Chapter 31: Intruders

Chapter 31: Intruders

The week before Christmas, snow began to fall in most parts of Britain.

Jon occasionally went over to Hagrid's in his spare time to spend some time sitting over there with black tea and biscuits, watching the snow fall outside the wagon.

But most of the remaining time was still spent in the wagon studying. Read latest chapters at nov(e)lbin.com Only

He had already surpassed Slughorn's original expectations with the Occlumency and had already built a rudimentary 'wall' in his head before Christmas.

Although he couldn't yet build a false memory outside the wall to make the magic more advanced, he still met Slughorn's initial teaching requirements.

Slughorn did not intend to start teaching how to use the ring before Christmas, and gave Jon a week of holiday, telling him not to push himself so hard, and to combine work with rest, to not tire himself out by working hard.

Of course, Jon is also aware of such reasoning.

So he spent the week chatting with Neville and the others in the common room after dinner or playing chess, the entertainment for wizards was scarce, especially on the wagon, and with even the most famous sport in the wizarding world, Quidditch, not being held, the students had to find their own entertainment.

After a few games of wizard's chess, which is essentially chess that moves on verbal commands, Jon found it boring and used Hagrid's help to find a number of stones of the right size on the road while the wagon was in motion, then went to Professor Flitwick for help in cutting the stones into squares of the same size using his superior Severing Charm, and then Jon carved circles and other patterns on the square stones as he remembered them. He used the English alphabet and words instead of Chinese to make a simple mahjong set.

Of course, it would have been easier to make a set of mahjong directly by using the Transformation Magic, but it was simply not possible for Jon to remember the patterns on every single mahjong piece clearly, and there was still a time limit on the duration of the Transformation Magic, so it took him three days of effort to make a set of mahjong with an incomplete number of pieces.

The rules of mahjong are very simple, in fact, there are many mahjong enthusiasts in the United Kingdom and from time to time a few tournaments are organised, but the rules are somewhat different from those in China.

But of course, mahjong was not introduced in the wizarding world, and the set that Jon had made was probably the first mahjong set created by a British wizard.

After just a few rounds of hands-on play, while recounting the rules to Neville, Ron and the two, they all basically figured out how to play this type of square tile.

The five freshmen then quit wizard's chess altogether and indulged in playing square tiles in the common room every day after class.

"Two circles."

In the warmth of the common room, Lavender hesitated for a long time before pointing her wand at one of the tiles in front of her and using a levitation charm to make it fly to the centre of the table on its own.

It was only after Filch had gathered all the students on the wagon that Jon and the others realised what was going on.

Someone had broken into the unmarked and locked room again!

This time the intruder had been clever enough not to reveal anything, but after what had happened last time, Filch had asked Professor Flitwick to cast a small spell on every door that did not allow students to enter privately and whenever a door was opened, it would definitely leave a mark on it.

Now Filch had apparently found a mark on one of the doors, and he did not hesitate to report it to Professor McGonagall.

This was no small matter; the rooms that students were not allowed to enter privately were either housed with some dangerous magical creatures or plants, such as Thestrals or contained some magical items brought from Hogwarts Castle that were dangerous but also equally valuable.

Now that these rooms had been broken into twice in a row without a sound, it is definitely time to find out the truth.

After frowning at all the students in the room, McGonagall's stern voice rang out through the great hall.

"I believe this may have been an innocent action on the part of someone who was not trying to steal anything, but just broke in by accident. Now, as long as this individual comes forward and admits guilt, I will not punish them too severely."

McGonagall had always been very authoritative among the students, and no one would doubt what she said.

But the students at the scene were all looking at each other, and no one had any intention of coming forward to take responsibility for the incident.

After seeing this scene, Professor McGonagall's frown deepened.

"Filch, please make one more trip and invite Filius over for me."

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