HPS 118

Chapter 118: Gifts

In an atmosphere of anticipation that bordered on prayer, Halloween arrived.

Laughter and cheer filled the air, and all the young wizards were looking forward to seeing the castle, which was to be fantastically and beautifully decorated today.

They joyfully exchanged gifts and shared sweets, and it was no different in the Room of Hope.

"Oh, Sean, it's rare for you to be carrying so much."

Justin's words carried a rare note of teasing because when Sean pushed the door open and entered, everyone saw him practically submerged in floating sweets.

Sean calmly placed the sweets in the wooden cabinet not far from the fireplace, three of the six compartments of the cabinet were already full, and with the candy from the others, the strange assortment of snacks already took up more than half the cabinet.

Justin was currently using a Floating Charm to transfer some of the sweets out of the cabinet.

"Want to try this one?"

He held up a blue gummy shaped like a mouse.

Soon, everyone heard Neville's chattering and gnashing teeth.

"It's in my mouth!"

Neville, horrified, stuck his tongue out, trying to scrape away the "non-existent" mouse.

"Neville, I told you it was normal before you ate it."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, though there was a smile in her eyes.

"Taste this—"

Justin ate a red sweet,

"They say Pepper Imps make a wizard breathe fire... get back!"

"Wow!"

Watching black smoke pour from Justin's mouth and fire shoot out of his ears and nose, the curve of Hermione's smile grew wider.

In the wooden cabinet, her own compartment was filled with many sweets, but they were all gifts from her companions in the Room of Hope... 'Fortunately, that's enough,' she thought.

On the wooden table.

The Biting Vine seemed to be stimulated by the fire, its tendrils slowly retracted, and in doing so, it flipped over the letter Sean had placed on the table.

Next to the letter was a small silver cat figurine, which looked unremarkable, but actually employed a very complex piece of Transfiguration—a Multi-Layer Transfiguration.

The principle of this advanced transfiguration was to use multiple transfigurations on a single object, so that a simple Vanishing Spell would not be able to immediately undo the transformation.

It was like an equation where you only needed to find one unknown to find the solution; now, you needed to find multiple unknowns.

From this perspective, one could understand why its difficulty would increase exponentially.

And Sean had more gifts to prepare than just this one today, so his movements were very quick...

A soft hooting sound came from a distance, and a pure white owl landed on Sean's window.

Its feathers were messy, its beak clutched the tail feather of some unfortunate bird, and the whole owl looked proud and chest-out.

After all, it had just defeated ten other owls to land at this very window.

"Una, thank you for helping."

Sean looked up, placed several letters and a small parcel under its claws, and then served a small plate of meat chunks, toast, and salad to entertain the helpful young lady who had delivered his messages.

—'As for the owl's name, Sean remembers the name of every owl,' he thought.

"Hoo-hoo—"

The pure white owl rubbed against Sean's finger, gripped the letters, and flew away from the window.

At another colourful window, Minerva McGonagall received the owl's letter, and she looked at the silver cat figurine, her eyes like a deep lake, merely sending out gentle ripples.

An unknown number of letters were already stacked on her desk.

Every one of them was postmarked from Croydon, and many were not replies but the originals the owls had brought back.

And today, the name on the return address of the letters here was no longer Minerva McGonagall, but a woman named Roland.

A woman who had volunteered many times in Hollesley.

Charms Class

Professor Flitwick was still in high spirits, standing on a stack of tall books, proclaiming in his squeaky voice:

"All right, don't forget the subtle wrist movement we've been practising! Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. Pronouncing the incantation correctly is also very important!"

About half a month had passed since the last Floating Charm practice, and the young wizards were still struggling to master the spell.

However, the change in the classroom today surprised Professor Flitwick greatly.

Last time, Harry and Seamus swished and flicked, swished and flicked, over and over again, but the feather that should have been sent into the air still lay motionless on the floor.

Seamus even got so frustrated that he jabbed the feather with his wand, and the feather caught fire.

But today, quite a few young wizards seemed to have undergone some uniform training, their pronunciation was neat and consistent, and their gestures were precise and steady.

So, it was no surprise that the feathers at least reacted, and some young wizards could even keep the feather floating for a while.

"Tremendous progress! Gentlemen and ladies!"

Professor Flitwick squeaked loudly.

"I never thought Charms would be this easy, you just have to follow the notes—"

Harry heard Ron muttering excitedly, and nodded in agreement, convinced.

"But you still said it wrong,"

Harry heard Hermione say unceremoniously,

"It's Wingardium Leviosa, the 'gar' has to be long and clear."

"You think you're better than Sean?!"

Ron's face flushed red.

Sean, who was sitting next to Hermione:

'?'

"The version you have is the old one! Sean's Floating Charm progress is a bigger leap than your evolution from a troll to a wizard!"

Hermione rolled up her sleeve, waved her wand, and said, "Wing*-gar*-dium Levi-o-sa!"

"Oh, well done!"

Professor Flitwick clapped his hands and cried,

"Everyone look, Miss Granger's Floating Charm is quite beautiful!"

Towards the end of the class, Sean was kept back by Professor Flitwick, who held a sky-blue notebook and said with a hint of novelty:

"Ah, a very intuitive method, very interesting. For those wizards new to Charms, it could even be said to be very significant, but my dear Mr. Green, the mysteries of Charms lie far beyond these superficial places..."

Professor Flitwick praised a few things, then gave some earnest words of caution.

Sean knew what the Professor was talking about, and he nodded softly.

Following the sweet scent of pumpkin, Sean saw Hermione leaving proudly, and Ron looking intensely curious.

'Ron, who is desperate to find the new notes, probably won't have the time to badmouth Hermione now, so it will be difficult for Hermione to run into a troll in the girls' bathroom,' Sean thought.

In the corridor.

Ron's mood wasn't bad; he was more concerned with Sean's notes than the somewhat annoying Hermione.

He quietly edged closer to a group of Gryffindor girls:

"Green's notes... have they been updated?"

A Gryffindor witch who shared a dormitory with Hermione said angrily:

"Who knows? She said she'd never let us see them unless we seriously practised with her... Hmph—bookworm!"

"What a pity for Mr. Green, she must have slipped him a Love Potion or something..."

Another witch continued.