Wade: "…"
Hagrid: "…"
The two stared at each other.
From Wade's eyes, Hagrid saw the shift from shock to understanding. From Hagrid's eyes, Wade saw belated regret.
Before Wade could say anything, Hagrid suddenly slapped a massive hand over his own mouth. After glancing around nervously, he bent down, lowered his voice, and said urgently:
"Listen, Wade, you didn't hear anything just now, alright?"
"…Alright."
"Actually, the third task wasn't supposed to be kept that secret anyway. In two months, you'd all find out what it is."
"You're right."
"But still, best not to mention it to anyone—don't even tell Harry… Ah, I really shouldn't have said anything to you."
"Don't worry, I understand," Wade reassured him.
"Great! I knew you were dependable."
Hagrid looked utterly relieved. He gave Wade a hearty pat on the back with his broad hand, almost making him drop to his knees.
"Come on now, you should leave the Forbidden Forest. This isn't a good place for thinking."
One large and one small figure walked out of the forest. Hagrid's movements were like a tank—no matter how careful, he still snapped branches, flattened shrubs, and made the trees around them tremble.
But with him at Wade's side, all those little noises that had previously kept Wade's nerves taut—the rustling from nowhere, hisses, low growls, eerie shrieks, the drone of swarming insects, even faint traces of breathing—seemed to vanish completely.
Quickening his steps to walk beside Hagrid, Wade suddenly noticed that Hagrid's appearance had grown sloppier again, unlike before, when he had always seemed like a stag in rut eager to flaunt his charm.
After hesitating a moment, Wade asked: "You and Madame Maxime… how are things lately?"
At once, Hagrid's straight back slumped a little.
"Ah, we… we've had a bit of trouble recently…"
He didn't want to say more. Keeping his head down, he led Wade all the way out of the Forbidden Forest.
The toad in the cage remained quiet the whole time, so much so that when the two finally parted ways, Hagrid never even realized Wade had been carrying the little creature.
Soon after, the toad watched the scenery shift before its eyes, the familiar castle gates appearing ahead. Many students passed by Wade and warmly greeted him.
As a toad, he naturally had no way of knowing the progress of the inter-school magic tournament. He was surprised by Wade's popularity at school, though he didn't dwell on it.
Suddenly, Wade Grey paused mid-step and glanced toward the other side of the corridor. The toad instinctively followed his gaze.
A group of Slytherin students were gathered by the window, laughing and chatting. Then one of them suddenly winked and nudged the others—Draco Malfoy had appeared from the opposite side, striding quickly toward the Great Hall.
The group fell silent for a moment, then a tall, heavyset boy staggered forward and deliberately blocked Draco's path.
An unavoidable obstacle suddenly appeared ahead. Draco was forced to lift his head; when he saw who it was, his dark gray eyes narrowed slightly.
"Move, Crabbe," he said coldly.
Crabbe didn't move. Instead, he stepped closer, clenched his fists, and imitated Draco's old arrogant tone:
"And what if I don't? Are you going to rip out my stomach again?"
Draco froze, and his cold mask cracked to reveal a flash of embarrassment.
He instinctively glanced around. None of the nearby Slytherins stood on his side—their faces carried the faintest trace of amusement, waiting to watch the show.
No one thought Crabbe was wrong to give him trouble—
After Lucius's disappearance, word quickly spread about Draco using the Entrail-Expelling Curse on Crabbe. Everyone agreed that Crabbe's revenge was both justified and overdue.
To Draco, Crabbe wasn't even capable of pronouncing "Lumos" properly—one flick of his wand would be enough to knock him flat. But under so many watching eyes, he could only grit his teeth and swallow the humiliation as he circled around Crabbe to pass.
A look of disdain twisted Crabbe's face, as if he'd smelled something foul. As the two brushed past each other, Crabbe suddenly lurched sideways and slammed into Draco, sending Draco stumbling several steps and making him nearly fall.
"Watch your step, Draco!" Crabbe sneered. "Your daddy's not here to hold your hand anymore."
Draco's expression instantly turned deathly pale, as though doused in a bucket of ice water. But in his icy eyes there was a surge of burning rage.
His lips pressed into a hard line, barely suppressing the emotions on the brink of eruption. He turned his head away and kept walking. Behind him came the whispers—
"Coward!"
"Just like his father…"
"Did you hear? The Ministry's after the Malfoys again…"
"…Found contraband in the manor, fined them a fortune…"
"Serves them right! People like the Malfoys…"
Draco suddenly whipped around. He didn't catch who had spoken—only a forest of proud eyes, and faint, mocking smiles tugging at lips.
Some looked at him with mild surprise, as though they couldn't understand why he was so volatile; others' eyes glittered with anticipation, eager to see him lose control even further.
Draco knew clearly: whether he shouted, cursed, or drew his wand to strike, it would only make him look more pathetic.
Forcing his back straight, he continued forward. The faint laughter behind him buzzed in his ears like the wings of wasps—"bzz, bzz, bzz"—and clung to him like sticky spider silk, impossible to shake off.
Wade lowered his head to glance down.
Inside the cage, the toad no longer bothered to hide its emotions. Trembling with fury, it fixed venomous eyes on the mocking students, as if ready at any moment to turn into a viper and tear open their throats.
The boy's lips curled ever so slightly. Pretending not to notice, he carried the cage toward the Headmaster's tower.
At the doorway, the stone gargoyle still crouched loyally in place. Wade patted its wing and said:
"Fizzing Whizzbees? Chocolate Frogs? Cockroach Cluster… no, that's not it… then Pepper Imps? Peppermint?"
The gargoyle suddenly leapt aside.
The spiral staircase rose automatically. When Wade reached the Headmaster's office door, he was just about to knock when he heard Dumbledore's voice—rarely so severe:
"This kind of incident is no coincidence, Cornelius! You'd best immediately dispatch the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad and a team of elite Aurors to investigate! And inform the International Confederation of Wizards…"
"Dumbledore, Dumbledore, you're always so alarmist," Fudge's oily voice replied. "Do you know how many accidents I deal with every day? Most of them are just drunken wizards making a mess."
"But this is different!"
Dumbledore said gravely: "Muggles suddenly aging or bursting into flames—this has happened three times in a row! It is a most dangerous omen. Worse events will surely follow, perhaps even surpassing the time of Voldemort…"
"Now, now, why must you always bring up the dead?"
Flustered, Fudge cut him off. Even now that Voldemort was supposed to be history, he still dared not speak the name aloud.
Under Dumbledore's hard gaze, the Minister of Magic answered perfunctorily: "Alright, alright, I've already sent people to investigate. I care about the safety of the wizarding world as much as you do, Dumbledore."
The Headmaster's voice turned icy: "Investigate? You mean those two who only just graduated? Then I'll have to pray they find nothing at all—because if they encounter wizards using Dark Magic, those young ones will be lucky to make it back alive!"
Fudge's voice grew shrill: "Dumbledore, the Tournament is at its crucial stage. Don't go spouting such madness—what good would causing panic do you?"
Then a cloyingly sweet voice chimed in to back him up: "Perhaps because certain people always want to make a fuss—just so they can show how important they are?"
The office suddenly fell into dead silence. After a long while, Wade finally heard Dumbledore's voice again, heavy with disappointment:
"If you can look such clear facts in the face and still choose to feign sleep, then there is nothing I can do to wake you.
But Cornelius… I thought—I once thought—that even if you lacked courage, you were at least someone willing to shoulder responsibility. Sadly, I was wrong…
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⭐Harry Potter: Becoming a Study God (HP:BSG)- 200+ Chapters
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