Chapter 261: Rumors of Dark Magic

That night, Malfoy was truly terrified.

After Ivan left, he was taken back to the Slytherin common room.

He kept repeating to the others what he had seen at that moment. He saw the God of Death when Ivan cast the green curse in the form of a skeleton, and felt the breath of death.

The Slytherin students listened to Malfoy's description, but no one knew exactly what magic Ivan had used.

After discussing it, they generally thought that Malfoy saw nothing but Fantasy. It wasn't that no one thought of dark magic, but the spell used by Ivan was just too weird. Besides him, no one at Hogwarts had ever read the book 'Secrets of the Darkest Arts'.

The spell, whether difficult or evil, was beyond the young wizards' imagination.

They could only come to the most likely conclusion within their own cognitive realm.

That seeing death was just a fantasy was a conclusion that reassured Malfoy.

But every time he recalled the scene and the choking of death that reached deep into his soul, he still felt fear. Ivan's spell directly attacked the soul, and although it didn't hit Malfoy in the end, it had an impact on him.

Currently, when he met Ivan at the castle, Malfoy would circle around. He had been quite honest lately, and was no longer as provocative or troublesome as he used to be.

Though he would never admit it, his expression was filled with fear.

After the failed ambush, neither Malfoy nor the rest of the Slytherin students continued to take action.

Hogwarts did not calm down. It was not known when it started, but there was a growing rumor that Ivan was studying dark magic in the castle.

The source of the rumor had been elusive, but it was very detailed, and witnesses seemed to have seen, with their own eyes, Ivan studying dark magic.

That rumor was like a stone thrown into a still lake.

The young wizards talked for a while and soon lost interest. It seemed too ridiculous for all of them that Ivan was studying dark magic.

They would rather believe that Harry was a descendant of Slytherin and would replace Voldemort as the third generation of the Dark Lord than believe the rumor that Ivan would become a Dark Wizard.

After all, what Ivan had done over the past two years could not be ignored.

Furthermore, as the time for the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw approached, the wizards' energies shifted to the Quidditch match.

There was no doubt that the Ravenclaw Quidditch team was great, but they all wore seven sweepers. Compared to Harry and his firebolt, they were simply vulnerable.

All the Gryffindor students were very confident, waiting for this match to come.

Even though they had the firebolt, the Gryffindor team did not relax at all, and they trained harder than before. At the last training session before Saturday's match, Harry, Ron and Hermione had breakfast in the Great Dining Hall, as usual.

Suddenly, Wood walked up and gave Harry the final intelligence briefing before the game. "Harry, I just found out who Ravenclaw will use as Seeker. It's Cho Chang, a girl, and she's quite good!"

"Cho Chang?!", Harry was stunned; his heart was beating fast, and in his mind, images of the dark-haired girl smiling at him flowed uncontrollably.

"Fourth year in Ravenclaw, Ivan seems to really like her," Hermione said with a sigh, "The last day before Christmas, they even wanted to go..."

Hermione could no longer speak, and her face turned red, remembering what she and Ivan had done that day in Madam Puddifoot's tea store.

Officially, that was the first date between Ivan and Hermione. In that little teahouse filled with sweet scents, Hermione felt like her mind had stopped working, and she couldn't help but hope that Ivan would kiss her like other lovers around her...

"Where did they go?" asked Harry quizzically.

"No, nothing!" Hermione was red in the face. She snapped back from memory and hurried to hide it.

At that moment, an owl flew towards her, and she hurried to grab the letter from his leg.

Hermione concentrated on reading the letter, which made her look less embarrassed.

"I know Cho Chang is very beautiful." Ron looked at Hermione with a puzzled look and continued, "She's more beautiful than all the girls I know."

"That's not the point; the focus is on her Quidditch level. Harry, you can't be mistaken for the other Seeker like what happened to Diggory with Angelina and Alicia. We have to win the game. This is our last chance." Wood waved his hand in disapproval. "I expected her to be in bad shape. She'd suffered some injuries, but I just got word that she's made a full recovery."

Harry didn't know what to answer. In Wood's opinion, this might be bad news. But he was inexplicably relieved.

"But don't worry too much!" Wood frowned and continued. "She rides a Two Sixty comet, it's going to look like a joke next to the firebolt." He gave Harry's broomstick a look of fervent admiration.

"This broomstick is our hope; you and her are the best combination." Wood concluded, "Well, I'll go to the field to warm up first, you'd better hurry."

"Oliver is about to drive us crazy. This year is his last chance to win the Quidditch Cup. To win the game, he's practically beating us to our brooms," Harry said.

"I heard Fred and George say that Wood plans to join a club as a professional Quidditch player after graduation. This Quidditch Cup is very important to him," said Ron.

"Yes, so everyone worked very hard. We don't want to leave him with any regrets. We're obviously the better team, but we always lose matches by accident." Harry sighed and turned to see that Hermione was reading the letter she had just received. She looked a little excited. He couldn't help but ask, "Hermione, what happened?"

"It's Hagrid, he won the lawsuit." Hermione shook the note in her hand, raised her head and replied with a smile. "The verdict just came out. The Committee for the Elimination of Dangerous Creatures deems Buckbeak safe. Malfoy's injury was just an accident."

"I knew it would be like this. Hagrid and Buckbeak were wronged." Harry said happily, he was sincerely delighted for Hagrid.

"This thing couldn't go so smoothly without Mr. Newt Scamander's help. Ivan and I have written so many newspaper stories before, but it didn't work out until Mr. Scamander agreed to...," Hearing Hermione's words, Harry had just thought that he and Ron basically hadn't helped much, and that almost all of the work had been done by both Ivan and Hermione.

Thinking about it, he was a little embarrassed.

"Well, let's enjoy Malfoy's reaction. Hagrid won, he must be furious!" Harry quickly changed the subject. "But he didn't react, it's too strange, we must be careful, he must be up to something again. You know, he was very abnormal after the Dueling Club. With Sirius' help, I obviously defeated him at that time, but he didn't come for trouble, which is really strange!"