Jane Yu felt the atmosphere in the Great Hall was filled with something peculiar.
Almost the instant she pushed open the doors, every student's gaze snapped toward her like spotlights converging.
Even Snape, who was accustomed to being stared at by students, felt uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny, his whole body crawling as if ants were marching across his skin. He remarked sarcastically:
"Making a grand entrance after the feast has begun, ensuring everyone gets a good look at you both—it seems this is exactly the effect Miss Jane and Mr. Potter were hoping for."
"Making every student in the hall wait for you—your importance truly exceeds even the headmaster's."
He abruptly shoved the pair into the hall and quickly closed the doors behind them before departing swiftly.
This made Jane reasonably suspect he'd fled so fast to avoid enduring such universal attention himself.
She shifted her gaze back to the four tables full of piercing stares, instantly feeling as though she'd donned a mask of suffering.
She quickly reflected on what she'd done—absolutely nothing.
She'd simply sat peacefully on the train for a few hours, chatted with Tonks, arrived slightly late, and watched Harry and Snape bicker for a while...
How could any of that warrant such attention?
Moreover... she glanced toward the staff table... Dumbledore wasn't there either, and many other faculty members were absent as well... she and Harry weren't the only latecomers.
Her gaze fixed on the verdant Slytherin table, quickly spotting Daphne and Blaise standing face-to-face as if being punished.
They stood ramrod straight like two cypress trees, heads held high—Jane found it rather amusing.
How had these two companions' manners improved so dramatically over just one holiday?
She nodded farewell to Harry and walked toward their seats.
Right now, she simply wanted to sit down quickly and eat something.
Tonks, responsible for security, stayed close beside her until she reached the table, then turned to bid farewell and leave.
But the moment Jane turned around after saying goodbye, she noticed something wrong—
The plates of sparse steaks, pizza, and pasta on the table were covered with numerous strange black particles!
How could anyone possibly eat this?
Had Hogwarts' house-elves developed some new seasoning?
Jane rubbed her eyes, trying to improve her vision.
She looked toward the nearest bowl of pumpkin porridge...
And nearly wanted to gouge out her own eyes!
There was a large drowned bat inside!
It had apparently dove headfirst into the pumpkin porridge, leaving only its wings and a bit of its back visible above the surface.
Jane felt her stomach clench slightly.
Her gaze swept across the dining table, hoping this was an isolated incident...
After all, bats were common in the wizarding world—perhaps it was just a lost bat that had accidentally fallen into the pumpkin porridge...
Her hopes were dashed.
Because there wasn't just one bat on the entire table.
Many had already drowned in the soup!
Now Jane finally understood what those dark brown objects were—they weren't some new seasoning at all...
But unprocessed Nighteye Sand...
—Bat droppings!
Now she finally understood why Daphne and Blaise were standing so rigidly—
They must have been disgusted by this aerial bat bombardment during dinner!
Jane looked toward Crabbe and Goyle, who had earlier boasted about "teaching her a lesson," only to find them still happily chewing pizza, deliberately tilting an entire plate toward her to display the black objects on top!
A wave of nausea surged from her stomach straight to her throat.
She truly couldn't understand—
How were these two managing to stomach this bat feast?
Were their brains actually functioning normally?
Weren't they afraid of viral infection?
If this was the "lesson" Harry had mentioned, she had to admit they'd succeeded.
Because they'd deployed this unique biological weapon, catching her completely off guard and trapping her in the poison zone.
"Yu," Daphne tugged at her sleeve, asking, "what are you going to do?"
Jane only wanted to surround herself with a 360° protective Bubble-Head Charm and spray the entire Slytherin table with disinfectant.
"This place is contaminated... especially Goyle and Crabbe. Some serious disinfection is needed."
She spoke with a wooden expression, feeling that both the Hogwarts Great Hall and the Slytherin table had been overrun by viruses.
As a prefect, she felt obligated to fulfill her hygiene and health education duties—at the very least, she couldn't let an entire table of people overwhelm St. Mungo's from eating bat droppings.
She drew her wand and waved it lightly twice in the air:
"Evanesco!"
All the food and bats on the table vanished completely from front to back, transforming into gray smoke that disappeared into the air, leaving only empty plates and bowls.
Even the pizza in Crabbe and Goyle's hands vanished without a trace!
Their smug smiles froze on their faces, fear flashing momentarily as if what had disappeared wasn't pizza, but their own heads.
The entire Slytherin table fell into silence, everyone straightening their backs and watching her movements.
"Scourgify!"
Jane cast five or six consecutive cleaning charms until the plates and bowls were so spotless they reflected the faces of those above them.
She figured this should eliminate any remaining viruses.
"Shanshan," Jane called softly into the air.
With a soft "pop," a house-elf appeared before Jane, wearing a very clean and tidy work uniform with a large bow tied on her ear—an item the elf had purchased with work points.
The elf's eyes sparkled with a desire for praise as she said in a thin voice:
"Shanshan has arranged Miss Jane's luggage and bedding! Shanshan awaits your commands!"
"Well done, Shanshan. Please go to the kitchen and fetch some normal food without bats."
The elf's gaze swept across the table, seeing the empty pots and dishes, and immediately shrieked, looking utterly devastated:
"Oh no—! How could Miss Jane go hungry! Shanshan should punish herself, Shanshan wants to smash plates on her head! No, Shanshan must first go beat their heads!"
The fierce little elf immediately vanished from the spot, grabbing a plate as she left, clearly intending to cause some trouble.
In less than ten seconds, food appeared layer upon layer on the Slytherin table, distributed evenly across the entire length—meat and vegetables, fresh and healthy, without a trace of bat droppings.
The plates nearest Jane were piled high with sweet and sour chicken and other special dishes, with steaks before her stacked like a small mountain.
Finally, she could eat uncontaminated food.
Jane breathed a sigh of relief, cast another cleaning charm on her chair, and was just preparing to sit down and begin eating when—
She noticed a problem:
Wasn't the seating arrangement at the Slytherin table somewhat off?
This made her frown as she asked:
"Is this how the seating order was originally arranged?"
When her words landed, no one answered, and the table maintained an eerie quiet—
But the next second, the young snakes suddenly stood up one by one from their seats—more than half the table rose to their feet!
"Did you hear that? Yu's call! She's telling us to reclaim our seats!"
"Down with Goyle, down with Crabbe! Reclaim our right to eat normally!"
After a cacophony of pumpkin porridge being overturned (courtesy of Daphne)—
The young snakes' plates flew one by one toward the front of the table, smashing on the surface with porcelain shards flying everywhere.
Jane, stunned and unable to process what was happening, felt a strong force on her hand—
She was yanked under the table by Theodore, who had somehow crawled beneath it!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 BOOK COMPLETED ON PATREON!📚
This story has reached its conclusion on my Patreon!
🔥 Full story available now
💎 Exclusive bonus content & early access to new books
👉 Join my Patreon community today!
[✨patreon.com/DarkGolds]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━