Although Quidditch was the most popular sport at Hogwarts, not all young wizards chose to watch the matches. Each house's common room still had its occupants — Gryffindor with the fewest at five or six students, while Ravenclaw housed about a dozen.
These were primarily fifth and seventh-year students who, under the weight of exam pressure, had lost interest in Quidditch. They preferred the quiet sanctuary of the library or the comfort of their common rooms for studying.
Kyle turned his attention to the Hufflepuff common room on the map.
The Marauder's Map showed dormitory areas with less detail than other locations, simply marking the distinction between boys' and girls' quarters. All seven years shared the space, with only a thin ink line separating them from the adjacent common room.
Kyle noted down the names of everyone in the Hufflepuff common room — a mere six people.
After finishing, he meant to close the map and return to watching the match, but some mysterious force drew his gaze toward the underground classrooms, where Snape's private storage room caught his eye.
Kyle swore he had no intention of steali... ahem, taking anything from there, at least not now. True, Snape's private storage held many treasures, but spells interested him more than potion ingredients at the moment.
Still, since he was already looking, Kyle memorized the route and locations of nearby secret passages. Pure curiosity, of course.
Besides, there was nothing else to do at the moment.
"Look, Cedric's accelerating!" A deafening cheer suddenly erupted from the crowd.
Kyle quickly closed the Marauder's Map and tapped it with his wand.
"Mischief managed."
The ink lines faded, leaving behind ordinary parchment.
On the Quidditch pitch, Cedric was diving at tremendous speed from mid-air.
"It's the Golden Snitch!" The commentator shouted excitedly, "It's by the Slytherin goalposts, less than twenty feet from the ground! Higgs has seen it too, he's accelerating!"
The two Seekers chased after the Golden Snitch in succession, while the crowd watched with bated breath.
Several seconds later...
"It's Cedric!" The commentator shouted, "Cedric Diggory, the youngest Seeker, has caught the Golden Snitch!"
The stands erupted in celebration, yellow flags and support items flying through the air.
"We won, we won!" The little badgers screamed, hugging each other in excitement.
"Thank you, Hufflepuff, for giving us such an exciting Quidditch match."
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An hour later, a crowd of excited Hufflepuff students carried Cedric back to the common room — a hero's welcome, as the Quidditch players would say.
Though to Kyle, he looked more like a pig being led to slaughter.
A victory feast was essential, and that evening, some older students brought loads of food from the kitchen. Soon the common room was filled with delicious meat cuts and cookies.
"Kyle, where did you go?" Kanna asked, approaching with a large bone-in steak, "We didn't see you when the match ended."
"I went to the bathroom." Kyle said.
"That's too bad." Kanna said softly, "You missed the best part."
Kyle smiled, "Not really, I got back just in time to see Cedric catch the Snitch."
"That's good then." Kanna smiled and took a bite of the steak, her expression turning blissful.
Kyle looked at her curiously, "We're going to bed soon — are you sure it's okay to eat so much now?"
Kanna's movements suddenly stopped, her expression becoming stiff. She turned her head away and said quietly, "I... I didn't eat much at dinner."
"Is that so?" Kyle frowned, "But I thought I remembered during dinner... never mind, I must be mistaken."
Kanna breathed a sigh of relief and quickly found an excuse to leave before he could say anything else.
Everyone was happy, but what they didn't know was that this party would be their last celebration...
Because final exams were approaching.
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The professors were assigning more and more homework — they barely had time for a game of wizard's chess. Easter break was nowhere near as enjoyable as Christmas break had been, and most students chose to stay at school.
There was so much homework that blank parchments piled up like small mountains. They spent almost every day in the library, sighing and yawning, desperately trying to complete their heavy workload.
Beyond their assignments, they also had to memorize the "required content" from their professors and practice wand movements.
Despite it being a holiday, the corridors echoed with young wizards' complaints.
"I'll never remember this!" Halfway through the break, Michael finally snapped, throwing down his quill in frustration, "Who discovered the twelve uses of dragon's blood anyway? It's impossible to remember!"
"Albus Dumbledore." Kyle said without looking up, "Are you planning to duel him? That's not a bad idea — if you manage to beat him up, Professor Snape definitely won't make you memorize these things anymore."
"..."
After a moment of stunned silence, Michael picked up his quill again, "What was the twelfth use of dragon's blood... oh right, as an oven cleaner. This isn't so hard to remember after all. I should have been more serious earlier."
Kyle smiled but said nothing.
An hour later, he put down his quill and closed his copy of "One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi".
"Kyle, have you finished all your homework?"
Michael and Ryan looked up suddenly, like nifflers who had discovered Galleons.
Kyle rolled his shoulders and nodded, "Yeah, it's done."
Michael's eyes lit up, and he asked hopefully, "Could we... maybe use it for reference?"
"...Alright."
This time Kyle didn't refuse outright as he had before, and after some hesitation, he pushed his homework toward them.
Mainly because he knew Michael and Ryan had already written quite a bit of their homework — though not much, definitely a third of it. This way, there was no need to worry about them copying it completely, so lending it to them wasn't a problem.
Besides, there really was quite a lot of Easter holiday homework.
However, to be safe, Kyle still warned them, "Remember, no copying."
"Don't worry." Michael patted his chest decisively, "We won't make the same mistake twice."
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