Shuxin had already been brought into Professor Snape's office.
"What is this nonsense Flitwick was talking about? What time does it need?" Professor Snape asked from a distance, not having heard clearly.
"Professor Flitwick said I have an accent and my pronunciation isn't standard, which is hindering my spellcasting," Shuxin demonstrated the two spells. "He told me to practice slowly and that it would get better with time."
Professor Snape was speechless. "From now on, come to my office to practice two nights a week, from seven to nine."
"Thank you, Professor. Right now, I only have Astronomy on Wednesday nights," Shuxin said happily.
"Very well, then come here to practice on Tuesday and Friday nights." It was utterly humiliating that he, Professor Snape's designated apprentice, couldn't even cast a spell.
Shuxin: "Professor, actually, I came to see you tonight about something else."
Professor Snape: "On your very first day of term, you've got more matters than the Savior. Is it about *The Standard Book of Spells*? I've already prepared it. Even if you hadn't come to me, I would have called for you tomorrow."
As he spoke, Professor Snape pulled a stack of books ranging from first-to-fifth-year from his drawer. "Handle them with care. Remember to return them to me when you reach the fifth year."
"Alright, thank you, Professor." Shuxin flipped through them. "Why aren't there sixth and seventh-year books? Are you worried I won't make it into the N.E.W.T. classes?"
Snape didn't answer. Could he possibly admit that he had searched his entire house and office and couldn't find the sixth-year books, so he had simply withheld the seventh-year ones as well?
Shuxin: "The Half-Blood Prince? Professor..."
"Shut up." Professor Snape snatched the book back. When Shuxin opened it again that evening, the words "The Half-Blood Prince" had vanished.
"Is there anything else? If not, take your books and leave. Your poor professor needs to rest." Professor Snape was probably feeling a bit embarrassed.
"Well, there is one small matter. Professor, do you know about Occlumency?" Speaking of business, Shuxin dropped her playful demeanor.
Professor Snape: "Occlumency? Of course I know, but this isn't something someone of your age should be asking about. Off with you now if there's nothing else."
"Professor, listen to me. It's what the Sorting Hat said last night—it said I'm a natural-born master of Occlumency," Shuxin said.
"A natural-born master of Occlumency?" Snape felt a stir of curiosity. This was only the second person with such a talent he had ever encountered.
The first, naturally, was Voldemort, whose Parseltongue was innate.
Shuxin: "Yes, Professor, would you like to test it? The Sorting Hat said it couldn't pierce my mind."
"Look into my eyes." Professor Snape stared into the green eyes before him and drew his wand. "Legilimens."
After a moment, Professor Snape lowered his wand. "Indeed, I cannot pierce your mind either."
"Then why did you even let me get sorted?" Professor Snape asked, somewhat curious.
"Uh, the Sorting Hat let me choose myself, and I picked Hufflepuff." Seeing Professor Snape's face darken instantly, Shuxin hurriedly scrambled to excuse herself.
Shuxin: "It's not that I didn't want to choose your house, Professor, but you never told me you were the Head of Slytherin. Susan—she's a friend I made on the train—she went to Hufflepuff, so I chose Hufflepuff."
"Is Legilimens a magic used to read people's memories? Through the eyes?" Shuxin hastily changed the subject.
Professor Snape: "Yes. When you reach the fourth year and your magic is sufficiently stable, you can learn this branch of magic. Of course, that is contingent upon first resolving your pronunciation issue."
"Professor, does the person being subjected to Legilimens experience any special reactions?" Shuxin asked.
"Reactions? How shall I put it?" Professor Snape thought for a moment. "The human mind is like a book, and every page contains a little story. Legilimens is the act of reading and turning the pages. As the owner of the book, you naturally flip through it along with me, even if it's not entirely of your own volition."
Professor Snape: "The longer the pages are turned, and the further back in time they go, the greater the harm to the mind. Of course, this also depends on the Legilimens practitioner's own magical proficiency." Someone like himself, for instance, wouldn't cause excessive damage to the other party.
Professor Snape: "Meanwhile, Occlumency and mind-shielding charms can resist Legilimens, with Occlumency being the most effective."
Professor Snape: "Advanced Occlumency not only seals one's own mind, but can also counter-invade when someone breaches you."
"Then why didn't I counter-invade just now?" Shuxin noticed Professor Snape's expression darken all over again.
Professor Snape: "You are merely a natural-born master of Occlumency, but that does not mean you know how to wield the magic. Occlumency is advanced magic; there is no need for you to delve deeply into it at this stage."
"Oh, I see. Then when I'm in fourth year, can I come to you to learn it? I don't want to just be on passive defense; I want active defense too. Of course, it would be even better if I could learn Legilimens at the same time." Shuxin looked at Professor Snape with starry eyes.
Professor Snape neither said yes nor no—which meant consent. Shuxin moved on to her next question.
"So what kind of magic is it that can make people do things out of the ordinary?" Thinking of Tom, thinking of poor Potato.
Shuxin had wanted to ask this question for a long time, and the Sorting Hat had given her the perfect pretext to clear herself.
"Magic that controls others to perform abnormal behaviors? Where on earth did you see that? That is certainly not magic you should be coming into contact with at your age. Was it in those second-hand books? Damn it, I shouldn't have..." Professor Snape wasn't just dark-faced now; he was downright furious.
"No, it wasn't." Shuxin faked a brief hesitation before confessing under Professor Snape's steadily plummeting air pressure. "It was Dumbledore."
With that, she described the events of that day to Professor Snape in detail.
Shuxin: "Tom never steps foot in the kitchen, and Mary would never allow him to go in there either."
Shuxin: "I was terrified that day too, which is why I didn't dare go with him and made up the excuse that I wanted to take the train to London."
Professor Snape fell silent. "Leave this matter alone for now. I will go and ask Dumbledore; he owes you an explanation."
"Professor, is that a bad kind of magic?" The implication being: *You were just willing to explain advanced magic to me earlier.*
"Professor, do you think I really am Luna Field? For the past eleven years, I've always been called Shuxin. Shuxin isn't a nickname; Shu is my surname. My father's surname is Shu, so my surname is Shu as well."
"Your surname is Shu?"
"Mm-hmm. Even though I've come to England, I should still be surnamed Shu. Following the Western name order, I suppose I should be called Xin Shu." Shuxin grabbed a random piece of parchment and dashed down the two Chinese characters for "Shuxin".
Professor Snape was reminded of Cho Chang from the second year—a rather peculiar name, seemingly of Hua Guo descent.
Shuxin: "My mother was born in Hua Guo and took my maternal grandfather's surname, Zhang. Growing up, I never once heard that my maternal grandfather's surname was Field."
"Well, this..." Professor Snape was stunned beyond measure.
"Hogwarts is never wrong," Professor Snape said.
"Huh?" This time it was Shuxin's turn to be puzzled. Why bring up Hogwarts out of nowhere?
Professor Snape went inside the room and retrieved a book with a black cover, then picked up the scrap of parchment he had just laid down, holding one in each hand.
"This piece of parchment is an object," Professor Snape flicked the parchment and set it down.
"This is a magical object." He opened the book. The book let out a shriek as a human face emerged from its pages, frantically pushing its way out.
"In the wizarding world, if you cannot find its head, you must never trust it." Professor Snape closed the book, taking the opportunity to give Shuxin a quick lesson in basics.
Professor Snape: "The Sorting Hat last night was also a magical object. And so is Hogwarts."
"Professor, do you mean that Hogwarts is alive? That it has a mind?" Now it was Shuxin's turn to be stunned beyond measure.
Professor Snape: "You could say that."
Professor Snape: "Although the admission letters are written by the school's professors, the letters themselves are delivered by the school's owls."
"Mm-hmm," Shuxin nodded. "I saw Professor McGonagall's signature on my letter."
Professor Snape: "Indeed. But the envelopes are written by Hogwarts itself, including the names and addresses on them. The exact mechanics of it, I am not clear on."
Professor Snape: "I only know that every wizard in England receives their acceptance letter on their eleventh birthday, whether they are Pure-blood, half-blood, or muggle-born wizard."
Professor Snape: "Therefore, you are Luna Field, and there is no mistake."
Professor Snape: "Or, you can look at it this way: the fact that you are able to be here at Hogwarts now proves that you are a wizard. If you are not Luna Field, then where is *your* acceptance letter?"
"What are you thinking about?" Professor Snape asked, noticing Shuxin had gone completely blank.
Shuxin: "I suspect Dumbledore tricked me and that there never was any letter at all. I mean, letters from my parents. After my grandmother passed away, my mother was very heartbroken, which is why she suggested coming to England to take a look. It was just a coincidence."
Shuxin: "Besides, my mother had never even been to England before. How on earth would she have known about Hogwarts? Did my grandmother tell her?"
Shuxin: "And what did she use to mail the letter? An owl?"
Shuxin: "How would an owl even reach Hogwarts? Fly across the entire Eurasian continent?"
"So what are you implying?" Professor Snape also felt there was some logic to it, though the more he listened, the more confusing it got.
"I just had a thought, this is my guess." Shuxin had harbored doubts all along.
Shuxin: "First of all, Dumbledore knew nothing about my situation, nor did he receive any so-called letters to him from my parents."
Shuxin: "After I denied being Luna Field, he used that bad magic through Mary and the others to find out about me, and then lied to make me believe I was Luna Field. To make us trust him more, he fabricated the lie about my parents' letters."
Professor Snape: "But why would he do that? That reasoning doesn't hold up. You *are* Luna Field; that is no lie."
Shuxin: "Er, Professor. My point is, I can't figure out one thing: why was Dumbledore so insistent on making me come to Hogwarts to study?"
Shuxin: "From our Muggle mindset, a school sends a notice, and we have the choice to go or not. I clearly refused; I made myself very clear."
"Young wizards must receive instruction from the school; otherwise, they are very susceptible to developing an Obscurus. An Obscurus is a terrifying magical disaster, and to the school, every young wizard is precious." Professor Snape didn't find this far-fetched at all.
Professor Snape: "The wizarding population is extremely small, and every young wizard is precious. Hogwarts admits many muggle-born wizards every year. Muggles know nothing of magic and thus do not understand it; some ignore the notices, while others politely write a letter of refusal—such as yourself."
"We must be understanding of muggle-born young wizards, which is why we have guide professors," Professor Snape paused. "For young wizards with magical families, guide professors are unnecessary."
"Is that so? Did I misunderstand Dumbledore?" Shuxin had always viewed Dumbledore through tinted glasses, constantly feeling like he was out to harm her. Now, she finally felt reassured.
Shuxin: "I could never wrap my head around it. I always felt like Dumbledore was forcing me to go to school, especially since he used that bad magic. I was truly terrified at the time; I felt like he was giving me an ultimatum."
"If you don't do as I say, you'll end up like Tom, a walking corpse." Shuxin stroked an imaginary beard, mimicking Dumbledore.
Hearing Shuxin bring that up again, Professor Snape felt a slight twinge of discomfort.
"Professor, it wasn't until Dumbledore suddenly vanished that I realized magic actually exists in this world. It's so cool," Shuxin said with a smile.
"That's simply because you weren't paying attention. Once you know magic exists, look back—wasn't your life filled with magic everywhere?" Professor Snape smiled as well.
Professor Snape: "For instance, flowers suddenly bursting into bloom, chocolate inexplicably falling off a counter and landing right beside your feet, balloons suddenly popping when you grew angry."
Shuxin: "Ah, really? Perhaps it happened when I was too young to remember. I certainly have no such impression."
Shuxin had no idea if the original owner had experienced such things, but she certainly hadn't during her months at Mary's house. No matter how hard that vocabulary word was to spell, she'd never seen the book explode.
"You never experienced any accidental magic bursts as you grew up? Well, your temperament is remarkably stable then—very Hufflepuff." Professor Snape was baffled; Shuxin had randomly picked the house that suited her personality best.
In the eyes of wizards, a young wizard who had never experienced accidental magic bursts was considered devoid of magic—a so-called Squib.
"Professor, if I were a Muggle who knew nothing of magic, would I be at risk of developing an Obscurus?" Shuxin still had lingering doubts.
"Whether you know about it or not, magic exists—it is right inside your body," Professor Snape explained.
"When we cast spells, we are actually releasing the magic within our bodies. If your magic is never released, when your body can no longer bear it, it will all discharge at once. That is an Obscurus."
"Poof." Shuxin made an expanding gesture with both hands. "Like this? So an Obscurus is that terrifying? I really ought to apologize to Dumbledore. Not only did I misunderstand him and distrust him, but I also spoke to him with a bad tone just now."
"Regardless of whether your parents' letters actually exist, that is a trivial matter of little consequence. The most important thing is that you are at Hogwarts now," Professor Snape said.
Professor Snape: "It is getting late; curfew is nearly upon us, you should head back. Students are forbidden from wandering after curfew at Hogwarts."
Shuxin's inner doubts had been resolved; her greatest secret would no longer be pried into by anyone.
Shuxin felt thoroughly satisfied tonight. She gathered her books, bid Professor Snape good night, and said goodbye to the little green snake on the door.
Back in the dormitory, she thanked Susan and the others, retrieved her homework that she had left behind in the Great Hall, and finally drank a cup of milk she had asked Abby for, drifting into a sweet sleep.
She didn't know that Professor Snape on the other side had not gone to sleep at all, but was instead heading up to the Headmaster's office on the eighth floor.
No matter how he had rationalized it to Shuxin, Dumbledore had indeed used that bad magic on Mary and the others.
This matter struck Professor Snape with considerable force, and without an answer, he felt he would not be able to sleep.