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Although they still hadn't definitively found out who was impersonating the "Heir of Slytherin," the daily life at Hogwarts gradually returned to a tense peace following the attack on Mary. The tightened security and constant Professor patrols seemed to have suppressed any further overt actions from the pure-blood factions.
February 14, 1974, Valentine's Day, arrived under a waning moon.
On this day full of supposed romantic meaning, the several popular Little Wizards within the HP syndicate uniformly maintained their status as single nobles, showing absolutely no signs of puppy love—of course, secret, unvoiced crushes didn't officially count.
The situation for the girls was similar. Lily politely but firmly refused all the older boys who wanted to ask her out to Hogsmeade; Mary vastly preferred to stick close by Lily's side; and as for Evie Frye, she was still young and firmly believed only married adults celebrated something as tedious as "Valentine's Day."
And so—
On this specific day that should have been heavily filled with floating pink bubbles and blushing confessions, the several core Little Wizards of HP, bundled up tightly against the biting Scottish cold, appeared one after another in Hagrid's snow-covered yard under the listless, pale mid-February morning sun.
As soon as Lily, Mary, and Evie pushed open the heavy wooden cabin door, they saw the half-giant Hagrid and the three little Gryffindor lions comfortably sitting around the massive roaring fireplace. The bright firelight flickered warmly against the rough stone walls, oversized wooden teacups were scattered across the massive table, and beside them, a large, dented copper teapot was still steaming and "gurgling" merrily.
"Good morning!" A chorus of enthusiastic greetings came from the boys inside the cabin.
"Good morning, Mr. Hagrid!" the girls replied, shaking the snow from their cloaks.
"Morning!" Hagrid smiled warmly, taking out a few extra bucket-sized cups he had specifically, carefully washed three times for his guests. "Come in quickly, have some hot tea to warm yourselves up..."
"Mary, thank you so much for the scarf!" Remus said with a genuine smile, adjusting the thick wool around his neck. James and Sirius beside him were also tightly wrapped in completely identical gold and red scarves featuring a roaring lion pattern.
Sirius smiled slightly at Mary, exuding a natural aristocratic air that immediately made the little Gryffindor witch feel overjoyed, her heart skipping a beat.
"Thank you! Happy Valentine's Day!" James waved energetically at the little witches, smiling brightly—it was a highly strategic, good thing he had firmly turned down all the other girls' invitations.
Valentine's Day was naturally only wherever Lily Evans was.
"It's really nothing..." Mary's cheeks flushed deeply with happiness. A happiness that instantly doubled when the heavy door was pushed open again, and three Little Wizards wearing intricate silver and green scarves walked in: Regulus, Severus, and Jacob.
Mary understood the gesture instantly: the boys had specifically coordinated to wear the scarves she had painstakingly knitted together. Her grueling, multithreaded efforts in the knitting club hadn't been in vain...
Lily turned back and winked at her, her lively green eyes full of knowing mischief. Mary didn't know that this coordinated display of solidarity had actually been Lily's brilliant idea.
Before long, the core members of the HP syndicate gathered closely around the massive table—
"Haha, you'd absolutely never guess!" James suddenly clapped Sirius hard on the shoulder, his hazel eyes dancing with amusement. "This Valentine's Day, our dear Sirius actually received a highly perfumed love letter from a sixth-year upperclassman—an actual sixth-year!"
He dramatically cleared his throat and began to recite the letter with a highly exaggerated, swooning expression:
"I hate dreaming, I hate waiting... but I am forever waiting for you, unarmed, empty-handed. Don't let me wait too long in cold dreams, my little grey-eyed prince..."
Everyone in the cabin burst into roaring laughter.
Sirius simply shrugged nonchalantly, pulling his gold and red scarf tighter, and said calmly, "Once people fall in love, they inevitably become foolish and completely lose their taste and dignity."
This famous, cynical quote lifted straight from The Tales of Beedle the Bard immediately drew unanimous, amused agreement from the calculating Little Wizards present.
Hagrid sat nearby in his oversized chair, smiling sheepishly through his tangled beard, and kept happily adding massive logs to the fireplace; the fire blazed high, making the cabin feel as warm as spring.
After everyone had laughed and casually chatted for a while, Regulus suddenly stood up, tapping his teacup with his wand to get their attention, and led everyone outside into the freezing, snowy yard.
Since they were all proudly single, Valentine's Day naturally had its own corporate KPIs to meet.
Before long, the absolute only "old couple" in the entire HP group—the majestic golden eagles, Godric and Regina—flew down from high above the dark treeline of the Forbidden Forest and landed steadily in the snow exactly in front of the Little Wizards.
Now, the system-granted "Stealth" skill attached to this specific pair of golden eagles was mathematically remarkable. As long as they actively flew in formation with other mundane birds, they could completely, magically disappear from others' sight, perfectly hiding their physical tracks exactly like a gaming cheat code.
Thanks entirely to this overpowered skill, even if Rabastan Lestrange just casually went to the edge of the Black Lake to eat a simple sandwich, he could be highly precisely targeted by a massive drop of bird droppings directly on his head, yet he absolutely couldn't even see the eagles' shadows in the sky above him. This constant, invisible bombardment made him paranoid, severely suspecting he was under some kind of highly advanced, untraceable "Bird Dropping Curse."
"Happy Valentine's Day to you both!" Regulus bowed deeply, respectfully to his loyal eagles. "I'm heavily counting on your tactical assistance today!"
After speaking, Regulus seamlessly cast a spell to light a warm magical bonfire in the snow, conjured a neat row of wooden stools for the audience, and used his wand to draw a massive, perfectly circular golden line exactly fourteen feet in diameter on the pristine snow.
"Ahem," he cleared his throat, slipping into his CEO persona. "As you've probably all logically realized from recent violent events—many times, besides simply using magic, possessing strong physical fitness and lightning-fast reaction speed are equally crucial to surviving an ambush."
Mary immediately nodded vigorously, deeply agreeing as she remembered the feeling of being paralyzed in the dark corridor.
"Therefore, we're going to officially start a highly specific new combat training regimen. Fortunately, Godric and Regina are highly willing to actively assist us—" Regulus turned and smiled, thanking the two massive eagles.
Then, he blinked, a highly amused, slightly sadistic gamer expression appearing on his aristocratic face:
"Today, we absolutely will not use wands! We'll safely use these instead—"
Under the completely dumbfounded gaze of the heavily armed Little Wizards, he smoothly pulled a large pile of blunted wooden training swords out of his expanded pocket and tossed them into the snow.
He pointed directly to the golden eagle Godric, who was currently affectionately nuzzling his mate. The massive bird slightly spread his golden wings and stood straight at attention.
"The tactical task is incredibly simple—Godric will enter the golden circle with you, and your primary objective is to physically stay inside the boundary for absolutely as long as logically possible without using any magic whatsoever. Godric will aggressively use his massive wings, sharp talons, and high-speed swooping movements to physically force you out of the circle—don't worry, he won't actually lethally grab or maim you, but getting violently startled and knocked down is unavoidable."
"Isn't that practically exactly like the game 'Eagle Catching Chicks' that Muggle children play?!" James summarized excitedly, grabbing a wooden sword.
"Well said, James." Regulus clapped his gloved hands. "Besides strictly not using magic, absolutely any other physical tactics are completely allowed: rolling, jumping, feints, parrying..."
"Who wants to go first?" His grey gaze swept across the tense group.
"Me, me, me!" As expected, James was the absolute first to eagerly jump up, brandishing his wooden sword.
"All right." Regulus nodded approvingly and leaned down, whispering a tactical command directly to Godric.
The massive golden eagle nodded intelligently, his golden wings slightly spread, and his dark eyes instantly became incredibly sharp, locking onto his prey.
The boy and the eagle took their starting positions inside the golden ring.
"Begin!"
Before James even had time to fully get into a ready stance, Godric violently swooped in, his huge wings creating a massive, freezing gust of wind that kicked up the snow.
The little Gryffindor lion yelped in genuine surprise, jumping sideways with all his might, trying to evade the massive bird with a quick feint. For a split second, it actually seemed like he had flawlessly fooled the predator, but the very next instant, Godric sharply swept his heavy tail feathers, hitting James's calf accurately and throwing him off balance.
Immediately after, Godric's massive hooked beak actually struck directly towards James's chest in a blindingly fast blur. James rapidly retreated, desperately holding the wooden sword across his chest as a shield, and Godric violently pecked exactly at the center of the wood.
Five seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds—
James stumbled heavily backward in the snow, the wooden sword in his hand violently snapped in half with a loud crack, and he was physically pushed entirely out of the golden circle by the sheer kinetic force of the eagle's charge.
"Eleven seconds!" Regulus whistled loudly, clicking a stopwatch and announcing the baseline result.
James Potter was indeed a highly talented star Quidditch player; his physical reaction speed and agility were mathematically outstanding compared to a normal wizard.
"That was incredibly cool," James gasped, happily brushing the freezing snow off his Gryffindor robes, his voice incredibly excited despite the quick defeat. "He's absolutely amazing!"
The Little Wizards watching intently from the wooden stools were utterly stunned, and Hagrid was completely fixated on the eagle's power.
"Even if I mathematically had my wand drawn... it logically seems like I absolutely wouldn't have even had a physical chance to actually use it before he hit me..." Severus blurted out his tactical analysis in a low voice after a moment of profound surprise.
Sirius and Remus nodded gravely nearby—they had significantly more personal contact with Godric's physical might during their London excursions and deeply understood exactly how lethal the bird was.
"I'll go next—" Evie Frye jumped up from the stool first, grabbing a fresh wooden sword, her large blue eyes full of cold, calculating anticipation. "I'm ready!"
This time, understanding he faced an Assassin, Godric completely changed his tactical approach. He no longer swooped directly in for a brute-force strike but rapidly circled closely above Evie, darting unpredictably left and right, making it mathematically impossible for her to accurately predict the exact direction of his next attack.
Evie executed a flawless, highly athletic side roll, keenly managing to perfectly avoid a rapid, low-altitude sweep—
"Wow!" Sirius whistled in genuine admiration at her agility.
Just as Evie was swiftly getting up, supporting her weight on the snowy ground, Godric suddenly, silently swept closely past her directly from behind, the sharp rush of wind from his wings almost touching her hair tips. She instinctively rolled again to evade the unseen threat, but actively misjudged the boundary and accidentally rolled completely out of the golden circle—
"Twenty seconds!" Regulus announced in surprise, clicking the stopwatch.
"Evie is physically much stronger and faster than me," James sighed, clutching his chest where the eagle had struck his sword.
"Regulus, did you specifically tell Godric to logically go easy on the girls?" Sirius asked in a low voice, a knowing smirk playing on his aristocratic lips.
Regulus spread his hands innocently. "That was entirely Godric's own tactical judgment."
Godric gave a highly proud, resonant "coo" and ruffled his golden feathers.
"Next. Who wants to try their luck?" Regulus called out.
Just then, Hagrid, who had been sitting silently watching the training from the side, suddenly raised his massive, dustbin-lid-sized hand exactly like an eager schoolchild. "Can... can I try?"
Everyone instantly fell dead silent, staring at the half-giant, then all slowly turned to look at Regulus.
Regulus spread his hands helplessly and turned to look at his eagle. "Well... if Godric doesn't mathematically mind the weight class difference..."
The golden eagle slowly turned his sharp head and seriously, calculatingly looked exactly at Hagrid's towering, massive size.
"Coo—?"