Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 362 Generous Christmas Gifts

Helga's Christmas gift box was filled with all sorts of precious potion ingredients, from plant and animal materials to rare gemstones and ores. Among them, there were several items that Rice could tell at a glance were from Helga's own collection, because these materials had long since disappeared and could only be produced by someone like Helga who lived a thousand years ago.

Among the most precious items are several plant samples that are now extinct.

Rice's storage had long since turned into a pile of rotten wood over the course of a thousand years, while the materials provided by Helga, who traveled directly from a thousand years ago, still had some use value.

This was priceless to Rice.

Looking at the materials in the box, Rice had to admit that Helga's move was quite sincere; she had successfully won his forgiveness.

After putting the box away, Rice suddenly realized a problem: could he try planting these things and see if he could achieve species resurrection?

He wasn't very knowledgeable about plant cultivation, but there were certainly people at Hogwarts who knew about it. He thought he could talk to Professor Sprout after the Christmas holidays.

Hufflepuff is also quite skilled in this kind of magic, but he's not really keen on seeing his old friend right now because Rice really doesn't want to work overtime during Christmas.

Rice knew exactly how many orders Helga owed. If he were to agree to Hufflepuff's request, he would be exhausted to the point of being a zombie for the next ten days or so.

The wizarding world is far more ruthless in its exploitation of people than Muggles are.

Muggle factory owners can only make their workers work a maximum of fifteen hours a day, but wizards, if they are determined, can easily work twenty-three hours a day with the help of potions.

As for the decline in success rate due to declining energy, that's not a problem in the face of the domain—if Rice wanted, he could make doll parts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The problem is he doesn't want to.

So he decided to enjoy the Christmas holiday first, and then go back to "work" for Helga after the holiday.

Rice continued unpacking the gifts he had received.

He was delighted when Rupert, who was far away in Diagon Alley, London, sent him a large box of sweets, pastries, cakes, and ice cream.

Hermione gave him a set of Muggle encyclopedias, which Rice treasured after a brief look, as it would help him better understand the Muggle world.

He never expected that Muggles would come up with such amazing things.

Daphne made him a snake king pillow, but to Rice it looked more like a crocodile without limbs. He could completely understand why Daphne made it so abstract, because normal people wouldn't stare at a snake king closely.

Astoria gifted him an exquisite gold potion-making kit. Judging from the feel of it, it was probably an alloy of gold and other metals; otherwise, given the hardness of pure gold, it would be impossible to use it for potion making.

All in all, the things these little guys gave him were quite to Rice's liking.

In the girls' dormitory not far away, Daphne was dragged out of bed by her younger sister.

"Sister, let's open the presents!" Astoria used a levitation spell to rush into her sister's dormitory with nearly a hundred packages. Unlike the solitary Rice, the two Greengrass sisters always received a lot of Christmas gifts from relatives, friends and other pure-blood families.

"Hmm..." Daphne was still half asleep. Wearing her pajamas, she climbed to the edge of her mountain of gifts, rubbed her sleepy eyes, and began to unwrap them.

"The Malfoys, the Notts, the Flints... It's so annoying! Are we even that close to them? Why do they send us so many random gifts every Christmas?" Daphne pulled six or seven ornately wrapped gifts from the hill and threw them aside.

"It's the etiquette of pure-blood families. Not giving a gift is considered impolite. My father sends them gifts every year," Astoria explained. She understood the families' ulterior motives; they all wanted to form a marriage alliance with her family. After all, their pursuit of pure-bloods had reached a fanatical level, and most of the offspring born in this generation of pure-blood families were boys. The Greengrass family, with its two daughters, was particularly prominent.

However, considering the behavior of those Slytherin boys, Astoria also disdainfully threw the pure-blood family gifts into a corner of the dormitory.

These items will be sent home all at once, and they will sell whatever they can. The money from selling the gifts will be used to cover the cost of return gifts next year.

Besides the ceremonial gifts from the pure-blood family, there are also many gifts from relatives and the father's friends, which they will also open and look at, but they are given a very low priority.

The gift they most wanted to open was instead buried at the very bottom.

The two quickly located the small silver-green package in their respective mountain of gifts, took it out, and tore open the outer packaging.

Two small bags appeared in front of Daphne, while Astoria had only one.

Astoria: ?

Daphne: (*￣︶￣)

"Maybe Rice accidentally packed an extra one~" Daphne was overjoyed to see that she had one more gift than her sister.

Astoria took a deep breath, comforting herself: one of the gifts must be for her sister to improve her brainpower; if she delays any longer, she'll miss the best time to do so.

Daphne tore open the first bag, and a necklace rolled out.

With her sharp eyes, she immediately recognized it as the same necklace that Rice had given her before, which was imbued with both offensive and defensive magic, and could even trigger a life-saving spell in a critical moment.

My previous one was damaged in Egypt, and I thought it was gone forever, but Rice sent me another one.

Looking at the necklace her sister had received, Astoria suddenly felt a pang of regret: she should have challenged her sister to a duel before she received the necklace. Her sister couldn't use the spell on the necklace, but she could—wouldn't that have been a guaranteed win?

After happily putting the necklace around her neck, Daphne opened the second package, and a brooch inlaid with a teardrop-shaped amethyst appeared in front of her.

Daphne frowned slightly: she sensed a dangerous aura emanating from the amethyst in the brooch.

Astoria also discovered the problem.

"Sister, this thing seems extraordinary. Upon closer inspection, the magical fluctuations within it are terrifying. I have a feeling that if you were to unleash what's inside, the entire Slytherin House common room would be destroyed."

Daphne nodded, noticing a note attached to the small package. It warned her not to misbehave in the lounge or other parts of the school, and to only try it in the secret chamber. The water droplets within the amethyst, once magically activated, would transform into a vast ocean.

Daphne: !

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The second update is here!

The next update won't be until late at night, everyone go to sleep now~

(End of this chapter)