Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

“What?!” Hearing Evan’s words, Colin’s open mouth could be stuffed with an egg.

He couldn’t believe that Sirius Black would become a professor of Hogwarts’ Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Seeing Colin’s expression, Evan knew that Sirius had another admirer.

In fact, the young wizards who were as surprised and excited as Colin were not a minority.

Not too long after that, Sirius Black was announced to be the successor of Professor Lupin as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, and the whole castle exploded in cheers.

Everyone was delighted, and they welcomed that a legendary figure such as Sirius Black had become a professor of the school, and even many students of the Slytherin House were looking forward to it.

At that evening’s dinner, the atmosphere in the Great Hall was undoubtedly warm.

As Sirius walked in, there was a long applause in the Great Hall, and everyone craned their necks and looked curiously at him to see how he looked.

The chatter continued, and it was only when Dumbledore stood up and spoke that the Great Hall went quiet.

Dumbledore looked older than he was a few days ago.

The Wizengamot’s trial of Peter Pettigrew for many days seemed to have taken a lot of efforts from him.

However, his gaze was still shining, and through the semi-circular glasses, his light blue eyes looked as if they were seeing through people’s hearts.

“Welcome!” said Professor Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his beard. “After the Christmas holiday, I am very happy to see you at Hogwarts. Before we begin our banquet, I will introduce a new teacher, Professor Black, who will succeed Professor Lupin as the new professor of Défense Against the Dark Arts.”

Dumbledore’s voice just fell, and the deafening applause filled the hall.

The applause on the Gryffindor table was particularly warm. They went so overboard that Harry’s and Ron’s palms turned red.

Sirius Black stood up and waved, he was sitting next to Hagrid, on the other side, next to Professor McGonagall. At the teachers table, besides Snape who looked disgusted as if he had swallowed a fly, all the other professors smiled and applauded.

“Look at Malfoy!” Hermione hissed in Evan’s ear.

Evan saw Malfoy gloomy over at Slytherin’s long table.

Instead of looking at Sirius, he gazed at him and Harry with disgust.

Noticing Evan’s gaze, he hurriedly shifted his gaze elsewhere.

Evan was not surprised. In the case of Professor Lupin, Lucius Malfoy took great risks and drove the werewolf riots on the basis of Peter Pettigrew’s plan, because he wanted to drive Dumbledore out of Hogwarts.

In the trial, Peter Pettigrew said everything. He confessed that he controlled Ron to write to Lucius Malfoy, hoping that Lucius could help him deal with Lupin, to occupy Dumbledore and stop him from returning to the castle at the crucial moment.

Although everyone suspected that Lucius orchestrated the werewolf riots behind the scenes, there was no other evidence. Lucius did not admit that he received the letter from Peter Pettigrew and the Ministry of Magic had not caught the Werewolves with Greyback, not even a single hair.

Under such circumstances, Lucius eventually escaped punishment.

Of course, he also paid a big price. Fudge and those politicians were not so easy to buy, and it needed to offer an astronomical fee to be able to impress them.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for Lucius was not the gold, but losing the chance to defeat Dumbledore, wasted in vain by Peter Pettigrew. If he could have known the truth earlier, he would never have been as foolish as Pettigrew who had been defeated by several twelve or thirteen-year-old wizards.

Lucius currently abominated Evan, Harry, and the others, and hated them to death.

With that, it was natural that Draco did not have any good will for Evan. His attitude was much worse than usual, and he was no doubt wondering how to deal with Evan.

But Evan didn’t care. At Malfoy’s level, if he wanted to provoke him, he was asking for trouble.

That evening, the Gryffindor Common Room was still hotly talking about Sirius becoming the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Everyone was looking forward to his first class.

Unfortunately, it was not until Thursday that the second year had the Defence Against the Dark Arts course.

The discussion on this matter lasted until Harry took out his broomstick. Almost in an instant, he was surrounded by people who were dying to see the Firebolt.

“God, this is a Firebolt! I have seen it in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley. The price of this broom is astronomical. Where did you get it?”

“Will you let me have a go?”

“Have you ridden it yet, Harry?”

“Can I just hold it, Harry?”

The Firebolt was passed around and admired from every angle.

When they learned that the broom was a Christmas gift given to Harry by Sirius Black, the crowd immediately burst into a more intense exclamation, and everyone looked forward even more to the experience of Sirius becoming the Defence Against the Dark Arts class Professor.

“I can’t understand, it’s just a broomstick, and it made them all excited like this.” Hermione frowned and said; she was sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace to check her Christmas holiday homework.

“It’s the most expensive broomstick in the world, more expensive than all the brooms in the school together!”

Evan sat on the sofa beside her, looking at the book he had just borrowed from the library about vampires. He looked up at Hermione’s long parchment. “You’ve got a mistake here. The ingredients of the Shrinking Potion do include puffer-fish eyes.”

“Oh!” Hermione’s pen nib hurried across the parchment.

“Seriously, you’re not planning to go to so many classes next semester, will you?”

“I know,” sighed Hermione, “That Time-Turner is driving me crazy; I’ve got to be in different places at the same time, and it’s hard for me not to be seen. I can’t stand it anymore. I am going to give up the Muggle Studies and Divination classes next year. With that, I will have a normal schedule.”

“Next year?!” Evan immediately noticed the time Hermione said.

“I should finish what I’ve started, Evan!” Hermione looked down again at her history of magic assignment and continued, “I should live up to Professor McGonagall’s expectations of me. You know, she did a lot of hard work to help me get this Time-Turner, and it also helped us a lot.”

Seeing Hermione’s determined eyes, Evan didn’t know what to say.

Hermione was right, thanks to the help of this Time-Turner, they were able to catch Pettigrew, and otherwise, the situation would have been disastrous.

He was not against Hermione’s insistence. He just didn’t want her to be so tired, and wished that she cared more about her health.