The next morning, The Daily Prophet indeed published a two-page article on the attack against Amelia Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, at the Ministry of Magic.
As expected, the news caused an uproar at Hogwarts. The Great Hall buzzed with chatter during breakfast that day.
Kyle glanced around the Hufflepuff table. Susan wasn't there, and he assumed she was still in her dormitory. Professor Sprout, perhaps sensing the toll the situation had taken on her, had visited the common room the night before to let everyone know that Susan wouldn't need to attend classes for a few days.
Under normal circumstances, Susan might have been thrilled at the thought of skipping classes, but last night she hadn't even smiled. She had kept her head down, silent and withdrawn. No one had seen her anywhere in the castle since.
By dinnertime, the conversation at the table had shifted. Mikel was now loudly complaining about Professor Slughorn.
"Slughorn is such a snob!" Mikel exclaimed, his voice dripping with disdain. "Did you know he threw a party in his office this weekend and didn't invite Susan?"
"What's the big deal?" someone replied indifferently. "If Professor Slughorn organized the party, isn't it his choice to invite whoever he wants?"
"You're so naive. You don't know the whole story." Mikel shook a finger dramatically before explaining. "Slughorn has this so-called 'Slug Club,' right? He only invites students who are either exceptional or have famous family connections. Susan got an invitation at first, but when he saw the article in the paper, he immediately snatched it back. What a slimy old slug."
"Come on…" another student said skeptically. "That doesn't sound right. Slughorn's a professor. Why would he do something so petty?"
Mikel huffed impatiently. "How do I know? Because I was there! He asked me to deliver a message for him. He just grabbed the invitation right out of my hand, so don't tell me it didn't happen."
A brief silence followed, and then someone suggested cautiously, "Maybe Slughorn was just trying to give Susan some space? I mean, with everything going on, she might not be in the mood to attend a party."
"I don't think so," Mikel shot back, shaking his head dismissively. "If he thought Susan needed peace, he could've left the invitation with her and let her decide. There was no reason to take it away."
Hearing this, Kanna looked up, curiosity glimmering in her eyes. "Is Professor Slughorn really like that?"
Kyle shrugged thoughtfully. "More or less. Slughorn does favor students from prominent families, and he can be a bit self-serving, but I think Mikel's exaggerating. I've never seen him act so rudely as to take back an invitation. Usually, if he doesn't want to include someone, he just doesn't invite them in the first place."
Kanna glanced down at the parchment in her hands. It was an invitation Mikel had delivered earlier—one inviting her to a small gathering in the Potions Office on Friday night.
She had been curious about the event before, but now, the idea of attending felt less appealing. "Should I still go?" she asked uncertainly.
"It's up to you," Kyle said, pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice. "To be honest, these gatherings are just about chatting, eating, drinking, and people flattering each other. There's no real substance to them. You're not going to learn anything about potions at a party like that."
"Huh? Then I'm not going!" Kanna declared immediately.
She had initially assumed that Slughorn's gatherings were academic—focused on potions, like the ones Professor Snape had taken her to during the holidays. Those were filled with discussions about the latest discoveries in potion ingredients, debates about the pros and cons of different cauldrons, and other fascinating topics.
"Fine, don't go if you don't want to. It doesn't really matter," Kyle said, biting into his pork chop. "But have you thought of an excuse?"
"An excuse?"
"Yeah," Kyle replied. "Slughorn is still a professor, after all. You can't just ignore him. You'll need a reason to turn down the invitation."
"Um... Can I say I have homework to do?" Kanna asked hesitantly.
"You could try," Kyle said, though he didn't sound convinced. "But don't count on it working. Harry used that excuse once, and Slughorn set up a whole 'mutual aid bureau' the next day. He invited a group of people to 'help' Harry with his homework. Harry was so traumatized he didn't recover until the following day."
Kanna shuddered at the thought. The idea of being surrounded by a group of overenthusiastic tutors was horrifying. No way. I need a better excuse, she thought.
"I do have an idea..." Kyle said suddenly, a sly look crossing his face. "Why don't you go to Professor Snape and ask him to put you in detention on Friday night? That'll give you a solid reason to skip the party."
Kanna's eyes lit up. "Detention! That's perfect! Why didn't I think of that? Slughorn can't exactly follow me to detention."
Her mood lifted as she quickly pieced together a plan. "There's a Defense Against the Dark Arts class tomorrow..." she said excitedly. "I'll go talk to Professor Snape and ask him to give both of us detention on Friday—"
"No! Don't!" Kyle interrupted, waving his hands in alarm. "Just get yourself detention, not me. That's very important."
If Kanna landed herself in detention with Snape, it wouldn't be a big deal—she practically considered the dungeons her second home. For Kyle, however, it would be a different story. He was certain Snape wouldn't hesitate to give him "special treatment" during detention.
Kyle vividly recalled a rumor about Harry's first detention with Snape. Supposedly, Harry had been forced to sift through a bucket of Flobberworms barehanded, sorting out the spoiled ones. Kyle had no doubt that Snape had an endless supply of Flobberworms waiting, possibly even paying for more to ensure he didn't run out when assigning punishments.
Compared to the horrors of Snape's detentions, enduring a Slughorn party seemed like a small price to pay.
Fortunately for Kyle, a perfect excuse came his way.
On Friday afternoon, shortly after Potions class, Kyle received a letter from the Ministry of Magic. The letter, signed by Cornelius Fudge himself, requested Kyle's presence at the Ministry to discuss an urgent matter.
Kyle casually glanced at the letter and handed it to Slughorn without a word. The moment Slughorn saw the official seal and Fudge's signature, he fell silent, not even attempting to convince Kyle to stay for the gathering.
"Oh, go quickly, go quickly..." Slughorn's eyes sparkled with excitement. "The Minister wrote a special letter—it must be something good."
"That's not necessarily the case…" Kyle thought to himself.
Fudge never thought of him when good things happened. More likely, Fudge was desperate to salvage his crumbling reputation and couldn't come up with a better plan.
Ever since Madam Amelia Bones was attacked by Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic, public trust in the Ministry had plummeted. It was understandable. If the Ministry of Magic couldn't even protect its own staff, how could anyone expect it to protect the public?
Kyle didn't have any brilliant ideas to offer, either. The best solution he could imagine was for Fudge to take responsibility, resign, and be replaced by someone more competent. Someone like… Dumbledore. But, of course, neither Fudge nor Dumbledore would ever agree to such a thing.
Kyle reached the door of the Defence Against the Dark Arts office—though it wasn't Snape's. Snape preferred to work in his original dungeon classroom due to the sheer volume of his belongings and the sensitive nature of some potion ingredients. Instead, Kyle found himself at Umbridge's old office, which still had a direct Floo Network connection to the Ministry of Magic.
Although Umbridge had long since left Hogwarts, last year the school had admitted several outstanding students who had been given exceptional opportunities to intern at the Ministry of Magic. The Floo connection had been maintained to support their weekend internships.
Dumbledore, however, had stationed an armored guard at the office door, and only those who knew the password could enter.
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans!" Kyle said. The armored guard creaked into motion and stepped aside.
Of course, the guard was Dumbledore's arrangement. Even the password matched the whimsical pattern of the Headmaster's Office. Thankfully, Honeydukes sold enough variety of products to sustain such eccentricity.
The once-gaudy decorations, including the hideous kitten plates, had been removed from the room, leaving only a bare table and a few scattered chairs. The sparse setup was undeniably an improvement.
Kyle lit the fireplace, grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the keg nearby, and tossed it into the flames. Strangely, the flames didn't change color. Instead, only a head appeared in the fire—a man with a well-groomed mustache.
Although the situation was unusual, Kyle wasn't particularly surprised. Pulling the letter he'd received earlier from his pocket, he said, "I need to go to the Ministry of Magic."
The man in the fireplace glanced at the letter, noting Fudge's signature, but his expression remained impassive.
"I'm sorry. This Floo Network has been sealed off," the man said in an official tone. "As per the orders of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, all Hogwarts fireplaces—except the one in the headmaster's office—are on maximum lockdown. This includes this one."
He added, almost as an afterthought, "Following this, this fireplace will be permanently sealed. No one will be able to use it."
Kyle frowned slightly, holding up the letter. "What about this? The Minister himself says I'm to come immediately."
"You're still a student," the man replied, his tone unyielding. "There's no need for you to involve yourself in such matters."
And with that, the man vanished, leaving only the crackling of flames in his wake.
Kyle looked down at the letter in his hand one last time before tossing it into the fire. He watched the parchment curl and blacken in the heat, then settled into a nearby chair.
The Floo Network closure was probably connected to the attack on Amelia Bones. No one knew how the Death Eaters had breached the Ministry of Magic, but it opened up a troubling possibility—they could use the Ministry's fireplace to infiltrate Hogwarts.
Dumbledore must have anticipated this, which was why he had ordered the fireplaces sealed.
However, Kyle was quite content with how things turned out. Dodging Slughorn's invitation and avoiding an encounter with Fudge at the Ministry of Magic felt like the perfect outcome.
A minute later, he extinguished the flames and walked out of the classroom. The situation even provided him with a convenient excuse for the future. Next time Slughorn invited him, he could simply claim he had to go to the Ministry. There was no chance Slughorn would go out of his way to confirm whether he had actually been there or not. Unless, of course, Kyle ran into him somewhere in the meantime.
Kyle descended the stairs and headed to the Hufflepuff common room. When he entered, Kanna was already there.
"I thought you were going to the Ministry," she said, looking up as he approached.
"The Floo Network at Hogwarts is closed, so I couldn't leave," Kyle replied, briefly explaining what had happened earlier.
"What about you? Aren't you supposed to be in detention?"
"I am in detention," Kanna said, her expression serious as she pointed to the book Moste Potent Potions sitting on the table. "Professor Snape assigned me this to read. I asked if I could come back here to do it, and he agreed."
"Er… okay…" Kyle said, smacking his lips in disbelief. Sure enough, Snape's idea of detention for Kanna was more like granting her a study hall at home. Who else but her could make requests during detention and actually have them granted?
"I thought you finished Moste Potente Potions two years ago," Kyle said as he sat down in a nearby armchair. "Why are you reading it again?"
"I only got through half of it back then," Kanna explained. "Professor Snape thought I wasn't ready to handle some of the potions in the second half, so he took it away from me."
She opened the book to the page she had been reading and pushed it toward Kyle.
The illustration on the page depicted a grotesquely distorted figure with wildly unbalanced proportions.
Giant Potion… Kyle thought, reading the description. It was a potion that could enlarge an ordinary person to the size of a giant, but the transformation came with excruciating pain, akin to being inflated from the inside.
There were other disturbing concoctions detailed in the book as well, such as the Boiling Blood Potion and Essence of Insanity. The book delved deeply into dark magic through potions—grim stuff, but also essential for understanding rare and complex herb combinations. That was likely why the book was restricted. Compared to these, the Polyjuice Potion was practically harmless.
The two of them spent the remainder of the evening quietly in the common room.
The next day, the first weekend of October, was eagerly anticipated—Hogsmeade Excursion Day. With the school's protective measures growing increasingly strict, most students hadn't expected to be allowed to go. But when the announcement was made, everyone was thrilled.
Despite the rising dangers outside, no one wanted to stay trapped in the castle forever. The professors, it seemed, agreed. They likely thought giving the students a brief reprieve was worth the risk, which was why the Hogsmeade trip had been arranged.
That morning, a sharp wind began blowing, accompanied by steady rain. But the gloomy weather did nothing to dampen the students' spirits. At breakfast, the Great Hall buzzed with excitement. Mikel and Ryan were deep in conversation, their plans for Hogsmeade already filling a long list that included almost every shop in the village.
Near the door, a heated argument broke out. Harry and his friends had just arrived.
"Hermione, we've already tried it. There's nothing wrong with the notes," Harry said enthusiastically as they entered the hall.
"I never thought I'd get extra credit in Potions class. It's unbelievable!" he added, his face lighting up.
"But that's not your doing!" Hermione snapped.
"Well, it's partly mine!" Harry retorted. "Sure, I looked at the notes Kyle gave me, but I did all the work myself. Everyone just followed what was in the book."
"It's not the same!" Hermione argued.
"What's the difference?" Ron interjected, his tone casual. His face was still flushed, suggesting he'd been enjoying himself recently. "I think you're just jealous our potion grades are better than yours."
"That's not true!" Hermione said, her cheeks suddenly red. "I just don't think you should be taking shortcuts!"
"But our potions turned out perfect, didn't they?" Ron shot back. "Even Slughorn couldn't find anything wrong with them. If the results are the same, what's wrong with making the process easier?"
The three of them bickered loudly, oblivious to the attention they were drawing from everyone around them.
"What notes did you give them?" Kanna asked Kyle, her curiosity piqued.
"Just some tips Snape taught us," Kyle replied with a shrug. "I guess none of them ever noticed before, but Snape's notes on the blackboard are a little different from the textbook."
That made sense. Hermione probably focused entirely on the textbook during lessons. As for Harry and Ron… they were too intimidated by Snape to ever glance at the blackboard, let alone compare it to the textbook.