HP: I beat the otome game at Hogwarts

Lyra inwardly rolled her eyes. To be honest, she had always thought the so-called bloodline theory in the magical world was pretty stupid. It's not like raising a pet; why should you care about bloodlines?

But as foolish as he was, the platinum boy's sarcastic and rude remarks were quite infuriating. Just as Lyra was preparing to teach this reckless pureblood boy a lesson, someone else discovered this strange gathering—

"What's going on here?" Filch was drawn to the crowd blocking the corridor. He struggled to squeeze to the front and, as fate would have it, spotted the stiff cat at a glance.

"Mrs. Lorris!" he cried out in terror, falling to the ground. "My cat! My cat! What's wrong with her?"

Filch's bulging eyes swept over the four people standing in the middle of the corridor, finally fixing his gaze on Harry Potter.

"It was you!" he screamed. "You killed my cat! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to rip your guts out—"

Filch's horrifying appearance, as if he wanted to disembowel Harry on the spot, chilled those around him. Fortunately, the professors arrived at the scene in time.

"Step back—" Headmaster Dumbledore's firm voice restored order to the scene, which had gradually become chaotic.

As the crowd retreated, the small group standing in the middle appeared even more isolated and vulnerable.

“Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Granger, the three of you will come with me in a moment. And—”

Leila quickly felt the probing gaze from behind the principal's crescent-shaped glasses, but she was not afraid.

"Miss White, what are you doing here?"

“Lyra isn’t with us—” Harry and the others quickly interjected to explain for her.

"Layla was just having lunch with us in the auditorium—"

“She’s innocent. I saw her at the Halloween party all along—”

"Miss White and Potter have no connection; they just happened to bump into each other—"

Lyra heard many people in the crowd vying to testify for her, from all four houses. The Weasley twins were the loudest, but there were still many people she didn't know well or had never even spoken to.

“I understand, but Miss White, please come with me for a moment.” Headmaster Dumbledore, seeing that some people still looked anxious and wanted to defend Lyra, added, “To help us understand the situation.”

Headmaster Dumbledore's words still carry a lot of weight.

In the blink of an eye, the students were all herded to their respective common rooms, the poor cat was rescued from the wall, and the teachers, students, and an infuriating Filch went to Lockhart's office—Lockhart had volunteered to take over.

This was Lyra's first time entering Lockhart's office, which was visibly different from Professor Snape's cellar.

First of all, Professor Snape would never hang his own picture on the wall—it even caused a stir when they entered Lockhart's dimly lit office.

The photos, large and small, formed a veritable photo wall—all of them Lockhart's own pictures. Thus, Lyra and the others had the "good fortune" (or bad fortune) to witness countless Lockharts, still sporting curlers in their hair, frantically hiding, as if afraid others would see their less glamorous side.

The real Lockhart lit the candles, illuminating the room. Headmaster Dumbledore placed the cat on the table and examined it carefully from head to toe.

Professor McGonagall followed Dumbledore's lead and examined the cat closely. Their faces were almost pressed against the poor cat, and anyone could see how serious they were.

Harry and the others stood on the periphery, barely daring to breathe, as if even a slightly louder breath could extinguish the cat's last breath—of course, Lyra felt this was also largely due to Professor Snape standing in the shadows not far from the three of them.

The three of them were like chicks being stared at by a venomous snake, pitiful, stiff, and helpless.

Lyra quietly observed from the other side. The shadows in the corner made Professor Snape, who was hiding there, look sinister. He wasn't exactly the same as the dark wizard who liked to eat children in the fairy tales Lyra had read when she was a child, but he was exactly the same.

"Hey, why does a perfectly good Potions Master have to make himself look like a dark wizard? He really doesn't know how to market himself. Some good-for-nothings just rely on their looks to package themselves as all-powerful wizards. Can't they at least copy some homework?" Lyra looked at Blackface Snape and then at Lockhart, the flamboyant butterfly circling the headmaster and constantly boasting, and sighed inwardly.

It seems I need to properly package my identity as a writer; maybe with good marketing, I can earn a fortune in Galleons. Although Lockhart is a complete idiot, he's clearly gone much further in marketing, already a highly successful veteran.

“I remember something similar happened... Back then, I gave the locals amulets, and the problem was solved immediately…” Lockhart continued to promote himself tirelessly, ignoring the indifference and disdain of the crowd.

Well, it's also a good idea to seize every opportunity to promote your derivative products—develop peripheral products and form a series of businesses.

If we look at Lockhart without prejudice, he does have his merits, which is perhaps why Headmaster Dumbledore hired this pretty face but no substance.

“It’s not dead.” The headmaster, completely unaware of Lyra’s wild imagination, gently reassured Filch, “It’s just petrified, and that can be cured.”

Lyra, upon hearing the news, found solace along with Filch.

Even in the game, she doesn't like furry things getting hurt.

She had just secretly inquired with the system, but the system insisted that it was upgrading itself and could not be contacted.

Lyra: "..."

"Please allow me to say something, Headmaster." The eerie voice filled the three students with a sense of foreboding and also drew Leila's attention back to the present.

"It's highly suspicious that Potter and his friends are in the corridor instead of at the party—" Before Snape could finish, Harry and the others began desperately explaining that they had attended the Death Anniversary party and that there were hundreds of ghost witnesses.

“Professor, I left early because I wanted to change my clothes,” Lyra showed everyone the burn holes in her robes and tried to explain for Harry and the others. “When I met Harry in the corridor, I didn’t see them attack Mrs. Norris. On the contrary, they were quite surprised.”

“That doesn’t prove their innocence. After all, the cat was already petrified when Miss White got to the corridor. Perhaps Potter did it before Miss White arrived—” Snape remained unmoved and insisted on his opinion.

“This is not something a second-year student can do, nor is it something a fourth-year student can do,” Dumbledore said firmly. “It requires the most advanced dark magic—”

*

"This requires the most profound black magic—"

The upperclassmen of Slytherin reached a conclusion, and the entire Slytherin common room was abuzz with discussion.

“It can’t be Potter; he’s just a lower-grade student,” Theodore Nott pointed out rationally.

“I don’t care who opened the Chamber of Secrets,” Pansy said arrogantly, fiddling with the jeweled bracelet on her wrist. “I only care about getting all those Mudbloods out of Hogwarts, don’t you think, Draco?”

Unlike the Gryffindor beauty who had previously jumped out to curse her, the platinum boy returned to the common room in silence, his face somber, seemingly filled with regret or perhaps worry about something.

This unusual behavior was all observed discreetly by Bres Zabini, who was standing beside him.