During dinner, Dumbledore, who had been missing for a long time, appeared on the faculty table right on time.
He looked like he had been through a lot, with his silver hair and beard dull and lackluster. Although he tried hard to hide it, anyone who looked closely could still see the exhaustion on his face.
"He must be very busy lately," Conna said, glancing at the faculty table.
"Yeah." Kael nodded.
Even though he was at Hogwarts, Kael could tell from the recent Daily Prophet that much of the morale against the Death Eaters outside was due to Dumbledore.
So, to deal with the increasingly rampant Death Eaters, he had no choice but to leave Hogwarts, so that he could often show himself outside.
After all, everyone in the Magic Realm knew that Voldemort was most afraid of Dumbledore; only when he took action could others see hope.
This was also the reason why Dumbledore had been increasingly busy lately.
"By the way," Conna seemed to remember something, she smeared jam on her bread slice and asked, "I heard Potter and Malfoy fought in the restroom?"
"Yeah..." Kael nodded instinctively but soon froze, "Wait, who did you hear it from?"
He remembered that Conna had been in the common room doing assignments all afternoon, and he seemingly hadn't had the chance to tell her about it.
How did she find out? Surely it couldn't be Snape…
"Oh, it was Mikel," Conna replied casually, "He went to the hospital wing this afternoon specifically to get some stimulant so he could stay up late working on assignments and happened to overhear some things."
"Now almost all of Hufflepuff knows, and he even said you were involved."
"Tsk." Kael clicked his tongue.
There was no denying that Mikel was naturally talented for being an Auror; he never disappointed anyone when it came to gathering information.
"It's true," Kael said, "And they both got really serious, like they wouldn't stop until one of them was down."
"But what about you? How did you get involved?" Conna asked.
This was what puzzled her the most.
Kael was supposed to be in the Room of Requirement, so how did he suddenly end up on the seventh floor and get entangled with Potter and Malfoy?
"It was a coincidence; I just happened to decide to take a day off and ran into this incident, so I tried to mediate." Kael briefly recounted the previous events, including hearing the explosion unintentionally and hurrying to the seventh floor to separate Harry and Malfoy, preventing them from being carried into the hospital wing.
"So you've already learned, have you?" Conna's eyes lit up, and she said excitedly, "The method Professor Lagoer talked about… changing the essence of Magic Power with Magic Text."
Lagoer was the Charm Class professor in the Room of Requirement, who looked strikingly similar to Tom Senior at the Leaky Cauldron.
Conna had gone to listen to his class with Kael several times, although she hadn't understood much, but she remembered some key points.
What impressed her most... was using Magic Text to change Magic Power, which meant making magic ineffective.
Especially since Kael had been scolded the hardest that lesson; fifty-five of the sixty minutes of class involved reprimanding him, making it hard for her to forget.
Though Kael naturally didn't know what she was thinking.
"I've sort of learned it," he pondered for a moment before saying, "Another reason is that the charms used by Harry and Malfoy weren't particularly complicated, relatively low in difficulty; if it were two professors, it wouldn't have worked."
"That's still quite good," Conna couldn't help but smile, "At least Professor Lagoer won't scold you anymore, right?"
"That can't be guaranteed." Kael rubbed his temples; just thinking of that temperamental old professor gave him a headache, and the things he needed to learn weren't just limited to that.
After dinner, everyone got up and left the dining table, preparing to return to the common room.
Kael didn't move, choosing instead to sit and wait for a while. He suspected he might be called to the Headmaster's Office, so waiting here might save him some steps.
But after waiting for over ten minutes, the auditorium was empty, and no one came to call him to the Headmaster's Office.
Meanwhile, Nearly Headless Nick did come by, but he was looking for Harry and Malfoy, not Kael.
Kael awkwardly stood up.
"Seems you guessed wrong," Conna said, amused, "Professor Dumbledore doesn't plan to find you, the peacekeeper."
"That was my mistake." Kael shrugged indifferently, "It's just a shame... I thought I could earn at least fifty points."
"It's okay; Hufflepuff isn't lacking those fifty points," Conna said.
In this year's house ranking, Hufflepuff had maintained the first place since Christmas and was over eighty points higher than the second-place Slytherin.
Gryffindor was still, unsurprisingly, in last place. Originally, Ravenclaw was last, but Harry lost fifty points in one go a few days ago, which caused Gryffindor to surpass them.
The two returned to the common room.
...
Meanwhile, in the Headmaster's Office on the eighth floor. Dumbledore gathered his strength and spoke to the two people before him.
"Don't worry, Mr. Malfoy, I won't expel you, but you must recognize your mistakes."
"Thus, I have to deduct one hundred points from Slytherin, and detention is necessary. It will be overseen by Professor Snape, every Saturday morning from eight to eleven, until the end of the school year."