Lin Shu had suspected earlier that the Weasley twins might have put some kind of spell on her. How else could she explain why her heart raced uncontrollably every time she crossed paths with them?
It was truly bizarre.
With this thought in mind, Lin Shu let the Weasley twins put the necklace on her.
The two of them smiled even more bewitchingly, and then George pulled a bag of candies from his pocket. Fred picked one out, peeled off the wrapper with his slender hands, and held it up to Lin Shu’s lips.
"Try this. We made these candies specially for you."
Lin Shu didn't dare open her mouth. During her time at Hogwarts, she had learned that George and Fred were absolute geniuses of mischief; anything that passed through their hands always carried a faint whiff of danger.
"Spare me, please. Are these the prank candies you two invented? I heard Ron mention them—the consequences of casually eating things from you guys are severe."
"Merlin! Sweetheart, why would you listen to that kid?"
George pounced on his lower lip in mock offense, wishing he could track down his good younger brother right now and shower him with some "loving attention."
Fred, however, remained persistent, keeping his hand extended to feed Lin Shu with a gentle expression that hardly made him look like he was about to trick her.
"Sweetheart, trust us. We made these specifically for you. There's not a single prank ingredient in them, but they're very sweet. You'll love them."
Ever since Malfoy had won Lin Shu over with a box of biscuits, George and Fred had started trying their hand at making various sweets and baked goods. Though their culinary skills were mediocre at best and their biscuits left much to be desired, their candies were actually decent.
Seeing their repeated assurances, Lin Shu decided to give it a try. But as she took the candy into her mouth, her lips accidentally brushed against Fred's fingers. Though the contact lasted only a split second, Fred was clearly sent into a daze.
He felt a tingling wave of electricity surge through his entire body, leaving him craving even more.
Meanwhile, Lin Shu tasted the sweetness of the candy and narrowed her eyes in delight.
A moment later, an odd sensation washed over her, as if something was about to burst out from inside her body. Yet the feeling was so faint, neither painful nor itchy, that it was easy to overlook.
"Are you guys *certain* there's really nothing wrong with this candy?" Lin Shu asked doubtfully, but no answer came.
She noticed George and Fred staring at her with blazing eyes. Sensing something amiss, she instinctively reached up to touch her face, only to watch in real-time as her palms transformed into animal paws.
Panicking, she felt her head and cheeks; a pair of ears now stood proudly atop her head, and a tail had sprouted from her lower back in a truly ancestral fashion.
"Agh—Fred! George! I'm going to kill you! You said this candy wouldn't have any problems!"
"Sweetheart, our words are the last things you should believe."
Lin Shu closed her eyes for a second, thinking that Fred's statement was practically a universal truth. From now on, she was going to carve these words into her heart and lungs, and never trust them again.
"Right now I just want to ask one thing: how do I change back?! Don't tell me you didn't make an antidote when you were brewing up this wretched junk."
"About that..."
"We really didn't."
Lin Shu violently pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting down the urge to beat them to a pulp while forcing a fake smile. The very next second, losing all restraint, she raised a broad palm and lashed out at the pair.
Seeing that Lin Shu was truly angry, Fred raised his arm and instantly intercepted her flailing little hands.
It was fortunate that Lin Shu didn't actually intend to do them serious harm; otherwise, regardless of how much taller and stronger George and Fred were compared to her, neither of them would have been able to withstand a single blow from her.
"Sweetheart, the effect only lasts five minutes. Don't be mad. Honestly, you look awfully cute right now—I'm about to fall head over heels for you."
"Pfft—if you think it's so cute, why don't you transform yourself?"
"Want to see? I can do it. I'm not opposed to it at all."
As soon as Fred spoke, George eagerly chimed in.
"That's right! As long as sweetheart wants it, we can transform for your amusement!"
Hearing them say this, Lin Shu suddenly didn't feel quite so annoyed anymore.
"Fine then, it's a deal! Transform already."
With doting smiles, Fred and George didn't hesitate a bit and swallowed the candies straight down.
The effect hit with incredible speed.
One after another, the two of them sprouted ears and tails—Fred's were black, while George's were orange.
Lin Shu could only describe it as epic.
*Whoa~* Live-action dolls, this was simply amazing!
She excitedly began patting them everywhere, making sure to spread the love evenly.
Not just the ears, but the tails too!
Not just petting, but stroking and rubbing against them as well!
Fred and George were driven to heavy breathing by her antics, coming dangerously close to losing control.
Fred grabbed Lin Shu's mischievous hands, giving her no chance to resist.
Lin Shu stared at him in a daze, her big eyes blinking as she met his gaze for one, two, three seconds...
"Sweetheart, a man's tail is not something you should touch."
"Hey~ didn't you guys conjure this out of thin air? It's not like it grew here naturally."
Lin Shu stood her ground, reasoning that nobody could possibly keep their hands off something so fluffy. Not touching it would be a sign of disrespect to all things fluffy.
The more she thought about it, the more her hands refused to behave. After smoothing down the fur on the tail, she took a deep breath, blew it all ruffled, and then smoothed it down again—repeating the cycle, endlessly amused.
Unable to take another second of it, Fred and George abandoned all concern for their half-human, half-animal forms and bolted in a panic.
They left in such a hurry that they didn't even leave Lin Shu with a parting word, leaving her thoroughly baffled.
*Wait, what just happened? What's the big rush?*
Lin Shu didn't understand, but she couldn't really blame George and Fred. They had already exercised the utmost restraint; since they couldn't do anything about it once they lost control, escaping to salvage what little dignity they had left was far better than letting Lin Shu see them looking so thoroughly distressed.
Seeing that both of them had fled, Lin Shu naturally lost any desire to stay. Right on cue, the time limit for the magic expired, and she returned to her normal appearance.
She then sauntered out of the stairwell and headed toward the Slytherin common room.
She had originally planned to head back and take a nice afternoon nap.
Alas, fate had other plans. She was intercepted halfway, and this time it was a tough opponent—someone she couldn't afford to provoke.
It was Professor Snape.
He stood there with a dark expression on his face, looking precisely like an old bat. His gaze locked entirely onto her, instantly sending a surge of panic straight from the soles of her feet up to her brain.
"You there with the troll brain, hurry up and walk. I should have known that whenever you aren't in detention, you must be quietly stirring up trouble. Aren't you just wonderful? Leading a class boycott and talking back to a professor, earning Slytherin a 50-point deduction. I suppose Hogwarts ought to enter you into the history books—after all, a talent like yours only comes around once a century. How truly memorable!"
Lin Shu shuffled her feet slowly over to Professor Snape, catching every word of his lecture.
If she did say so herself, their professor's talent for sarcasm only appeared once every six months; he belonged in the history books just as much.
Of course, she only dared to think this; she wouldn't dare say it aloud.
"Professor, regarding the point deduction... perhaps I can explain."
"Hmph—are you going to tell me how heroic it was to ride a broom and valiantly rescue a classmate? I have no desire to hear it. Follow me, and let's see how well you've mastered the assignment I gave you last class."
Lin Shu closed her eyes.
*Just let the world end!*
A pop quiz. Another pop quiz, and a one-on-one pop quiz with her own head of house at that. She could imagine with every single hair on her head just how thoroughly she was about to be tortured.
Yet what must come cannot be avoided.
She could only trudge forward with agonizingly heavy steps, following right behind her dean.
What made it truly soul-crushing and despairing was that her professor walked at an extremely fast pace, leaving her without even a scrap of time to struggle.
Once they reached the office, Lin Shu lowered her eyelids and waited for doom to arrive.
Snape, by contrast, remained utterly calm. He took a seat at his desk and casually picked up an assignment to grade. After a long silence, he finally looked up and asked Lin Shu:
"Suppose you need to brew a specialized potion for dragon pox that takes effect rapidly within three hours. It is known that the standard recipe requires boomslang skin—no, *bubotuber pus*—wait, requires *gills* that must be dried in the moonlight for three days in advance. But since it is the end of the month and the moonlight is faint, how would you adjust the drying duration and the heat control in the subsequent brewing steps to ensure the potion's ingredients remain stable without losing potency?"
Lin Shu swallowed hard, her brain spinning at top speed, yet she couldn't find a single clue.
*Wait a minute? Was that kind of question really in the assignments Professor Snape assigned her? How on earth did she never notice it?*
"Professor, since the moonlight is faint and unsuitable for potion-making, wouldn't it make sense to just wait until the moonlight isn't faint anymore?"
That was a solution too, wasn't it?
The very next second, Professor Snape dropped the assignment he was grading. His movement was graceful yet dripping with a chilling frost. He lightly tapped his fingers on the desktop, the sound echoing like a death warrant.
"It seems," he finally spoke, his voice low and raspy as if emerging from the depths of the abyss, "that I truly underestimated a brain like yours—one that belongs entirely to a troll."
The simple sentence fell like a heavy hammer, making the very air vibrate.
"Just look at your answer. It's a disaster for the magical world. I can scarcely believe you come from Slytherin. Perhaps you ought to go work at the magical creature reserve feeding Thestrals; that requires no brainpower whatsoever, making it a perfect fit for you."
*Oh, wow! That is a filthy insult.*
*Lesson learned, lesson learned~*
Listening to this, Lin Shu didn't dare make a peep.
Until the next question rang out:
"If you are brewing a protective potion to resist the Imperius Curse, and the unicorn horn powder in the standard ingredients is contaminated by Dark Magic and unusable, how many alternative materials are there? State their collection locations, processing methods, and the appropriate blending ratios with the remaining ingredients. You have one minute. Begin."
His gaze was sharp and unquestioning, like a black snake fixated on its prey, ready to deliver a fatal strike to anyone who answered incorrectly.
Lin Shu pursed her lips, still completely clueless.
"I'm sorry, Professor, I suppose I still don't know the answer."
Lin Shu had already prepared herself for a tongue-lashing, and given her understanding of Professor Snape, not tearing her to shreds would be out of character.
Yet she waited and waited, but the expected scolding never came. Instead, she only heard Professor Snape say calmly:
"Since you know your own shortcomings, why aren't you hurrying to catch up? Besides, you've already learned flight magic—I hear your technique is even better than Madam Hooch's! No doubt you're quite proud of that? From now on, you can skip flying class. Spend all your free time coming here for detention instead, and perhaps salvage that empty head of yours along the way."
"Understood. Thank you, Professor."
Lin Shu didn't think this punishment was bad at all. On the contrary, she was deeply grateful to Professor Snape; after all, this was an opportunity for private tutoring, and not everyone received such treatment.
Furthermore, Lin Shu's original purpose in coming here was to learn things she didn't already know.
Potions and Transfiguration were the absolute top priorities.
Besides, no matter how cold and unapproachable Professor Snape seemed on the surface, his actual actions were fiercely protective of his house's students.
Take her current situation: if Professor Snape hadn't used this opportunity to give her detention and spare her from Madam Hooch's classes, she figured her life wouldn't be easy.
Since bad blood had already been drawn, it would be a miracle if Madam Hooch didn't make things difficult for her.
So skipping those classes was even better. She was grateful for how thoroughly Professor Snape had considered things.
She truly loved him for it.
Admiration shone in her eyes as she stared at Professor Snape, her expression entirely full of awe and docility, until Snape furrowed his brow in speechlessness.
*Could this child possibly have been scolded into idiocy by me?* he thought.
Then again, children of this age were indeed young, and sensitive hearts were hardly unheard of. Should he perhaps be a bit gentler in the future?
Snape thought this to himself while his hands kept steadily grading papers.
Meanwhile, Lin Shu had no idea what was running through Professor Snape's mind and maintained her expression of profound gratitude.
Suddenly, a wisp of black Qi wriggled out from the sleeve of Professor Snape's robes, and Lin Shu caught it instantly.
Her expression changed in a flash.
*God damn it, death energy again.*
Why was this death energy endless?
Was the probability of dying young in this Western Magical World really *that* high?
She furrowed her brow tightly, feeling that this whole affair had just become even more unfathomable.