It had only been one morning.
Yet it was already easy to sense the enormous changes taking place at Hogwarts.
More precisely, when Draco and the others walked into the Great Hall and were about to start eating, they saw many people enter with all kinds of injuries on their faces.
Some were bruised and swollen.
Some seemed mentally unwell.
But what stood out most was the obvious fear and unease in their eyes whenever they looked toward the professors' table.
The sight made Pansy and the others, who had just finished Defence Against the Dark Arts, look over at the students who had entered the Great Hall in confusion...
"What happened to them?"
"They all look injured."
"Don't tell me the Dark Lord has invaded Hogwarts?"
"..."
Pansy's guess made Hermione roll her eyes speechlessly beside her.
If Voldemort really had led those dark creatures into Hogwarts, then the students in front of them would definitely have suffered more than these visible injuries.
If no one went mad and no one died, that really would not be the Dark Lord's style...
It was worth mentioning that a large portion of these injured young wizards seemed to be little lions from Gryffindor, which made Pansy glance meaningfully at Hermione several times.
"Parkinson, that look of yours is extremely rude."
"Ahem!"
In any case.
Judging from the scene alone, it would be easy to think these people had just been in a group fight.
But from their terrified eyes and trembling bodies, it was obvious that things were not nearly that simple.
At the very least, an ordinary fight would never make them react like this.
Just as Pansy and the others were considering whether they should find someone and ask what happened, they happened to overhear the students nearby talking.
From the sound of it, they seemed to know quite a lot...
"Did you hear? The infirmary is already packed."
"Tch! It's only the first day. How are we supposed to get through the rest of the year? They're not really going to make us learn dark magic, are they..."
"We can only behave ourselves, I suppose. Besides, compared with the ones who got detention, we're already lucky."
"Damn it! Why has it become like this? Those damned Death..."
"Keep your voice down. Do you want to be caught by those 'professors' and given detention?"
"..."
Hearing this, Draco and the others finally had a rough idea of what had happened.
Or rather, the same thing had just happened in their class, so they immediately realized where those students' injuries had come from.
The only difference was that Amycus Carrow had used the Cruciatus Curse, which left no visible wounds on the surface...
Withdrawing his gaze, Draco glanced at the professors sitting at the professors' table and sneering coldly. "They may have put on the skin of professors, but at their core, they're still Dark Wizards."
That pointed conclusion made Pansy and the others nod in agreement.
At the same time, it was enough to show that the current state of the wizarding world had definitely reached an extremely terrible point.
Because these Death Eaters were not taking anyone else's opinions into consideration at all. Or rather, they were not worried in the slightest about whether doing this would cause trouble.
Let alone whether they would be sent to Azkaban.
And this was exactly the result the Dark Lord wanted to see...
...
In any case.
With these people appearing, and with the whispers spreading quietly in private, it took only one day, not even until the sun had fully set, for every student at Hogwarts to understand exactly what kind of people these new professors were...
After looking at those people, Hermione blinked with a strange expression. "From a certain perspective, this actually saves us quite a bit of effort."
"That's certainly possible. The more outrageous these Death Eaters become, the more most people will realize that joining us is the right choice."
In a sense, the outcome Hermione mentioned was indeed very likely to happen.
But before that, what they wanted to know more, and what worried them more, was what exactly was happening in the wizarding world right now.
Especially now that these people dared to use the Three Unforgivable Curses on students inside Hogwarts...
"Draco, do you have any thoughts?"
"That depends on how far our Weasley can go."
"Weasley... Which Weasley are you talking about?"
Just as Pansy was about to ask which Weasley he meant, Ginny Weasley walked over to them with a very complicated expression on her face.
And just like that.
Ginny did not say a word. After pulling out a chair and sitting down, she simply stared hard at Draco with pitiful, aggrieved eyes.
She looked as if she had suffered some unfair treatment.
As for the reason, everyone present had already guessed it.
Or rather, there was only one possibility.
It had to be that Ron Weasley, who had somehow reappeared at Hogwarts...