It didn't take long for Severus Snape to lose his composure.
At precisely three o'clock in the morning, when the Potions Master was deep in slumber—
A series of bizarre sounds—wood snapping, bricks crumbling—suddenly pierced the silence and dragged him unwillingly from his dreams.
What was that noise? What kind of mischief were his students up to now?
Such were his thoughts as his sleep was rudely interrupted.
In just the few short days since Jane Yu had arrived, he had witnessed her boiling hotpot in a brass cauldron and sweeping the floors with a Firebolt.
These acts—so flagrantly defying the norms of wizard behavior—had led him to wonder if her brain had been trampled by a troll.
So when the strange noises started, he immediately suspected the source of the chaos.
He carefully traced the sound, only to realize it was coming from the ceiling above him—
More precisely, from the ceiling of the first floor, which was the floor of Jane Yu's bedroom on the second floor.
It sounded as though something—or someone—was clawing away at the bricks and cement.
Snape frowned.
And then, without warning—
A massive chunk of the ceiling came crashing down, bringing with it every single piece of furniture from Jane Yu's room above!
CRASH—BANG—THUD—
The sound of heavy objects hitting the ground, colliding, and shattering filled the air.
Had Snape not reacted quickly enough, he might have been crushed beneath the falling debris!
His room now had a gaping hole in the ceiling, with bricks and wood scattered everywhere. Dust and plaster continued to rain down from the broken edges.
The furniture from the second floor lay in ruins, having completely collapsed his bed and wardrobe in the process.
Looking at the devastation, one might have believed the Dark Lord himself had stormed through.
Snape, who had Apparated to safety just in time, was caught between shock and fury. Gritting his teeth, he let out an enraged roar:
"JANE YU!"
"GET OUT HERE THIS INSTANT!"
...
Meanwhile, Jane Yu, who had just opened her suitcase, found the smile on her face vanishing instantly.
She distinctly remembered returning the Niffler to Newt Scamander before the summer holidays—didn't she?
Rubbing her eyes to make sure she wasn't dreaming, she stared into the suitcase—
Inside, alongside the small snake she had been keeping, there was now a Niffler that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere!
And judging by its appearance, it was the very same Niffler she had spent a year with.
Caught off guard as the suitcase was opened, the Niffler froze in place. It had a Galleon balanced on its head, with another clutched in each paw.
It adopted a serene pose, as if trying to blend in as part of her clothing rack.
Remaining perfectly still, it peeked at her with its beady black eyes, as if to convey: I'm harmless. I absolutely wasn't planning to steal your Galleons.
"How did you get in here?"
Jane asked, stroking its fur in bewilderment. The guilty Niffler, well-versed in reading her expressions, quickly regained its confidence under her touch.
It shifted aside with a triumphant look, gesturing for her to take a closer look inside.
A sense of foreboding began to rise within Jane.
Peering into the suitcase, she was utterly dumbfounded—
There was another Niffler inside!
The proud Niffler puffed out its chest and struck a heroic pose, pulling its companion into view—
Jane nearly fainted.
Behind the two adult Nifflers were six tiny, newborn Niffler babies!
Was this some kind of nesting doll situation?
The original Niffler had apparently returned to Newt's magical suitcase, found a mate, and brought its entire family over to her.
If Jane could understand Niffler body language, she would have heard it saying:
"Congratulations, caretaker! You're a grandmother now! Aren't you thrilled?"
Unfortunately, Jane couldn't understand.
She quickly penned a letter to Newt asking for help.
And promptly received an auto-reply informing her that Newt was off exploring some unknown rainforest.
With a heavy sigh, Jane looked down at her eight Nifflers and wondered—
Could her suitcase survive this unplanned family reunion?
The Nifflers, however, seemed to understand the principle of not fouling their own nest.
Their suitcase home remained perfectly intact, pristine as ever.
Instead, it was Snape's house that bore the brunt of their mischief.
So at three-thirty in the morning, dressed in her pajamas and holding a Niffler that had tunneled its way out, Jane cautiously peered down through the gaping hole in the floorboards—
Only to meet Snape's death glare and thunderous expression as he looked up.
The two stared at each other, both at a loss for words.
...
But they didn't have time to find their words.
Because the escapee wasn't the only Niffler; seven others were scattered throughout the house.
Their actions confirmed that Nifflers indeed had an innate love for shiny objects and a peculiar fondness for black, heat-resistant cement.
This was evident in the way Snape's collection of softly glowing unicorn hair had been entirely pilfered, and the walls of his house were riddled with holes.
Snape finally managed to extract the last Niffler, which had been hiding in his potion jar disguised as a porcupine quill. He took a deep breath and, with biting sarcasm, said:
"Perhaps Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them should have been written by you instead of Professor Scamander."
Jane, meanwhile, was busy wrangling her "children" back into the suitcase one by one, a sight that left Snape's pupils dilating in shock.
How could such a small suitcase possibly house eight Nifflers, a snake, and an owl?
No, rather than marveling at the number of creatures, he found himself wondering—
How had so many Nifflers stayed in the Slytherin dormitory without anyone noticing?
Watching Jane wrestle with the Nifflers, Snape felt his brain momentarily shut down.
Fortunately, it rebooted quickly, and he began to unleash his venom:
"I hope Miss Yu, whose mind is evidently overrun with Nifflers, remembers that this is Spinner's End—your poor professor's humble home in a Muggle neighborhood—"
"If you have any complaints about this place, you could have simply asked me to send you to that idiotic dog instead of sending Nifflers to demolish my house—"
"This place has nothing for these Galleon-obsessed rodents to find, except for some glowing potions—"
A sheepish Jane offered an earnest apology that lasted half an hour.
She also handed over a generous amount of Galleons as compensation.
Snape, caught off guard by her sincerity, found his venom stuck in his throat, nearly choking on it:
"No, I do not make a habit of taking Galleons from underage students."
"The damages you've caused—I'm sure your guardian would be delighted to cover them."
Jane smiled, knowing full well that she and Snape shared an unspoken understanding forged over three years of detentions and private lessons.
She reinforced the suitcase to prevent further Niffler jailbreaks and house-demolishing escapades.
Snape, having successfully repaired his house with spells, breathed a sigh of relief. As someone accustomed to chaos, he believed this was still within his tolerance.
But what happened next would soon test the very limits of his patience.
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