When it came to moderation, Evan was not qualified to talk about Hermione.

  On top of his normal school schedule, he also had many things to do.

  Every afternoon when there was no class, he went to the Room of Requirement to prepare potions. In the evening, he checked and compiled the newspaper articles together with Hermione in the library. After returning to the Common Room, he finished the homework assigned by the professors with Colin and Ginny. Late at night, he quietly studied the dark magic books in his bedroom.

  There wasn’t enough time at all, and Evan felt that he also needed a Time- Turner to make more flexible time arrangements so that he could withstand all he was doing.

  Looking at Hermione’s thick magic books and parchment, Evan was going to make some potions for her to concentrate and improve her attention.

  In short, after the holidays, he returned to his familiar and busy school life.

  Early the next morning, when Evan and Colin walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, they saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting at the table and discussing their new schedule.

  “After Professor Lupin’s departure, there are new changes in this semester’s schedule.” Ron looked at the timetable and said with delight, “It’s fantastic. In third class, there’s only Sirius’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class today.”


  “This is Sirius’s first lesson. The only bugger is that he has to work with Slytherins.” Harry followed, while taking some sausages and tomatoes.

  “What do you think he has prepared for us?” Ron asked expectantly.

  “I don’t know, but I hope that Sirius’s first lesson will go smoothly. If Malfoy dares to make trouble in class, I won’t let him get away with it.”


  “Relax, Harry! Sirius is not Hagrid; he won’t let Malfoy make trouble. I hope that Malfoy can look for trouble, so that we could watch Sirius handle him.” Ron spread a thick layer of butter on his bread.

  “The third class is lucky! The second class has Potions this morning and History of Magic in the afternoon. We won’t have Defense Against the Dark Arts until Thursday.” Colin said disappointedly as he also put the schedule he just got out.

  “Bloody hell, I saw Snape on the first day of school before!” Ron wrinkled his nose, seemingly remembering something bad.

  Thinking of Snape’s face when he left yesterday, Evan nodded in agreement.

  “By the way, Evan!” Harry looked up and said, “Hagrid just wrote me a note inviting us to go to his place for tea this afternoon and help him see what he would need for the new semester.”


  “I’ll be there. What has Hagrid prepared for it?” “Evan picked up his bread.

  “Probably some other species of caterpillars. After all the flobberworms had died , he needs something new to carry out the course.” Harry said uncertainly, with a hint of worry in his voice. “Didn’t he promise us not to rush to carry out new dangerous creatures before the verdict of Buckbeak’s case came out?!”


  “He did say so, but the problem is that Hagrid’s definition of danger is different from others.” Ron tucked a large piece of bread covered with jam into his mouth. “Those fanged monsters may just be cute babies in his eyes.”


  “That’s why we need to help him choose the right creatures.” Hermione stuffed a thick magic book into her schoolbag. “I’ll go first. See you later.”


  “What’s wrong with Hermione? I just saw her schedule. Unlike us, she had three courses this morning.” Looking at Hermione’s back, Ron frowned and said, “That’s what happened last semester. There was something wrong with her schedule. I can’t understand. She must have something she’s hiding from us…”


  At Ron’s words, both Evan and Harry hurriedly bowed their heads. They knew why, but they promised to keep Hermione’s Time-Turner secret.

  Ron was still whispering until Harry said that when they would go to Hagrid this afternoon, he could take the Firebolt out to test it, and let Ron ride it. So he forgot all about Hermione’s secret.

  Twenty minutes later, the hall was starting to empty as people headed off toward their first lesson.

  Evan was separated from the cheerful Harry and Ron, and he followed the frustrated Colin to the underground classroom. It was best not to be late as it was Potions class.

  They just pushed the door open and they saw Snape standing gloomily on the platform.

  “Mason, Creevey, you two are late, this class started five minutes ago!” Snape looked at them both in disgust. “Ten points from Gryffindor. Now hurry to your seats and sit down.”


  “But, Professor…”


  “Five more points from Gryffindor.” Snape said coldly, “Don’t ask questions before I agree.”


  Evan and Colin did not go on arguing with him. They saw Ginny winking and they hurried to their respective seats.

  As he sat down, Colin whispered, “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s still ten minutes too early for class!”


  “We’d better be careful; Snape is in a bad mood today.”


  As Evan said, Snape’s attitude was a hundred times worse than usual.

  For students not from Slytherin House, the day’s Potions class was a painful torment.

  Snape first commented on vacation assignments one by one in a bitter, acrimonious tone. In his account, they were all useless, even for first-year students. He directly gave many people a zero point and asked them to resubmit a new paper on the moonstone next week.

  Then, he put them all into pairs and ordered them to mix up a simple potion to cure boils.

  He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone.

  There were several girls from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff who even cried because of Snape’s attitude.

  Under the Snape’s supervision, no one besides Evan could successfully complete his own potion. Snape therefore deducted a lot of points from everyone. Gryffindor took the hardest hit. By the end of the Potions class, Gryffindor lost two hundred more points.

  “I really don’t understand, what exactly does he trying to do?”


  At lunch in the Great Hall, Ginny complained to Evan, “Is he trying to scare all the girls and make them cry?”


  “I was just about to cry. If Evan hadn’t reminded me not to add the porcupine quills into boiling water, the cauldron would have definitely exploded!” Colin said with a lingering fear.

  “Yeah, Evan had twenty points taken away from him.” Ginny said bluntly, “because he successfully prevented his classmate’s cauldron from exploding.”


  Evan did not participate in their discussion. Snape was really very abnormal today, and that should be related to Sirius.

  What must have happened between them last night?!

  With Evan’s understanding of Sirius, he might be eager to play a game on Snape and score a little victory.

  It was not clear what the outcome would be, but Snape seemed to have transferred all his hatred of Sirius to the students at the Gryffindor House.

  His behavior this morning was abnormal to the extreme, and his attitude was worse than it was with Neville’s previous incident. Usually, he would only treat Harry like that.

  When Evan walked into the Great Hall, he found that the atmosphere was as abnormal as Snape’s.