Chapter 645 Christmas Moon Night

The dinner came to an easy atmosphere.

The invited guests left one after another. Felix glanced around the crowd and did not find Carlotta Pinkerson. He originally planned to find an opportunity to contact this person, but judging from Ms. Bones' expression when she came back, it was estimated that the two of them had a little fun chat, so Pinkerson left early.

Professor Slughorn was very satisfied with the party. At this moment, he stood in front of the gorgeous fireplace and saw every guest off. He enjoyed and was busy, giving appropriate verbal and physical responses based on each person's status.

"Eld, my dear student, you haven't published much in recent years. I'm waiting to read your masterpiece-"

"McLagan, please say hello to Tiberus! And Sclinger, he should be idle lately."

"Madame Shabini, thank you for the gift..."

"Oh, Frank and Alice, can I call you that? That's great... I'm sorry I didn't send my blessings on the day you opened. I was still hesitant to accept this teaching position... Neville? Well, he performed well..." Slughorn enthusiastically held Frank Longbotton's hand and spoke in a very intimate tone: "To be honest, I think your performance in this war is worthy of two Merlin medals, but since you already have two grades..." He patted Frank's shoulder heavily, "Help me take it to Augusta."

Alice kissed Neville on the forehead and disappeared into the green flames with her husband.

"How are you going back?" Hermione asked her parents, Felix's eyes crossed the Grangers' shoulders and saw Sirius and Ms. Bones saying goodbye to Harry.

"Of course it's Floornet." Mr. Granger said a little excitedly, "That's how we came here, it's incredible! Professor Slughorn said that he temporarily connected our fireplace with magic, which I guess might be similar to the network access signal."

Hermione was startled.

"Oh my God! How can you..." she said anxiously, "What if you call the wrong address? Harry once accidentally entered the overturned alley for this reason... Professor?" She looked at Felix as if she wanted help.

"I can move with the phantom—" Felix thought for a while and said.

"Oh, don't worry!" Professor Slughorn walked over with a big belly after seeing off the Weasleys' family, and his walrus beard was erect on his lips. He happily shouted: "Thanks to Amelia! When I accepted the invitation, I mentioned it casually, and she generously agreed to help."

Ms. Bones, who was called to her name, nodded to this side.

"That's it." Slughorn said with a smile, and they came to the fireplace, Sirius and Harry hugged and left through the fire, and Slughorn took out his wand and knocked on the fireplace.

"Okay, no matter what you shout, it will lead to a place--today only."

"Thank you for the hospitality, we had a great night." Mr. Granger took Mrs. Granger's hand and said to everyone. "Welcome to your house, Mr. Hepp." Mrs. Granger said politely. "Yes," Mr. Granger looked at Felix, as if thinking of something, "Actually, I have collected all kinds of teeth specimens, if you are interested..."

Mrs. Granger held her fingers hard.

"Well, yeah—goodbye."

The next morning, most of the students left school on the Hogwarts Express and went home to celebrate the festival. However, some people still chose to stay in school, and there were quite a few. In addition to the students in the "Animagus" class, some people were punished to stay in school because of abuse of magic and transformation.

Harry took advantage of breakfast in the auditorium and said what Sirius said to him last night to Ron and Hermione.

They expressed their opinions one after another. Hermione looked a little worried, "Oh, I guessed it from Ms. Bones's letter." Ron responded in moderation, "According to Sirius, that's a few decades later, right? Let's consider it."

He frowned and said, looking around, the people who sat with them were eating slowly, and they were chewing slowly, making people lose their appetite when they saw it. According to Professor McGonagall, starting from the full moon, she would provide a special recipe for students preparing for practice.

"It can prevent some of you from swallowing Mandela's blades from being careless."

After breakfast, Hermione went to the library as usual, "We have twelve papers to write!" "It's eleven, Hermione," Ron pointed out her mistake, "Harry and I didn't have a divination class."

The final result was that only Hermione went to the library.

Harry and Ron chose to go out for a ride on a broom. There were no people in the school now, so they could fly around the Black Lake quickly and accidentally bump into Valen, who was skating with a snowman. The two grinned and had a snowball fight with Valen.

Because they were too involved in playing, the ordinary grass leaves in their mouths fell out several times in the middle. When they returned to the castle, they calmed down and expressed their pessimistic views on their respective futures.

"I don't think so I can't help but stop talking." Ron said negatively. "Even if we do it, we still have to get up and chant the mantra every morning and evening, and wait for thunderstorms. Even Bill and Percy, who had the best grades, had not considered Animagus when they were in school..."

"Don't be discouraged, Ron. We've even passed the Voldemort pass." Harry said encouraged, but when Ron pointed out that he would still have to preside over Quidditch training after school started, it was inseparable from speaking loudly, Harry also got up with the depressed soldiers.

When she saw Hermione at night, she did not give a good look. Instead, she sneered at the two of them for their unemployed behavior and went back to bed early. It was not until the next day when Harry opened the gift under the little Christmas tree that he felt better.

As usual, the gifts Harry received included a sweater knitted by Mrs. Weasley, some candy, and products given by the twins, including boxing telescopes. When he showed it to Ron, Ron threw it aside. Because the twins had been given to him for testing, he gave it to Professor Happ at the time to save trouble. As a result, he remembered that it was his two unreliable brothers who were scared him to death.

Harry also took off the gift from Ron - a tiger-headed hat.

"It was Collins's choice. If you think it's not easy to find her," Ron said, wearing a parrot hat and looking around in the mirror. "Where did she buy it?" Harry asked with interest. It seemed to be a series. He wanted to ask if there were any antler styles that he planned to give to Ginny next year.

"Fengya brand wizard clothing store," said Ron, "it's all there."

"Is Collins okay?" Hermione asked as they went downstairs, "Aren't she and Tonks responsible for scrutinizing Carlotta Pinker Stone? She turned out to be at the party last night."

"It should be no big problem," Ron thought about it and said slowly. "Their mission ended at noon yesterday. Who would have thought that the woman would be involved with Professor Slughorn and was invited."

On the other hand, Felix had just finished putting out the gift, and the workload was quite large.

What Felix was most satisfied with was Luna's gift—perhaps because of his help with the ‘proposal’—is a portrait of him, and he smiled brightly in the painting. Felix didn't know when he left this impression on Luna, but soon he solved his doubts.

A small note reads Luna’s blessing:

Merry Christmas, Felix. Love the gift you gave, ready to take it home for Daddy, and I got inspiration from the magical portrait you hung in St. Mungo, who was being treated on the fourth floor.

Valen also received a painting, but - perhaps this one fits Luna's aesthetic - it was a stone painting. In a frame of one foot square, hundreds of carefully selected small stones were painted in color and pieced together into a sniffing shape. The green cloak behind it was cut out of palm-sized leaves, and the corners would sway majestic.

Valen looked at it for a long time, as if he both disliked and liked it.

Until Felix said in a sour tone, "We can exchange." Valen immediately hugged Hua and looked at him vigilantly, and waited for a while before coming back. The stone painting had been placed next to Felix's blank magic portrait. If one day he came back to visit the portrait of Saint Mungo, he would be surprised to find that he had a strange-looking neighbor.

Felix was about to ask what he and Luna had talked about, and then he laughed so happily and was drawn and sent to him?

In the afternoon, a strong cooking aroma floated into the room along the cold air.

Valen, who was lying on the sofa watching cartoons, sniffing the smell and quickly reported a series of dishes. It and Felix looked at each other for a while and agreed to turn off the projector and go downstairs to the auditorium.

The hall seemed very empty, with only one of the four college tables left, and every few places were placed a bulging wizard colored bag of firecrackers - various types of hats and strange gadgets could be burst out from it. They came early, and it was not time for dinner, but there were already students there.

"Bang! Bang!"

Two consecutive sounds of sound like a cannon exploded echoed in the auditorium, a purple smoke spread out, the figures of the two students were looming, and there were also bursts of coughing, accompanied by a few words like "It's all you blamed" and "It was obviously what you proposed."

Felix couldn't help laughing. These were two Hufflepuff students. They were punished to stay in school for tarnishing the reputation of the college and turning each other into a honey badger. As a result, they accidentally got lost during the transfer. Professor Sprout mobilized half of the Hufflepuff students from the college to search in the lounge for a long time before they found the unlucky guy.

There were more and more people, and Felix whispered to chat with Valen.

"Those four? I heard that they were from the same dormitory and were preparing to study the deformation of Animagus quietly, so I set up a secret study group for this. As a result, I was discovered by the next door because of the irresistible tiger roar. The other three people at the scene were trembling with fear..."

Four Ravenclaw girls glared at them in shame as they passed by.

The professors also gradually appeared and sat on the long table in dispersed manner. Dumbledore was wearing a moon-white robe with a happy look on his face, "Merry Christmas!" He said enthusiastically: "There are many people this year. I temporarily added a batch of colored bags and firecrackers. Sit down quickly!"

Not many people are as happy as him. Most of the students—either they were fined (there are four colleges, mostly Gryffindors), or they were members of the ‘Animagus’ class, and only a few of them were actually voluntarily staying on campus.

He glanced around, looked at the frowning student, and said, "Today is Christmas, I think - our task is to stuff our mouths with delicious food, not a small leaf... What do you think, Minerva?"

Professor McGonagall pursed his lips, "You're right, Dumbledore." As soon as he finished speaking, half of the students immediately took out the leaves in their mouths happily, and the atmosphere suddenly became warm. Dumbledore struck while the iron was hot, grabbing a handful of wizard bags and firecrackers to everyone he could reach.

Others followed suit, and the long table was filled with thumping sounds, and clusters of smoke of different colors exploded. Felix scored an ordinary wizard hat and outlined the lines with four thin lines of color. Harry and Ron opened two sailor hats. Felix thought it was far from the tiger-headed hat and parrot hat they wore on their heads, and Hermione scored a woman's wide-brimmed hat, and she was playing happily.

Then they looked at Snape with the light of his eyes - last time he opened a women's spire hat, and I wonder what this time it was? Even Dumbledore looked at him with interest, and Snape pulled the firecrackers expressionlessly, and when the smoke disappeared, a deer-horned hat appeared in his hand.

This time it was Harry's turn to be unhappy. He looked at the beautiful antlers jealously, thinking that the hat was a waste in Snape's hands. If no one wanted it after the dinner, he might be able to take it away quietly... Snape really didn't like it, so he stuffed the hat to Professor McGonagall, but Professor McGonagall liked his feather hat very much, so he finally fell into Dumbledore's hands.

"Eat!" Dumbledore, wearing antler hat, said with a smile.

Everyone started to enjoy the food, and Valen was also assigned a seat, sitting opposite Professor Flevy. Their chairs were all customized and looked a strange symmetrical beauty.

Harry ate the smooth and soft mashed potatoes in big mouthfuls, Ron bites the meat from the ribs, and half of the students' eyes were fierce and swallowed. Even Felix couldn't help but sympathize with his suffering.

However, this is the meal. Because tonight it will be a full moon. These students will be subject to a more stringent test. He has seen a special recipe that Professor McGonagall is preparing to give to the kitchen house elves, most of which are tasteless but can fill quickly.

At the dinner, everyone was busy eating, and only Trelawney held a bottle of Sherry and kept spreading rumors that 's six-legged creatures would bring misfortune to the castle'. Just as Felix was thinking about what this was, Professor McGonagall quietly turned his head and whispered in a weird tone, "Albus is going to recruit a horseman to the school."

Felix suddenly realized.

Just as Trelawney mentioned this for the twelfth time and his tone became more and more affirmative, Dumbledore stood up.

“…more than one death, I saw—”

"Felch," Dumbledore asked happily, "is that thing ready?"

Felch raised his head from his plate, bent over and said, "Yes, principal, I put it in the corner and covered it with a green tarpaulin."

"Great," Dumbledore said, searching for a circle, and the others looked over. Dumbledore pointed with his wand, and a piece of green cloth flew up in the inconspicuous place in the corner, and underneath was a machine with exquisite shape.

"The latest model of projector-" he said happily, "I bought it and tried it myself. I like the 'experience' mode inside the most." He glanced at Felix, then pulled the machine over and placed it nearby.

Accompanied by a "click", a large amount of dark golden smoke was sprayed out from the magic projector, as if it was endless, and as if it was just to fill the place where they were - the auditorium. Soon, a foot thick golden mist was laid under their feet.

"Meow—"

Mrs. Loris ran out of Felch's feet and jumped onto his knees, "Don't be afraid, Mrs. Loris." Felch said in a hoarse voice, but its light bulb-like eyes were still staring at the machine alertly.

At this time, singing came from the air, as if it was ringing in their ears, smoke rose, gathering into golden dancers. Their appearance was exactly the same as that of real people, dancing around the long table, and tiny mist like gold powder was sprinkled with skirts.

The students' eyes were straightened. They seemed to have been in a lively party. They saw the strange sister group, the performance of the skeleton dance troupe, and the rough dwarf dance, the soft singing of the suspected charming kid. There was also a strange language that everyone could not understand, singing in a gentle manner...

"This year's Christmas is really worth it." Ron said in admiration. The students around him nodded silently to agree with him.

As the dinner ended, the students pulled away the chairs in scattered manner and prepared to leave. Felix glared at Valen as it slipped to Grindelwald near to bring a very beautiful Christmas hat from him.

Grindelwald leaned back reflexively and touched his chest.

Dumbledore's movements stopped slightly, and then he continued to stand up - Harry keenly captured the moment, and felt a strange feeling in his heart. "What's wrong, Harry?" Hagrid asked leaning over and across two tables.

"No, nothing-" Harry suddenly spoke in a hurry and stared at Hagrid, his thick beard mixed with a small piece of onion.

He remembered that Hagrid accidentally mentioned to them that Dumbledore seemed to have known Professor Bashar al-Barshat for a long time, and Bashar al-Barshat was a believer of the dark wizard Grindelwald. Harry happened to learn from the letter Sirius to Lily that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were friends when they were young... There was a vague clue in front of Harry, linking the three people together.

What exactly is it?
Chapter completed!