Hogwarts: This professor is too Muggle.

Chapter 259 To get information, go to Hagrid.

Sunday, August 12th.

Two weeks have passed since the start of the semester. The full moon of the night of the sorting ceremony has been reduced to a crescent moon. Autumn has arrived in the Scottish Highlands, and it gets light late. When breakfast was served in the auditorium, a faint trace of the moon still lingered on the horizon.

The young wizards gradually adapted to the new school term. Some students' biological clocks had not yet adjusted, and with the weather turning cooler and no need to rush to early classes on weekends, they stayed in bed and refused to get up, making the Great Hall a bit deserted at the moment.

Harry forcibly pulled Ron to sit at the Gryffindor long table, mainly so that he could have breakfast with Hermione. As third-year students, they had taken several new elective courses and were not yet used to the surge in homework. They also had several papers to finish, which were due tomorrow.

I can only refer to Hermione's paper.

Ron had a piece of bread in his mouth, chewed it a couple of times and then let it stick to his mouth. His eyelids blinked at an extremely slow speed and finally stuck together, revealing two dark circles under his eyes. His expression was dazed, as if he was still half asleep.

Hermione had noticeable dark circles under her fair eyelids, looked listless, and seemed to have little appetite. She barely touched the sandwich and bacon in front of her, drank only half a cup of hot milk, and yawned repeatedly when she opened her mouth.

"Heh..."

"Ugh..."

Hearing the constant yawns around him, Harry felt a little sleepy himself and couldn't help but ask, "Didn't you sleep well last night, Hermione?"

"Don't mention that. Professor Victor assigned too many practice problems, and each one is more complicated than the last. Last night I spent three hours calculating Yurik Gump's true lifespan, staying up until lights out, but every time I calculated it, he was only 11 years old." Hermione tore off a small piece of bacon, chewed it, and barely swallowed it.

"Gamp's true lifespan."

It sounds complicated.

Harry felt the name was familiar, but he didn't know whether this Gump was the first Minister of Magic or the Gump who proposed the Gump Transfiguration Law. He only knew that they were wizards from two different eras.

The history of magic that Professor Binns recited was returned to him after the annual final exams, but he still had to review arithmetic and divination all over again.

Thankfully, I didn't choose the arithmetic divination class.

Hermione looked at the sleepy guy who was practically burying his face in his plate: "What's wrong with him? Did you guys stay up all night solving puzzles too?"

"more or less."

Harry couldn't help but laugh out loud, explaining that this man was curious about why Neville went out last night and insisted on solving the mystery, keeping watch until three in the morning before finally collapsing and falling asleep on the single sofa.

"boom……"

Ron's head hit the table, jolting him awake. He opened his mouth to shout, but with bread stuck in his mouth, he finally let out a long yawn, gave Harry a resentful look, and continued chewing the bread stuck to his palate.

Hermione pursed her lips, suppressing a laugh, and felt much more energetic: "So Neville's back?"

“No, I checked this morning, and Neville’s bed was still empty. The blankets and pillows hadn’t been touched. He probably didn’t come back all night.” Harry shook his head. “I also want to know what he and the professor were doing last night?”

Hermione turned to look at the main guest area, where the professors' seats were also deserted, with many empty seats.

On a cold weekend morning, most professors were unwilling to attend breakfast. Of the professors who left the castle the night before, only Professor McGonagall and Professor Lupin were seated at the table, talking in hushed tones from time to time, their conversation seemingly unrelated.

She glanced at Professor Levent's empty seat, then at the professor in charge of magical creatures, and whispered, "Let's go find Hagrid later."

Harry immediately understood her meaning: "You mean, Hagrid might know about last night... Do you need some alcohol? Should I go to the kitchen and get Dobby a bottle of whiskey?"

“No need, I brought my dad’s red wine.” The two smiled at each other, quickly finished the food on their plates, and pulled Ron toward the Forbidden Forest cabin.

"Um?!"

Ron was awakened by the cold wind outside, and he was dragged away by them with a bewildered look on his face.

"what happened?"

"What happened!"

……

In front of the vegetable garden at the Forbidden Forest Hut.

Hagrid stood beside the pumpkin seedlings, wearing a patched sweater, a mole-skin coat draped over the fence, a water bottle in his hand, and hard-soled leather boots leaving footprints in the mud.

The sweater features a mix of rabbit, fox, and beaver fur, and its design fits the physique of the hybrid giant perfectly. It's warm, lightweight, and not too bulky, making it ideal for working in the fall and winter.

When Melvin arrived at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid was looking down, carefully cleaning the leaf-eating slugs off the vegetable leaves with a clumsy shovel, without spraying any insecticide because there were also some beneficial ladybugs.

Tooth followed behind Hagrid to help. Its method of getting rid of insects was simpler and more direct. It would bite the insects it saw, swallow the ones that tasted good, and spit out the ones that didn't. Occasionally, it would wipe its mouth with pumpkin leaves.

Just a few minutes after he watched, Yulm emerged from the Emerald Snake's nest, squeezed through the gaps in the fence, bumped heads with Yaya, and then the dog and snake began to work together to get rid of the pests.

The young snake coiled its body around the dog's neck, peering out to examine the leaves. Its dark eyes were surrounded by round scales. It barked and pointed the way to the dog, telling it that there were slugs on this leaf and cabbage worms hiding on that vine.

Suddenly, the speed at which Ya Ya removed the worms increased, and it quickly overtook the mixed-race giant who was still bending over and dawdling in front of it.

Hagrid had been busy all morning, and his back and waist were aching and sore. Seeing the two little ones helping him, he stopped to rest. While rubbing the dirt off his fingers, he leaned against the fence and asked:
“Melvin, I heard you went out last night to treat Alice and Frank. Those two poor little couples have been locked up in a closed ward for 13 years, haven’t they? I visited them a few times before. They used to be so lively when they were fighting the Death Eaters, but now they’ve become unresponsive and demented. It broke my heart to see them like that, so I just stopped going after that…”

He rambled on for a while, scrubbing the dirt off his hands, before cautiously asking, "How are they now?"

The half-giant cared for the poor young couple, yet was also afraid to hear bad news.

Melvin chuckled and said, "Your body is recovering very well at St. Mungo's, and your memory returned last night. It won't be long before you see the original Alice and Frank again."

"That's great!"

Hagrid grinned, instinctively reaching to scratch the back of his neck, then raised his hand and lowered it again. "You came all this way just to tell me about Longbottom?"

"I also want to ask about the stray animals at the school and in the forbidden forest. I've suddenly become interested in this kind of research."

"What a strange research topic..."

Hagrid paused for a moment, but as Hogwarts' professor of magical creature conservation and part-time game field keeper, this was his area of ​​expertise. "There are generally no stray cats or dogs in the school. Strange animals are probably pets kept by students. There are only a few exceptions, such as the centaur's hunting dogs getting lost, or wolf cubs getting lost in the forest."

"If stray cats or dogs suddenly appear, such as a large black dog, would you notice them immediately?"

"I think so..." Hagrid's tone was uncertain; he didn't understand why Melvin was asking that question.

Melvin nodded thoughtfully. It seemed the hunting ground guards were unreliable. He needed to do some business with George and Fred. Marauder's Map was the more reliable option.

(End of this chapter)