The time glided silently into October, and the warmth of summer was fading with the yellow and the green leaves and roses, and a pale green fog was brewing in the woods, and the rain-laden clouds were hanging lower and within reach of the towering grey-blue mountains in the distance.
Hogwarts was once again shrouded in pale green and thick white.
One day in the last week of his month-long detention, Professor Flitwick approached Aurora and asked her to help him tidy up his personal library in his office. Ravenclaw's passion for books and knowledge was remarkable, as was evident from Professor Flitwick's own considerable library.
He promised Aurora that when he finished, he could choose some of his favorite books to go back and read until she finished. Aurora guessed it was because he had memorized all the books in his head. Aurora was grateful for this, not only for Professor Flitwick's generous promise, but also for the fact that he had offered to clean up his library himself, just before Filch was about to stuff himself into Myrtle's bathroom.
To be honest, Professor Flitwick's stacks had no need for such cumbersome activity; they were tidy enough in their own right, except for the ones he had recently taken out, which had been piled unceremoniously on the floor and table.
It was easy. With her library organizing experience, Aurora could do it all in about half an hour.
By the time the finishing work was done, the Windows were drenched by the heavy rain and covered with a thin mist. Aurora's eyes drifted out into a pale gray sky, an endless green forest, a foggy black lake, and students hurrying to the castle, shielding themselves from the rain with their hands or coats.
She replaced the last book in its rightful place and began to look through Professor Flitwick's collection. It is a good way to pass the time when there is so much content and quantity of books. Aurora didn't want to go back to the teaching area so soon; in fact, she had even enjoyed the month of detention before Filch made her go to Myrtle's bathroom so many times.
Compared to talking to half the school.
It was here that Aurora discovered for the first time the weakness of her own house. Hufflepuff was good in everything except the gossip. At the slightest hint, they could make it blossom in the splendour of spring, more brilliant than a spell.
A month, said long not long said short not short, the end of the approaching Halloween, the topic began to have a significant change in the wind. When my detention is over, and Halloween is upon us, then this whole thing will be over.
As for the Halloween event, which had been the talk of the badger and lion cubs all week, Aurora wasn't interested. She had lived in Halloween every day since the Potions lesson, and she felt old in her soul, unable to feel the joy of young children.
She crouched on the floor and looked at the bottom row of heavy books, idly musing that if Vox and Beverly had no plans for Halloween, they might as well go and find Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest together. Dumbledore had announced a couple of days earlier that there would be no homework for every subject on Halloween, and that the special students could have a costume party without getting hurt or too much.
The children in the dining room were jumping up and throwing their hats in the air, and the Gryffindors were even planning to let off a few magical fireworks if conditions weren't so great.
Aurora looked at the kind and gentle face of the principal, and suddenly felt that all the disorderly books that she had read before in the elegant gentleman men have a face. Indeed, she sometimes wondered if Snape and Dumbledore's ages had been mistimed; their headmaster was the twenty-third.
Her fingers brushed gently over the rows of spines, and Aurora's eyes were drawn to a dark brick book whose chapped, falling gold letters could be read "Before Hogwarts was founded."
Looks like a book about a school founder?
Aurora pulled it from the bottom of the shelf and pulled up a cloud of dust. She performed a deft cleansing charm, then sat down and began to flip through the book, leaving her hands full of brittle fibers.
This is a book written by hand, and the author's handwriting is strong, unrestrained and bold, with vivid colors that depict the chaotic environment of the time.
The first part deals with the frictions and conflicts between wizards and Muggles at that time. Some wizards took pleasure in enslaying and even killing Muggles, while others were burned by Muggles as aliens, and the descendants of wizards were persecuted quite miserably when they were very young. Hundreds of years of fighting have killed many people on both sides. This is because there are so many fewer wizards than Muggles.
This had already been learned in History of Magic, but Aurora skimmed over it and went straight to the second part.
This section is an introduction to the four greatest wizards of the time -- Godric Gryffindor, Roina Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin.
Unlike ordinary books, the record here is much more detailed, introducing the process of four people from strangers to acquaintances. Aurora noticed that this part of the handwriting had changed, becoming long and beautiful, the layout is precise and beautiful, and it is very different from the previous part of the narration.
In the previous part of the record, the question of time is very vague, only emphasizing the confusion of the situation at that time, and the strong emotion is the main theme. This part is very elaborate, time even accurate to the day such a unit of measurement. It looks like it was written by a bystander. The emotional color is so light that you can hardly capture the author's subjective emotions. It is simply looking at something from the past.
It was written that Ravenclaw and Gryffindor had been family friends, growing up together, before they met Hufflepuff and Slytherin, and knew them together, because they had been on the same team when they met.
There was no description of Hufflepuff's relationship with Slytherin, only an "early acquaintance," with the remark that "one brilliant and haughty and sharp, the other thoughtful and gentle and tenacious, and seemingly strangely contrasting harmony between two people." Nothing else was ever written about the two men alone. Gryffindor and Slytherin often appeared together in later years.
But Aurora found that, although Hufflepuff himself was hardly in conflict with anyone, she could always talk Slytherin out of it whenever the other three had an argument.
It occurred to Aurora that the relationship between the two men was delicate, as she remembered how Salazar had always ignored or sidestepped the topic of Helga.
This part ends with Hufflepuff being the latest to say that the four founders' ideas are beginning to diverge irreconcilably. Until then, she had never publicly expressed her views on admitting students, though she was pretty much open to all comers.
The author begins his closing paragraph with "Things have become so acute that there is no going back", stating that Hufflepuff, "against all odds, chose a similar philosophy to Gryffindor's, supporting the admission of Muggle-born wizards".
The last sentence at the end -- "This caused the break between Slytherin and the others".
Aurora froze, thinking there was something wrong with this sentence. What does the word "this" mean? What does it mean? In this context, there was a frightening feeling that Slytherin had left because of Hufflepuff's side. Given the usual rigor of the author of this section, such vagueness is certainly odd.
Aurora flipped to the next entry, and the handwriting changed again. Compared with the almost impersonal beauty of the previous one, the writing was much softer and more easygoing, as slender as the branches of a young vine stretching across the page. But it seemed strangely familiar to Aurora, as if she had seen it from somewhere.
This part of the content is very plain, it is about how Hogwarts was built, what facilities and free space, and the division and management of the various houses and teaching philosophy. The degree of sophistication is regular, the emotional color is plain and moderate, gentle and smooth without ups and downs. If the first person's article is vodka like spirits, the second person is delicate and elegant black tea, and the last person's style, no doubt give people a cup of ordinary warm water feeling.
A three-part story written by three very different characters about the past and the beginning of Hogwarts.
Aurora rested her head on the bookshelf for a while, and it struck her that their styles fitted perfectly with the spirit at the heart of the three Hogwarts houses.
Then something exploded inside her head, and it roared like a wild wind.
Aurora looked down at the handwriting and handwriting of the last man, and decided that it was the same style and look as the poem "to S. S." in Salazar's diary.
Salazar didn't write it to get back at himself. Someone else had written it. And it's the same person who wrote this section.
Thinking of this, she suddenly wondered who the author of the book was. She had her own theories, but they turned out to be false.
Professor Flitwick was quick to be precise: "It's a hand-written legacy of the three founders, a sort of memoir of their own later years. They had each written it and stapled it together, and it remained in the headmaster's office until Professor Dumbledore gave it to me. He knows I like them."
"A memoir? Aurora looked at the book in her arms, wondering, "But only the first two are reminiscing, and the last one hasn't written anything about himself at all. He's just told us all about Hogwarts, inside and out."
"Oh, that's what Helga Hufflepuff wrote." 'said Flitwick.' It really helped me when I first arrived. I think that was her intention, to give each new principal a detailed description of the school's structure. She is said to be a very sweet and thoughtful person, Ravenclaw has said so, as I am sure you have seen before."
"In that case, wouldn't it be better if she made it into a separate book?"
"That might..." Flitwick hesitated, then replied, "Perhaps she doesn't want to write about herself."
Aurora agrees with Flitwick and borrows the book with his permission.
Back in her bedroom, she sank into bed, pulled down the curtain tightly around the upright post, opened Salazar's diary, pulled out the thin parchment from a few books tucked beside her pillow, copied Helga's writing as carefully as she could, then placed the paper under Salazar's page and reproduced the writing again.
"So the Slytherin lounge was settled at the bottom of Hogwarts Lake, and I placed Hufflepuff's in the basement as well."
The last letter formed, and Salazar remained motionless: "You forgot to add the word kitchen, and the kitchen is in the basement."
With that, he curled his tail around the words Aurora had copied into a twig and stared at the little girl before him.
"I've just found a book that Professor Flitwick told me was a memoir written by Helga and his family. Too bad Helga didn't write her own. She just wrote about the school. Ravenclaw writes that you and Helga have known each other for a long time. Is that true?"
"Useless stuff all the time. No wonder Potions are always stepping on the line."
"... It's a Hufflepuff looking up to the founder of his own house."
"Do you want to keep up your academic respect for your poor Potions professor, or do you really want to be his most memorable pupil?"
"... No, I love life."
Aurora put the diary on her bent knee, sank her upper body into the soft pillow, and sighed deeply. What she had expected to be some interesting news now seemed impossible.
Then, remembering Salazar's insistence on "pure bloodline" and the poem, and Ravenclaw's last ambiguous words, she could not resist taking the journal back. After some thought, she wrote in a rather obscure way: "Anyway, I seem to have forgotten to ask who wrote that poem last time?"
Salazar opened his golden eyes, and dense cracks crawled up Aurora's words, tearing them apart. He sneered, flashing his sharp white fangs and spitting out his purple letter, looking fiercer than ever before. "Isn't it bad to be alive?"
Aurora shivered and immediately wrote, "... I'm sorry I didn't ask."
Salazar was unexpectedly silent for a moment, then snapped two words from the tip of his tail, "Good night."
The diary closed of its own accord.
Aurora knew that Salazar was usually not going to talk to people like that, and it was best to leave him alone unless she had a hard time.
She sank back into her pillow.
It's still raining.
...
The worst Wednesday for the badgers was the day before Halloween, when Potions were taught.
Aurora had not dared to bring Salazar's diary to Potions class since the "S.S." incident; after all, no student of normal size and intelligence would want to be on the verge of Snape's outburst.
It's not about being smart, it's about survival.
For the last month, she has held her place in the back row of the classroom under a narrow window, far from the desk. But whether it was a delusion or not, Aurora noticed that whenever she buried herself in writing, she looked up and saw Snape standing darkly not far from her. The feeling of eyes falling on her hand, sharp, cool and thin as if it had been rolled with an angular ice cube.
She certainly did not feel that Snape was looking at her intently and thoughtfully. So he seemed to pay extra attention to what she was writing.
Aurora had a guilty conscience, always thinking it had something to do with the diary. And so it was, but not at all like Aurora imagined.
What mattered to Snape was whether she was holding the same notebook he had found so uncertain before, not what she had written. But according to his own observations, the girl never brought the notebook to the classroom again.
With that in mind, he turned his lesson plan to the last page of the lesson plan. "Questions 1 to 13 on page 186. The class work is now done, and then you can start terrorizing your classmates for fun."
There was a lot of howling down there.
"But, Professor. Headmaster Dumbledore says there's no homework until Halloween." One of the Hufflepuffs was looking earnestly at Snape. Aurora sighed and obediently took out her notebook and copied down the questions, thinking that this student was the real warrior.
"So I told you to do it in class and not take it home." Snape raised his eyebrows and his low, melodious voice dragged dangerously long. "So, what are you waiting for?"
"My God, he's got that up his sleeve." Incredulously, Cecilia reached for the notebook. There was a rustle of books turning in the classroom.
"It's probably a Halloween present from Professor Snape," said Hermione. Aurora redipped her pen in the ink and said, "Doesn't it fit the theme?"
Fortunately, the questions were so theoretical that Aurora wouldn't be as frustrated with them as she would with her own cooking, most of which Salazar had taught her. But really, she admires her own brain's filter, or else what she might remember most from Salazar's volley of answers would be his sarcasm. Then she wrote Salazar's exact words in the exercise book...
Good, then Snape will send her away the next day, in both the Hogwarts and wizarding sense.
She drew her lips together at this thought, wrote the last word, then rose to the desk and handed the notebook over to Snape.
She was about to turn away when Snape said, "Is this the last day of your detention?"
"Er, yes." Aurora scratched her ear awkwardly, then nodded cautiously and with restraint, her light brown eyes responding to the cold look down her head. After a few seconds of contact, Aurora dropped her gaze even lower, because Snape's eyes were too oppressive.
When I was across the classroom, I didn't feel anything, but when I got close, I felt pressure to look him in the eye.
"Go to the school gate after dinner."
Aurora knew that it looked as if he needed the ingredients for one of the potions in the Forbidden Forest, which were protected to death by magical creatures.
As she realized this, an inopportune image popped into her mind -- Snape in a gardener's hat, with a shovel named Aurora, scooping a fluttering flower.
Aurora wanted to laugh involuntarily, but Snape's eyes forced her to swallow.
His voice was cool, like the feeling of a snake on his skin. "You're glad you're going to the Forest?"
Aurora froze for a moment, confused as to whether she had been sent to the Forest detention alone or had gone with him to find the materials. "Aren't you coming too?"
She regretted it as soon as the words came out of her mouth, because the dialogue felt awkward and awkward, as though she was laughing because she thought Snape was going with her. The rest of the room clearly felt the same way, and all chuckled. Snape's face went the blackest ever.
When the new head of Slytherin was about to say anything, Aurora made a decisive run for it. "Good-bye, Professor!"
Salazar was right. Their Potions professor would have been impressed.
Shortly after leaving the classroom, Cecilia stood in the crowd and waved at Aurora. She looked at the little girl who had just emerged with a curious, inquisitive look and a prophetic certainty in her voice. "You're going to the Forest with Professor Snape?"
"Last day of confinement." Aurora corrected and added, sensing that the other person seemed to have misunderstood something.
"Yes, then."
"... Well."
"I wonder how you feel."
"I just hope Professor Dumbledore doesn't know," said Harry.
If even their affable headmaster had heard of the last atrocity, then almost the entire Hogwarts staff knew...
Aurora thought, sighed, and grabbed her blonde hair as she headed toward the restaurant. Behind her, Cecilia stood dumbfounded, clearly misinterpreting Aurora's meaning. Her first reaction was that Aurora had said that her ideal would be the old principal. Combined with Aurora's deceptively worn-looking statement that she didn't want the principal to know, the girl's mind suddenly began to make a series of strange connections.