In everyone's warm anticipation, Halloween has finally arrived.

Harry was regretting it, and he felt that he shouldn't have agreed to the death party so hastily.

The rest of the school was happily attending the Halloween feast, and the auditorium was already decorated with live bats as usual.

Hagrid's huge pumpkin was carved into a lantern large enough for three people to sit in. It was also rumored that Dumbledore had booked a skeleton dance troupe to keep everyone entertained.

"Hermione, are you still going to the death party?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

"Hmm." Hermione nodded, but her attention was clearly not here.

By seven o'clock, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were walking through the doorway, which led right into the crowded auditorium. It is very inviting, with its lights and candles, and gold plates on the table. Harry looked at the lavish scene and sighed regretfully, but they still walked in the direction of the basement classroom.

The aisle leading to the place where the death party was held was already lit with candles, but it didn't look pleasant at all.

They were small, black, thin candles that shimmered a faint blue light when they burned, and even when they shone on the faces of the three of them, they looked a little eerie.

With each step, the temperature cooled, and Harry shivered, pulling his clothes tight to wrap around himself.

At this moment, he heard a sound, as if a thousand fingernails were scraping against a huge blackboard.

"That's called music, too?" Ron grumbled under his breath.

They turned around a corner and saw Nick, who was almost headless, standing in the doorway of a large room, draped in a black velvet curtain.

"My dear friend," he said with inexplicable sadness, "welcome, welcome...... I'm so glad you're here......"

It was a nightmare to look at the hundreds of milky-white, translucent ghosts in the room, and the terrible, trembling dance music of thirty saws.

Either way, it was the worst Halloween for the Harry trio.

And best of all, it's very cold here!

But even if the Halloween of the little lion trio is so tragic, at least there are many "people" to accompany them! Comparatively speaking, the dreary loneliness on Maca's side was a bit unbearable—though he didn't care at all.

At the moment, he was conducting some strange experiments by himself in the Room of Requirement.

“…… The utility of the rule runes is indeed very powerful. ”

He was still writing regular runes with a quill, and while there had been no progress in their application, the results so far were remarkable in terms of the number of parses alone.

What satisfied him even more was the superficial application of abilities he had experienced when he was in Alani's body.

After some research by Maka, it was found that those blessing-type abilities were not even rules, just a prototype of magic, but they also benefited him a lot.

He finally understood why Godric Gryffindor was known as the most accomplished dueling master of his time.

When a wizard has mastered a large amount of physical enhancement magic, the actual combat aspect will be greatly increased. Because of this, Gryffindor, whose magical achievements are definitely not as good as Ravenclaw or even Slytherin, is the most combative of the four founders of Hogwarts.

Of course, there may be more reasons than this, and according to Maca's research and attempts, this is definitely one of the reasons. Even Gryffindor himself is a knight.

After many attempts to jump up and down and cast spells, Maca, who had finished her research, rested in the Room of Requirement for a while, then left the place and walked slowly to the dormitory.

The corridor was quiet, only the sound of the rain outside rattling, which made people feel a little uneasy.

It's always the case during the holidays. When people are together, it means that the rest of the place is empty.

"Willy?"

After passing around a corner, Maca spotted Willy Blois standing by the window of the hallway.

"......" Willy turned her head and looked at him silently.

"What's the matter, why don't you go to the hall?" Maca tried to keep her expression less stiff, but even then, it was in vain.

"You've changed." Willy whispered.

After Luna, another person said so.

Although Maca herself knows that his change is so obvious. Even if he is low-key enough, people who have been in close contact with him in the past will always detect some clues in him.

And the two girls, Luna Lovegood and Willy Blois, are two of the most sensitive of these people. Well, maybe there's a Hermione Granger added to that.

After a little introspection, he paused, no longer forcing himself to squeeze his expression, and then shook his head slightly.

"Perhaps, but I'm still me." He said calmly.

Willy turned around and looked at him closely, her tone equally calm, but it gave a very different feeling from Maca's indifference.

“…… The previous one, better. She looked into Maca's eyes and said seriously.

With that, Willy turned and walked away, as decisively as she had been in the library.

"Even if there is no emotional bond, I still can't read her thoughts." Maca quietly looked at Willy's distant back and couldn't help but think so.

Outside the window, there was still the sound of rain, and Maca stood there and looked out the window for a moment before walking to the Hufflepuff common room in the basement.

When he reached a corner on the third floor, his footsteps stopped.

Just around the corner, a huge snake was swimming through the porch, and near its head, a petite figure was drawing something on the wall.

"Ginny Weasley." Maca turned to the side, staring at the little figure's back with blazing eyes, and muttered silently.

"The secret room has been opened, and the heir is the enemy, be vigilant!"

The foot-tall characters were still faintly visible in the dim glow of the torches.

Finally, Ginny hung a petrified cat on the torch hook next to the line of letters—it was Filch's cat the janitor, Lady Loris. Not far away, a door was wide open, making it look like a washroom.

Maca watched quietly as she wondered what was going on.

Suddenly, a rush of footsteps came from the other end of the hallway. The serpent moved and rushed into the bathroom, and then Ginny followed, and closed the door with him.

A sign that read "Fault" shook slightly on the door, as if to deny entry.

“…… Harry, what the hell is going on? Ron said, wiping the sweat from his face, "I didn't hear anything?" ”

"But I do hear it! The voice was saying......"

Hermione, who was running ahead, suddenly gasped and pointed to the bottom of the hallway.

"Look!"

Obviously, she saw the words on the wall—it was not normal to see such a large letter.

"What's that...... Hanging underneath? Ron said, his voice shaking.

They approached cautiously, and Harry almost slipped: there was a large pool of water on the ground. Hermione grabbed his clothes so he wouldn't fall.

Little by little, the two of them approached the slogan, their eyes fixed on a dark shadow below. The two of them saw what it was at the same time, and jumped backwards in fright, making a splash.

But Ron stared straight around the corner not far from here, as if there was something there that made him care.

The three of them, each with their own thoughts, stood there motionless for several seconds.

"Isn't it...... Should...... Managed to salvage? Harry stammered.

"Huh? What—ah! Ron turned his head suddenly, and was startled by Lady Loris on the hook.

"What for! Didn't you just see it! Hermione said loudly.

"No, that, I just saw—" Ron opened his mouth, but swallowed the words again.

Just as Hermione was wondering, a low commotion, like thunder in the distance, told them that the Halloween feast had just ended.

From both ends of the hallway, there was the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the cheerful laughter of people after a full meal. Then, the students pushed and shoved into the aisle from both ends.

They were surrounded.

When the person in front saw the upside-down cat, the boisterous and chirping suddenly disappeared. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood alone in the middle of the hallway, and the students fell silent as they rushed forward to watch the horrific scene.

In the midst of an unsettling silence, someone spoke.

"Those who are enemies of the heirs, be on the lookout! Next up is you, Mudblood! It was Draco Malfoy speaking loudly.

He had already crowded to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes were alive, and his normally bloodless face was now flushed with a hint of red, and it was obvious that he was particularly happy with the current situation.

He looked at the stiff cat hanging there, and a sinister smile appeared on his face.

"What's going on here? What happened? ”

Filch was clearly drawn to Malfoy's shouting, and he squeezed his shoulders through the crowd. Then he saw Lady Loris.

Filch stumbled back a few steps, grabbing his face with his hands in horror.

"My cat! My cat! What happened to Lady Loris? He screamed and muttered, staring at Harry viciously, as if he was going to eat him alive.

"Filch!"

Dumbledore and the other professors arrived. In the blink of an eye, he walked past Harry, Ron, and Hermione and removed Lady Loris from the hook of the torch.

"Come with me, Filch." He said to Filch, "And you, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger. ”

Lockhart scrambled up and asked Dumbledore to come to his office.

"My office is closest to here, just upstairs ......"

The students were silent and parted to the other side, allowing them to pass through.

In Lockhart's office, Dumbledore bent over and scrutinized, poking here and touching there. Lockhart pretended to know a lot about it, and he was trying to come up with some bad ideas there.

"It's not dead, Filch," Dumbledore said, after inspecting it, "it's petrified...... But I don't know exactly how I got it. ”

"Ask him!" Filch screamed, turning his mottled, tear-stained face towards Harry.

Snape looked at everything in front of him in the shadows to the side, and there seemed to be a faint sense of schadenfreude. As far as he was concerned, Harry's misfortune was able to translate directly into his pleasure, and the conversion rate was enough to reach more than two hundred percent.