The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 30 Christmas

Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts School woke up to find that the ground was covered with several feet of snow and the lake was frozen solid. The Weasley twins were punished because they had enchanted several snowballs, which chased Quirrell around and hit him on the back of his turban.

When Ryan saw this scene, he admired the Weasley twins' heroic act of punching Voldemort in the face from the bottom of his heart.

With the holidays approaching, some classes were a bit unbearable. For example, Professor Snape's Potions class. Since the classroom was underground and had no heating, white steam would come out of your mouth when you opened your mouth. Not to mention that when your hands and feet were numb from the cold, you had to endure Professor Snape's sharp tongue, which was even colder than the temperature in the classroom.

"I really feel sorry for those people," Draco Malfoy said defiantly during a Potions class. "They have to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas because their families don't want them."

But Harry seemed unmoved, even somewhat happy. He felt that being able to spend Christmas without going back to the Dursleys was really exciting, and Malfoy's words did not spoil his good mood at all.

Last week, when Professor McGonagall was registering the students who were staying, Harry and the Weasley brothers chose to stay. Harry stayed to get away from the Dursleys, and the Weasley brothers stayed because their parents were going to Romania to visit Charlie.

Hermione and Ryan chose to go home for Christmas, after all, this was the first time they had been away from home for so long. Of course, Ryan and the others also told Harry and Ron, who stayed at school, that they would prepare gifts for them and look forward to their gifts.

Although they had looked up a bunch of books in the previous two weeks but could not find out who Nicolas Flamel was, this did not affect their anticipation for Christmas at all.

Ten days before Christmas, the holiday arrived. After breakfast, Ryan carried his schoolbag and went to Hogsmeade Station with his classmates who were going home.

After walking through the wrought iron gates of the school, which were decorated with winged wild boars on both sides, they arrived at the platform of Hogsmeade Station after walking for more than ten minutes. The Hogwarts Express was already waiting there.

There weren't as many people on the bus as when they arrived, so Ryan and Hermione found an empty compartment, and after a while, Longbottom also got in.

Ryan wanted to relax, but Hermione took out her homework and started to do it. This made Ryan and Neville, who were playing wizard chess, put away their chess pieces and took out their homework before they finished the game.

After a day's journey, the train arrived at King's Cross Station. In the square in front of the station, they met Neville's grandmother.

Mrs. Longbottom was very grateful to Ryan and Hermione for their help with Neville at school, which made them feel a little embarrassed.

After bidding farewell to the Longbottom grandparents, Ryan and Hermione also took taxis home. Before saying goodbye, Hermione repeatedly told Ryan to ask his father about the origin of Nicolas Flamel. If he found it, he could call her to inform her.

When Ryan got home, he opened the door and found that his parents had already prepared dinner for him. This made Ryan feel the long-lost family warmth.

After dinner until bedtime, Ryan and his parents talked about their school life and what happened at home recently. The good news is that his father, Mr. Lambert, has a new novel that is selling well recently, so he may be busy in the days before Christmas, with some book signings. After dinner, Ryan read a book for a while and chose to go to bed early, after all, it is very tiring to take the train all day.

……

After that, it was the happy Christmas holiday. In addition to doing homework every day and spending seven or eight minutes on the phone with Hermione to discuss the homework of the day, Ryan spent the rest of the time happily. When his parents were busy with things and not at home, Ryan began to practice with various mechanical things at home one by one, in order to improve his proficiency in the Winter House Industrial Manual.

Of course, the most fortunate thing for Ryan is that when he practices magic in the world of the Grocery Store of All Worlds, he will not be discovered by the people from the Ministry of Magic through the heald, so he has a lot more time to practice.

As Christmas approaches, Ryan goes to the community library to meet Hermione, because during a phone call the day before, Ryan told Hermione that he had found information about Nicolas Flamel.

After all, when it comes to finding something, if you already know the answer, it is not difficult to find a reasonable proof process.

Knowing that Nicolas Flamel was a French medieval alchemist, it is not that difficult to find him among a large amount of information.

Ryan didn't wait in the library for a few minutes before seeing Hermione walk in wearing a blue down jacket. Then she sat opposite Ryan and asked, "You said you have found the answer, how did you do it?"

Ryan said: "I went home and asked my father about it, and he told me that he had looked up the name when he was writing a fantasy novel about the Middle Ages, but couldn't remember the details at the moment. So I looked through the materials my father collected when he was writing that novel and found these."

After saying that, Ryan took off his backpack and pulled out a stack of documents. He turned a page, pointed at the words on it, and read them word by word:
"Nicolas Flamel, a Frenchman, was a famous alchemist in the 14th century. His most famous contribution is that he is said to have created the alchemist's magic stone - the philosopher's stone, and used it to successfully turn mercury into gold. According to legend, he also achieved immortality. He was seen by people until 1929. In addition, although public information proves that he died in his hometown in 1427, when greedy people dug up his and his wife's tomb, they found it empty. This also proves that he achieved immortality from another aspect."

And this, Ryan said as he took out another map. Hermione leaned forward and found that it was a map of Paris.

"What's on this map?" Hermione asked.

"Look here." Ryan pointed to a circled place on the map. "51 Montmorency Street, Nicolas Flamel House, this place used to be Nicolas Flamel's house. So this means Nicolas Flamel was an alchemist who lived in Paris, France in the Middle Ages."

"I figured it out. The Philosopher's Stone should be hidden in there," Hermione exclaimed in a low voice. "Because when we were looking in the library that day, Harry told me that he suspected that the small package that Hagrid took out from the deepest vault in Gringotts on the day he went to Diagon Alley was the thing hidden under the trapdoor. So judging from the size and other existing information, the hidden thing is most likely the Philosopher's Stone."

(End of this chapter)