Hogwarts: Voldemort, don't stop me from studying

Chapter 52 Professor Murray's Party

Steven was probably assigned by his father to entertain the guest at the party, namely Wade. He accompanied the little wizard all the time and did not seem impatient. However, the huge height difference between the two sides obviously made the guests who saw them feel very funny. From time to time, someone looked at them and laughed.

Steven pretended not to see anything and accompanied Wade to visit the Alsophila garden.

The garden was neatly maintained and clean, and the long pale yellow table was filled with a variety of food and drinks for guests to help themselves.

The party was held around a fountain with a mermaid statue in the center - the kind of mermaid that was very beautiful in legend, with a graceful figure and a glittering fish tail, and moving chants coming out of its mouth.

There were also small dancer statues on the stone railings around them, dancing tirelessly, with small golden balls of light waving around as they spun. Wade reached out and gently touched a ball of light, which was popped like a bubble, and his fingers felt a slight coolness.

The green grass around it is freshly trimmed, like a green carpet. Various kinds of flowers are planted around the fountain and in the flower beds. The clusters of blooming flowers are crowded together, which looks particularly gorgeous. Some flowers can only be seen in spring and summer, but they bloom here regardless of the season.

On both sides of the road, there are some tall trees with crowns like giant umbrellas. This is the origin of the name of the "Altha Garden" - Alsophila. Steven proudly introduced this plant to him. Its history can be traced back to at least 200 million years ago, earlier than the dinosaurs. It is a real living fossil. The Murray family has a house elf who is responsible for taking care of these Alsophila trees.

Halfway through the tour, a paper crane flew over and suddenly opened its mouth to speak in Professor Murray's voice: "Steven, bring Wade to the small stone platform."

"Okay." Steven responded, and the paper crane landed on his shoulder. He suddenly tilted his head, as if looking at Wade next to him.

Steven saw Wade staring at the paper crane and said with a smile, "This is my father's work. He once went to Japan to exchange ideas with the magic school and found that the students there liked to fold these small paper cranes. After returning, he began to use paper cranes to send messages. Later, it was introduced to the Ministry of Magic, but they thought paper cranes were too troublesome, so they changed them to paper airplanes - they are neither flexible, nor can they speak, nor are they beautiful. The only advantage is that they are very cheap."

"Ministry of Magic?" Wade thought for a moment and asked, "So before paper airplanes, what did they use to pass messages?"

A two-way mirror is too expensive, it can't be the Floo network, right?

"Use owls." Steven said with a smile: "You can imagine - dozens of owls flying around the office, or filling the elevator, with feces and feathers everywhere - I saw it once when I was a child, it was a disaster."

Wade finally understood why his tone unconsciously carried contempt for the Ministry of Magic - anyone who had seen those officials being troubled by owl droppings would probably not respect them.

The small stone platform is a small garden with a foundation two or three feet higher. It has white marble steps, lavender peach-leaf bell-shaped flowers fluttering in the wind, delphiniums and geraniums scattered around, and mosses climbing up the brick walls. The air is exceptionally fresh and pleasant.

In the garden, there were only five or six people besides Professor Murray, all of whom were dressed in gorgeous clothes and looked distinguished. When they heard the voice, they all turned their heads to look over.

Everyone's actions were very consistent. They first saw the tall Steven, then looked down and found Wade, who looked like a dwarf compared to the former.

"Oh, Wade, my child!" Professor Murray came over happily, completely ignoring his real child. He directly put his hand on Wade's shoulder and took him to the crowd: "This is my new student this year - a real student - Wade Gray!"

Everyone nodded and smiled at Wade. A man with brown curly hair complimented him, "It seems that this child must be extremely talented. To be appreciated by you at such a young age."

Professor Murray nodded and said, "He is only a freshman, but his alchemy level has surpassed yours when you graduated, Marchionne."

The others burst into laughter. Apparently, everyone knew that although this man named Marchionne had chosen alchemy, his level was really not very good. He probably gave Professor Murray a headache when he was in school. Marchionne chuckled, not embarrassed, and looked at Wade seriously.

Professor Murray seemed to find the previous sentence unconvincing, so he immediately gave another example: "This child relied on self-study to memorize the entire contents of the "Magic Phonetic Table", "Magic Symbol Collection", "Runic Dictionary", and "Ancient Magical Codex Simple Introduction" - in just two months!"

"Oh——"

Now everyone finally understood the importance of "gifted talent". Most of them had taken ancient magic classes or even alchemy classes, and knew how difficult it was to remember those crooked symbols and strange syllables.

If nothing else, this child's memory and diligence have surpassed 99 percent of people.

"Not only that—"

Professor Murray spoke in a long tone with pride, deliberately putting the most important part at the end, and several people cooperated by pretending to listen with great interest.

Vader watched silently.

Although he didn't know the identities of these people, he obviously saw Professor Murray's status very clearly.

"He has only studied with me for more than a month, and he has already made his first work! I swear, he completed it completely on his own, and I didn't give him any instructions on how to write a single letter!"

Professor Murray boasted loudly, and in a manner like revealing the winning lottery numbers, he slowly took out a brand new copy of the Book of Friends, hung it in the middle of the crowd, and asked with a suppressed smile, "Can you guess what it's used for?"

"Book of Friends?"

Several people looked at each other, and gathered around the Book of Friends in an orderly manner. They took out their wands one by one to check it. The Book of Friends was covered by various lights again and again.

However, Professor Murray had cast a protective spell on this Book of Friends, and ordinary detection spells were unable to detect the magical structure within it.

Soon two people gave up. They were not interested in the kid in the first place and did not think that he could make any amazing alchemical products. They just followed suit to flatter him in order to please Professor Murray.

The others tested it for a while, and the man named Marchionne's eyes suddenly lit up. He picked up a leaf and turned it into a feather pen, and wrote a line on the paper.

【Money is a bottomless sea, I want to swim in it. 】

Then he flipped the pages quickly, and the more he flipped, the more fanatical his expression became. The people around him didn't take it seriously at first, but then their eyes widened and they kept swallowing.

Professor Murray smiled as if everything was under control.

(End of this chapter)