Days at Hogwarts

Chapter 782 Ximo: Covered in sweat

"jingle!"

The bells on the door frame fluttered, swaying gently in mid-air, while the copper bell cores struck the outer wall, producing a crisp and melodious sound.

The sound of bells filled Hogsmeade, and colorful ribbons and green branches hung everywhere, the entire village decorated in a Christmas-themed style.

Most of the shops along the street had their doors half-closed, with only a few staff members on duty, while the rest of the people gathered with family and friends in a lively atmosphere to prepare for Christmas and the New Year.

In the alley behind the commercial street, a figure was clearing snow from in front of a door, unaware that someone behind him had opened the door and was standing quietly watching.

The wizard clearing the snow wore a gray-brown robe. His face wasn't particularly handsome, but his gentle and calm demeanor made him quite pleasing to the eye. Unlike his neighbors who used magic to create whirlwinds to sweep the snow down to the roadside, he carefully shoveled the snow and piled it next to the drain. Then, he waved his wand, and the melting snow water trickled into the pipes.

The person at the door was tall and slender, with striking pink hair. She wore a cashmere leather jacket and a fitted sweater that accentuated her figure. She had a sharp and capable demeanor, but her body was somewhat bloated, with a slightly protruding belly, which added to her maternal gentleness.

Lupin Remus put down his snow shovel, turned around, and gave a gentle smile:

"Why are you out here? Weren't you inside warming yourself by the fireplace?"

"I wanted to get some fresh air."

"Let me open a window for you." Lu Ping took her arm and led her inside. "This house was bought in too much of a hurry. The windows and hallways still need to be repaired. We'll fix them all after the baby is born. Write down any needs you may have."

Tonks sat on the sofa, looking around the room, still somewhat dazed: "From now on, this is our home."

"Yes, this is our home."

Lupin spoke softly, his tone also tinged with emotion: "Actually, I would prefer to buy a house in London, which is closer to the Ministry of Magic and would make it easier for you to travel back and forth."

"Don't mention this." Tonks waved his hand, frowning. "I shouldn't have told them I was pregnant. At first, they just wouldn't let me participate in fieldwork, but now they won't even let me train new recruits. I'm stuck in the office all day reading documents. I suspect the baby in my belly is about to rot."

"You're not thinking of taking the kids along to hunt down a dark wizard, are you?"

"Participating in the containment operation is fine, or let me train new recruits."

"well……"

Hearing Tonks's idea, Lupin found it both amusing and exasperating, but he didn't insist that she had to rest carefully or anything. He simply rubbed her swollen hands and said, "Go out and be active if you want. Just make things clear with Kingsley and the others. There are only a few months left. By then, Harry and the others will have graduated and entered the Auror Office, and you can train them."

"They've all had babies, who's going to train newbies now..."

Donx paused for a moment, feeling that pregnancy had made her thinking a little sluggish. She had to think carefully to get back to her train of thought: "By then, when the dark wizards have been mostly driven away, I'll go to Mungdons and get him to give me some information about smuggling and trafficking. I'll then give those wizards who took advantage of the loopholes a good beating."

"OK."

Lupin's expression remained gentle and calm.

With Voldemort and the Death Eaters defeated, there is no major danger within the country.

Tonks became an Auror during the most difficult period of the war. She experienced those brutal wars and faced horrific and bloody scenes, yet she remained tenacious and resilient. Even after they became husband and wife, he was unwilling to let this blooming wild rose become a greenhouse orchid.

"I wonder who this child will look like when he grows up?" Lupin murmured softly.

"oops!"

Tonks could tell what he was thinking just by looking at his expression, and directly slapped away his hand that was on his stomach: "Don't worry, werewolf disease is not hereditary. You know best about the research in New York, and you've personally read the report. You're still hesitating and doubting here... It's better if the child doesn't become like you, so indecisive."

"Oh right, that's why you didn't accept my confession back then. Talking about it makes me angry. And then there's the wedding thing, you still owe me a wedding..."

"..."

Lupin fell silent.

That's how witches are; they always inexplicably start bringing up old grievances. Pregnant witches are even more emotionally unstable; they might just make a casual remark and suddenly start getting scolded.

"jingle……"

The door bell rang again, this time indicating that guests had arrived.

Lupin and Tonks stopped their conversation and turned to look at the doorway.

"Remus! Remus!"

Sirius's voice came from outside the door: "Open the door! I've brought your goddaughter to see my godson."

Then came a series of rapid knocks on the door, the bell ringing so fast it was almost painful to listen to. What did they mean by "godfather"? The child wasn't even born yet! And when did they say they wanted to recognize him as the child's godfather?

……

"This place is so beautiful."

A girl with red hair gazed out the window. A few specks of dust clung to her fair cheeks, but they did not detract from her pretty face. She rested her hands on the dusty windowsill, leaned forward slightly, and peered out at the village.

The church lights in the distance were bright, the stained glass windows sparkled, and the warm yellow streetlights quietly illuminated the path. As the goose-feather-like snowflakes fell, they seemed to twinkle like stars.

Beside him was a boy with a scar on his forehead, also leaning against the windowsill, gazing at the lights of the village. His emerald eyes held a nostalgic look, as if he were recalling something.

"Are you planning to live here after graduation?" Ginny turned to look at him. "Actually, Mom always hoped you could move to the Burrow. Bill and Fleur moved out, Charlie went back to Romania to take care of the dragon, Percy and Dad leave early and come home late, and George and Fred often stay at the shop and don't come home at night. Mom always says the house is so quiet that she can't find anyone to talk to."

Harry smiled and comforted him, "Loren said that's how parents are. They miss their children when they're not home, but they get annoyed when their children are home."

"..."

Ginny frowned in thought, realizing that Loren made sense. When they first came home for the Christmas holidays, their mother doted on them, cooking all their favorite dishes and always smiling. But as soon as Christmas ended, before the children had returned to school or work, their mother started to get impatient and started grumbling all day.

"Don't worry, there's Ron too. He'll stay home with Mrs. Weasley after graduation."

"..."

Ginny lowered her head in silence, mourning for Ron and for her mother, hoping they wouldn't fight at home.

"Now let's give the house a quick cleaning, get rid of the broken furniture, and replace it with new ones after graduation. From now on, this will be my home... my own home," Harry said softly.

"Your own home," Ginny repeated softly, suddenly feeling a pang of sadness.

"Hmm..." Harry nodded. "The living room sofa and chairs all need to be replaced, as well as the tableware in the kitchen, the wardrobe in the walk-in closet... This is the bedroom; the curtains are completely unusable and need to be replaced. By the way, what color curtains do you like?"

"Why are you asking me?" Ginny spat softly, subtly shifting her gaze away. "What business is it of yours what color I like?"

"I think it has something to do with you, and a lot to do with you."

Harry stared straight into her eyes and slowly moved closer. At this distance, he could feel each other's breath, warm and cozy, and the temperature was starting to rise.

"Crunch!"

The old, loose-leaf pages suddenly emitted a piercing hiss.

Harry and Ginny were startled and quickly turned to look. The door was pushed open, and a hairy head with freckles on its face peeked in.

The three men stared at each other, exchanging bewildered glances. Ron frowned, scrutinizing the expressions of the two men before angrily shouting, "This is outrageous! I'm working hard cleaning the house outside, and you two are making out in there! What do you mean? Speak up!"

"..."

Harry suddenly felt a pang of regret.

Why did you call Ron along?

"Who's moving into this room after graduation? It's either of you! No, only you. Mom won't let Ginny move out..."

"The two of us..."

Hearing his noisy shouts, Harry's eyes softened by the window, revealing a hint of longing.

……

Purchase price, repair costs...

"Property tax items, maintenance standards..."

Bates sat on the sofa, his back ramrod straight, head down, flipping through the printed documents in his hands, every wrinkle on his face a testament to his intense concentration. These were documents the bank manager had found for him, detailing the costs required to purchase those castles.

"Grandpa Bates, looking at houses again?"

"Why are you back so early?" Grandpa Bates looked up from the documents and said gruffly, "The Christmas holidays are almost over. Take advantage of these few days to show Hermione around and have fun. Otherwise, when we go back to school, we'll be under lockdown again, and it'll be another six months before we can come back."

"A school isn't a prison."

"..."

Bates kept looking down at his documents, too lazy to pay attention to him. After a pause, he still reminded him, "If you have any free time, take Wendell fishing to relax. If Hermione's parents are happy, things will go much more smoothly after graduation."

"If you don't mention these things in front of him, things should go more smoothly for me."

"If I don't tell you, how long do you plan to push this out? These young people nowadays..."

"Yes, yes, you're right."

Loren went upstairs perfunctorily, returned to his room, and buried himself in the Book of Fantasy.

With Professor Babling's help, the Rune Magic Circle was optimized and improved, making great progress in the precise control of spatial magic and the stable output of the magic stone. This allowed him to engrave the complex new device inside the pumpkin lantern and successfully complete the short-distance teleportation test. However, this test also revealed some flaws.

The new space device can remain stable when a single jack-o'-lantern is moved or teleported, but when multiple jack-o'-lanterns are moved or teleported at the same time, there will be a deviation in the landing point. After careful observation and discussion with Flamel, it is initially believed that the interference between the multiple magic arrays when they are activated at the same time is caused by each other.

Loren has not yet found a way to eliminate this interference, and can only start with the stability of the magic circle, trying to reconstruct the magic circle structure while maintaining the basic runes.

However, neither he nor Flamel had much confidence in this method; they were just trying it out.

Snowflakes were falling outside the window.

At the neighbor's house next door.

Hermione held the hot tea in both hands, sipping it slowly and pretending to savor it. Perhaps the tea was too hot, which made the girl's lips particularly red. She lowered her eyes slightly, concealing her bright gaze and also hiding the two blushes on her fair cheeks.

Wendell was preparing fishing bait in the kitchen, making a clanging and clattering sound, which sounded a bit noisy, like he was chopping corn and frozen meat.

Monica pretended to be focused on making tea and tasting pink macarons, but her eyes were actually secretly observing her daughter. As she watched her daughter's round eyes darting around, a smile quietly crept onto her lips.

Mom's smile looked a little strange.

Hermione held the hot tea and took another small sip. She couldn't really taste the flavor of the teas; they all seemed pretty much the same. Perhaps adding some honey or sugar would make them taste better.

"..."

It seems my taste has been skewed by Loren.

Just as Hermione was hesitating whether to add another sugar, she saw her mother across the sofa put down her teacup, wipe her mouth, and then ask softly, "Where did you all go to play?"

"Cinema."

"It must be crowded during the holiday, right?"

There was no one else at our event.

"..."

Monica stared at her unusually red lips and fell silent.

Okay, now she understands.

The dentist got up and sat down next to her daughter, put her arm around her shoulder, and began to whisper instructions in her ear.

"..."

Hermione nestled in her mother's arms, listening to her recount the Granger family's dating techniques, silently reciting and memorizing them in her mind.

Based on past experience, these techniques have been very useful.

……

Holidays always seem to end before you know it, and now it's almost the end of January.

As winter drew to a close, the weather not only failed to warm up but instead grew even colder, and the snow around Hogwarts froze even more solidly.

As the countdown to the Christmas holidays began, Simo resolved to spend at least three hours a day in the library.

The days at school during the holidays were too leisurely. Apart from playing board games in the common room, he would go to the frozen Quidditch pitch to skate and have snowball fights. Unfortunately, he lacked experience staying at school and wasn't very comfortable on the pitch, so he always ended up getting beaten up in snowball fights. During this time, he even gained experience in getting beaten up in snowball fights and figured out a few techniques to defuse the impact of being hit by snowballs. He also kept losing in Wizard Chess and Goblin, which was quite humiliating.

Unable to compete with these experienced students in entertainment, Simo decided to surpass them academically and, incidentally, complete the accumulated assignments.

Mrs. Pince didn't seem very happy.

Several top schools that love to frequent the library have all gone home, and the library is practically empty during the holidays. Only he sits here facing Mrs. Pince's wary gaze, which makes one's heart tremble.

Fortunately, Mrs. Pince didn't always keep an eye on him; she would occasionally chat quietly with the portraits on the wall.

"Violette, thank you for coming to keep me company."

"..."

"Yes, that know-it-all girl and her boyfriend didn't stay on campus; they went home for Christmas this year."

"..."

"I heard that Miss Granger plans to work for the Ministry of Magic, and her boyfriend is going to the Alchemy Research Centre."

"..."

"You're right, it's really touching. It feels like just yesterday that they were assigned to their freshman colleges, and now they're about to graduate."

"..."

"What? Some students are still the same as when they first enrolled? Oh Violet, you can't say that."

Who are they talking about?

Seamus was holding a quill pen, looking down at his homework, his eyes unfocused, listening to Mrs. Pince and the others talking, his mind wandering.

"It can't be me, can it?"

(End of this chapter)