Hogwarts: Don't call me the Staff Maker

Chapter 542 Arrival at School

Chapter 542 Returning to School

"Can anyone tell me why Snape is on the Hogwarts Express!" Ron shouted. No one answered, because that was what they all wanted to know as well.

"The professor never rides the Hogwarts Express," Harry said.

"You forgot Professor Lupin," Hermione reminded her. "He rode the train with us in our third year."

"Besides Professor Lupin, did you see any other teachers on the train?"

The private room was noisy, but Sirius remained silent. He was even more surprised that Dumbledore had asked Snape to teach him Apparition, and that Snape had agreed.

Snape undoubtedly mastered Apparition long ago, but wasn't he only interested in things related to Harry? He would only get involved in something if it was connected to Harry. For example, although he liked to deduct points from Gryffindor, he never deducted more than fifty points at once—at least Fred and George didn't have that many points deducted before their third year; it was usually a gradual process.

Furthermore, aside from Gryffindor, Snape treated the other two houses equally, simply showing favoritism towards Slytherin. It was only after Harry enrolled that Gryffindor became the primary target for point deductions.

So, although Dumbledore promised to find a teacher to teach him Apparition, Sirius never imagined that person would be Snape. He always thought it would be Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick.

Professor McGonagall is the vice-principal, so she'll likely be quite busy and won't have much free time after the semester starts. But Professor Flitwick is perfectly fine—he spends his weekends having a drink with Hagrid at the Three Broomsticks.

But Snape—

Siren shook his head, not wanting to think about it any further. He was fine with anyone teaching him; all he wanted now was to master the Apparition spell as quickly as possible, and besides, Harry was clearly finding this decision much harder to accept than he was.

Harry was completely stunned. He sat there motionless and silent, his mind filled with only Snape's last words before he left.

"Monday evening at six o'clock, Potter."

It was Tuesday in Xilun, but he didn't hear it.

"A one-on-one tutoring session with Snape—" Harry stared blankly out the window, muttering to himself, "I don't understand what I did wrong to deserve this punishment."

"If you think about it a little more, you'll realize that this isn't actually the worst thing," Hermione said. She put on a stern face and stuffed her potions paper back into her bag.

"Snape has discovered you've been copying my paper. He'll definitely be checking your assignments closely. If you don't want to get a zero on the 0.WL exam, you'd better rewrite it!"

"Oh, right, it's a complete rewrite," Hermione emphasized. "The paper we just finished writing is also unusable!"

She looked extremely angry. Normally, Hermione would never let anyone copy her homework; she would rather spend extra time checking and correcting it for them. But so much had happened in the past few days that neither Siren nor Harry could concentrate on their homework, so she made a difficult decision—to deliberately leave the homework outside.

Yes, she deliberately placed her homework on top of her schoolbag, and then positioned the schoolbag where both Sirius and Ron could see it. She just hadn't expected that Snape would discover her doing this so quickly; the meaningful look he gave her made her face flush red.

Upon hearing Hermione's reminder, Ron's face instantly turned pale. He'd spent ages working on his homework, and now it was unusable?

"I made quite a few changes," Ron said cautiously. "Maybe Snape won't notice—"

"No, Snape already knows, you'd better not get your hopes up!" Hermione said, glaring at Ron. It was because Ron hadn't covered her name on her homework in time that Snape had discovered it. Hermione grew angrier the more she thought about it; at least for the rest of the term, Ron wouldn't be getting any homework from her.

Ron understood the reasoning, but he just couldn't bear to part with it; it was homework he had spent so much time working on.

Seeing Ron's conflicted expression, Sirius casually tore the parchment in front of him in half. He knew Snape was just bluffing. The content of the Wizarding Examinations was always determined by the Ministry of Magic's Examinations Board, and Hogwarts professors had no say in it. So, his claim that he would include this assignment in the Wizarding Examinations was simply a bluff.

But just because it won't be included in the exam results doesn't mean he has no other options; it's better to be cautious. Xilen certainly doesn't want to spend the entire night squeezing leech juice in the underground classroom.

For the rest of the journey, the atmosphere in the compartment was extremely somber. No one spoke; everyone except Hermione was busy finishing their homework. Ron was incredibly strong; he gripped the quill tightly, and what he wrote seemed to pierce through the parchment, leaving marks on the table.

During the trip, Neville came over enthusiastically, wanting to share his holiday experiences with them. But after seeing the strange scene in the private room, he quietly left and never returned.

Hermione wasn't idle either. Not only did she have to help Harry complete the prefect's tasks, but she also had to come back every now and then to check if there were any obvious errors in their papers.

And so it went until evening, when the train finally pulled into Hogsmeade Station, which was almost completely covered in snow.

In the distance, the windows of Hogwarts Castle shone with warm yellow light. One could imagine that a delicious and plentiful meal was already prepared and waiting for them in the cozy Great Hall.

The students eagerly squeezed off the train.

At this moment, Xiren noticed that two professors had also appeared in the crowd.

Besides Snape, who had come before, there was also Professor Sprout, who taught Herbalism, but she came down from the front of the train, which was the driver's cab.

"Another professor," Hermione said.

"Dumbledore must have known Snape was on the train, which is why he specifically sent Professor Sprout to protect you," Ron said confidently.

"Probably not—" Harry said.

“Why not? That’s exactly what those Order of the Phoenix guys did when we set off for King’s Cross Station,” Ron said. “Mad-Eye and the others didn’t get on the train because they knew someone would take their place. That person is Professor Sprout.”

Ron's argument was reasonable, but Siron felt that Snape and Sprout were on the train primarily to protect the students and prevent any audacious Death Eaters from attacking the Hogwarts Express.

Fortunately, Voldemort wasn't so insane as to provoke Dumbledore in this way.

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