problem; he seemed to be setting one.

This realization both terrified her and filled her with an unprecedented excitement.

He has long since transcended the realm of a first-year student—he is a sober individual.

Hermione recalled the scene she saw when she rushed into the Forbidden Forest last night.

The red nebula floating above Harry's head was more than just a prank firework.

"Delayed triggering, pressure sensing, a compressed magic core—" she quickly listed in her mind, "Most terrifyingly, it even possesses advanced metamorphic features such as forced locking and living follow-up!"

If the creator really was Lucien, then all the coincidences become chilling, yet perfectly reasonable.

A glass ball that was "just right" given to Parvati, that "just right" possessed extremely high heat and intense light that could dispel the devil's web, that "just right" was smashed at the last second before the Dark Lord uttered the Killing Curse, thus obstructing his vision, and that "just right" attracted the attention of the centaurs and Hagrid with an extremely vulgar and sarcastic sound effect.

"Such a perfect coincidence simply doesn't exist in this world."

If this is not a coincidence, then there is only one explanation: it was a scheme.

Lucien foresaw the deadly situation in the Forbidden Forest, so he used Parvati, who was unaware of the danger, to orchestrate his scheme.

Even more terrifying, he even predicted that the principal would choose to cover up the truth in order to maintain the school's safety image, and he gave the principal a ready-made, absurd but usable excuse!

He presented the principal with a perfect excuse, allowing all the important figures to follow his script and turn a potentially fatal assassination into a farcical spectacle!

Moreover, the way he looked at the people around him was always like he was looking at chess pieces on a chessboard that he could manipulate at any time.

She always thought she was the only sane person in the castle, facing the collective illusion woven by the headmaster in solitude.

But now she discovers that Dumbledore is not omniscient, and the monster is not invincible.

Because besides her, there was another person who was conscious.

No, he was more clear-headed and more dangerous than she was.

She was still desperately searching through useless legal texts, while that person had already been lying in wait, casually making a move that could turn the tide of life and death.

Moreover, that move was accompanied by a vulgar, mocking sound effect, as if it were saying to the whole world, "Look, I can even rewrite the script of fate so absurdly."

Hermione's eyes lit up.

It was the thrill of finally grasping a clue in the fog, mixed with her almost blind trust in Lucien.

"Listen, you two." Hermione quickly gathered the books on the table, her eyes hardening. "From today onward, except for classes and sleeping, the three of us will spend as much time together as possible. And while we're at it, we'll investigate what role Lucian Ashford is playing in this Hogwarts game."

Hermione tilted her chin slightly, and her fluffy brown curls bounced in the air.

She tried to tighten her slightly chubby cheeks, attempting to make herself look like a shrewd, adult witch.

But those incredibly bright eyes couldn't hide the earnestness and secret joy unique to a twelve-year-old girl.

Sitting opposite her, Padma sniffed and hastily wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes with the wide sleeves of her Ravenclaw robe.

Her usually meticulously combed long hair was now somewhat disheveled and clung to her cheeks. She clutched the magic book tightly to her chest and nodded vigorously.

Parvati, standing to the side, even had his tie askew.

She rubbed her eyes, then reached out her little hands, grabbing Hermione's sleeve with her left hand and clutching her sister's hem with her right.

The three little girls exchanged a somewhat clumsy but very solemn glance, and then tightly clasped their little hands together.

There were no passionate vows, nor any grand pronouncements about fighting evil.

In this magic school shrouded in lies and absurdity, a "Sober Alliance" woven from reason, fear, and the will to survive is quietly formed.

On the other hand, let's temporarily step away from Lucian's seemingly unfathomable, dreamlike world, which appears to manipulate the entire magical realm, and take a look at the real and comical objective reality.

In fact, when that ghastly green light, representing "Avada Kedavra," shone in the Forbidden Forest, almost scattering the savior along with the script, Lucian, perched in a tree, broke out in a cold sweat.

Did they foresee the impasse? Did they orchestrate a perfect plan? Did they exploit Dumbledore's political psychology of appeasement?

Do not make jokes.

That glass ball engraved with "I'm a big idiot" was not a carefully planned life-saving artifact at all; it was just a tasteless prank he made on a whim.

Giving it to Parvati was just a spur-of-the-moment decision, nothing more than teasing the little girl.

Who would have thought that Voldemort, who had gained good fortune, would have a sudden burst of energy and pull out the Unforgivable Curse?

Who could have imagined that the cheesy sound effect and flash of light, which made people want to scream, would not only save Harry's life by sheer coincidence, but also precisely time it to coincide with the perfect moment when Dumbledore was looking for an excuse to cover up the dark magic attack, thus turning a terrorist attack into a violation of school rules.

Unfortunately, Hermione Granger, far away in the library, was unaware of all this.

This exceptionally intelligent witch, a once-in-a-century talent at Hogwarts, is using her astonishing logical reasoning abilities to perfectly weave Lucian's series of unexpected mishaps and near misses into a flawless, god-like web that transcends all others.

If Lucian could overhear the top-secret conversation of the so-called "Alliance of the Sober" in the library, and hear Hermione dissecting his deep thoughts with an almost godlike gaze, he would probably just think to himself, expressionless:

Miss Granger's imagination was more astonishing than the troll's brain capacity.