Chapter 83: Movie-watching
Nightfall descended.
Hogwarts.
Easter is the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox; strictly speaking, this year’s Easter is April 19th. The holiday falls on a Sunday, and Hogwarts always starts the break on Friday with no makeup classes or adjustments—just straight into a two-week holiday, which is a relief for the professors and a joy for the students.
Unlike the Christmas Holiday, students cannot leave school during the Easter Holiday.
Students in Third Year and above can go to Hogsmeade for the weekend, while lower years must stay in the castle.
Actually, to some students, this kind of holiday spent at school without classes feels even more enjoyable than going home for Christmas. At home, they have to endure their parents’ nagging and discipline, but here, surrounded by playmates, even doing homework together feels fun.
The house-elves in the kitchen prepare Easter delicacies from around the world in all sorts of creative ways, and the ghost theater troupe puts on a special performance. Even though Nearly Headless Nick has performed his story hundreds of times, the first-year students still scream in shock every time they see him juggling his ghostly head in acrobatics.
This is a banquet worth looking forward to—not as grand as Christmas, but more lively and joyful.
At seven-thirty in the evening, the entire school gathers in the Great Hall.
The high table up front is decorated like a screen, with a massive projection mirror placed there, swirling with ethereal silver mist. The Great Hall’s four house tables have nearly a thousand seats; except for the empty spots in the front corners on both sides, every other seat is filled, and many students even squeeze into the middle Gryffindor and Hufflepuff house tables just to see more clearly…
It’s not just students—there are ghosts floating in the air, portraits crowding in their frames; almost every moving being in the school has come.
The deans patrol the aisles to maintain order, while the elective professors sit in the back rows of the long tables, anticipating along with the students.
Dumbledore looked at the scene with a smile on his face.
“Then I’ll begin.”
Melvin nodded to the deputy headmaster, took out the memory cloud, and placed it into the projection mirror; the magical dome and the lights in the Great Hall dimmed.
A light melody played, and the opening was extremely brief.
No detailed credits, no director, no lead actors, no cinematography or editing—after the title, just one line of text:
Adapted from real events.
“Toot… toot…”
The bright red train slowly passed over the track and finally stopped at a small, dark platform. Lights came on, the doors opened, and passengers surged out.
“I’m getting off—don’t pull me back!”
“Has anyone seen my toad?”
“First-year students, first-year students, over here!” In the chaotic crowd, the burly Hagrid stood out prominently, his thick beard taking up half the mirror surface. He held an oil lamp and smiled: “Children, little ones, follow me.”
The students filed out in neat lines, front feet stepping on the heels of those behind, like a trail of ants.
On a late summer evening with damp dew, amid the soothing chant of a witch, the view pulled back to reveal a vast lake, flat grassland, and Hogwarts Castle slowly coming into sight, its foyer and windows lit up, the stark towers fading into the night sky.
The new students rowed across the lake in small boats, warm lights rippling in the water.
“So that’s how we were back then…”
Harry’s gaze was a bit dazed. Back then, Ron had chattered nonstop about the sorting test the whole way, Hermione had recited half a textbook, making him anxious. He had been deeply worried about failing the assessment and being sent back to the Dursleys’ home—that embarrassment and awkwardness was still fresh in his memory.
“Look, that’s me.”
“I’m over there!”
“There, the one who tripped.”
“Haha!”
The Great Hall erupted in laughter, and at the same time, wizard taverns across England burst into similar noise as many student parents widened their eyes searching for their own children.
Those without children at home were admiring the Hogwarts night view.
They hadn’t seen it in many years.
They thought their memories had faded, but when the projection mirror showed the scenes, they could still recognize the path near the station, the boats on the Black Lake, and the windows in the castle towers.
“We were like that back then too…”
Malcolm and Tucklot sat side by side, each leaning in an opposite direction, trying to maximize distance from each other.
Both showed similar gazes—nostalgic and reminiscent, tinged with a bit of melancholy, a complex and wondrous feeling hard to pinpoint.
After the first act ended, the scene jumped straight to the sorting ceremony, not in detail, but focusing on Harry being sorted into Gryffindor. The film’s perspective fixed on him, observing the professors at the high table through his eyes.
Next came the headmaster’s speech, introducing two professors and emphasizing the forbidden corridor on the fourth floor.
“If you do not wish to suffer accidental injury or a painful death, do not enter the corridor on the right side of the fourth floor.” Dumbledore’s meaningful expression gradually faded.
The scene shifted, and Hogwarts student life officially began: classes in the classroom, meals in the Great Hall, playing on the grounds, frolicking by the Black Lake… and by chance joining the Quidditch team as Seeker.
Melvin skipped the chase scene with Draco, instead showing Harry alone riding his broomstick across the sky and towers. The little boy flew freely, with endless blue sky behind him and hills, forest, and a vast lake below.
It ended with a shot of Professor McGonagall, then cut to the lake for a transition, now to students gathered in the courtyard discussing Harry becoming Seeker.
The film didn’t detail the process, but the audience pieced it together from the before-and-after shots.
Melvin didn’t directly put the real story into the projection mirror but edited and transitioned it, downplaying minor roles unrelated to the main subject—whether students like Draco or other professors. Scenes that could be cut were cut; those that couldn’t were shifted to Harry and those around him.
“…”
In the top-floor screening room of The Three Broomsticks, Malcolm and Tucklot had returned to normal sitting positions, staring intently at the projection mirror. Getting scolded in Transfiguration Class, handling manure in the greenhouse—these reminded them of their own foolish selves back then.
After graduation, entering the adult world and tasting life’s flavors, those carefree school days only appeared in dreams. Now vividly displayed before them, the emotions struck straight to the heart.
That was the effect of a youth campus film.
With new student life on track, the film entered the main plot.
Roommate Lumbardons got lost and came back late; Harry and friends went out to search, causing a commotion that drew the caretaker. They fled, hid, and accidentally entered the fourth-floor corridor, discovering the ferocious three-headed dog.
This gave Fluffy a close-up: three heads opening wide with bloody maws, clear muscle texture, sharp teeth with traces of blood.
The image was so clear it felt like the audience’s heads were shoved into the three-headed dog’s mouth.
“Whoa!”
The audience erupted in shock, even more thrilling than the trailer scene.
“What on earth are they doing? Keeping a creature like that in the school!”
“Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”
“The floor?”
“No! A trapdoor—it’s obviously guarding something!”
“…”
The audience’s doubts were piqued, drawing them into Harry’s situation: Why was there a three-headed dog in the school? What was under the trapdoor? Were the two professors plotting some conspiracy?
Immediately after, Hagrid reappeared, and through his big mouth, he let slip that the thing under the trapdoor was related to Nicolas Flamel. Harry tried to probe further, but the gamekeeper was like an NPC with a quest—refusing to say more.
“I won’t say a thing.”
“Then we’ll have to find out ourselves!”
Harry and the others looked anxious on screen, but the off-screen audience was even more so. The first-years didn’t know who Nicolas Flamel was—they did!
“The Philosopher’s Stone! It’s the Philosopher’s Stone down there!”
Malcolm shouted out in frustration, wishing he could dive into the projection mirror to warn them, only to have Tucklot next to him cover his mouth, starting a scuffle between them.
With the three-headed dog’s appearance, the originally lighthearted daily atmosphere shifted. Following Harry’s perspective, the audience noticed Quirinus Quirrell appearing frequently; during Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, close-ups repeatedly showed his strange expressions, as if hinting at something.
Harry and the others gradually uncovered the truth about the Philosopher’s Stone, while accidents began happening frequently in the school.
In the first Quidditch match, Harry’s broomstick was cursed; he dangled in midair, struggling on the edge of life and death before securing victory.
On Halloween at the banquet, Harry and Ron ate until stuffed, then went together to the bathroom—only to encounter the troll, fighting wits and brawn until the professors arrived.
After the first snow, a group of students was punished with detention for being late to class; the task was patrolling the Forbidden Forest, and Harry was among them, happening upon a mysterious wizard entering the forest to hunt a unicorn, whom Professor McGonagall and the centaurs repelled together.
One accident after another piled up; even the dullest wizard could sense something off, and the screening room gradually quieted.
Just as the audience’s mood grew heavy, Christmas arrived.
Accompanied by the lighthearted 《Jingle Bells》, the school castle was decked in Christmas decorations. Students wrapped in fluffy scarves left school, leaving footprints in the white snow. In Harry’s view, the moving picture showed steaming pumpkin juice and roast turkey with crispy golden skin…
The Christmas scenes were beautiful, but the audience’s hearts remained in their throats, unable to relax.
Things were indeed amiss: Professor McGonagall went to Hogsmeade to settle accounts, Professor Sprout went out to procure herbs, the deans had their own work, ordinary professors went home for the holiday, and even the headmaster received a letter from the Ministry of Magic and had to leave the school.
Perceptive viewers noticed the anomaly: coincidences weaving together, the school’s protective forces layer by layer weakened and hollowed out. In the end, shockingly, only Harry and a few first-years remained in the school.
The first-years in the projection mirror blissfully enjoyed Christmas unaware, but an invisible shadow had already loomed over him—this contrast tugged at the audience’s heartstrings.
The background 《Jingle Bells》 gradually faded, as the odd Quirinus Quirrell stood behind the Hospital Wing window, watching the professors leave one by one. His face was hidden in shadow, expression unclear, only the purple headscarf visible.
The screen went dark, and suddenly the creak of old hinges sounded—the grating noise of an aged wooden door opening, teeth-grinding, as if slicing the listeners’ nerves.
Wizard taverns across England fell silent; in the screening room, the audience’s emotions were toyed with, and in a daze, it felt like their own heartbeat.
Earlier crises could seek help from professors and the headmaster, but now with support and backers stripped away, were the first-years to face a dark wizard alone?
How could that be possible?
Malcolm and Tucklot’s faces unknowingly turned very grim, brows tightly furrowed, as if they had returned to their student days, choosing to stay at school over the Christmas Holiday while professors and the headmaster left, leaving the entire school with just them and a powerful dark wizard.
In the dark environment, they seemed to feel eyes watching from the shadows, making their hearts race with tension.
“…”
Seeing the two clutching each other’s robes tightly to ease their tension, their wives exchanged a glance and fell silent.
