cycle

We quickly understand what Percy's letter refers to by "more power".The next morning's Daily Prophet featured a large photo of Umbridge on the front page, with the headline "Ministry of Magic Seeks Educational Reform - Dolores Umbridge Named First Senior Inquisitor".

"They're finally making interference clear." Hermione folded the newspaper and read, "The Inquisitor will have the power to vet her fellow faculty members to make sure they're up to standard... these new measures from the Ministry of Magic Enthusiastically supported by Hogwarts students."

"Who supports it?" Tallus asked.

"Lucius Malfoy." Harry, who took the newspaper, said briefly, looked at the next page, and then frowned, "Wait, Sturgis Podmore was arrested for trespassing at the Ministry of Magic , he seems to be—”

"The person we met during our summer vacation." Hermione took his words with a little warning tone, "He was supposed to see Neville off, but he never showed up. Discuss in the auditorium."

I didn't speak, the name was basically completely unfamiliar to me, I only vaguely remembered that he was one of the few members of the Order of the Phoenix who brought Neville from his uncle's house to Grimmauld Place.From time to time, owls flew in from the window and landed in front of other people, bringing them family letters or large and small packages, until the porridge in the bowl was mostly cold, and I would be late if I didn’t leave. Come to Vivian.

"Harry, has Hedwig been sending you a letter lately?" I asked him anxiously before History of Magic class.

"I haven't used Hedwig since Tallus said Filch wanted to check his letters," he answered me while yawning (Professor Binns had drifted slowly into the classroom). Two-way Mirror contacted his father, we plan to stop delivering letters with owls for the time being——Hedwig is very unhappy, she went to peck me a few times last time, what's wrong?"

I shook my head, turned around and opened my notes, forcing myself to follow Professor Binns' voice and write down everything he said.Umbridge didn't show up in History of Magic ("Maybe she was worried she'd fall asleep during the investigation, too," Ron put it, or in Dad's dungeon ("It's a pity, I've waited this morning to see if Snape would poison her - I'm kidding!"

Ron said after receiving a glare from Hermione), Dad walked between the classroom seats, handed out homework to everyone, and still drove me coldly to the other end of the classroom, which reminded me of the old days before Christmas Go to Aunt Petunia's and she always puts the diagonal of the table between me and Dudley.

"I'm grading your homework according to OWL exam standards," he said dryly. "I have to say that your level is terrible-if most people hand in this kind of nonsense in the exam, you can only do it. Getting a failing grade. I hope you guys put a little more effort into your papers this week on the different types of antidotes, or I'll have to put some 'D' dunces in detention."

He didn't point it out, but he kept looking at Harry as he spoke, and there was a mocking chuckle from the Slytherins.I unfolded my thesis, and almost every line on it was marked by my father. He corrected my mistakes word by word, and even changed the color of the ink in the middle. A+, I noticed that the colors of "A" and "+" are not the same. He may think that giving me an A would hurt my self-confidence too much. After some revisions, he gave me a small plus sign to express his encouragement.

"You just got an A?" Patil leaned over to look at my paper. "I suddenly thought it was no big deal if I got a 'P'."

I shrugged. Dad was always determined not to let me get too high marks in his class, and I was used to the fact that he could find a bunch of things wrong with me if he wanted to.

During lunch, Hermione and the Weasley twins were discussing the grading of the OWL exam. I listened absently and looked around the auditorium hoping to see Vivienne.The Weasley twins say that Umbridge has shown up in Professor Freevy's Charms class, drawing on her clipboard and asking students questions.

The arithmetic and divination class in the afternoon was uneventful, even though it was pouring rain outside the window and accompanied by lightning and thunder from time to time, we were asked to use numbers to calculate the relationship between the names of several famous wizards and their personalities. This is the unfinished part of the class Weekly homework.When we headed off to our Defense Against the Dark Arts class without any expectations, we were, as expected, asked to put away our wands and begin a dull reading session.

Hermione kept taking deep breaths to calm herself down, and I could almost hear her muttering to myself not to bother Umbridge anymore, not to make things worse, but at 10 minutes Umbridge With a friendly smile, Qi woke up Tallus, who was sleeping soundly with his head on the book.

"Honey, this is not a place to catch sleep," she told Tallus in a girl's sweet voice. "Learning is about learning."

"Really?" Tallus looked around sleepily. "Where is the knowledge?"

Umbridge raised his eyebrows, leaning closer to his face and asked, "Are you questioning my teaching methods, Mr. Black?"

"Yes." Tallus said happily, "can I continue to sleep then?"

Everyone else in the classroom had to cover their faces with books to hide the fact that they were trying to hold back their laughter. Umbridge's eyes turned cold, and she walked up to the podium and said to everyone: "Gryffindor deducts five Points, Mr. Black, the teaching methods I use have been approved by Ministry of Magic education experts, who have more authority than any of you. The teachers who taught you in the past may have given you too much freedom. There was an undue misunderstanding about this subject. In fact, except for Professor Quirrell, I think it is impossible for anyone else to pass the investigation of the Ministry of Magic. I hope to bring you who have gone astray into the right track—"

"By the way, let the mysterious person stick to the back of your head?" A very soft voice interrupted her generous speech, and Neville turned a page of the book, as if he had just discovered that everyone was looking at him with incredible eyes , raised his head and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, because Professor you seem to want to use Quirrell as a role model. This is one of his hobbies, and I think you must know it."

"I think you also need to extend the confinement from one day to a week like Mr. Potter," Umbridge said tactfully.

"What does he think he's doing?" Harry raged after class, yelling at Neville's back, "Like an idiot, I tied him to a seat last week and sent him to Umbridge for a week of detention." , did he think that woman's confinement was really just copying sentences?!"

"What was that?" Hermione turned her head and looked him in the eyes. "I thought you were weird last week. What did she ask you to do?"

"Uh, no..." Harry was discouraged for a moment. He stammered and tried to round out what he had said while putting his right hand with the sticker on his back behind his back. "It's just... copying sentences."

Hermione, Tallus, and Ron stopped Harry, who was about to slip away, and wanted to know the truth angrily. I was thinking about whether I should join in to show that I didn't know anything about it, but the corner of my eye Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small figure stumbling past in the rain, I immediately left them and ran towards the window.

"Vivienne!" I recognized Vivienne with difficulty, but it didn't know why it didn't dare to approach me, it just flew towards another window, "Where are you going? I'm here!"

She seemed to be frightened and kept flying from one window to another not far away. I noticed that her wings and claws seemed to be injured. The window sill trembled and rolled down several times, but as soon as I got close to it, I vibrated my wings desperately and flew further away.

"What's going on?" I didn't dare to open the window rashly, looked at the little owl curled up in pain through the glass, and felt that my voice was trembling, "Vivian, I'm Alice, you Look at me, I am your master, take a closer look."

The rain was so heavy that it was as if pots of water were pouring directly on the windows of the castle. My hair was almost soaked after opening five windows in a row just now.I didn't dare to move, for fear that it would fly to another place. After staring at her for a long time, she finally leaned over and knocked on the window with her beak. I noticed that her legs tied with letters were bent abnormally. , as if being roughly dragged by someone.

"Don't be afraid, it's me." I opened the window as lightly as possible, "Hey, be obedient, Vivienne is an obedient owl—"

There were footsteps behind me, and I was just a hair away from catching it, but the next second she gave a scream of pain and flapped her wings, and I turned and plunged into the pouring rain, Flew towards the direction of the field.

"What are you doing here?" Filch shuffled towards me. "Sneaky!"

"Shut up!" I turned around and yelled at him full of anger, "Is there a school rule saying that students are not allowed to come here? If there is a school rule, wait until I come back and put me in confinement. If there is no school rule, then shut up!"

Filch snorted dangerously offended, but I didn't have time to waste time with him here, and turned and hurried down the stairs, fighting my way through a large group of Slytherins who had just left get out of class.

"What's the matter? It's raining outside!" I heard Draco yell behind me.

The rain was so heavy that I felt that as long as I breathed, the cold rain would pour into my nostrils, giving me the illusion that I was actually walking on the bottom of the lake.The completely soaked robe can't keep warm at all at this moment, it can only wrap my legs tightly to limit the speed of running. After running a few steps, I took off the robe and wrapped it around my hands. drenched.Vivienne flew without any purpose in the heavy rain, and even made me feel that it had no strength for a long time, and was just being blown by the wind to a farther place.

In the heavy rain, I couldn't see where I ran. I probably ran past the greenhouse, a large grassland, and the lake was already covered with dense ripples by the heavy rain not far away. Ann shouted: "Come back! Vivienne is flying!"

I have never used a summoning spell on a living creature, but it seems that it is useless. The light from the wand stimulated Vivienne, and she changed the direction in a panic and continued to fly. Because of the damage to the wings, the flying height kept dropping, but I am also gradually losing the strength to chase it because of the cold.

Vivienne finally landed on the ground, I wiped the rain from my face, and carefully prepared to approach her step by step.The rain seemed to have suddenly dropped a lot, and I was vaguely aware of it in the biting cold, but the water ripples on the lake in the distance were obviously bigger than before.

A pair of hands suddenly dragged me from behind me, and pulled me back a few steps. Just where I was standing, there was a dull loud noise, which knocked up the rainwater and mud on the ground.Numerous hard and thick branches frantically beat on the ground and around, trying to drive away the uninvited guests who broke into their territory, and the rain brought up on the face made people feel the pain of being hit by stones.

"Torn apart! Torn apart!" I screamed, attacking the wicker that fell on Vivienne, "Torn apart—Vivienne! Fly away! This is the Whomping Willow—Shenfeng Wuying! Shenfeng Wuying!"

Maybe she flew up a little bit with difficulty, or maybe it was just wishful thinking caused by the heavy rain. In a trance, I saw a little owl dodging one after another willow twigs hitting it. Spreading its wings and flying to a more distant place, the small sound shadow turned into a gray dot in the sky, just like when it tilted its head to look at me, bit my thumb affectionately and flew away.

"I'll buy you another owl." I felt that someone was holding my tear-dropping face, and the warm tears instantly merged with the rain, and the coldness continued to rise from my feet. I buried my face in the chest of his also soaked clothes to prevent me from looking at the Whomping Willow who was still attacking the ground like crazy, "I'll buy you one that is exactly like it, okay? I'll write to my dad , let Hogwarts cut down this crazy tree—”

"I don't want to." I tried to break free from him in a daze, "I want to save Vivian, I—"

"It's already..." He held me tightly to prevent me from getting close to the Whooping Willow's attack range, "It's just an owl, it's okay Alice, I'll buy you another one—don't look at it. "

I don't know how long it took for the Whomping Willow to gradually calm down. I lifted up the willow branches that were scattered by my attack, and shook the dirty muddy water standing on the branches and leaves.The little ball of hair rolled to the side lifelessly, the feathers were mixed with the mud, and the rain had basically washed away its blood. It was still a little owl, and there wasn't much blood to shed.

"Vivienne..." I knelt down and wrapped it in my robe in vain, and looked up at Draco blankly, "Shall we go to Madam Pomfrey...or Professor Graplan..."

"Alice." Draco also squatted down, I saw myself in a state of distress from his eyes, and the heavy rain kept rolling down his pale face, he said to me in a very soft voice, " it's been--"

"But Professor Graplan is very powerful." I said stubbornly, "She understands everything, she knows how to heal a seriously injured unicorn, and also how to heal a broken Bowtruckle, she—"

"Liz." He stretched out his cold hand and stroked the hair that was sticking to my cheek because of being soaked to the back of my ear. "It's dead."

I stared at him for a while, then looked down and sobbed, we all temporarily forgot a lot of things in this heavy rain.

I hugged the first owl in my life through the robe for a long time in the rain, trying to tidy up its messy feathers. It is a little guy who loves to tidy itself up, but at this time its feathers are all mixed Together, it barely covered its small body in a mess, and the more I combed them, the more they fell off.Its wings wrapped tightly around its injured right paw, and at the last moment of its life, it was still trying to protect the letter that my mother sent me, and I squeezed the letter in my hand.

"I don't want to take it back to the castle." I said as Draco took my hand and walked into the castle. "If it ends up being eaten by Mrs. Norris...I..."

He paused and said, "Hurry up, it's getting dark."

Finally I dug a small hole with my wand by the lake, buried Vivien in my robes, and put a stone there to mark it.Draco didn't interfere, he just used his wand to give me a little shelter from the rain, and when I finally stood up he said, "I'll buy you another—"

"No need." I shook my head. "I've had one owl and that's enough."

Many people may not understand the sadness I felt at that time, just like what Draco said at that time, it was just an owl, and I have cut open the corpses of countless toads since I was a child and used them The venom in the skin pimple, even just witnessed the sudden appearance of Mr. Crouch's body on this field not long ago, but what I felt at the time was more fear. To be selfish, he was just a simple person to me. Names that bear the tags of Elders and High Ministry Officials.

And Vivienne is different, if it is not needed to send letters for a long time at Hogwarts, it will fly out from the shed to find me to play, and remind me not to forget its existence with shining eyes; Loves jumping into the bathroom sink and pecking at the faucet, getting water all over the floor, like a disaster when moulting, keepsakes of it in every room.I keep forgetting that I've only had it for a year - because I barely remember what life was like without it.

This is the first time that I have truly lost a life that I had an intimate relationship with, standing so close to me that I can hardly do anything about it.Many years later, I wrote this memory on another heavy rainy day. Like Hermione, I never believed that fate could be divined casually. When I thought about what happened afterwards, I suddenly felt as if everything was drawn on a huge disc. Walking forward slowly, I suddenly remembered that in the third grade, I walked into Trelawney's classroom for the first time because I returned the crystal ball. She said that she saw rain in my eyes.

At that time, I thought that the sadness of losing Vivienne would last forever, and I firmly believed that I would never have a second owl, but in fact, when I was going to the United States, I had to buy another owl in order to keep in touch with my parents. , I didn't feel so much sadness. When I chose the current Vivienne and it gently nibbled my thumb, I only felt a vague melancholy washed away by time.

When I got my first owl at the age of 14, I thought it would be by my side for a long time, and then I lost it unexpectedly in a heavy rain at the age of 15.After that, many years passed, and then too many things happened. After all, children were forced to grow up day by day in the cold wind and rain to face the cruelty of the world, and adults were forced to accept indifference and forgetfulness in the torrent of time.

And the people who caused these losses, from birth to death, never had a moment of repentance, thinking that they should be responsible for these pains.

The castle has already started to light up. On the night of heavy rain, all the students are nestled in the lounges of their respective colleges to review their homework or chat casually. In the corridor, except for the movements of the portraits visiting each other, only a few passing by occasionally can be seen. a ghost.I didn't feel hungry when I didn't have dinner, I felt my stomach was filled with something cold.I thought Filch would be waiting on the steps of the Great Hall to catch me, but on the way back to Gryffindor Tower I didn't even meet Mrs. Norris, only heard Peeves on the second floor. The sound of singing in an empty classroom upstairs.The clothes on my body were treated with a drying charm to stop dripping, but they didn't feel warm either—I felt like I had just climbed up from the bottom of the lake.

It was only when I was almost in front of the Fat Lady's portrait that I realized that I was still wearing Draco's robes. I don't know when he took them off and gave them to me.It would seem silly to try to give him the clothes back at this point, and I bet Filch was pulling himself together to make me pay for my previous rudeness.So I took it off and folded it into a square to cover the part of the Slytherin house emblem, and then let the fat lady open the hole of the portrait.

Hermione and the others were sitting around the fireplace talking seriously to Neville, their expressions looked serious.Hermione looked up and saw me, and waved to me to signal me to go over. I shook my head at her, pointed to the steps of the girls' dormitory and made a gesture that I wanted to go back and rest.She should have noticed that my hair was still wet and showed a little puzzled expression, but was quickly distracted by what the boys were discussing.

It is rare for the female dormitory to be completely quiet—even if everyone is asleep, there will be a few very light dreams floating in the darkness from time to time.Patil and Brown were happily writing their homework for their divination class while listening to Wizard 188 Late Night Emotional Radio. I heard a voice in my head reminding me that today's homework was left blank in my schoolbag, but I I turned off the thought like a blaring alarm clock, and buried myself in the soft mattress.

I was still clutching something in my hand, and I slowly lifted it up. It was the crumpled letter with a Vivienne's feather stuck to it. On the envelope was my mother's familiar and gentle handwriting, which read: "Hogwarts, Gryffindor House, Alice Snape".

I opened it, and it was just an ordinary home letter from a mother comforting her daughter who was in the anxiety of the new semester. Dad was disappointed, but in fact she and Dad will never be disappointed because of me, neither OWL nor NEWT can decide a wizard's long life.

I don’t know how long it took, but I seemed to have fallen asleep in a daze and had a chaotic dream. In the dream, Vivienne squatted on the window sill of my house and looked at me with her head tilted. I reached out to touch her furry. But she flapped her wings and flew away. A feather floated leisurely in the clear sky. The moment I wanted to catch it, a flash of lightning accompanied by thunder fell. There was nothing, and something seemed to be falling on a distant tower. I heard people's howling and screaming, and then the ground under my feet began to shake, and the starry sky above my head was also shaking.

"Alice." I heard someone calling me, "Alice, wake up."

I struggled to open my eyes. Hermione in her pajamas was patting my face. Her long hair was messily falling on the tip of my nose, which made me want to sneeze.The lights in the dormitory have been turned off, and the other girls should have fallen into a sweet and long dreamland after a tiring day.

"I just came back... I heard you crying." She spoke softly, wiping my face with the sleeve of her pajamas, "Did you have a nightmare?"

I held her warm wrist, as if my throat was blocked by something, I had to hold back the sharp pain to make a hoarse voice: "Hermione, Vivienne is dead."

"You just had a nightmare." She said softly, "You are so worried about it, maybe it will come back tomorrow morning, or in fact it will come back tonight, but it's too late and it will go back to the owl house first Room--"

"It's really dead." I showed her the opened envelope, "It... got frightened for some reason, lost its way in the rain... and fell next to the Whomping Willow, I looked at it ...I shouldn't have chased it, if it didn't feel itself being chased..."

I can't go on talking, if I continue to talk, I will have to face this fact - I killed Vivienne.

Hermione covered her mouth.

"I buried it by the lake...for fear that Mrs. Norris would eat it." I whispered, "Hermione, I feel so bad."

She kept nodding, squeezed my cold hand, and pressed my hand to her warm cheek, which also became wet.

Hermione stayed with me for a while, until I pretended to fall asleep again before getting up and walking away.I actually felt exhausted, but there was a voice in my head that said, you know what, Vivienne it's never coming back.This sound lasted for a long time, like a sharp needle poking my heart with a fixed frequency, it didn't keep chanting, even the luck that felt numb was stingy, it gave me alms every time I felt a little drowsy It popped up out of nowhere, and I woke up completely again because of worrying.

I felt that my limbs had lost the ability to capture warmth, so I adjusted my posture to wrap myself completely under the quilt.My arm seemed to be caught by a hard object. I touched it and thought it was a spherical object, but I couldn't remember what it was.

I sat up and groped with the light of the tip of my wand, and found that I had thrown Draco's robes on the bed indiscriminately when I came back. The round hard object should be something in the pocket of his robes.Subconsciously, I wanted to take it out to see what it was, and I stretched out my hand and stopped in mid-air before taking it back.

I was still wearing the clothes that had been soaked and dried in the heavy rain before. I finally realized this and got up to change into my pajamas. I muttered a few words to make me fall asleep again, and I stood up lightly, trying to find my pajamas in the closet, and put Draco's robe on the bedside by the way.

The round thing rolled out of his robe pocket, and made a lot of noise when it fell to the ground, fortunately it didn't cause more protests.I listened to the sound to tell where the thing had rolled, and it seemed to have finally stopped by the window and remained motionless.

"Fluorescent flickering." I whispered, but it's not necessary, it's a glass ball, even at night, it can reflect the slight starlight that penetrates through the gaps in the curtains.

An ordinary glass ball with nothing inside, I picked it up and looked at it, wondering why Draco carried it in his pocket, could it be a memory ball?When did he need to use this kind of thing?

I thought about putting it back in his robes and returning it with him tomorrow sometime, before putting it back I realized it was glowing faintly as I held it.

"Draco," a line of tiny words emerged dimly, illuminating the empty glass globe.

-------

Recommended BGM: Fleurie "Hurtslikehell"

Iloved, and Iloved and Ilost you.