Hogwarts: Bourne Returns from Warhammer

Chapter 113 The Khan arrives and the professor is summoned
For Bourne, Christmas actually means a day at the end of December when the only thing worth looking forward to is those interesting gifts.

As for daily exercise and study, Bourne is not prepared to interrupt it for a mere vacation.

As usual, he climbed out of bed early, washed up, and ran out of the castle gate with Ruth, who had also just woken up.

Strangely enough, the main door of Hogwarts has the classic "triple door" structure - the innermost heavy iron gate, the iron-hooped oak middle door covered with leather, and one side that can be raised high with scaffolding. , suspension bridge type exterior door.

Even the outer door of the drawbridge no longer rises, but remains flat outside the castle gate like a huge doormat.

But even if there are two doors left, they are still not easy to open by one person. What's more, Filch can't do magic (and he doesn't have the body of an Astartes). The old man has to fight wits and courage with the little wizards who wander at night every night, and he usually can't get up that early in the morning.

But on Christmas Day, Byrne learned the answer to the mystery.

Perhaps because of the festival, a group of headless knight ghosts arrived a little later than usual and rushed to the castle's spacious entrance hall to complete their assembly.

When the Gubralite fairy fire descended from the brazier, Bourne saw that they seemed to have received some kind of instruction and launched a charge towards the gate of the castle. And the two heavy doors opened on their own at the same time.

"Amazing magic." Bourne sighed, and followed the knights whose figures became hazy because they were bathed in the morning sun, and walked out of the gate of Hogwarts.

He took Ruth to complete a lap around the lake as usual, and met Hagrid halfway. The warden and key keeper of the Hogwarts Forbidden Forest actually got up early on the festival day.

According to Hagrid, he had also just returned from the school's public owl shed, which was an important job he had to do every year.

Because on Christmas Day, the owls borrowed by the students would fly across the windy and snowy sky to deliver gifts, going through a lot of hardships. Hagrid must take good care of these hard-working postmen and feed the owls more supplements, otherwise they will pass easily.

At the same time, Hagrid also revealed a piece of news to Bourne: the Weasley twins were punished yesterday and were assigned by Professor McGonagall before returning home from vacation to clean the public washrooms for the day because they enchanted some snowballs. , letting them chase Quirrell around and smash the turban around his head.

"Two pure-blooded Gryffindors." Hagrid said of the two Weasley boys. At the same time, some water bubbles appeared in the center of the black lake, maybe the big squid inside heard it.

Bourne just smiled at this, and after saying goodbye to Hagrid, he returned to the hall of the castle.

Even during the holidays, the house elves at Hogwarts are still working. Even because there were few people eating today, they worked a little harder and made a richer and more varied breakfast for the little wizards who stayed in school.

There was a huge copper basin on the long table, which contained dozens of fat roasted turkeys. It was accompanied by mountains of roasted meats and boiled potatoes, large plates of delicious sausages, and bowls of butter. peas, plates of thick, thick barbecue sauce and lingonberry sauce. In addition to the main meal, the refreshments for this breakfast are equally hard-core: turkey sandwiches, toast, wine-soaked jam pudding and Christmas cakes, all of which are spread around the table.

"Eating chicken in the morning might be a good sign," Bourne said to himself, and he actually made himself laugh.

Unlike Ruth's habitual, vengeful eating state, Bourne didn't eat particularly much today. Because he thought that when he opened Christmas gifts later, he might also receive some interesting magical food, he planned to save some for his stomach.

Sure enough, when he returned to the Gryffindor common room, he saw that there were already piles of gifts under the Christmas tree in the lobby.

Just like Hagrid said, the Hogwarts owl went through a lot of trouble to bring back a lot of gifts. What he saw was only a gift from Gryffindor House. At a glance, there were dozens of large and small gift boxes.

Harry and Ron were already up and looking forward to the presents.

Both of them were just wearing dressing gowns and looked sleepy. When they saw Bourne, they said hello: "Merry Christmas, Bourne."

"I also wish you a happy holiday." Bourne called them over. "Come and take a look. Here are your gifts, each pile has the recipient's label!"

"Gift?" Harry was not expecting much. He had lived at his aunt's house for so many years and had never received a few decent gifts.

Ron felt a little strange about his good friend's attitude: "Then what did you expect to receive? Cabbage?"

He happily ran to the Christmas tree and checked his own gift package. But to be honest, it was a lot more than Harry's pile.

Harry picked up the paper package on top of his pile of gifts. It was wrapped in thick brown paper, with "Hagrid to Harry" written in flying colors on it. Inside was a crudely made flute, obviously made by Hagrid himself. Harry blew - the sound was a bit like an owl's hoot.

The second small paper packet contained a note. "We received your letter with your Christmas present. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia."

Attached to the note with Scotch tape was a fifty pence coin.

"It's an interesting way of giving a gift," said Byrne. "Your aunt and uncle look like the senders of letters before Rowland Hill invented the stamp - worried that the recipient wouldn't be able to pay the postage. In addition to writing a letter, you also need to pay postage along with it.”

"Quite friendly." Harry said with a shrug. He knew that Bourne might have said this just to give him a step down.

This gift is really embarrassing.

However, Ron, who didn't know much about Muggle society, was quite interested in this hexagonal 50 pence.

"How weird!" he said, "Such a shape! Is this the money Muggles usually use?"

"You keep it," Harry said, and couldn't help laughing when he saw Ron's ecstatic look. "It's from Hagrid, it's from my aunt and uncle - and who is it from?"

"I think I know who this is from," said Ron, blushing slightly and pointing to a large, bulging paper package.

"Probably my mum. I said to her, you didn't think you were going to get a gift - oh no," he groaned, "she must have knitted you one of those Weasley sweaters." .”

Harry opened the paper package and saw a thick mint green hand-knitted sweater and a large box of homemade fudge.

"She knits us a sweater every year," Ron said, opening his own paper bag. "Mine is always fuchsia."

"She's so nice," Harry said, tasting another piece of fudge and finding it very sweet. Referring to the fudge made by Hagrid that can stick to people's mouth, Mrs. Weasley's craftsmanship is really beyond words.

At this moment, Bourne also pulled out a large paper package from his pile of gifts.

"I think all three of us received a present from Mrs. Weasley, which is quite..."

As he spoke, he also opened his paper bag and took out a sweater from inside. Its background color is dark blue, with some classic Gryffindor red and yellow colors on the front, and an "S" pattern with the initials of Bourne's surname on the chest.

"...so cool!"

The color of this sweater, coupled with the big lightning-shaped "S" mark, made Harry almost unable to believe his eyes.

"Merlin's beard! Bourne, you have become Superman!" Harry joked with Bourne with a smile.

Then, he told Ron what he meant by "Superman". As soon as they talked about cartoons, the children were no longer sleepy. After talking for seven or eight minutes, Harry realized that they had other gifts to open. As the daughter of a dentist, Hermione sent all three of them a large box of horseshoe-shaped brand-name liqueur chocolates as Christmas gifts - it was hard not to wonder if she was cultivating potential customers (bushi) for her father's dental clinic.

Ron prepared a set of chocolate frog pictures for each of Harry and Burn. Except for the rare "orange card", the rest of the cards were basically collected.

The gifts that Bourne prepared for Ron and Harry also arrived today. I don’t know which unlucky owls were responsible for delivering them, because he sent two sets of the same dragon skin protective gear of the England national team, which is very comfortable and heavy. Naturally it is quite touching.

Harry asked Hedwig to fly to Diagon Alley two days ago and order some pet products by mail: tonics for Ron's spotted mouse; nut snacks for Bourne's little Khan; and some for Ryan. Dried fish imported from France, as well as a Frisbee for Ruth to use for exercise.

Although Bourne felt weird and felt that Harry was implying that Ruth was too showy, he still expressed his gratitude for his gift.

Some other people also gave Bourne some gifts.

For example, in addition to custom-making a broomstick for him and leaving a large bottle of spiritual evocation potion, his Grandpa Horace also sent Bourne a set of high-end stationery produced by Literary Residence.

For another example, Nico Flamel, who had experienced an adventure with him last night, gave him an Alchemy Kabbah doll that was exactly the same size and shape as the one he saw yesterday afternoon.

Of course, Nico Flamel did not leave his name, but openly used the seriously untrue signature of "Fishing Master".

Moreover, the old wizard sent a small paper package along with the alchemy notes.

"It can't be a small piece of magic stone!"

With this expectation, Bourne carefully opened the paper package, only to see——

"Little Khan? Why are you..."

It turned out that when Nicoléme asked his wife to send mail for him, he also mailed the mixed-blood Niffler that Bourne had forgotten at his house.

It lay sleeping soundly in a soft little nest, and was sent to Hogwarts Castle in a paper bag with a vent for ventilation.

At this time, it seems that it has not yet woken up.

The confused little Khan drooped his eyelids and imitated other people's voices.

"That's true, that's true..."

I don’t know whether he was accusing Bourne of leaving it in someone else’s house, or scolding Bourne for waking it up.

Before Bourne could explain, the door to their dormitory was violently pushed open.

George and Fred were wearing new sweaters that their mother had knitted for them, holding bats given to them by Bourne, and they were making noises imitating the trolls who had recently become very peaceful in the Forbidden Forest.

"Merry Christmas!"

"Hey, look - Harry and Burn both got a Weasley sweater too!"

Fred and George were both wearing blue sweaters, one with a big, yellow "F" on it and the other with a big, yellow "G" on it.

It seems that Bourne's piece is the same style as the two of them. It may be that Mrs. Weasley specially prepared it for the three members of the team.

"I heard that you were caught by Snape last night?" After a moment of commotion, George asked a question.

Fred took out a map, which was the famous "Marauder's Map".

"I solemnly swear that I have done nothing wrong."

As he chanted the spell, lines popped up on the magic map, outlining every bit of Hogwarts Castle.

"what is this?"

Harry Potter asked curiously.

"This is the Marauder's Map," said George.

Fred also winked at Harry, "The main reason why we were able to fight Filch for so long was because of it."

George retorted: "Hey, you forgot our resourcefulness and tireless efforts."

"It's okay not to mention those things."

"Ha ha ha ha."

The twins laughed and briefly explained to Harry Potter and the others, and then asked how they discovered the secret passage.

"We are very confused, how did you discover the secret passage leading directly to Hogsmeade Village?" George asked curiously: "We have seen the Merlin sculpture before, but we didn't find any mechanism."

"So George and I wondered whether that secret passage appeared recently?" Fred added next to him, "If this is not a secret passage that only appears at a specific time, then this secret passage is someone else's. In other words, is it equivalent to us being able to leave our own exclusive secret passage in Hogwarts?"

The two brothers' ideas are very strange.

However, Bourne, who was listening on the sidelines, was thinking about another question: If this secret passage was really recently created by someone in Hogwarts Castle, then who could that person be?

While several young wizards were chatting, the eldest Weasley in Hogwarts Castle, Percy, the prefect of Gryffindor, suddenly walked into Bourne's dormitory.

"Harry, Ron, Merry Christmas. But I have some bad news to inform you. Professor Snape has asked you to go to the Potions office."

Harry: "..."

Ron: "..."

(End of this chapter)