Chapter 481 - 32: Punishment?

Chapter 481: Chapter 32: Punishment?

"Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the achievement [Kitty Comedy Chronicles: Pat-Pat the Back]. Reward: 5% Portal Energy."

"Meow?"

Yimi had long since grown used to the System unlocking bizarre achievements in equally bizarre places, so she ignored it. Just as the achievement suggested, she was currently giving McGonagall little pats on the back. A kitty who watched cartoons all the time knew what this sort of behavior meant...

Well, not really.

She only knew that whenever children in cartoons wanted something from an adult, they did this.

McGonagall adjusted her sitting position to cooperate. "Why are you suddenly being so attentive? What bad thing have you done this time?"

Word that Yimi had cast Cheering Charms on the Slytherin students had reached her. In punishment, McGonagall had ordered the kitchen house-elves to replace all of Yimi’s meals for the next three days with vegetables.

But McGonagall quickly discovered that the punishment barely bothered her at all, because the little thing could cook for herself and had stored away an enormous amount of snake meat.

At McGonagall’s question, the little kitty ran around in front of her, grabbed her hand, put it on top of her own head, and rubbed against it.

"Pocket money."

McGonagall folded her arms and looked at her sternly. "You only just misbehaved, and you still have the nerve to ask me for pocket money?"

Inside, however, she was delighted. The fact that the little one was asking her for pocket money meant Yimi had started to feel that she belonged here.

"How about this? If you honestly finish all your vegetables for the next few days, I’ll give you pocket money every week." McGonagall took out a silver Sickle and showed it to Yimi in her palm.

Yimi grabbed both of her own ears and shook her head. "Then can I eat all three days of vegetables at once?"

...

Cat Grandma actually rejected such a convenient proposal.

After Dumbledore finished questioning him, Kreacher was assigned to the kitchens with Yimi’s permission. He also helped McGonagall clean the study and bedroom.

Walking Xiaobai had always been a task Yimi handled herself. She had never really thought about making Kreacher do anything for her. This was far from the first time she had taken Xiaobai for a walk around Hogwarts, but today was the first time she noticed so many people staring at her.

Eventually, an excited first-year student who idolized Harry ran up to her.

"Is everything in the newspaper true? My name’s Colin. What should I call you?"

"What?" Yimi stopped walking, but Xiaobai did not. It rolled straight forward and began gnawing on Colin’s foot.

"It’s biting me! But it doesn’t hurt. I know—is that how it shows that it likes me? But it looks a little like a Muggle machine. I mean, is it really alive?" Colin raised his camera. "Can I take a picture of you? I won’t spread it everywhere! Would praying to your picture during exams work? I mean—"

"Meow!" Yimi angrily went around him and walked away with Xiaobai.

That awful person had actually said Xiaobai was dead!

Yimi was heading to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom because she had found another spell in the Half-Blood Prince’s textbook, one called Sectumsempra. Cat Grandma would not let her practice magic in the office, so that classroom was the only place left to go.

Even Tom Riddle’s memories did not contain this spell. Snape had invented it himself and written "for enemies" beside it. Although it was only a Potions textbook, Snape seemed to like writing down popular spells from the time, as well as spells he had invented himself.

Yimi had expected the classroom to be empty as usual when she pulled open the door. She had arranged to teach Harry and the others, but because of the weather these past two days, she had mostly preferred to loaf around beside the fireplace in Cat Grandma’s office.

"Hey, little cat! I thought you weren’t coming!"

When Yimi opened the door, Fred greeted her. He was studying how to make their class-skipping sweets, with his twin brother sitting beside him. Harry and the others were here too, along with three people Yimi did not know.

Seeing Yimi look over, Harry introduced them. "They’re Ron’s and my roommates—Neville, Seamus, and Dean. They saw today’s newspaper and followed us here."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had only wanted to learn the Patronus Charm. The twins, meanwhile, wanted to ask how Yimi had cast that incredibly cool spell that lit up all of Hogwarts.

"What newspaper?" Yimi asked in confusion as she put Xiaobai back into her Storage Space.

Hermione angrily took out that day’s Daily Prophet and handed it to her. The front page carried the story Rita had written earlier. Rita herself had disappeared, but the article had already been submitted long beforehand.

The paper said that Professor McGonagall’s seven-year-old granddaughter had cast a Patronus Charm that flooded the whole of Hogwarts with light. Harry Potter’s secret girlfriend claimed she had witnessed signs of the Son of God at the center of the radiance, followed by two brief lines explaining what the Son of God was. It then claimed that all the professors at Hogwarts had treated the matter with grave seriousness and believed the little girl had summoned a true god.

"She actually called me Harry’s secret girlfriend!" Hermione cried.

Ron did not look especially happy either. "If you didn’t shout about it, no one would know the article meant you."

"So is what it says true?" Seamus asked excitedly. "I don’t think the news would just make something up for no reason."

His mother was a witch and his father a Muggle. No one in his family was religious, but that did not stop him from getting excited over something he had seen in the newspaper.

"How could it possibly be true?" Hermione shot Seamus a look, feeling as though everything she had just said had been completely ignored.

Yimi stared at the newspaper for a long time, then put it back down.

Rita’s quill always loved exaggerated wording, and there were so many words in the article that Yimi simply could not understand.

Instead, she looked with satisfaction at the eight people below the lectern. Imitating the teachers she remembered from school, she placed her textbook on the desk.

"Class starts!"

Then she silently dragged over a chair and climbed onto it.

Remembering how Lockhart used to teach, she announced, "I need a student to play a banshee..."

Ron broke out in goosebumps. He hurriedly reminded her, "Little cat, you don’t have to imitate Lockhart."

"You should call me Professor Yimi. And you should raise your hand before speaking." Yimi looked at him unhappily.

Hermione cooperatively raised one hand. "Professor Yimi, the purpose of this class is to teach students how to defend themselves against different kinds of Dark magic, Dark creatures, and curses."

Yimi gripped her wand in both hands, puzzled. "I don’t know much about Dark creatures."

"Then you should teach us some useful spells for dealing with Dark magic or Dark wizards," Harry suggested.

Yimi nodded as an idea gradually formed. "I’m going to teach you a very convenient spell called Avada Kedavra..."

"What?" Hermione’s eyes went wide.

The older twins leaned backward in perfect unison.

Harry immediately raised his hand again. "You’re supposed to teach us how to defend against Dark magic, not teach us Dark magic directly."

Yimi did not understand. "But if you just kill the Dark wizard, isn’t that more convenient?"

"Then we’d become criminals, little cat." Harry hurriedly pulled the lesson back on track. "How about the one from last time? The Patronus Charm—the one that can even deal with Dementors."

"You should call me Professor Yimi," Yimi said unhappily. Then she nodded at him. "I can teach you the Patronus Charm."

Using her wand like a pointer, she began explaining.

"For this spell, first you have to think in your heart, and then what you think about has to be something happy, and then the happier the happy thing is the better, and then the happier it is the better the spell works, and then..."

Things did not go entirely smoothly. The students below spent almost an entire class period just figuring out what Yimi was trying to say. Fortunately, it was Saturday, so they had plenty of time to practice.

"I don’t think this is a good idea," Hermione said to the other two after class. "She knows a lot of magic, but she’s the one who needs to be educated the most."

"Yeah, her wording isn’t very good, but did you see that? I managed to produce some white smoke just now." Ron looked excitedly at them and, without waiting for anyone to guess, answered his own question. "Do you know what I was thinking about? The memory of telling Percy the truth about Scabbers. And it actually worked!"

"That’s not what I mean, Ron." Hermione shook her head and spoke seriously. "She wanted to teach us the Killing Curse at the very beginning! Didn’t you hear what she said at the end? She wants to teach us here again tomorrow, and Neville and the others are eager to come back!"

Harry defended Yimi. "But in the end, we learned the Patronus Charm, didn’t we? She just doesn’t understand these things."

"You can’t think of it that way, Harry." Hermione shook her head. "The fact that she doesn’t understand is exactly the problem. She can’t be a teacher when she doesn’t even know basic common sense. If something goes wrong, it’ll be terrible. If we hadn’t objected, she really was going to teach us the Killing Curse."

Hermione headed toward Professor McGonagall’s office. "I feel bad for the little cat, but I think Professor McGonagall needs to know she’s teaching classes—for her sake and ours. She’s still a child. At the very least, someone has to make her understand how serious this is."

...

"You occupied the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and started teaching other students spells? No wonder you never seem to finish learning your words lately. And you were planning to teach them the Killing Curse too, were you?" Professor McGonagall repeatedly poked Yimi in the forehead with one finger, looking extremely angry.

Even if the child really did have some connection to Jesus, that did not change the fact that she needed an education.

Yimi had been smugly proud of teaching as a professor for the first time. The moment she returned to the study, Cat Grandma gave her a fierce scolding that put an immediate damper on all that excitement.

McGonagall lectured her for nearly an hour. Only when Yimi’s ears drooped and she began to look as though she might really cry did McGonagall finally stop.

Yimi left the office in a terrible mood. The clever little kitty knew someone must have told Cat Grandma what happened. Otherwise Cat Grandma would never have known she had been teaching students.

Before this, Cat Grandma had never known whenever Yimi ran off to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, and she had never said anything about it. Yimi had thought they had a friendly, harmonious teacher-student relationship. She had never expected to be stabbed in the back.

Yimi trudged into the Great Hall and happened to see everyone preparing to eat dinner at the long table.

Hermione guiltily turned her face away. She really did feel a little sorry toward the little thing. After all, Yimi had even given her that sniper scope.

When Yimi appeared, some students who had been chatting fell silent and stared at the day’s headline figure.

Yimi walked straight toward Harry’s group and lifted a leg to squeeze in among them. Harry and Ron cooperatively made some room.

Hermione greeted her with a guilty look. "Is there anything you want to eat, little cat?"

Yimi put both hands on the table and suspiciously looked from side to side. The twins, Neville, and the others were all here too.

With a stern little face, Yimi spoke.

"I know one of you betrayed me..."

The System naturally seized the chance to flatter her.

"Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the achievement [The Last Supper]. Penalty: Portal Energy -5%."

"Meow??"