Chapter 643

The party came to a close on a lighter note.

The invited guests left the room one by one, and Felix glanced around the crowd but did not find Carlotta Pinkstone, whom he had originally planned to find an opportunity to contact, but from the look on Ms. Bones’ face when she returned, he guessed that the two had not had a very pleasant conversation and that Carlotta Pinkstone had left early.

Professor Slughorn was very pleased with how the party proceeded, and at the moment he is standing in front of the gorgeous fireplace, seeing off each of the departing guests, relishing the occasion, and busily responding verbally and physically as appropriate to each person’s status.

” Eldon, my dear student, you haven’t published much in recent years, I’m waiting to read your masterpiece -”

“McLaggen, say hello to Tiberius for me! Oh, and to Scrimgeour as well, it’s about time he needed to take some time off these days.”

“Mrs. Zabini, thank you for the gift …”

“Oh Frank and Alice, can I call you that? That’s wonderful … I’m so sorry I didn’t send my best wishes the day you both healed, I was hesitant to accept the teaching position at that time … Neville? Well, he’s doing very well …” Slughorn took Frank Longbottom’s hand enthusiastically and spoke in a very intimate tone, “To be honest, I think you fully deserve two Order of Merlin for your performance in this war, but since you both already got two of first-class ones …” he patted Frank’s shoulder heavily, “bring my regards to Augusta for me.”

Alice kissed Neville’s forehead and followed her husband as they disappeared into the emerald green flames.

“How are you going to get back?” Hermione asked her parents and Felix looked over the Granger’s shoulders to see Sirius and Ms. Bones saying goodbye to Harry.

“The Floo network, of course.” Mr. Granger said with slight excitement, “That’s how we got here, it’s incredible! Professor Slughorn said he had temporarily connected our fireplace at home with magic, so I guess it might be similar to connecting to an internet signal.”

Hermione was stunned.

“Oh, God! How can you …” she said anxiously, “what if you called the wrong address? Harry was once sent to Knockturn Alley by mistake for this very reason … Professor?” She looked at Felix as if asking for help.

“I could use Apparition to sen-” Felix said after a second of consideration.

“Oh, don’t worry!” After seeing the Weasleys off, Professor Slughorn came over with a pot-belly and his walrus whiskers twitching between his lips as he exclaimed cheerfully, “Thanks to Amelia! I had mentioned it casually when she accepted the invitation, and she graciously agreed to help.”

Ms. Bones, whose name was called, nodded in his direction.

“That’s it.” Slughorn said with a smirk as they made their way to the fireplace, Sirius and Harry hugged each other before they left through the fire and Slughorn took out his wand and tapped it on the fireplace.

“Well, whatever you call out next will lead to only one place – just for today.”

“Thanks for the hospitality, we’ve had a good night.” Mr. Granger took Mrs. Granger’s hand and told the crowd. “You are welcome to join us at our home any time, Mr. Hap.” Mrs. Granger said politely. “That’s right,” Mr. Granger looked at Felix and seemed to thought of something, “I actually have a collection of various models of dental specimens, if you are interested …”

Mrs. Granger gave a firm grip with her hand.

“Ahem, well – goodbye.”

The next morning, most of the students left school on the Hogwarts Express train to go home for the holidays. However, there are still some who choose to stay in school, and there are quite a few, in addition to the students in the ‘Animagus’ course, as there were some students who were punished with detention for abusing human transfiguration magic.

Harry took the opportunity during breakfast in the great hall to tell Ron and Hermione what Sirius had said to him last night.

They had expressed their opinions. Hermione looked a little worried, “Ugh, I vaguely guessed that from Ms. Bones’ letter.” Ron, on the other hand, reacted flatly, “According to Sirius, that’s decades away, isn’t it? Let’s consider what’s in front of us now.”

He frowned as he said, looking around, the people who sat with them at the dinner table all took their time chewing in a way that made you lose your appetite. According to Professor McGonagall, starting from this full moon, she would arrange a special diet for students who are preparing to practice.

“It will prevent some of you from swallowing the mandrake leaf through carelessness.”

After breakfast, Hermione went to the library as usual, “We have twelve essays to write!” “It’s eleven, Hermione,” Ron pointed out her mistake, “Harry and I don’t have an Arithmancy Class.”

In the end, Hermione was the only one who went to the library. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Harry and Ron decided to go out for a ride on their broomsticks, there were not many students in the school at the moment, so they were able to have a good time racing around the Black Lake, they ended up accidentally bumping into Valen who was skating with her army of snowman Niffler, and with a grin on their faces, they had a snowball fight with Valen.

The ordinary blade of leaf that Harry and Ron had been holding in their mouths fell out several times in the middle due to their excessive playing. When they returned to the castle and calmed down, they made some pessimistic comments about their respective futures.

“I don’t think it will work, I can’t hold it in my mouth.” Ron said negatively, “Even if we did, we’d still have to get up every morning and night to recite the spell and wait for thunderstorms, and even Bill and Percy, who have the best grades, never even considered being Animagus when they went to school …”

“Don’t be discouraged, Ron. We even managed to survive the Voldemort hurdle.” Harry said encouragingly, though he followed along and became depressed when Ron pointed out that he had to lead Quidditch training after the start of the new year and that couldn’t be done without talking out loud.

When they saw Hermione in the evening, she didn’t look well either, but she still made a snide comment about the pair’s lack of commitment and went back to bed early. It was not until the next day when Harry was opening presents under the little Christmas tree that he started to feel better.

Harry received the usual presents including a hand-knitted jumper from Mrs. Weasley, some candies, and joke products from the twins, which included a Boxing telescope, which Ron tossed aside in exasperation when he showed it to him. Because the twins had presented it to him for a beta test, which he had gifted to Professor Hap at the time to save some money. After remembering that it was from his two unreliable brothers it had scared the hell out of him.

Harry had also unwrapped the gift from Ron – a tiger hat.

“Collins picked it out, so if you don’t like it go find her.” Ron said, while he himself put on a parrot hat and looked around in the mirror. “Where did she buy it from?” Harry asked with interest, it seemed to be a collection, and he wanted to ask if there is an antler version, which he wanted to give to Ginny next year.

“McHavelock’s Wizarding Headgear.” Ron said, “It could only be there.”

“Is Collins okay?” Hermione asked as they descended the stairs, “Aren’t she and Tonks in charge of keeping tabs on Carlotta Pinkstone? Well, she managed to turn up at the party last night.”

“It shouldn’t be too much of an issue,” Ron said slowly after a moment’s thought, “Their mission ended yesterday at noon, who would have thought, that woman would be connected to Professor Slughorn and be invited.”

On the other end of the castle, Felix had just finished opening his presents, which was quite a lot of work.

Felix was most pleased with Luna’s gift – perhaps because he had helpfully ‘suggested’ it – she presented him with his life-size brightly smiling portrait, and Felix wondered when he had made that kind of impression on Luna, but he soon solved the mystery.

A small slip of note contained Luna’s well wishes:

Merry Christmas, Felix. Love the gift you sent me, and I am going to take it home to show Papa, plus – I got some inspiration from the magic portrait that is hanging in St Mungo’s when Papa was receiving treatment on the fourth floor.

Valen likewise received a piece of art, but – perhaps this is the one that suits Luna’s aesthetic – it is a stone painting. In a foot-square frame, hundreds of small, carefully selected pebbles had been coloured and arranged to create the shape of a Niffler, with a green cape cut out of palm-sized leaves behind it, the edges of which waved majestically.

Valen babbled about it for a long time, seeming to both dislike and like it.

Only when Felix said in a sour tone, “We can swap.” Valen clutched the painting immediately and looked at him warily, and when he returned after a quick walk around the room, the stone painting had been positioned next to Felix’s blank magic portrait. If the portrait at St Mungo’s came back to visit one day, he would be surprised to find himself with an additional eccentric-looking neighbour.

Felix was tempted to ask what he and Luna had talked about to make him smile like that and be drawn and sent to himself?

Towards the end of the afternoon, a strong smell of cooking wafted into the room along the cold air.

Valen, who had been nestled on the sofa couch watching a cartoon, sniffed the smell and quickly announced the names of a series of dishes, and she and Felix looked at each other for a while before agreeing to turn off the projector and go downstairs to the great hall.

The great hall appeared very empty, with only one of the four house tables left, and every other seat occupied by a bulging bag full of wizard colourful poppers – from which various styles of hats and odd trinkets could be popped. They had arrived quite early, and it was not mealtime yet, but there were already students present.

“Bang! Bang!”

Two sounds like cannons exploding echoed through the great hall, and a purple cloud of smoke filled the air as the figures of two students emerged, accompanied by a coughing fit and the few words “it’s your fault” and “you suggested it”.

Felix couldn’t hold back his smile, it was two Hufflepuff students who had been punished with detention for tarnishing the name of their house by turning each other into a honey badger, only to accidentally wander off after the transformation, and Professor Sprout had mobilized half the Hufflepuff house to search the common room for half a day before finding the unlucky pair.

One by one, the crowd grew, and Felix chatted with Valen in a hushed voice.

“Those four? I heard they were in the same dormitory and were planning to quietly study Animagus Transfiguration, and they even formed a secret study group for it. Only for the three of them on the scene to cower in fear because of the uncontrollable tiger roar that was heard from the next closed classroom…”

The four Ravenclaw girls shot them an exasperated glare as they passed by.

The professors gradually showed up as well, scattered to sit at the long table, Dumbledore wore a moon-white robe and had a happy look on his face, “Merry Christmas!” He said enthusiastically, “There are so many people this year that I’ve made a last-minute addition of colourful packet poppers, so sit down!”

Not many people were as happy as he was. Most of the students – either punished (in all four houses, Gryffindor mostly) or members of the ‘Animagus’ course- and only a few actually volunteered to stay.

He swept his gaze around the room, looked at the sad-faced students, and said, “It’s Christmas, I think – our task is to stuff our mouths with delicious foods, not a little leaf … What do you say, Minerva? ”

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, “You’re quite right, Dumbledore.” As soon as the words left her mouth, half of the students immediately took the leaves out of their mouths with joy, and the atmosphere was suddenly heated. Dumbledore struck while the iron was hot, grabbing a handful of wizard-coloured packet poppers and shoving them at everyone he could reach.

The others followed suit and the long table was instantly filled with thuds and clusters of the smoke of varying colours blowing out. Felix drew a plain wizard’s hat with four colours of fine thread outlining a pattern, Harry and Ron opened two sailor hats that Felix thought were nowhere near as wonderful as the tiger and parrot hats they wore on their heads, and Hermione drew a woman’s wide-brimmed hat which she fiddled with glee.

Then all of them looked at Snape from the corner of their eyes – last time he had opened a lady’s peaked cap, so everyone wondered what it would be this time? Even Dumbledore looked at him with interest as Snape looked expressionless as he pulled back the popper and when the smoke cleared, a deer antler hat appeared in his hand.

This time it was Harry’s turn to be unhappy. He looked jealously at the beautiful pair of antlers, thinking that the hat was a pure waste in Snape’s hands and that if no one wanted it at the end of the dinner, he could probably take it quietly … Snape really didn’t like it and shoved the hat in his hand to Professor McGonagall casually, but Professor McGonagall loved her feathered hat, so it ended up in Dumbledore’s hands.

“Eat up!” Dumbledore, who was wearing a deer antler hat, said with a smile.

The crowd began to enjoy their food and Valen was given a seat opposite of Professor Flitwick, their chairs were custom-made and looked to have an oddly symmetrical aesthetic.

Harry gorged himself on smooth, soft mashed potatoes, Ron tore off the meat on his ribs, and half the students wolfed down their food with fierce eyes, that filled with a look of suffering that even Felix couldn’t help but feel a sense of sympathy for.

But that was all this meal was meant to be. Because tonight is the full moon. These students would be tested even more severely, and he had seen the special diet recipes that Professor McGonagall was going to give to the kitchen house elves, which mostly consisted of tasteless but fast-filling dishes.

At the dinner, everyone was busy eating, except Trelawney who kept spreading rumours about ‘six-legged creatures bringing misfortune to the castle’ while holding a bottle of sherry, and just as Felix was wondering what it was about, Professor McGonagall quietly tilted her head over and whispered in an odd tone, “Albus is going to recruit a Centaur into the school.”

Realization dawned on Felix.

Just when Trelawney mentioned it for the twelfth time and her tone grew more and more certain, Dumbledore stood up.

“… More than one death, I have seen-”

“Filch,” Dumbledore asked pleasantly, “is that item ready?”

Filch lifted his head from his plate and bent over, “Yes, Headmaster, I’ve put it in the corner, and covered it with a piece of green sheet.”

“Excellent.” Dumbledore said, his eyes searching around the room as the others looked over. Dumbledore pointed with his wand and a green piece of cloth flew up from an inconspicuous spot in the corner, beneath which was a delicately shaped machine.

“The latest model projector -” he said happily, “I bought it to try out for myself and I liked the ‘immersive’ mode of it best. ” He gave Felix a look before drawing the machine and placing it close to him.

With a click sound, a huge cloud of dark golden smoke erupted from the magic projector, as if it were inexhaustible and designed simply to fill the place where it was placed – the great hall- and soon their feet were covered with a foot or so thick golden mist.

“Meow-ooh…”

Mrs. Norris scurried out from under Filch’s feet and jumped onto his lap, “Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Norris.” Filch said hoarsely, though his light bulb eyes were still alertly fixed on the machine.

At that moment there was singing in the air as if it were playing straight in their ears, and the smoke rose and gathered into a golden dancer, who looked exactly like the real thing, dancing around the long table, their skirts shedding a fine mist like gold dust.

The students’ eyes went blank as if they had been blended into a lively party, seeing a succession of performances by the Weird Sisters, a skeleton dance troupe, and a rough dwarf dance, interspersed with the soft singing of a suspected Veela mixed in with a strange, unintelligible language that the crowd could not understand …

“Christmas this year is so worth it.” Ron said with admiration. The surrounding students nodded silently in agreement with his words.

As the dinner ended, the students sparsely pulled back their benches and prepared to leave. Felix shot Valen a glance, who had slipped near Grindelwald while there was some confusion and brought a very nice Christmas hat from him.

Grindelwald reflexively leaned his body back and touched his chest.

Dumbledore’s movements paused slightly before he continued to stand up – a moment that Harry caught keenly and an odd feeling arose in his mind. “What is it, Harry?” Hagrid asked, leaning forward to look over from across the two seats.

“Nothing, nothing sh-” Harry suddenly trailed off, staring at Hagrid, a small piece of onion wedged in his thick beard.

He remembered that Hagrid had overheard and mentioned to them that Dumbledore seemed to have known Professor Bagshot for a long time; he know Bagshot was a supporter of the dark wizard Grindelwald, and Harry had happened to learn by accident that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had a very close friendship in their youth from the letters from Lily that Sirius had given to him … There was a vague clue laid out before Harry’s eyes that connected the three men together.

What is it exactly?

“The students of the Animagus course please remain,” Professor McGonagall said in a loud voice at that moment, “and get tidied up, we are going to the yard.”

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