"What do you think you're doing?!"
With Snape's low, furious voice cutting through the air—
Dumbledore and the other professors, their faces grim as stone, raised their wands and swiftly separated the tangled pairs of young snakes.
Under the combined authority of the two bosses, the scene froze as if someone had hit a pause button:
Students who'd been brawling on top of each other obediently climbed down, and wands that had been casting dark curses fell silent.
The area around the Slytherin table was absolute carnage.
Crabbe and Goyle lay sprawled on their backs, surrounded by shattered porcelain and food debris.
Their faces were unrecognizable—both had sprouted horns from their foreheads, their cheeks swollen to twice normal size from the beating. Their robes were torn to shreds, exposed skin covered in pus-filled boils that had them groaning in agony.
Pansy and Millicent had already lost consciousness, chunks of hair torn out, bats still streaming from their nostrils as they lay face-down in puddles of pumpkin porridge beneath the table.
Draco was bound tight with ropes alongside several other stubborn pure-blood snakes, all tied to the legs of the neighboring table. Many were unconscious, their heads marked with bloody cuts.
Only a handful of lucky survivors with their mouths gagged looked at Snape and Dumbledore like they were seeing salvation itself.
Seeing the Head of House and Headmaster finally arrive, the fortunate few let out a chorus of muffled "mmph mmph" sounds to demonstrate their presence and lodge their bloodied protests.
"Enervate... Finite Incantatem..."
Snape stood rigid, barely able to breathe.
He bent down, waving his wand alongside the other staff, casting counter-curses on the unconscious snakes.
Only after confirming the students were all alive and wheezing did he finally swallow the breath that had been stuck in his throat.
This was only the first day of term...
The entire house had broken into a mass brawl...
In front of the other three houses—utterly humiliating...
For a moment Snape felt his head buzzing as if struck by a sledgehammer, making him want to collapse on the spot and hand Dumbledore his resignation as Slytherin Head of House immediately.
Receiving sympathetic glances from the surrounding professors and Heads of House only made his skin crawl as if ants were swarming over him.
"Take them to—"
Snape forced himself upright, about to order the Slytherins to carry away this group of battered students, when he suddenly realized who the main players in this battle were.
This made him quickly turn his head, ignoring the Gryffindor table entirely, and instead point directly at several Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students:
"You lot—take them to the Hospital Wing."
But the Eagles and Badgers he'd singled out didn't stand up.
They shuffled left and right, dodging Snape's pointing finger, their faces showing a hundred different shades of reluctance for this task.
"Don't make me repeat myself."
Under the oppressive aura of the Potions Master from the dungeons, the Eagles and Badgers finally moved reluctantly—one taking the head, another the feet, they began hauling the defeated away. When carrying Goyle out of the Great Hall, they deliberately let his head bang hard against the doorframe.
"Jane Yu—it was all Jane Yu's doing—!"
As Crabbe was being carried out of the hall, his fighting spirit not completely extinguished, he suddenly performed a dramatic sit-up from his deathbed, his horns nearly poking the Badger carrying him in the eye. Before leaving, he made sure to point the finger at his nemesis:
"She was going to kill me—mmph!"
The Hufflepuff responsible for carrying him shoved a fist directly into his mouth to silence him, and the two Badgers "accidentally" loosened their grip, letting Crabbe crash hard to the ground, eyes rolling back—finally achieving zero combat effectiveness and losing the ability to speak.
Facing the professors' glares, the two Badgers picked him up again, putting on "honest and innocent" expressions while apologizing profusely, then hurried out of the hall with their burden, disappearing from the professors' sight.
Snape never could have imagined that leaving Jane Yu alone among the students for just ten minutes—
She'd managed to pull off another spectacular stunt!
His gaze swept the long table, but he couldn't see Jane Yu anywhere, making his heart sink!
But he immediately spotted Daphne with a massive bump on her head and bloodstained fingers, still panting as if she hadn't recovered from the recent battle, her eyes blazing with sharp fighting spirit, her entire being radiating the aura of a victorious MVP.
This severely wounded Snape's eyes, making them narrow to slits:
"Please explain where Jane Yu is, Miss Greengrass."
Daphne's expression froze!
She immediately realized she needed to clean up the crime scene for Jane Yu in front of the professors.
"He's talking rubbish!" Her adrenaline surged through her system again. "This has nothing to do with Yu—it was Crabbe and Goyle and their lot—they threatened us, that's why we fought!"
The victorious group echoed in unison, each glaring hatefully at the wreckage as if the defeated hadn't already been carried away.
"Greengrass is right!" Ginny suddenly stood up from the other end of the hall in support. "Yu wasn't involved! They were fighting back—"
Professor McGonagall quickly covered her mouth while leading her out of the hall, scolding:
"Gryffindor loses ten points! Miss Weasley, please stop making things worse! I'll be writing to your mother immediately!"
Snape let out a cold laugh, having seen through everything, and immediately challenged:
"Perfect explanation. Miss Yu may not have participated, but I suspect that didn't prevent her from inciting you to fight."
"She didn't," Astoria responded. "She's always been kind to her classmates, generous and forgiving. We couldn't help ourselves—we wanted to fight, Professor."
Snape felt successfully nauseated by such rhetoric.
Nearly fainting with rage, he glared at Astoria, speaking each word deliberately:
"You—wanted—to—fight—yourselves—"
"I never thought I'd live to hear such righteous declarations from Slytherin students, Miss Greengrass."
Snape's sharp gaze swept across every Slytherin student's face.
Whoever he looked at immediately lowered their head or turned away, showing signs of nervousness or guilt...
But when questioned, every single one refused to crack.
This clearly had major problems written all over it!
Snape surveyed the long table keenly, suddenly frowning!
He heard rustling sounds coming from beneath the table!
He strode to the table and yanked away several stacked chairs—
And found himself staring directly into Jane Yu's eyes!
And the unconscious body of Theodore Nott that she was dragging behind her!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 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]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━