Hogwarts: Voldemort, don't stop me from studying!

Wade lowered his eyes and gave a bright smile.

Professor Flitwick, who had been looking serious, smiled. He waved his wand and made about ten copies of the parchment, giving each group one. He then cautioned, "This is a reference, but you must truly master it. I will take the parchment back in ten minutes. I hope you will all have mastered the Levitation Charm by then! Those of you who can already make feathers float—why don't you try making them spin in the air?"

The students in the classroom resumed their practice, with Professor Flitwick walking around giving instructions.

Vader commanded his feathers, making them draw circles and squares in the air, and then began to recite verses from memory. Anthony glanced at him enviously, but did not set his sights too high; instead, he continued to practice the levitation spell over and over again.

After class, the Gryffindors rushed to their History of Magic lessons, while the Ravenclaws had no other classes in the morning. Wade, as usual, went to the library. Michael had intended to go with him, but was stopped before he could even get up.

“Hey Michael,” his roommate Terry put his arm around his neck and asked, “You’ve been disappearing after class lately, you must be studying with Wade, right? I heard Granger and Longbottom from Gryffindor are with you guys too?”

A circle of eaglets stared intently at him.

Michael raised his hands in a gesture of surrender: "That's right, I haven't been hiding anything from you! Why are you making such a show of force?"

"So, Longbottom's mastery of the Levitation Charm is the result of your self-study?" Lisa asked hastily. "I thought you were just doing your homework together."

“Michael, could you teach me sometime?” Padma asked. “I’m not very good at the fire-starting spell yet.”

Padma is a very beautiful Indian girl, and Michael has always been fascinated by her, but when it comes to learning spells, Michael would not take credit for someone else's work.

“While I would be happy to teach you the spells I know, Padma, the one who’s really good at teaching is Vader, not me—we’re all learning from Vader,” Michael said honestly.

“Wade—”

Everyone fell silent for a moment.

In their eyes, Wade Gregg was exceptionally aloof, handsome yet rarely smiling, exceptionally talented yet detached from the crowd. Despite being the same age, he disliked joking, playing games, attending parties, and even discussing Quidditch. He always disappeared as soon as get out of class ended, only returning to the tower after curfew. While other students were accustomed to chatting and doing homework in the common room, Wade rarely appeared there, and the Hawks felt they were being unilaterally isolated by him.

In short, he was a very distant person.

This is why few people usually take the initiative to talk to Vader—the young wizards are all a little afraid of him.

……

The library was deserted. Mrs. Pince wasn't watching the students; instead, she was slowly flipping through a book. When she saw Wade enter, she only glanced at him before lowering her head back to her book.

Two months into the semester, Mrs. Pince had become familiar with all the first-year students who frequented the library. She knew exactly who could be left in the library without worry and who needed constant supervision to prevent them from making noise, damaging books, or even fighting.

Wade was the kind of student she could completely trust.

Vader found his way to the section of alchemy books—he had recently started making time to study alchemy.

Alchemy studies the composition, structure, and magical properties of the four basic elements, as well as the transformations of matter. It is closely related to Potions, Charms, Ancient Runes, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. At Hogwarts, only those who achieve a "Good" or higher grade in these subjects during their Ordinary Wizarding Examinations are eligible to study alchemy, making it an extremely difficult subject. Lower-year students without the necessary prior knowledge will find it very difficult to master this subject through self-study.

In fact, alchemy is present everywhere in their lives—the candles that never go out in the Great Hall, the 142 moving staircases in the castle, the lifelike portraits on the walls, the door knockers that ask different questions, as well as flying brooms, the Golden Snitch, the Sorting Hat, Wizard's Chess, Memory Balls, and so on.

Basic alchemy isn't actually that difficult to learn; it's just that alchemists always like to use all sorts of obscure vocabulary, obscure expressions, and exaggerated claims mixed with fantasy, which inadvertently increases the difficulty of learning.

Wade's reading comprehension skills had been cultivated and trained over twenty years in his previous life, and he also had sufficient knowledge reserves and vocabulary. Therefore, although it was difficult, he still managed to devour the alchemy books one by one.

For a while, he was reading books published by Nicolas Flamel many years ago—"Introduction to Alchemy" and "Analysis of Alchemy." Recently, Wade has started reading "The Book of Nature's Mysteries: The Fifth Element."

This was written by the 12th-century alchemist Raymond Lule, and the so-called fifth element is the Philosopher's Stone.

"This book is actually a bit outdated because Nicolas Flamel forged the Philosopher's Stone and proved that many of the theories in the book deviated from the facts."

A voice suddenly came from beside him. Wade looked up in surprise and saw the Weasley twins standing next to him. It was George Weasley who was speaking.

"Are you a freshman?" Fred pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him, saying, "It's a bit too early to learn this now."

“But I must say, you have a good eye! Alchemy is the most fascinating subject in magic! — Shut up and listen.” George said, waving his wand to ward off Mrs. Pince.

"But you can't study at Hogwarts until sixth year—"

"What a stupid decision! Why can't we start offering alchemy courses in the first year?"

“Most students won’t dare go home during the summer vacation,” Fred said, feigning seriousness. “Because they’re destined to get a ‘T’ (termination) on their final exams.”

"Except for us—"

"We're naturally good at this—"

“So you started self-studying a year ago!” George said. “As a senior, I’d like to give you some advice, little Ravenclaw: you should start with ‘Elementary Alchemy’! Nicolas Flamel is the greatest alchemist still alive! His book is more worth studying.”

Wade shrugged: "But I've already finished reading that book."

“Wow!” Fred raised an eyebrow. “What about ‘Analysis of Alchemy’?”

"seen it already."

“And what about 'On the Diversity of Species'?” George asked.

“The works of Thomas Aquinas from the 12th century?” Vader hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’ve seen them, but I haven’t read them carefully, because his books don’t seem to involve the application of magic.”

George said, "Actually, that was because of the limitations of the environment at the time. He had to entrust the book to Muggle publishers, and the content related to magic was written in a very obscure way. Of course, we would recommend the 18th-century revised version by Esner Vargas, which added more than two hundred magical creatures and thousands of magical materials, making it more comprehensive and accurate."

The Weasleys had read at least twenty or thirty books on alchemy, and had studied them in depth, speaking of them with great familiarity.

Wade was overjoyed and immediately took out a parchment to write everything down. If he didn't have classes in the afternoon, he wouldn't have even wanted to let them leave. They were chatting so happily that they didn't even notice when it was time to part—they didn't ask each other's names.

Chapter 28 Halloween Dinner

"Today we're going to learn about simple biological transformations, which are more difficult than ordinary object transformations. I need you to pay extra attention—"

Professor McGonagall was lecturing at the front, and the chalk automatically wrote the key points on the blackboard.

"—Alright, does anyone know the dangers of biomorphic transformation?"

The classroom was quiet, unlike usual when a hand would eagerly rise. After a while, someone hesitantly raised their hand.

“Miss Mandy Brohe?” Professor McGonagall looked at her encouragingly.

Mandy Brogher of Ravenclaw stood up: "There are four points. First, incomplete transformations can be extremely stimulating to creatures, leading them to attack wizards; second..."

Wade looked up and glanced around the classroom, but he didn't see the brown-haired figure. However, the other Gryffindor students were all there.

He asked Michael, who was standing next to him, "Have you seen Hermione?"

Michael looked up and around, guessing, "Is she feeling unwell and resting in her dorm? Look, Professor McGonagall hasn't said anything."

That made sense, but Wade felt inexplicably uneasy.

At that moment, Professor McGonagall's stern gaze swept over them, and the two immediately shut their mouths, daring not to speak again.

When get out of class ended, the students rushed out. Wade made his way through the crowded corridor and found Harry and Ron.

"Excuse me, Potter, Weasley."

Seeing Wade walking straight towards them, Ron inexplicably took a step back. "W-What is it, Gray?"

"Have you seen Hermione?" Wade asked. "Why didn't she come to Transfiguration class?"

Harry glanced instinctively at Ron, whose face showed a hint of unease as he said guiltily, "How should I know? We're not even close to Granger!"

Wade narrowed his eyes slightly, looking directly into Ron's eyes.

Ron lowered his eyes to avoid his gaze, tugged at Harry beside him, and said in a bluffing tone, "If you don't have anything else, we're going to rest!"

He grabbed Harry and started to walk away, but suddenly a voice came from behind them—

"Harry Potter!"

Harry turned around and saw Wade staring at him seriously: "You really don't know what happened?"

Under his gaze, Harry felt as if he had been dragged into the scorching sun, and his mouth became dry.

He wanted to protect his friends, but he couldn't bring himself to lie.

“Hermione, Hermione cried after Charms class,” Harry finally whispered. “We haven’t seen her since—I’m so sorry.”

He was eventually dragged away by Ron. Wade stood there, motionless, frowning in thought.

However, time has locked away his memories, and no matter how hard he tried to recall them, he couldn't remember anything.

"They must have had a fight?" Michael said knowingly. "Hermione's personality is a bit too serious, it's not surprising that she argued with those Gryffindors. Let's go, she can't possibly miss the Halloween dinner, we'll ask her what happened then."

Wade nodded.

Not far behind the two, Padma tapped her fingers thoughtfully, then quickly caught up with her twin sister and whispered to her.

As evening fell, the auditorium was newly decorated, with a giant jack-o'-lantern suspended below the ceiling and colorful skulls adorning the walls. Countless bats swirled and danced in the auditorium, sometimes gathering in groups and whistling past like dark clouds, causing the flames in the jack-o'-lanterns to flicker and roar.

Before the banquet even began, students from all four houses had almost filled every seat, and professors were arriving one after another. Dumbledore had even changed into a Halloween-themed outfit—he wore a pumpkin-colored robe and a hat with little bat patterns, and he was chatting and laughing with Professor McGonagall beside him.

Wade scanned the Gryffindor table, but the lions were too noisy. The Weasley twins were running around with several boys, their shouts and laughter echoing through the room. Wade stared for a long time but couldn't find Hermione anywhere.

Just then, someone patted him on the shoulder. Before Wade could turn around, he smelled a faint fragrance.

Padma pushed Anthony, who was sitting next to him, aside and leaned closer, saying, "I know where Granger went."

"She didn't attend the dinner?" Wade asked.

“No.” Padma brushed a strand of hair from her temple and said softly, “Parvati said—oh, you should know, Parvati is my sister, she’s in Gryffindor—that after Charms class, Weasley said bad things about Granger—like she was a nightmare or something.”

"—Ron Weasley?" Michael leaned in, surprised. "He's got guts? —I mean, didn't Hermione give him a curse right away?"

“She cried, she cried for a long time in the toilet,” Padma emphasized. “—She was very upset and wouldn’t let anyone comfort her. Parvati helped her skip the afternoon Transfiguration class. I just went to the toilet area and Granger is still inside.”

“I’ll go take a look.” Wade immediately stood up.

Padma said enthusiastically, "I'll take you there."

"But the dinner is about to start, and I didn't eat much at noon because of it." Michael muttered, and seeing Wade striding almost out of the hall, he finally stood up with a sigh and jogged after him.

As students arrived at the Great Hall, a few people walking against the flow stood out. At the Gryffindor long table, Harry inadvertently spotted Wade emerging from the Great Hall. He had been so immersed in the joyous atmosphere of Halloween that he had completely forgotten what had happened before, but now, as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head, his memories instantly returned.