At dinner time, Dumbledore, who had disappeared for a long time, appeared at the teachers' table on time.

He looked exhausted, and his silver hair and beard had become dull. Although he tried hard to hide it, if you looked closely, you could still see the fatigue on his face.

"He must be very busy lately." Kanna glanced at the teachers' seats and said.

"Yeah." Kyle nodded.

Although he was in Hogwarts, he could also know from the latest Daily Prophet that a large part of the morale outside against the Death Eaters was due to Dumbledore.

So in order to deal with the increasingly rampant Death Eaters, he had to leave Hogwarts and make himself appear outside more often.

After all, everyone in the wizarding world knows that what Voldemort fears most is Dumbledore. Only when he takes action can others see hope.

This is also the reason why Dumbledore has been so busy recently.

"Oh, right." Connor seemed to have thought of something. She spread jam on her bread and asked, "I heard that Potter and Malfoy had a fight in the bathroom?"

"Yeah..." Kyle nodded subconsciously, but soon he was stunned, "Wait, who told you that?"

He remembered that Kanna had been doing homework in the common room in the afternoon, and he didn't seem to have found a chance to tell her about it.

How did she know that? It couldn't have been Snape...

"Oh, it's Mikel." Connor said casually, "In order to finish his homework all night, he went to the school hospital in the afternoon to get some stimulants, and he happened to hear something.

"Now almost the entire Hufflepuff family knows about it, and he also said you were involved."

"Tsk." Kyle smacked his lips.

It has to be said that Mikel was born to be an Auror. When it comes to collecting intelligence, he has never disappointed anyone.

"That's true," Kyle said. "And they're both serious about it. They're ready to fight to the death."

"What about you? How did you get involved?" Kanna asked.

This is also what she doesn't understand the most.

Shouldn't Kyle be in the Room of Requirement? Why did he suddenly run to the seventh floor and get involved with Potter and Malfoy?

"It just so happened that I decided to take a day off, and then I ran into this incident, so I took the opportunity to mediate a fight." Kyle briefly recounted what had happened before, including accidentally hearing the explosion, and rushing to the seventh floor to pull Harry and Malfoy apart, preventing them from being carried to the school hospital.

"So you've learned it, right?" Kanna's eyes lit up, and she said excitedly, "The method that Professor Lagor said... the method of using magic words to change the essence of magic power."

Lagol is the Charms professor in the Room of Requirement who looks like Old Tom from the Leaky Cauldron.

Connor had attended Kyle's classes several times before. Although she didn't understand them, she still remembered some of his key points.

What impressed her the most... was using magic words to change magic power, in simple terms, it made magic invalid.

The main reason was that Kyle was scolded the most harshly in that class. She was scolded for 55 minutes out of the one-hour class. It was hard for her to forget it.

But Kyle naturally didn't know what she was thinking.

"I guess I have learned it." He thought for a moment and said, "Another reason is that the spells used by Harry and Malfoy are not particularly complicated. Relatively speaking, the difficulty is relatively low. If it were two professors, they would definitely not be able to do it."

"That's pretty good," Kanna couldn't help laughing, "At least Professor Lagor won't scold you anymore, right?"

"That's hard to say." Kyle rubbed his forehead. He felt a headache when he thought of the grumpy old professor. Besides, this was not the only thing he wanted to learn.

After dinner, everyone got up and left the table, preparing to return to the common room.

Kyle didn't move, but sat there and waited for a while. He felt that there was a high probability that he would be called to the principal's office, and waiting here would save him some distance.

But he waited for more than ten minutes, and everyone in the auditorium had left, but no one came to ask him to go to the principal's office.

During this time, Nick, who was almost headless, came over, but he was not looking for Kyle, but Harry and Malfoy.

Kyle stood up awkwardly.

"It seems you guessed wrong." Connor said with some amusement: "Professor Dumbledore didn't want to find you, the person responsible for mediating the fight."

"I guessed wrong." Kyle shrugged nonchalantly, "It's a pity... I think I can get at least 50 points this time."

"It doesn't matter. Hufflepuff doesn't need those 50 points right now," said Connor.

In this year's house rankings, Hufflepuff has been occupying the first place since Christmas, and its score is more than 80 points higher than the second place Slytherin.

Gryffindor is still the undisputed last place. Originally, Ravenclaw should have been last, but Harry was deducted 50 points in one go a few days ago, and it directly overtook Ravenclaw.

The two returned to the common room.

…

At the same time, in the headmaster's office on the eighth floor, Dumbledore pulled himself together and spoke to the two people in front of him.

"Don't worry, I won't fire you, Mr. Malfoy, but you must recognize your mistakes."

"So I will deduct 100 points from Slytherin. Detention is also necessary. Professor Snape will be in charge of it. The time will be... every Saturday morning from 8 to 11 until the end of the school year."

"Okay." Malfoy raised his head and looked at Dumbledore, his eyes constantly changing.

But the next second, a person came in front of him and blocked this gaze.

It's Snape.

"No problem, Headmaster Dumbledore," he said. "If there's nothing else, let's go back first."

"Of course." Dumbledore nodded and said softly, "Professor Snape, I hope you can make Malfoy realize his mistake today. Otherwise, I will have to hand him over to Professor McGonagall."

"Don't worry, I will..." Snape said, still standing in front of Malfoy.

Then he turned around and pushed hard. Malfoy seemed not to have expected him to do this. He staggered and almost hit the table next to him.

He angrily shifted his gaze to Snape, but seemingly because Dumbledore was beside him, he said nothing, just took a deep breath, opened the door and strode out.

Snape followed shortly after.

Soon, the two of them came to the corridor outside.

"Do you know what you just did?"

As soon as he left the confines of the headmaster's office, Snape chased after him and said coldly, "Looking at Dumbledore like that, are you afraid that he doesn't know that you have ulterior motives? If it weren't for me, you would have been discovered long ago."

"Yes, that really caused you trouble." Malfoy's voice was also cold. "I guess you must be regretting now, regretting agreeing to protect a stupid student like me."

"Yes, you are stupid," said Snape.

Malfoy became even angrier and kicked the armor next to him hard.

"Hey, boy, what do you want to do? Challenge me to a duel?" a knight shouted in the portrait.

But neither Malfoy nor Snape paid any attention to him.

"You think you're great, don't you?" Malfoy suddenly sneered, "You protected me from Dumbledore, so I should be grateful and tell you all the plans?"

"I haven't thought about it that way." Snape frowned. "But I must remind you that it's best to put away all your thoughts in front of Dumbledore, and don't show your ambitions and goals. Otherwise, it will be easy to be seen through."

"Don't mind your own business!" said Malfoy. "Bella taught me Occlumency during the holidays. Dumbledore can't read my mind at all."

"Really?" Snape sneered, "You think you can stop Dumbledore with your hastily practiced Occlumency for a month? Not only do you overestimate yourself, you also underestimate Dumbledore."

Malfoy was obviously still a little unconvinced.

Hearing the name of the Dark Lord, Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks, his body trembling uncontrollably, cold sweat running down his forehead.

"I guess not," said Snape.

Malfoy did not argue, because what Snape said was true.

He didn't even dare to think of that name, so how could he hide his thoughts in front of him?

"In that case..." Snape said sarcastically, "Then why do you think you can deceive Dumbledore?

"Or have you forgotten that Dumbledore is the person the Dark Lord fears the most."

Malfoy looked up in horror, as if he didn't expect Snape to say such... outrageous words, although what he said was true.

"Don't look at me like that, I'm just making an analogy." Snape said, "In short, when you face Dumbledore in the future, you'd better put away all your thoughts and don't look into his eyes."

"I see..." Malfoy muttered softly after a long moment and continued walking downstairs.

"So that's the reason." Snape came to his side, "No matter what you want to do, you should try to reduce your presence as much as possible. Why bother Potter?"

"That scarhead!" Malfoy said viciously. "He followed me and found out my secret!"

"Secret?" Snape frowned and asked, "Did he see your plan?"

There was another silence until they arrived at the first floor hallway, when Malfoy finally spoke: "No, I found him. I didn't see that much."

At this point, Malfoy's face suddenly turned ferocious, "If it weren't for that nosy Kyle, I would definitely teach him a lesson!"

"You'd better give up the idea." Snape said lightly.

"Why, you want to protect Harry Potter?" Malfoy said with narrowed eyes.

"No, I'm talking about another person." Snape said softly, "Nosy Kyle... He does like to meddle in other people's business, but you'd better forget about it and pretend nothing happened... At least don't bother him until you complete your plan."

After another pause, Malfoy said, "I know how to do this. I don't need you to teach me!"

By this time, the two had arrived at the door of the Slytherin common room, and Malfoy spoke the password.

"that power!"

A giant snake statue swam over and formed a door with its body.

Malfoy walked in and slammed the door behind him.

"Draco, you're back." A group of people immediately surrounded him.

"How are you? Are you okay?" Pansy asked worriedly.

"What can I do?" Malfoy said perfunctorily. He pushed Pansy away and sat down in an armchair in the corner.

Of course he knew what Snape meant.

Don't bother with Kyle... Yeah, he controlled himself easily with just a wave of his wand, and that weird magic that turns blasting spells into ravens.

Before his plan is completed, it is definitely better to stay as far away from the other party as possible.

But this is easy to say. In addition to dealing with Dumbledore, the man gave him another task, which was to kill Kyle.

So no matter what, he couldn't stay out of it. The stronger Kyle became, the more annoyed he became.

Especially now it's May, if I don't finish the task before the holiday, that person will never let me go.

The intense pressure almost made Malfoy collapse.

Although he had thought of a plan, he suddenly regretted it when he was about to implement it.

Because this plan would affect too many people, many innocent students would be implicated, and he didn't want that to happen. It was for this reason that he was on the verge of collapse under tremendous pressure and went to the bathroom to vent, and was seen by Harry.

Malfoy grabbed his hair and struggled again.

Crabbe and Goyle wanted to go over as well, but seeing him like this, they stopped, looked at each other, and went somewhere else.

On the other side, after Malfoy and Snape left, only Dumbledore and Harry were left in the headmaster's office.

Harry stood there nervously, waiting for his punishment.

But at this time he felt a lot more relaxed than before. After all, even Malfoy was not expelled, so he certainly didn't have to worry.

Sure enough, his punishment was the same as Malfoy's, with points deducted and confinement, but he needed to find Professor McGonagall.

Harry had no objection to confinement, as long as it didn't require him to go find Snape, he would accept it.

The only problem was the Quidditch match.

"Professor, can I change the time?" He stammered, "There is a Quidditch match on Saturday morning next month. Can I go to see Professor McGonagall in the afternoon? Even if the time is doubled, it doesn't matter."

"I really want to agree to you, Harry, but I can't." Dumbledore shook his head. "You must realize what you have done wrong. Missing an activity you like may be more meaningful than simply being confined."

"Well, you should go back to bed now." Dumbledore said, rubbing his eyes.

"Professor, I have one more thing!" Harry said suddenly, "Maybe it can make up for my mistake this time."

"What?" Dumbledore asked, looking up.

"This is it." Harry pulled out a small glass bottle. "I got Slughorn's memories."

"This is really exciting news." Dumbledore suddenly woke up, "This is great, I knew you could do it."

"Hermione has been a great help to me," said Harry.

"Oh? Miss Granger?"

"Yes," Harry nodded. "After the first week of vacation, she gave me a glass of pumpkin juice for breakfast and told me to go find Slughorn.

"Everything went well after that, and I went to Slughorn's office with a bottle of wine, and he was very happy and drank a lot.

"Then we talked about the love potion incident again. Although he didn't want to mention it, he still told me his guess. Someone wanted to use him to deal with someone in the school. He guessed it was me.

"I told him I needed his help, that memory."

"So Horace gave you the memories?" asked Dumbledore.

"Yes," said Harry, smiling, "he gave it to me."

"I guess you had a lucky day," Dumbledore said with a smile. "You have a good friend, and a generous one."

It was not difficult to hear from Harry's words that what he drank in the morning was not ordinary pumpkin juice, but pumpkin juice with Felix Felicis added.

It was also because of this that he was able to go to Slughorn when he wanted to drink and successfully get what he wanted.

But Dumbledore didn't care too much about these, or maybe it was not the right time.

As Harry spoke, he had stood up and was striding over to the cabinet containing the Pensieve, Slughorn's memories in hand.

"Now." Dumbledore put the Pensieve on the table and poured the memory in the bottle into it. "We are finally going to see the truth of the matter. Harry, come on..."

…

(End of this chapter)