days at Hogwarts

Chapter 677 Those Responses
The next morning, a cold wind howled and blew against the window frames.

In the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, the warm air vibrated with Harry's voice: "What does Professor Slughorn mean by asking me to find Dumbledore? Isn't it that the headmaster asked me to find a way to get his memory?"

Loren yawned and didn't respond.

From last night till now, he has repeated similar questions many times.

The roommates who stayed at school did not respond. Compared with the insignificant memory of Slughorn, the gift boxes and packages piled up at the bedside were more worth looking forward to. At the call of the gifts, several people opened the quilts, got out of bed, sat cross-legged on the carpet and began to open the gifts.

Loren pointed with his magic wand, and the colorful gift boxes bounced to the front and lined up. The tangled ribbons naturally stretched out, revealing the gifts and greeting cards inside.

Dumbledore's storybooks, Mrs. Weasley's hand-knitted sweaters, and Neville's snack gift boxes are all traditional Christmas items.

His classmates and friends all knew his preferences, and most of the gifts they gave him were snacks. In addition to the candies from Honeydukes, there were also some handmade cookies, such as the Christmas cakes and crunchy peanut flakes given by Mrs. Weasley, and the dried fruit shachima made by Wheat, Winky, and Dobby using their own salaries to buy the ingredients...

Looking at the newly opened Potions book, Loren was a little surprised. He did exchange gifts with Professor Snape in previous years, but he didn't expect that the professor would still find time to give him a Christmas present under such circumstances.

I was somewhat touched.

After a moment's thought, Loren took out his communicator and tentatively sent a holiday greeting.

Loren: "Merry Christmas, Professor Snape."

"..."

After waiting for a few minutes, there was no reply.

Loren hesitated for a moment, then used another communicator to send a message, and this time he received a reply quickly.

Loren: "Good morning! Say Merry Christmas to me!"

Hermione: "Merry Christmas."

My girlfriend is still considerate.

Loren nodded contentedly, put away the communicator, stretched his body with his hands raised, and went to the bathroom to wash up.

What, a gift from Hermione?
I wore that outfit yesterday. We are an old married couple, so there’s nothing special about it.

……

"Luolu and I have reconciled."

In the girls' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower, Lavender, who was dressing in front of the mirror, said to Hermione, her voice full of joy.

Hermione sat facing her made bed, listening in silence.

Lavender took out her summer skirt and gestured in front of her: "Those boys are always so casual about dating. Do you know Cormac McLaggen, the substitute player of the Quidditch team? At the beginning of this year, he invited Parvati to go on a date with him in Hogsmeade. After being rejected by Parvati, he invited Padma instead. As a result, I saw him kissing a Hufflepuff girl last night. Ronnie is different from them..."

The slightly plump girl smiled with an indulgent look on her face.

"He respects me and love very much. Maybe my confession before made him feel overwhelmed, so he dated me in a daze, but he soon came to his senses and explained everything to me." Lavender changed into another dress. "Those days were indeed very sad. Myrtle said that I cried more than her. But now it's different. He promised that we can start as friends, get along slowly, and get to know each other...

“We’ll be back together.

"What do you think, Hermione?"

Hermione missed Parvati terribly at the moment, but unfortunately she went home for Christmas, leaving the nerd alone to face this kind of situation. She could only bite the bullet and laugh dryly: "I know how to use a head-bubble spell to prevent you from getting frostbite, but it's best not to wear a skirt in this weather."

Lavender couldn't help laughing, her laughter was a little shrill: "You are still like this, Hermione, like a professor and a pedant. You know that's not what I'm asking."

Hermione looked helpless: "But I can't give you any useful advice. I'm not good at this."

"Yeah, you're not good at this."

Lavender fell silent again, her smile faded, and she took out normal winter clothes from the closet, including a soft cashmere sweater and a fleece-lined tweed coat, which were thick and warm.

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that her roommate seemed to have regained his sanity, and she walked out quietly.

At this time, my roommate's voice sounded somewhat emotional.

"You know, Hermione, you're lucky."

The dormitory fell into an inexplicable silence. Hermione had never experienced anything like this before. She felt like she should say something comforting, but she wasn't sure how to put it.

It was not until Lavender took out several scarves to choose from in order to avoid the cold wind blowing on her neck that Hermione said goodbye dryly, then went out in a panic, crossed the corridor, and went down the stairs one by one.

Hermione came to the common room, slowed down her pace, and slowly sat down on the sofa.

New firewood had been added to the fireplace, and the flame was lit. The warm air gradually spread throughout the room, while outside the window was a silvery white.

Looking at the flickering flames, Hermione's eyes were a little dazed, until the crisp sound of the firewood crackling woke her up, she realized that she did not take out her notes or books to recite as usual.

When did you develop this habit?
I get up in the morning, wash up, sit here and read to kill time.

Oh, it’s to wait to meet up with someone and have breakfast together.

In fact, there are times when the roles are reversed. If I stayed up late reading the night before and got up a little later, I would see Loren sitting here when I went downstairs. He would check her eyes with a serious face to see if there were any red bloodshot or dark circles.

If the symptoms were obvious, he would probably scold her in the name of her mother.

Sometimes he would comb his own hair. At first his technique was not very good and he would pull out a lot of hair, but later he became proficient.

"..."

The corners of Hermione's mouth curled up into a smile, and a warm current gradually flowed out from her heart and filled her entire body.

The fire in the fireplace burned more and more vigorously. Students who got up early walked by and were not surprised to see her. Occasionally, they met someone they knew and greeted each other. The sound of footsteps made the common room seem quiet.

The goblin silver coin in the pendant suddenly vibrated twice. Hermione subconsciously took out the communicator, looked at the incomprehensible sentence on it, and didn't find it strange. She replied with a holiday greeting.

After waiting for a few more minutes, I heard familiar footsteps on the wooden steps.

Hermione looked up and saw the figure of her lover.

Of course she knew she was lucky, she had known it a long time ago.

She did not ignore this good fortune, but responded very hard.

……

Portraits lining the hallways and stairways shouted “Merry Christmas” to every student who passed by.

This was a very common pastime, or prank, but there was a boy with black hair and black eyes who responded to the people in the portraits in a serious manner, and occasionally called out a few of the portraits' names and nicknames when they were alive, making them laugh.

There was a beautiful girl next to the boy, holding his hand and occasionally showing a helpless expression.

"So Neville is the only one in your dormitory who went home?"

"Yes."

"very nice……"

"What's good about it?" Loren muttered to himself, "Harry spent a lot of time talking about Slughorn and Dumbledore last night, and he was still talking about them when he woke up in the morning. Tsk!"

"About that memory?" "Yeah, I wonder what Dumbledore's plan is." Loren paused, thinking about the current situation, and decided to do something. "After breakfast, I want to go to the principal's office to have a good talk with Dumbledore. Do you want to come with me?"

"I'm going to the kitchen to see Xiaomai and Shanshan and the others, and then I'm going to talk to Professor Bubaji."

"I'm sad. In your heart, I'm not as important as a house elf."

"You're crazy." Hermione couldn't help but hit him.

……

Principal's office.

Loren dropped a sugar cube into his teacup.

Darjeeling black tea is produced in the Darjeeling Plateau at the foot of the Himalayas. It has abundant sunshine, a large temperature difference between day and night, and the valley is filled with clouds all year round, which breeds the unique fragrance of tea. The tea soup is orange-yellow, fragrant, and has a delicate and soft taste. In short, it is very expensive.

Adding sugar to such precious tea is considered rude and indecent because it will destroy the original grape aroma of the tea, but the two people drinking tea now don’t care, and the old man with white beard even thinks that one sugar is too little.

Dumbledore took a sip of the teacup, savored it for a moment, and put another candy in the cup: "Do you like my Christmas gift to you?"

"The storybook?"

Loren recalled the title of the book and said very sincerely, "It's called 'Oops, I Deformed My Foot', right? I haven't had time to read it yet."

"It's not a storybook, it's a play. It was created by the French wizard Malekli in the early 15th century. The plot itself is not very interesting, but when they performed it publicly, there was a big commotion and the entire theater was almost burned down. As a result, it became famous and became a best-seller."

Noticing his slightly wrinkled nose, Dumbledore chuckled and changed the subject: "Why didn't you spend Christmas with Hermione and came to see me in a hurry? What's the matter?"

"Regarding Professor Slughorn's memory, Harry tried it last night..." Loren recounted what happened last night, paused, and said carefully, "I may be able to provide some information, but I may not be able to explain the source of the information."

Dumbledore smiled and said, "Although I don't know what others think of me, I am not the kind of old wizard who wants to know everything."

"I think so."

"So, what do you want to tell me, Loren?"

Loren looked into the old headmaster's eyes and said solemnly, "Voldemort created a total of six Horcruxes."

"I know."

"you know?"

"He firmly believed that 7 was a magical number, so he made 6 Horcruxes, including his own, and split his soul into 7 pieces."

Dumbledore looked at his surprised expression and smiled. "Horace drank a lot of wine after hearing about Voldemort's attack on the Ministry of Magic. He couldn't bear the torment in his heart that night, so he came to me to share his memories of that year."

"No wonder Slughorn asked Harry to find you..."

"Oh, I forgot to inform Harry about this."

"..."

Loren narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at the old principal with a white beard.

I don't believe you, you and the old man are very bad. You must be thinking of some training plan to train Harry to face difficulties and let him learn something.

"I have another piece of news."

"what?"

"The Horcrux that has not been destroyed in the end is a living Horcrux. In other words, he consciously placed his soul in a certain creature."

"Yeah……"

Dumbledore was not as surprised as expected. He seemed to have confirmed his own guess. Behind the crescent-shaped lenses, his deep blue eyes showed a thoughtful look.

Loren guessed that the headmaster might have thought of Harry's situation, and he deliberately ignored Harry when he mentioned the information about the Horcruxes. After all, the professor himself had speculated that there was a fragment of Voldemort's soul hidden in Harry's scar.

Sometimes he wondered if the number 7 really had some kind of magic.

The diary, Gaunt ring, locket, golden cup, crown and living Horcrux, six Horcruxes plus Voldemort's main soul, a total of seven soul fragments. However, Harry's mother's ancient magic rebounded the Killing Curse, giving birth to an unexpected soul fragment, and Voldemort ended up in failure.

However, due to his intervention, some changes occurred in the plot.

If we don't interfere in Nagini's affairs, the battle plan will go more smoothly.

Forget it, there is no point in dwelling on these things, if we can save them we should save them...

Fawkes's cry woke them up from their thoughts. Dumbledore came back to his senses and said thoughtfully, "I remembered something. Voldemort and the werewolf stayed in Ilvermorny for so long, perhaps to make the last living Horcrux."

"Professor, you really don't want to ask the source of the information?"

"Well... I am indeed curious and confused, but I know you don't want to talk about it yet, so I don't intend to ask further."

"why?"

“Then there are many reasons.”

Dumbledore looked at the little wizard in front of him and remembered that when he first came to the headmaster's office, he also brought unexpected news.

That was six years ago.

The reasons for trust are complicated, because you want to deal with Voldemort, because you want to help Harry, and because you always trust this weird old man like me...

Because you are Loren Morgan.

……

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.

The Dursleys are celebrating Christmas.

The hostess Penny took out the ingredients from the refrigerator early and prepared the family's Christmas dinner little by little according to the cooking methods taught on the TV show. Even Vernon got involved, entering the kitchen from time to time to do some trivial work.

The meal was undoubtedly hearty, with thick soup bubbling in the pot since morning.

Dudley was distracted by the aroma wafting through the house and couldn't concentrate on playing games. In order to appease their baby son, all kinds of snacks that were usually limited were available today.

During such a wonderful festival, the Dursley family truly felt happy.

dong dong dong...

“Who’s coming to visit today?”

When Petunia heard a knock on the door, she took a towel to wipe her wet hands, then opened the door of the Dursleys' house with confusion.

Seeing someone coming to the door, Penny widened her eyes:

"you you!"

(End of this chapter)