“They’re just House-elves, are they worth saving?”
When Professor Snape saw Kiki’s ugly brown eyes and large ears, he stopped, a look of displeasure on his face.
Hermione arched her back like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, refuting Professor Snape loudly:
“Of course, they are! House-elves have the right to receive treatment just like humans!”
Weilan put his forearm in front of Hermione, stopping her:
“Professor Snape, you must understand that this House-elf poisoning was caused by a problem with the dinner food.”
“This food was provided to the students. If we don’t catch the poisoner, he might endanger the students’ health again!”
Dumbledore gave Weilan an encouraging smile, which further emboldened him.
“Kiki is the only elf who ran out of the kitchen. I’m afraid the other elves are in a more serious condition! Professor Snape, we need to catch the poisoner, and the elf’s testimony is essential for us…”
“Enough!”
Professor Snape snapped, his black eyes coldly sweeping over Hermione and Kiki in her arms, forcing out a few words through gritted teeth:
“Take her to my office.”
Hermione happily winked at Weilan and quickly followed Professor Snape, holding Kiki.
Professor Snape’s office was in the dungeon next to the Potion Class classroom, damp and cold, with the bitter smell of Potion and antiseptic solution permeating the air.
About a hundred glass bottles were placed along the wall, and Hermione saw things in them ranging from dead frogs and eels to incomplete plants.
Professor Snape took an empty cauldron from a cabinet and placed it on the central Potion table. When he waved his wand, flames immediately ignited beneath the cauldron.
“Lay her flat… No, don’t put her on a chair, put her on the floor. House-elves cannot sit on their master’s chairs, that’s common sense!”
Hermione glared at Professor Snape angrily but could only obey, for Kiki’s salvation depended entirely on Professor Snape’s will.
“Miss Granger, I’m glad you can listen to me. It would be good if you were like this during my usual lectures.”
Hermione desperately ignored Professor Snape’s sarcastic expression and followed his instructions, opening Kiki’s eyelids, then Kiki’s mouth, and tapping Kiki’s knees.
After this process, Hermione observed Professor Snape’s expression turn serious.
“I know what she ate, and I can brew a Potion to revive her.”
Professor Snape walked to the Potion table as he spoke, waving his wand, and bottles and jars floated up, Potion ingredients drifted out, arranging themselves in a neat circle around the cauldron.
“But I can’t completely cure her. She ate something she shouldn’t have, and she won’t live much longer.”
“What did she eat?” Hermione blurted out.
“Devil’s powder. The food she ate was mixed with devil’s powder.”
The Potion ingredients lined up to be weighed on a brass scale, and after the appropriate dosage was taken, the excess returned to the bottles and jars.
“Devil’s powder? What is that?”
Professor Snape sneered maliciously:
“What? Our all-knowing Miss Granger also doesn’t know something? Didn’t your Muggle parents teach you?”
Hermione heard him mocking her Muggle-born origin and retorted, unable to bear it:
“Harry’s mother was also Muggle-born, but she learned a lot through her own hard work. I will also study hard to make my parents proud—”
Bang—
A glass bottle next to Professor Snape suddenly exploded, and the fish eyes inside rolled all over the floor. Professor Snape pointed his wand at Hermione and roared fiercely:
“Miss Granger, if you want me to calmly brew the Potion, then shut your chattering mouth!”
…
“Come along, children, I can tell you’re very eager to go to the kitchen and investigate this incident with me.”
Dumbledore kindly invited Weilan and Ron.
Weilan lowered his gaze guiltily.
He wasn’t sure if Dumbledore had used Legilimency to read his thoughts during their eye contact, or if his eager thoughts were simply written in his eyes.
“What about the Great Hall? The students must all be discussing this now, right?”
Weilan looked uneasily at the bustling crowd in the Great Hall.
“Professor McGonagall has agreed to oversee the start-of-term ceremony and explain the new term’s Precautions. We should be concerned about the whereabouts of the poisoner.”
Weilan and Ron followed Dumbledore to the door behind the entrance hall.
Going down the stone steps and through a long underground passage, they arrived at a wide stone corridor.
Torches lit the corridor brightly, and the walls were adorned with mouth-watering food illustrations.
In front of a large fruit bowl illustration, Dumbledore stopped, extended his index finger, and scratched the large emerald green pear.
The pear wiggled, let out a snickering sound, and transformed into a green doorknob.
Weilan had been here many times; every time before leaving Hogwarts for the summer holiday, he would come here to ask the elves for enough easily storable food to last two months.
The elves were always enthusiastic towards him, filling his suitcase with various biscuits, bread, meat strips, and sweets, fearing he would go to work on an empty stomach during the summer…
Dumbledore’s fingers closed around the doorknob, and Weilan’s heart pounded—he didn’t want anything to happen to these enthusiastic little creatures.
The door was pushed open, revealing a horrifying scene behind it—
Flour, lard, eggs, and various ingredients were scattered all over the floor, chairs were in disarray, and many plates were smashed on the ground.
The House-elves were either sprawled on the floor, lying on chairs, or slumped over long tables—their common characteristic was that they were all covered in injuries, their clothes tattered, and completely unconscious.
“How could this happen?”
Weilan’s pupils constricted sharply. Immediately, anger surged through him—he had to find out who was responsible for this!
He renewed the time for 【Subtle Observation】, observing the entire kitchen, attempting to capture useful information from the chaos.
The elves’ bodies were sprawled out, unconscious in every part of the kitchen. But their distribution pattern was actually traceable.
Upon careful observation, it was not difficult to find that their unconscious bodies radiated outwards in layers, centered around an oven in a corner.
The closer to the oven, the more elves were unconscious, and their symptoms were more severe—not only were they foaming at the mouth, but their skin also showed varying degrees of green coloration.
“There’s a problem with that oven.”
Weilan pointed out the location to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore nodded, carefully stepping around the elves lying on the floor, leading Weilan and Madam Pomfrey closer to the oven.
【Subtle Observation】 reconstructed everything that had happened in the kitchen for Weilan.
At first, the kitchen was a bustling scene, with elves working together, putting kneaded dough into the oven.
Heat waves rolled and scorched, and the dough in the oven puffed up. A House-elf, estimating the time was right, walked to the oven to take out the bread.
As he approached the oven, the expression on his face became increasingly abnormal. His large brown eyes were fixed tightly on the bread, while saliva uncontrollably dripped from the corner of his mouth, winding its way down.
The moment he opened the oven, he ignored the high temperature of the rack and pounced on the bread, tearing at it.
The other House-elves screamed at this sight and rushed forward to stop him.
However, as they approached the oven, they also, without exception, showed similar symptoms, eventually joining the struggle for the bread.
The bread quickly ran out, and they began to fight each other for it. The kitchen became a mess during the struggle, and the elves were left with large scars and bruises on their bodies.
Unintentionally, a House-elf in the corner stepped on a bag of flour. The flour spilled out, and powder filled the air; the bewitched elves, like hungry wolves smelling meat, pounced on it, turning their struggle from bread to flour.
More satiated House-elves then began to dance meaninglessly. Their mouths were wide open, as if they had seen something of extreme bliss, laughing madly, jumping, twisting their bodies, until they foamed at the mouth.
“Ding—”
In the oven, another batch of bread was freshly baked. The elves swarmed over, and with the enticing bread entering their stomachs a second time, the skin of the elves who had eaten more gradually turned an abnormal green…
“The flour is problematic!”
Weilan found the location of the contested bag of flour in the reconstructed scene.
Now, only an empty flour bag remained. After being repeatedly licked, Weilan only found trace amounts of flour residue on the inner surface of the woven bag.
In the 【Minute Observation】 vision, the flour, which should have been white, actually showed sparse green light spots under the illumination of the light!
“Something else was added to the flour residue. Can we send these residues to Professor Snape for testing?—Um, Ron?”
Weilan turned in surprise to look at Ron, who was tugging at his robe. Ron was very unwell at the moment, or rather, both he and Madam Pomfrey beside him were unwell.
They were trembling, desperately restraining something. A force within their bodies was driving them closer to the flour bag, but their conscious minds were fiercely fighting against this force.
Ron’s lips moved, wanting to say something but unable to, only pointing to the flour bag, expressing his pain to Weilan.
Weilan looked at the flour bag, then at Ron, and a terrifying thought instantly crept into his mind—
This deadly attraction of these ingredients, could it still exist?
Weilan looked at Dumbledore for help.
Dumbledore remained calm and composed, unaffected. The tip of his wand trembled slightly, and a golden barrier formed around the flour bag and the surrounding area.
The force that had firmly gripped Ron and Madam Pomfrey disappeared. Ron wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and leaned on Weilan’s shoulder, gasping. Madam Pomfrey, with a pale face, murmured:
“It’s too dangerous, this stuff is too dangerous! How did it get into Hogwarts?”
Dumbledore did not answer Madam Pomfrey, his blue eyes looking directly at Weilan.
Weilan lowered his gaze, avoiding Dumbledore’s stare.
He knew exactly what that look meant—just now, he had not shown the same symptoms of being tempted as Ron and Madam Pomfrey.
“Devil’s powder.”
Dumbledore uttered a word no one had ever heard before.
“The flour was mixed with devil’s powder.”
Dumbledore then explained:
“This substance only appeared at the beginning of this year. It can enhance a Wizard’s power, but it has terrible addictiveness, hallucinogenic properties, and the ability to harm the body.”
“‘Strength Potion,’ ‘Spirit Powder,’ ‘Psychic Potion’… This powder has many names, but during the summer, after Professor Snape conducted detailed research on its properties and effects, he settled on a common name—‘devil’s powder’.”
Devil’s powder?
Dumbledore’s description of this substance reminded Weilan of the powder he had heard about from Mrs. Stonfield in the gravel cellar.
Then, another name surfaced in his mind—
Oni Stonfield, the old lady’s beloved grandson, had come into contact with this powder at Borgin and Burkes.
“But it shouldn’t have such a strong active attraction to living creatures.”
“Yes.” Weilan had no evidence, so he could only temporarily set aside that name and add his own insight, “If it had such a strong attraction from the beginning, then the original flour wouldn’t have lasted until it was made into bread.”