Peeves' words caused an uproar among the crowd.
Dumbledore's expression suddenly became serious, and he drove all the Gryffindor students to the hall.
Under the professors' very tough emergency arrangements, the little wizards who had never seen such a scene before acted very quickly and cooperated very well with the professors.
Only ten minutes later, students from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin came to the hall along with the Gryffindor students.
The auditorium suddenly became noisy, even more lively than the opening dinner, and many young wizards looked confused as to what was going on.
"The professors and I will conduct a thorough search of the castle," Dumbledore said to the students, standing on the dais at the front of the Great Hall.
At this time, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick closed all the doors of the auditorium. Even the magic that reflected the sky on the ceiling of the auditorium was turned off. A depressing atmosphere lingered throughout the hall.
"For the safety of all students, tomorrow's classes will be temporarily suspended." Professor McGonagall informed, "I have asked the prefects to stand guard at the entrances of the hall, and the male and female head boy and girl students will stay in the hall to manage it."
"Report to me immediately if anything happens," she added, looking at Percy who had already followed. Percy looked proud of being an important person, "You can ask a ghost to tell me the message."
The other young wizards had nothing better to do, so they began to discuss eagerly how Sirius Black had come to Hogwarts Castle.
"Who guessed that there was a wanted criminal in the castle?" Ron said to Harry and Hermione. "We thought this guess was the least reliable, but we didn't expect it to be true!"
"Do you think Blake is still in the castle?" Hermione asked in an anxious whisper, not having time to think about such questions.
"Dumbledore obviously thinks so," said Ron.
"He chose today to come here. It's really lucky for Harry, you know?" Hermione said fearfully, "Today is the day we are going out to practice magic, and we are not in the tower..."
Not only was she afraid of Harry, she was also glad that her time-turner was taken away by Professor Dracula.
Otherwise, when the professors ordered the young wizards to come to the hall, there might be two Hermiones in the castle.
Hermione was terrified at the thought.
What would happen if both Hermiones were dragged into the Great Hall by the prefects and professors? What would happen if she was not discovered by the professors and prefects, but chose to stay where she was, and was then discovered by Sirius Black...
Fortunately, Professor Dracula took away her time converter, thus avoiding this worst-case scenario.
After listening to the professors' speeches, Harry, Ron and Hermione walked straight to the corner of the Gryffindor table, pulled up a few chairs and sat down, leaning their upper bodies on the table and chatting quietly.
Harry's face looked a little unnatural.
He knew that Sirius Black wanted to kill him to please Voldemort, so he sneaked into Hogwarts Castle.
In a sense, it was he who caused the Hogwarts students to be unable to return to the common room, and even caused tomorrow's classes to be suspended.
Harry vaguely heard some trivial words from the long table of Ravenclaw next door. It seemed that some young Ravenclaw wizards were complaining about him causing the suspension of classes at Hogwarts.
Even Ravenclaw, a house where he usually gets along well, has people thinking this way. Then Slytherin, a house that has always had a lot of conflicts with him, must have made countless sarcastic comments about him...
"Don't care what they say, Harry." Hermione saw Harry's sadness and comforted him, "It's not your fault, it's all Sirius Black's fault!"
"Yes, Harry, Blake must have been driven crazy by the Dementors in Azkaban. He was bold enough to sneak into Hogwarts." Ron nodded in approval. "Luckily, I was very motivated today and dragged Harry out to practice spells, otherwise I don't know what would have happened!"
At this point, Ron's expression became somewhat proud again, as if he had done a great thing to save the world.
Of course, after discussing other issues, the three little wizards' topic inevitably returned to the same question - how did Sirius Black get in
"Maybe he knows how to stealth," said a Ravenclaw a few feet away. "Just appear out of thin air, if you know what I mean."
"She probably came in wearing makeup," a student in Hufflepuff robes said nearby.
Harry turned his head and found that Rolf and Luna had come over and joined the conversation, looking at Harry with concern.
They all knew that Sirius Black came to Hogwarts for only one purpose, and that was to find Harry!
Therefore, Harry's friends were very worried about him.
Harry greeted them and said that he was fine and they didn't need to worry about him.
"Or... maybe he flew in." Dean Thomas, who was sitting not far from the Gryffindor table, also came over and gave his own guess.
"Honestly, am I the only one who's taken the trouble to read Hogwarts, A History?" Hermione said unhappily to the young wizards around her.
"Very likely." Ron nodded seriously, "But why did you mention this suddenly? We all know you're amazing, Hermione. You really don't need to show it again."
"That's not the reason!" Hermione glared at Ron fiercely. "Hogwarts, A History mentions the protective magic of Hogwarts. If you read it carefully, you wouldn't come up with so many unreliable guesses!"
"This castle is not only protected by walls," she went on to explain, "but also has various magics cast on it to prevent outsiders from sneaking in. You can't get in just by stealth."
"And I want to see what kind of makeup can fool the Dementors outside the door. These guys are guarding every entrance... Even if he flies in on a broom, the Dementors can easily see him."
"Not only that, Filch knows all the secret passages in the castle, and the Dementors will block them all..."
After Hermione's explanation, the young wizards quickly lost interest in continuing the discussion.
After all, Hogwarts' various defense measures have already specifically defended against all possible infiltration methods. With the young wizards' shallow understanding of magic, it is difficult for them to guess any reliable plan.
"Forget it, let's not talk about this." Harry slumped down on the table with some boredom. "Instead of discussing this, let's talk about what we can do while being locked in the hall... If there are no classes the whole of tomorrow, we will soon become bored."
"Look at it in a positive way, at least we came to the Great Hall without bringing anything with us," Ron said, looking a little happy. "We don't even have parchment, so we have no reason to not do the homework we haven't handed in yet!"
However, things obviously did not turn out as he imagined.
Dumbledore stayed in the hall for a while, and seeing that there was no problem here, was about to leave the hall when he suddenly remembered something.
"Oh, by the way, you may need these things..." He waved his wand casually, and countless pieces of parchment flew in from nowhere and were piled on the table in front of each little wizard.
With another wave, the corresponding quill and ink appeared next to the parchment.
"Study hard!" Dumbledore said with a smile, "The more nervous you are, the more you must not forget to study! These papers and pens can also help you kill some boring time."
Looking at the parchment and quill neatly placed in front of him, Ron's eyes widened, his expression completely numb.
…
Under Dumbledore's command, all faculty and staff began to move.
They searched the entire Hogwarts Castle carefully, leaving no corner unsearched, but Sirius Black seemed to have disappeared out of thin air, completely without a trace.
"You don't actually have to have professors running around."
After Dumbledore personally searched the entire eighth floor, Dracula's figure suddenly appeared behind him.
Dumbledore turned and looked at him inquiringly.
"You know I can see the entire castle through the Hogwarts title deed, so why do you need professors to patrol back and forth?" Dracula asked with a frown.
"Sometimes, even if you know that you can't find Sirius Black, you still have to do the work you have to do." Dumbledore turned around and chuckled.
"The Ministry of Magic staff and the Dementors are just waiting for us to make mistakes so they can come in and occupy Hogwarts!"
"If we do nothing, not only will the people in the Ministry of Magic think that I am incompetent as the headmaster, but even the faculty and staff will likely start to talk about it. So, Professor Dracula, this round of search is quite necessary, regardless of whether it can yield any results," said Dumbledore.
"Tsk, that's why I say that people like you are really troublesome. You are always constrained by a department like the Ministry of Magic which has no power at all." Dracula sneered, "There are so many twists and turns, it's annoying just to hear them!"
"Sometimes, it's not a bad thing for a person to be constrained." Dumbledore smiled with some emotion, "Let's not talk about this anymore. Tell me what you found on the deed, Professor Dracula."
"If I had found something, would I still be bored and chat with you here?" Dracula curled his lips, "Not only did I not find any useful information this time, I also checked the deed before using the time converter, and I didn't find any suspicious figures at all..."
"I roughly estimated that the time should almost coincide with the time when Sirius Black destroyed the portrait!"
"It seems that this Blake is really an interesting person. He can escape from the heavily guarded Azkaban and sneak into the heavily guarded Hogwarts Castle without being discovered."
Dracula raised the corner of his mouth with interest, and no one knew what he was thinking.
"Sirius was indeed a very good wizard." Dumbledore nodded, "But I never thought he had the ability to sneak into Hogwarts and escape from Azkaban... Maybe I don't know enough about him."
He sighed, put his hands on the marble railing beside him, and fell into deep thought.
"In fact, it's not that we don't have a way to catch Sirius Black..." Dracula looked at Dumbledore meaningfully and said softly, "You should understand what I mean, Dumbledore?"
Dumbledore turned around in surprise and saw Dracula's meaningful eyes.
"No!" he refused decisively, "This is not how we use the Time Turner!"
"But the time-turner can make it easy for us to find Sirius Black—" Dracula said calmly, "We just need to hide at the door of the Gryffindor common room and wait for him."
"Don't you want to catch him and ask him about what happened? Or... don't you want the little wizards to go back to the common room and sleep well?"
Dracula's two questions kept hammering at Dumbledore's mind.
There is no doubt that these two problems are what the old principal needs to solve urgently.
He placed his old hand in his pocket, gently stroking the time converter that Dracula had handed to him not long ago, hesitating in his heart.
"Don't hesitate, Dumbledore. Do you want to wait until the maximum rewind time of five hours has passed and you have no chance to use it before you regret it?" Dracula urged.
Dumbledore unconsciously tightened his grip on the metal necklace of his Time-Turner.
The cold temperature of the necklace gradually made his eyes a little dazed, as if he had returned to decades ago, tightly grasping the cold blood alliance.
Thinking of the blood pact, Dumbledore suddenly came to his senses.
"It's still not necessary, Professor Dracula." He smiled sadly, "The rules are like a dangerous wall that prevents me from falling. Once it is destroyed, there is no way to erect it again."
He looked into Dracula's eyes and said softly, "There's no need to feel sorry. After all, the remaining energy in this time converter is not enough for a great wizard to go back in time again."
"Forget it, I should have thought of it earlier." Dracula walked to Dumbledore and leaned on the railing beside the corridor. "You look casual, but you are actually stubborn to the core."
"Tell me, how are you going to deal with the threat of Sirius Black?" he asked. "Don't tell me something irresponsible like 'take it one step at a time'. I don't believe you don't have a backup plan."
"I really can't hide it from you, Professor Dracula." Dumbledore said with a smile, "I plan to find James and Sirius's best friend to help. He is the person who knows Sirius best now."
"I finally got in touch with him a while ago. He should be in Romania now. What a coincidence, that seems to be your home turf, Professor Dracula!"
…
…