Adelaide was forced to lie in the Hospital Wing for another two days, but she felt relieved after learning that Lord Voldemort's Horcrux was so troubled by the cockroach soul that he didn't dare to resurrect.
Out of consideration for her personal safety and after much deliberation, Adelaide finally decided to persuade the seniors of the Human Research Group to hand over all detailed information regarding Terence Higgs and Stephens to Headmaster Dumbledore, allowing them to withdraw from the investigation to protect themselves.
Not only that, she also subtly and tactfully hinted to Dumbledore that there might be some consciousness-related issues with these two, such as being controlled by evil Dark Arts.
When Dumbledore finished reading the investigation report and personal conjectures sent by Adelaide, he was very surprised that four lower-year Ravenclaw students could achieve such a level. To commend their outstanding performance and keen insight, Dumbledore generously decided to award each of the four students 20 House points.
At the same time, he suggested to the members of the Human Research Group, "Regarding the matter of the Death Eater undercover, you can rest assured and leave the follow-up investigation to me. All of you should relax and enjoy the upcoming Christmas holidays."
Thus, with these hard-won 80 points, Ravenclaw House successfully recovered the points lost during the fierce Quidditch match and leaped to second place on the House leaderboard.
The remaining Death Eater forces lurking outside, as well as those who had successfully escaped from Azkaban, were likely severely weakened after experiencing the massacre of the MacFusty Family, the Halloween Forbidden Forest riot (where they tried to take advantage of the chaos but ended up losing more than they gained), and the large-scale cleanup operation against the Wizengamot. In the following days, they did not continue to bother Adelaide.
Hogwarts finally returned to its usual peace and tranquility, and for Adelaide, she spent an extremely relaxed and pleasant month leading up to Christmas.
Since that deep conversation by the lake, the relationship between Adelaide and Alice MacFusty had progressed rapidly. Now, they could affectionately call each other by their first names, a closeness that felt incredibly heartwarming.
Alice also confessed to Adelaide that she and her brother had been closely watching her since the start of the term because they heard Lord Voldemort intended to capture her.
Based on this, they believed Adelaide should stand on the same front as them and hoped to cooperate.
They had originally planned to observe for a whole year to fully understand Adelaide's character before trying to establish a friendly relationship. However, unexpectedly, her brother, who served as a Professor, met with an accident and fell into a coma—Alice could now only rely on Dumbledore and Adelaide.
Everyone in Slytherin witnessed the increasingly close relationship between Alice and Adelaide, and the false rumors about them seemed to be confirmed.
Consequently, the socially adept Slytherins took immediate action. Lower-year students were more respectful than ever when they saw Adelaide, and even upper-year students would smile and greet her when they met her on the path.
Adelaide was somewhat speechless, but no matter how she explained, they didn't believe her. Alice, on the other hand, was very open-minded, telling her there was no need to care about others' opinions and that they should just live their own lives.
Cho Chang also agreed with Alice's perspective. Perhaps because they were both present during Adelaide's previous breakdown, not only did the bond between Adelaide and Alice deepen, but even Cho unknowingly integrated into the group, making the trio's relationship even tighter.
Every Friday as night fell, they would often go together, sneaking into the Room of Requirement to enjoy a delicious hotpot feast, forging a revolutionary friendship.
As the days passed, Christmas was suddenly approaching. The school tallied the list of students staying for the holidays, and none of the three signed it.
Cho Chang decided to go home and spend the warm holiday with her family, while Alice chose to go to St Mungos Hospital to carefully look after her comatose brother.
Adelaide didn't plan to stay at school either; she intended to go to Dumbledores Old House in Godrics Hollow to care for the empty-nester middle-aged man, Edward.
After all, both Dumbledore and Amandine needed to stay at Hogwarts to attend the Christmas feast with the students, which would leave Edward all alone at home, a truly pitiable situation.
On the eve of the holidays, Adelaide made a special trip to the Headmasters Office to visit Haskui, who had betrayed his master for love.
Ever since Adelaide noticed Dumbledore's interest in this cute white parrot, she had a sudden inspiration and secretly instructed Haskui to frequently go to the Headmasters Office to play and interact with Dumbledore, and to find a way to locate the hiding place of Gryffindor's Sword.
To help Haskui complete the task better, she even spent a large sum of money to buy precious Pet Intelligence-Boosting Potion, giving Haskui the wisdom of a medium-level magical creature.
But she never expected that this seemingly well-behaved parrot would actually betray her, its master, for love!
Haskui fell in love with Phoenix Fawkes at first sight. No one knew what methods this white parrot used, but it actually managed to enchant Adelaide's good friend and the guardian of the Headmasters Office, Fawkes the Phoenix.
It wasn't that Adelaide didn't approve of the marriage; the problem was that this fellow forgot his master once he had a wife. The two birds were inseparable all day, preening each other's feathers on the perch in the Headmasters Office and flaunting their affection. Haskui was so happy he forgot his mission and even stopped returning to the dormitory!
Even more infuriating was that Dumbledore didn't mind the close relationship between the two birds at all. Instead, he was very magnanimous and readily agreed to cover Haskui's daily bird food costs and the expensive Intelligence-Boosting Potion expenses.
Even as she sat on the train home, Adelaide was still indignant. Haskui was truly a son who couldn't be kept once he grew up; not only did he refuse to go home with his master or give a small gift, but he even tried to peck her!
She just wanted to pluck a few Phoenix Tail Feathers as a Christmas gift from Fawkes and Haskui—was that too much to ask?
Fortunately, Dumbledore couldn't bear to watch and gave Adelaide some extra pocket money, which effectively used money to silence her dissatisfaction and stopped her from thinking about breaking up the little couple.
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