Chapter 634: After Halloween (2 in 1)
The door to the office opened.
“Hello there,” Felix stared blankly at Harry, Ron, and Hermione; Harry and Ron flinched and took a step back. ” Staying up so late … night wandering to the door of the professor’s office … do you have some business with me?” Behind them, Ginny rolled her eyes, her eyes constantly darting between them; Luna was in a trance.
All questions were stuck in Hermione’s throat at the sound of the word ‘night wandering’.
Hermione hid her fierce look and held up Valen, and said in a sharp whisper, “Oh Professor, we came over to give Valen back to you … do you know where we found her? That’s a long way for her to wander.”
Felix blinked his eyes and muttered, “I was wondering the same thing too, I was just having a glass of water and the little one was gone … Thank you.”
He reached out to pick Valen up, but Hermione pulled her hand back and caused him to flutter. She hugged Valen and the little one stared at him at the same time, both seemingly shocked that he was able to shrug the whole thing off. Valen flopped around in Hermione’s arms emotionally, gibbering and calling him out with a bitter look.
“What was Valen talking about?” Hermione asked knowingly.
“Thanking you for sending her back.” Felix glanced at an exasperated Niffler and said calmly.
Hermione puffed out her cheeks. The only person who could make her so angry could only be the Professor himself, and with a large part of her worry dropped, she shoved Valen at Felix and said after some thought, “Um … Professor? I’ve been saving up some questions on ancient runes lately, can I come over tomorrow and ask you for advice?”
“… Don’t come too early, I want to sleep in.” Felix said dryly, so Hermione pretended to be obedient and retreated to the back without speaking while he turned his attention to the other people.
Harry and Ron shook their heads in a rush, they had both been forcefully dragged over by Hermione, and although they too had questions, this was clearly not the right time to ask them, the sky was already glowing with a grey-green haze and the sound of wind and wolves howling from the Forbidden Forest made them just want to get back to the warmth and comfort of their beds, and they still needed to get up early for their training tomorrow.
Ginny waved her hand off to indicate she had no questions as well. Luna asked calmly, “Professor, does the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks truly exist?”
Felix hesitated for a moment and said, “I can’t give you an answer to that either, maybe they do exist in a certain corner of the world-” Luna’s eyes, which darted around in both directions, widened in surprise. “That’s what I thought too! That’s why I took the Care of Magical Creatures class!”
“-Yeah, well, that’s good. But you have to be mentally prepared for the fact that not all searches have good results.”
“Like the Resurrection Stone?” Luna asked.
“Yes,” Felix said slowly, “but it’s not quite the same, I promised to keep an eye out for it for you, remember?”
Luna beamed with a smile.
“Oh, yes! I remember.” She said, “Maybe Firenze was right when he said that when the time comes, it will appear on its own. Just like those things I lost.” Ginny slumped and said, “You didn’t lose those things at all, someone deliberately hid them to make a fool of you.”
“You’re right.” Luna said nonchalantly, “Good night, and oh, good morning. I’m going to go back and sort out the correspondence between Dad and me; Dad’s been sending two letters a week this year and I can’t carry them off anymore, so I can only pack them up for now.” She drifted off.
Ron stared at her back.
“What letters?”
Once they were all out of sight, Felix closed the door and when he turned around he saw Valen jumping onto the couch, with a quill in her hand, scribbling in the air. In the blink of an eye, she had written two lines and had absolutely no intention of stopping, as if she was preparing to give a long speech.
Felix glanced at the word at the beginning, it was ‘liar’ and he walked over and grabbed Niffler up with a grin, “Gee, what’s with the writing practice now, it’s late, go to bed, go to bed.”
Valen watched in despair as the letter of accusation got further and further away from her. “Bang!” The bedroom door slammed shut and the magic lamp went out, only a few lines of crooked writing glowing in the darkness, proof that the night had not been a peaceful one.
The castle became icy and snowy. It had snowed for two days in a row and the grounds were covered in a thick layer of knee-deep snow.
Felix was curled up in a blanket, slouching on the sofa, and on the small table next to him lay a letter from Carlotta Pinkstone, in which the seventy-four-year-old activist warmly addressed him as ‘my dear, comrade in arms that I have never met’, and it was clear that Carlotta thought it was possible to win Felix over to her side, for which she had probably spent the last few days brushing up on her knowledge, and tried her best to mention his contribution to the wizarding world in every context she could, and at the end, she mentioned that she ‘deeply hoped to meet him’.
She also asked Felix to be discreet, saying that meeting her was not ‘very convenient at present’ because the evil Ministry of Magic had sent two people to monitor her, ‘one clumsy with a naive appearance that is overflowing with enthusiasm; the other with a cold tongue, full of aristocratic hypocrisy and superiority.’
Felix only thought for less than half a minute before picking up his quill and writing a brief letter to Tonks, asking how she was doing.
The owl brought a reply in less than half an hour.
Felix took out his map and searched for a while, and found the two names at the Three Broomsticks Inn in Hogsmeade village, and, unexpectedly, he spotted the name, Collins Foley, though he couldn’t quite connect her with the ‘aristocratic hypocrisy and superiority’.
There was a knock on the door.
Felix stared at the door with blank eyes as it opened on its own and Hermione bounced in cheerfully. She had come over the very next day, on the grounds that she wanted to ask for advice on how to use the Book of Runes. But Felix had been waiting for her to ask about her misadventures on the Hogwarts campus that night in the 1940s.
“Please sit down, Miss Granger.”
Felix stood up, bundled up in his blanket and went to the bedroom to change, and returned with two cups of hot cocoa. “Thanks.” Hermione said as she pointed at the letter on the table, “They were in Hogsmeade last weekend. Oh, sorry, I accidentally saw it when I moved around the table.”
“Hogsmeade? Who are you talking about?”
“Tonks, Collins, and Carlotta Pinkstone,” Hermione said as she took a small sip of hot cocoa and narrowed her eyes in a happy mood, “When he went to Hogsmeade Village last weekend Ron bumped into them.”
Felix nodded, without any intention of talking more about it.
“Professor,” Hermione inhaled softly, “if you’re not going to make contact with her, it’s best to tell her straight up.”
“Now is not the time.” Felix muttered.
After a brief pause in thought, he said, “You write her a letter back for me, just say – well, I can’t go against the Ministry of Magic and the rules are important – yes, just tell her that.” Hermione quickly wrote a short letter and handed it to him to read. Felix smiled, “Very good.”
As the owl flew out of the window, Hermione said, “She is certainly not going to let this go that easily.”
Felix shrugged. “But that’s a matter for a later date. Well, Miss Granger, let’s move on to discuss about the Book of Runes, there are only two people in the world who have it at the moment and the sample is so small that many conclusions can only be guessed and can only be verified later … What do you think? Do you think it is very helpful to you?”
Felix wanted to know the effect of the Book of Runes on the ‘normal’ people, that is, those who were not Masters of Runes.
“I can’t quite put it into words,” Hermione pondered seriously, “I’ve been so busy filling in my understanding of the ancient runes for the past month or so that the feedback you mentioned was very minimal, but I do feel like my mastery of the ancient runes has improved. It got stronger … I just don’t know if it’s an illusion, the other students have improved quite a bit too.”
“How many ancient magics have you mastered?”
“Counting the two taught in class, there are total of five.” Hermione held out a hand.
Felix was lost in thought.
“The results may not be visible in the short term. In the future, when you are looking at the Book of Rune – and I trust you will do so – if you suddenly feel that you have a fantastic idea, don’t suppress it, and let your rational mind rest for a while by giving in to your inspiration; you might well get some unexpected surprises.”
“Okay, Professor.”
It was nearly noon when Valen walked out in a daze wrapped in a small blanket that looked like a fur cloak. She walked over to him and gave a breathless grunt that passed for a greeting, and then she climbed onto the couch. Hermione scratched Valen’s chin.
“Harry and the rest of the gang, are they training?” Felix asked, they were now talking about something that had nothing to do with the ancient rune.
“Oh, yeah.” Hermione smiled, and said with a grin, “They’ve been training really hard, Harry and Ron, as well as Ginny. Because the original Quidditch commentator, Lee Jordan, graduated this year. Now, Luna is preparing to apply for the role, no, she’s already been chosen, by being the only candidate… Harry is freaking out.”
Felix blinked and smiled along. As we all know, Luna is a very unique girl, and no one was sure about her hosting style, while given that she knew half of the Gryffindor players well, it would be only natural that Harry and the others would be the most impacted.
“Professor? Ms. Bones recently gave me some information about the living conditions of other humanoid races and I found …”
…
The Halloween Eve party passed by without a hitch. Not much had changed from previous years, except for one student leading a ten-foot-tall dragon into the great hall, which scared the hell out of a bunch of young wizards. It was only later, when people calmed down, that it was discovered that the student had sneaked into the Transfiguration classroom and stolen a batch of Transfiguration smoke that Professor McGonagall had privately purchased.
The atmosphere at the time was very lively. Despite the details of the fake dragon being slightly crude, it went well with the cheerful festive atmosphere and won all four houses’ approval. It was just so well executed that even Professor McGonagall was surprised, and the students never saw that student at the dinner again after that.
“Fred and George got a successor.” Ron said with relief.
“I don’t know which house that student is from,” Hermione asked in wonder, “I hope it’s not Gryffindor.”
“The chances are not slim.” Harry said in a hushed voice, “I heard a group of students in the common room discussing the traditional activities of the ‘Swear to Defend School Rules’ club when I came out, and someone mentioned about the dragon spewing fire …”
“What is that about?”
“A Dragon?”
“No, I am asking about ‘traditional activities’.”
“You mean that one!” Ron interjected with interest, “No one knows for sure – but they say Fred and George left an invisible rule before they graduated, that every member had to play a part in bringing the school rules to a successful completion, so – ”
“In such a fashion?” Hermione stared.
“Yeah, but at least in the next Halloween there won’t be anyone leading a dragon and flaunting it around.”
It had snowed a few more days after Halloween and the snow outside the grounds is now a few feet deep, and the students would rather take a long detour than pass through the vegetable garden, where the uneven terrain makes it easy for some of the shorter students to step on the wrong place and get themselves buried.
The festive Halloween decorations hadn’t completely disappeared yet, and occasionally a few stray bats or pumpkin lamps with small candles in them could be seen floating around the hallway, which the professor and the students found very amusing, and no one bothered about them, letting the candlelight in the pumpkin lamps become more and more ghastly.
“It’s bad luck to be in the same group with Malfoy in this class again.” Ron said as he stared at the miserable green glowing candles, they had just come out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and he couldn’t wait to start whining as soon as he had the chance.
Harry cast a sympathetic look.
As the content of the subject deepened, Professor Bagshot was no longer satisfied with petty fights, and he made the students duel in pairs. It was just that the rules were somewhat different: one of the dueling partners had to close his eyes against his enemy. As for who exactly will perform this unappealing role, it will be decided by drawing lots. And Ron always drew the worst lot.
Very few of the students stayed intact until the end of class, and a large number of them spontaneously asked Harry and the others for tips on the humanoid shield charm.
The spell was widely popular as it could provide protection against regular hexes and did not require deliberate maintenance or have an impact on normal spell casting. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all proficient with the Humanoid Shield Charm, and the members of the frontline lookout club such as Neville, Seamus, and Dean could barely manage to grasp it, so in theory, they were safe in class. But there are exceptions to everything, and Draco Malfoy was that exception.
As soon as Malfoy mastered the Knockback Jinx after a lot of effort, Ron had a bitter day. The humanoid shield charm, while being able to fend off small firearms (from Professor Bagshot’s evaluation, which is why he allows the students to use this charm), is clearly not resistant to falls and does not have the slightest shock absorbing effect, and when Ron can’t control the dissolving of the charm, he was greeted with a series of hexes such as the Horn tongue hex, the Stinging Jinx and the Pus Squirting Hex. Of course, Draco Malfoy didn’t fare well either, and Ron’s counterattacks were equally sharp.
But Draco had somehow mastered a fairly good handful of healing spells and carried a variety of potions with him, which made Ron’s retaliation much less effective, and he was indignant about it.
“If I was only allowed to let loose …,” Ron described as he ate his lunch, waving his arm hard enough to make an undeclared pause, resulting in the sausage on his fork being flung far away and smashing on the Ravenclaw House dining table.
“Are you planning on treating him like an enemy?” Hermione asked as her eyebrows knitted up tightly.
Ron opened his mouth and stammered, “How? I, ahem, I was joking.” When Hermione got up to leave he whispered quietly to Harry, “Well I would really like to do that, I know a lot of spells, but alas what a pity …”
They followed Hermione to the staff room next to the great hall.
There were already quite a few students in there; Neville, Susan Bones, Blaise Zabini, Padma Patil, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and a dozen other familiar faces that Harry couldn’t name; they stood in the crowd and waited for a while before Draco Malfoy pushed open the door and walked in. When he saw Harry and the others at the entrance, his face looked a little sullen.
There were a total of four professors sitting in the staff room – five to be exact, but the ghost Professor Binns was automatically ignored by them – Professor McGonagall, Professor Hap, Professor Snape, and Professor Bagshot.
Felix cleared his throat.
A huge wooden box landed in front of the students, and inside there were bundles of thick parchments bound into booklets.
“A study material for Animagus, Sirius — Professor Black promised it to you, I hope you haven’t forgotten his name … You have four days to preview this content, and every Saturday morning for the next two months –”
“Professor!”
“Professor.”
Harry and Draco Malfoy’s voices echoed in the staff room at the same time, and they looked at each other before immediately averting their eyes.
“Is there any problem?”
“There’s a Quidditch match this Saturday morning.” Harry said stiffly when he saw Malfoy didn’t utter a word.
“Well, then it’ll be rescheduled to Sunday morning at ten – assemble here and Professor McGonagall and I will give you all the ropes on practicing Animagus, and we’ll start to attempt real Transfiguration around Christmas break, so you will have to choose to stay in school this holiday. ” Felix said in a not entirely confident tone because he had originally considered transfiguring his students into small animals to experience that feeling first hand when he was preparing his lesson plan. In the end, Professor McGonagall, who was on the side of the table found out and criticized him severely with a concerned look on her face.
Although the process was not that pleasant, the result was delightful. Since someone had offered to help out by sharing the workload, Felix had nothing to complain about.
The student’s eyes lit up with excitement, it’s an Animagus transformation! At least on the bright side, only eight people (counting Rita Skeeter) had mastered it in this century, and if they could learn it, they would surely be written and featured in major books.
But when they bent down to take out the full three-inch thick material from the wooden box, the faces of these students began to turn pale and their bodies involuntarily wobbled. Professor McGonagall, who originally had a serious expression, nodded in satisfaction. Nearly two-thirds of this content had been added at her strong request.
Well, Felix didn’t raise any objections.
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