“Sorry, looks like we're interrupting something?”

Luna glanced at Hermione, who was pinning Erina to the bed, raised her eyebrows, and said softly.

Noticing the shattered light barrier beside her, Hermione's courage, which had surged like a tide, quickly receded. The girl released her hands that were holding Erina down, and flusteredly sat up from the white-haired ball of fluff, fumbling for the books she hadn't finished reading on the bedside.

However, before Hermione could pick up the *Book of Potions* again, Erina's voice suddenly rang out behind her.

“No, you’re ending at just the right time—”

Erina shook her head, frowning at them, her tone slightly sinking.

“Perhaps, we need to have a little chat, hmm? About why this is happening. I mean, casting the Binary Reversal Modification Architecture spell to create an independent space in the room... three areas in one room, is that really necessary, Hannah?”

Her gaze passed over Luna Lovegood, and landed on the憨憨 (Han Han, a Chinese internet slang for "dumb") who was tidying up the chessboard.

Compared to the other three little witches who might lie, Hannah Abbott was obviously a better starting point.

"I—uh—well, okay, I also think it's not quite right, but…"

Hannah said in a fluster, glancing at Hermione sitting beside Erina, "Uh—Granger said, since we don't want to listen to her suggestions and are constantly arguing, why not think of a way for everyone to have some peace. So, yeah, that's how it happened."

"Yes, that's what I said, because you're just messing around—"

Hermione said calmly, and before Erina could turn around, she continued Hannah's words.

"Obviously, Wizard's Chess is just moving chess, and if you've even slightly looked at some related chess scores, you'd understand that your playing is worse than even a beginner—ow—ouch—"

"Alright, I get it, say less!"

Erina expressionlessly withdrew her death chop on Hermione's forehead, and glanced at the silent Luna.

"So... Luna, you just went along with these two idiots, cast illusion magic, and carved out a quiet little space around the three of you to play chess, so that Hermione could read a book alone in bed without being bothered?"

"Pretty much," Luna said, pouting when she saw Erina's gloomy face, "At least this way, no one will argue. Besides, Erina, you sometimes do that too, like when you were doing homework just now—"

"So, you've reached a consensus? Hmm, you guys—"

Erina's gaze slowly swept across the room, narrowing her eyes, and chuckling coldly.

Come to think of it, apart from Hannah Abbott, Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood already had some autistic tendencies. If it weren't for Danilova, who was "suffering from the same ailment," there might have been even more small compartments.

As for Little Key, who came from a family of scientists, it was impossible to expect her to have any outgoing or lively personality.

Erina resisted the urge to directly suppress them and hugged her arms, saying gently.

"That logic is fantastic! Of course, there'll be no arguing if you're alone! Brilliant!"

"Actually, I also know that Hermione makes a lot of sense, since she always wins... but we just want to play casually, just know the rules and the first two or three moves, and if there's too much to memorize, it feels like we're in class."

Hannah seemed very nervous and anxious, and she was well aware that a certain volcano seemed to be about to erupt.

"And apart from playing chess, we also talked about other things, like Quidditch—you know, tomorrow is the Quidditch tryouts. Whether it's Danilova and Luna's new team, or our Hufflepuff team. But she's not interested in those topics, she's not good at flying... uh... so I thought maybe..."

Hannah the Iron憨憨 (Han Han) looked at Hermione apologetically, explaining in a flustered, rambling manner.

"Who says you can't participate in Quidditch if you're not good at flying? I actually think Hermione has a lot of talent—"

Erina raised her eyebrows, stood up, and walked to the suitcase, rummaging through it.

"Huh, what nonsense are you talking about, I'm not—Erina, what's this?"

Hermione looked at the stack of magazines Erina handed her in confusion. Some were moving, some weren't. Judging from the titles and covers, they were clearly not just magazines from the magical world, but also mixed with many from the non-magical world.

"If you think chess doesn't pose a challenge for now, would you like to consider Quidditch—"

Erina seriously pointed to the stack of magical and non-magical sports magazines, and smiled slightly.

"As a mature sport, haven't you noticed that the Hogwarts house teams are missing something? In any team competition, besides the players' efforts on the field, the head coach and tactical coach are also quite important pieces of the puzzle."

"But I don't know much about it, and no matter how I think about it, Wood won't listen to me, right?"

Hermione hesitated, understanding Erina's meaning almost immediately.

However, she didn't have much confidence in the feasibility and actual effect of this matter. Quidditch was different from any non-magical sport, and there was almost no description of tactical coaches in the books she had read.

"No, of course not the Gryffindor team!"

Erina said without thinking, nodding towards Luna and Danilova.

"Since I promised Professor McGonagall to join the Gryffindor team, I hope that during the Hogwarts new team recruitment tomorrow, Hermione can take over from me as the team coach, formulating related tactics and training plans."

"Wait, Lu—I mean, Hermione is going to be the new team's head coach?!"

Hannah widened her eyes in surprise, looking at the white-haired ball of fluff sitting on the bed, her eyes full of confusion.

Apart from Danilova, who didn't know much about Quidditch because she had only just taken a flying class, Luna Lovegood, who was standing beside Hannah, and even Hermione Granger, all had similar expressions of astonishment on their faces.

"That's right," Erina said calmly.

"Why me?"

Hermione Granger frowned, looking at the stack of magazines and books in her hand, not refusing immediately.

Obviously, judging from these carefully collected materials, Erina's proposal was not a whim, so it wouldn't just be a response to tonight's situation... at least, that wouldn't be the only reason.

"You can see the whole field clearly from the ground and the stands, it's like playing chess—no one is more suitable than you."

Erina explained seriously, but that wasn't the real reason.

She didn't want a rift to appear in the relationship between Hermione and the other girls. Those materials were originally prepared by Erina for her own future teaching, but she realized that there were more meaningful things to do than helping Gryffindor win.

"Then, I think you should at least—"

Hannah was interrupted by Luna before she could finish speaking. She had been looking at them thoughtfully, and suddenly spoke softly, as if waking up from sleepwalking.

"If the coach is Hermione, I don't think there's much need to question it. She definitely wants to win more than any of us. Although I don't know how much influence the head coach has on other teams, it must be very important in a team composed of newbies."

Those materials, those statements, there's nothing wrong with them... they sound like the kind of well-rounded plans Erina would make.

The only problem is...

Miss Lovegood's silver-grey eyes swept across Erina's face. Although there was no evidence, she knew in her heart that a certain goblin empress had lied in one small detail—those materials were not prepared for Hermione at all.

"Friend..." Luna's eyes flickered, and she quietly said in her heart.

"Okay, that's settled then!"

Erina clapped her hands happily, standing up from the bed.

"I'll also go to the Quidditch pitch tomorrow to watch. In addition to the Gryffindor team tryouts, as the sponsor and founder of the new team, I also retain the right to veto personnel selection. Tonight, we'll rehearse first, and then—"

"Hey, white-haired ball of fluff!"

Just then, Hannah suddenly frowned, looking at her roommate standing on the bed.

"You're stepping on the bed with dirty socks again, and you're even standing on my side! I won't let you get away with it this time, you sloppy guy, get down here now!"

"Uh... I, it's a special situation, and it doesn't stink."

Erina blinked, then quickly jumped off the bed, taking off her socks and throwing them aside.

"Why don't we take a shower first? We can talk while we wash, and then go to bed early today to prepare for tomorrow..."

She rubbed her hands together with great interest, looking at the little witches in the room.

"Granger, come on, help me strip off these little girls who didn't play with you before—"

"Erina, don't mess around, ah..."

"Hermione, come and help, this white-haired ball of fluff is too strong—"

Hermione paused for a few seconds, then pursed her lips and quickly stepped forward to join the battle.

"Eee—Hermione, you're actually attacking, how can you do this!"

"That's what you get for always being so headstrong, humph—"

Accompanied by the girls' playful noises, the disharmonious atmosphere that had previously lingered in the bedroom quickly dissipated.

……

The next morning, Hermione was the first to wake up in the dormitory.

She lay in bed for a while, watching the magical fireflies on the ceiling twirl and dance in the ray of sunlight filtering through the gaps in the four-poster bed curtains. Then she remembered that today was Sunday, the tryout day for the various Quidditch teams.

The first week of the new semester had been too long, it seemed like it would never end.

All around was a sleeping silence. That ray of sunlight seemed freshly forged. It seemed like it had just dawned.

Erina was hugging Hannah like a koala, the girl's silver hair buried in the iron憨憨 (Han Han)'s chest, sleeping soundly at this time—after coming out of the bathroom last night, these two magic girls who possessed strange strength had been competing with each other, obviously exhausted.

On the other side, Luna and Danilova were leaning on each other, sleeping by the bed, looking like they were about to fall off at any moment.

Hermione pulled back the curtains around the bed and began to get up and get dressed.

Everyone in the bedroom seemed to be sleeping deeply. Apart from a few unintelligible murmurings from Hannah, the only sound was the slow, steady breathing of the four sleeping little witches. It seemed like they wouldn't wake up for quite a while.

She carefully opened her schoolbag and took out the stack of magazines Erina had given her.

On the other side of the room, there were a few soft armchairs by the fire that had long been extinguished, and next to them were two standing desks placed together. A soft magic lamp was fixed on the desks, which was just bright enough to see things clearly without being too bright.

What an enviable room, I wonder if the professors' bedrooms are this comfortable. The books never seem to mention it.

While thinking this, Hermione opened the *World Football - Biannual*, which was on top, and looked at it seriously under the soft light. Then her gaze stopped on the messy notes and annotations in the blank space of the title page.

"English Premier League, Lancaster, profit, sports..."

She was too familiar with that small, animal-claw-like handwriting. It was one of Erina's trademarks.

And judging from the slightly curled foot of the magazine, the book had obviously been flipped through many times before. Similar annotations could be seen after flipping a few pages at random. Some were strange words that she couldn't understand, and some were sentences commenting on certain tactics.

Most importantly, Quidditch terms such as Seeker and Chaser appeared frequently.

Even though Hermione didn't know much about Quidditch or British football, she could see the impartiality of those comments.

Hermione now understood what Erina had said last night before going to bed: as long as she studied this stack of materials carefully, she would definitely be able to easily take on the role of new team head coach—the white-haired ball of fluff directly gave her the "homework" to copy! If she wasn't mistaken, these should have been Erina's own tactical notes, right?

She sat motionless for a while, staring blankly at the annotations on the edge of the pages.

In the last few blank pages of the book, there was a detailed analysis report of the Quidditch teams of the four Hogwarts houses, including even the best position predictions for the new team members last year.

"...Harry will most likely become a Seeker, and Ron will be the goalkeeper substitute and Chaser. If you're facing the Gryffindor team in the new season, double-teaming Harry can cause the Gryffindor house team to lose most of its combat power."

"...Goyle and Crabbe have not yet entered the rapid development stage, endurance and physical strength will be breakthroughs, but be careful of Draco as Slytherin's Seeker surprise soldier, he is very suitable for finding opportunities..."

"...Hannah's ball control is unstable, and she is easily disturbed during the charging stage..."

"...Ravenclaw House as a whole has a fragile mentality, off-field pressure can directly defeat them..."

Apart from Luna Lovegood, who had never played on the field, Erina had almost predicted the possible lineups of each house this year in this booklet, as well as their respective tactical flaws and possible winning tactical cores.

Although she didn't have much talent in flying, Hermione had still read many books about Quidditch.

After briefly scanning the tactics, she quickly combined the image of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch in her mind, as well as the broom-riding little people that looked like chess pieces—if they responded in a targeted manner, even the brand new newbie team didn't seem to be completely without a chance of winning when facing the various houses.

"Taking the sky as a chessboard, and each player as a chess piece...it seems very interesting..."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully, gently closing the *World Football - Biannual* she had quickly browsed through. She heard a rustling movement from the bed behind her. If nothing unexpected happened, the girls who had been playing crazily last night would be waking up soon.

Just now, she suddenly understood something else.

Those words written at the front, as well as "investment," "alliance," and "sponsorship" in some blank spaces, might represent another ongoing chess game, a vast plan personally executed by the Goblin Empress of Gringotts.

Perhaps, after she completes this chess game at school, she will be qualified to stand by Erina's side and see a bigger world, right?

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Big chapter~ Big chapter~