Chapter 162： A few things before the holiday

Chapter 162 A few things before the holiday

If there's anything that's most depressing, it's coming close.

However, sometimes, a little is a lot worse.

Ravenclaw House failed to pick up the slack in the end, and until the day of the year-end banquet, it still ranked second in the House Cup with a five-point gap. It would definitely be a lie to say that Ravenclaw students are not depressed.

 That evening, Albert went to the auditorium with his roommates to attend the year-end banquet.

The Great Hall has been finely decorated with the red and gold colors representing Gryffindor, and a huge banner depicting the Gryffindor Lion hangs on the wall behind the guest chair.

The Gryffindor students were all talking loudly, their words filled with joy and confidence in winning the House Cup.

Compared with Gryffindor, the students of their next-door neighbor Slytherin were not at all happy. It's no wonder that they can't be happy. Slytherin House has won the House Cup for four consecutive years, and unexpectedly... it was broken like this, and they lost to Gryffindor, whom they hate the most. It's strange that they can be in a good mood.

The Ravenclaw students were probably in the most complicated moods and the most depressed. They were only a few points away from the championship. The Ravenclaws were sorry that no one missed the spot, but they were also happy to see Slytherin. The fiasco.

As for the Hufflepuff students, they haven’t won the House Cup for a long time, so they don’t pay much attention to it. Anyway, seeing Slytherin, who doesn’t like fair competition, lose miserably is something worth celebrating.

Not long after, Dumbledore arrived in a hurry. He stood on the podium and raised his hand to signal everyone to keep quiet, and the noise in the auditorium gradually subsided.

"Another year has passed!" Dumbledore said happily. "Before you enjoy the delicious food, you definitely don't like to listen to my old man's nonsense. However, we still need to conduct the Academy Cup award ceremony. The specific details of each academy The scores are as follows: fourth place, Slytherin, two hundred and fifty points; third place, Hufflepuff, three hundred and ninety-five points; second place, Ravenclaw, four hundred and thirty-nine points, One, Gryffindor, four hundred and forty-four points."

At this moment, a thunderous cheer erupted from the Gryffindor table, the sound was deafening, and some students shouted themselves hoarse with excitement.

Fred, George and Lee Jordan all stood up with the crowd, cheering and applauding loudly. Albert was also clapping vigorously, pretending to be excited. But mentally he couldn't help but mutter, "What an unlucky score."

Lee Jordan cheered, nudged Albert with his elbow, and raised his hand to point to his next door neighbor. The Slytherin students had ugly expressions on their faces, as if they had just been punched in the nose.

 In the auditorium, except for the Slytherin students, everyone was applauding, whether they were celebrating Gryffindor's victory or Slytherin's defeat.

 Professor McGonagall at the guest of honor also stood up and shook hands with Professor Snape, with a cheerful smile on his face.

 The dinner was full of delicious food. During the meal, Fred and George invited Albert to visit their home during the summer vacation.

Unfortunately, this invitation was declined by Albert, because their family already had their own summer vacation plans. Herb wrote to Albert a while ago and told Albert that the family was going to France for the summer vacation.

Fred and George felt sorry for this, they had always wanted to thank Albert for saving them, and the Weasleys apparently had similar thoughts.

 At the dinner, everyone had a good meal, except Fred and George.

 After all, it is easy to feel sleepy after eating and drinking enough. If they miss tonight's revenge action, they will never have the chance to retaliate against Filch this semester. This is obviously not a situation the Weasley brothers want to see.

 It was hard to endure it until Gryffindor won the House Cup. Finally, there was nothing to worry about anymore. How could we give up?

 After twelve o'clock, Fred and George took action. With the help of Albert's Disillusionment Spell, they first made some noise in the castle and attracted Filch, who was about to rest, to the armored corridor on the fourth floor of the castle.

Then, George took the opportunity to sneak into Filch's office and smeared the bottle of garlic-scented beeswax on the corner of Filch's office. Not to mention, the smell was really pungent, and the effect was even more amazing than the dung eggs. .

After all, you can still see the source of the smell, but once the beeswax is smeared in the corner, you can't even find it, let alone remove the source of the smell. In just a moment, the entire office and Filch's bedroom are covered It was filled with a pungent smell of garlic.

After Fred discovered through the Marauder's Map that George had returned to the Gryffindor common room, he immediately evacuated, leaving Filch behind who was still searching for their whereabouts on the fourth floor.

 After realizing that he had been tricked, Filch returned to the dormitory to rest angrily.

When Filch opened the wooden door of his office, he was immediately shuddered by the strong smell of garlic. He rushed into his office angrily, trying to find the source of the smell.

For a moment, Filch’s angry roar echoed in the administrator’s office. As for his wife, Mrs. Norris, she stayed away from the administrator’s office that smelled of garlic.

 “Tell me, is this going to get a little too big?” George turned his head and said to Fred after hearing Filch’s roar.

“If I were you, I would get rid of the smell of garlic first, so as not to attract suspicion on your heads.” Albert quietly appeared in the lounge, reminding the two people who were discussing.

“Oh, you’re right!” George also smelled the smell of garlic on his hands and hurriedly ran to wash his hands.

 The next morning, news of Filch's retaliation spread throughout the castle, and everyone was speculating on who was responsible for making the smell of garlic everywhere in Filch's office.

However, no one sympathized with the administrator, and more of them were gloating about his misfortune.

 Albert and his party also pretended that they did not know about this matter. In fact, they focus more on the final exam results.

Hogwarts will announce the students’ final exam results on the last day.

"Look, you are indeed the first in this class." Fred nudged Albert with his elbow and said with a smile.

“Your grades are also very good.”

 Fred, George and Lee Jordan all passed with high marks.

“I had guessed that you would be number one.” Shanna smiled and walked over to talk to Albert, “However, I think Katrina must be very angry.”

Albert smiled and shrugged his shoulders, saying that there was nothing he could do.

He himself doesn't really feel anything about getting first place. This is just the kind of students in this class. First place seems to be nothing to be proud of. His goal is to complete the panel task. Fortunately, "in the name of genius" and "all aspects" The mission of "crushing" has been completed.

　　Although Katrina said she wanted to compete with herself to see who had better results, and was ultimately rejected by Albert, the competition seemed to be effective, at least in terms of the panel's judgment.

 Katrina won the second place this year. She was also excellent in all aspects, but she was still a little behind Albert in terms of scores.

At this moment, Katrina, who was also standing in the crowd checking her results, was staring at Albert with extremely annoyed eyes.

She was angry, angry with herself, angry that she lost to the guy who didn't even study for the final exam.

While everyone was still discussing the test results enthusiastically, Professor McGonagall appeared with a pile of notices.

 She asked the freshmen to sign a pledge, promising that they would abide by the "Reasonable Restraint of Minor Wizards" outside of school.

 After signing, a notice was sent to everyone, and everyone was warned not to use magic during the holidays.

"I really hope they forgot to send this to us." Fred Weasley shook the notice in his hand regretfully. It was a torture not being able to use magic during the holidays.

"You don't have to worry at all. In a wizard's family, the Ministry of Magic can't figure out who is using magic, so even if you use magic at home, you won't be warned by the Ministry of Magic." Albert curled his lips and explained. . "As long as you use magic in a place like Diagon Alley, where wizards are densely populated, the Ministry of Magic cannot determine whether you are using magic, because Tracer can only locate and monitor whether anyone is using magic within a certain range around you."

 “You know it very well?” Shanna was a little surprised that Albert actually knew these things.

"Of course he knows." Lee Jordan couldn't help but laugh, "After all, someone has been tricked by him."

 “Someone?”

“Truman of Hufflepuff,” Fred reminded kindly, “So as long as we stay at home, we can use magic without any scruples?”

“That’s right, as long as you are at home, students born as pure-blood wizards can only rely on the conscious supervision of their families.” Albert said disdainfully, feeling slightly dissatisfied that he could not use magic during the summer vacation.

"According to what you said, the Ministry of Magic relies on traces to determine whether we use magic, but when did they..." Zanna asked in confusion, "Did they secretly use traces for us?"

 “Use it secretly?” Albert’s expression was a little strange, “No.”

"there is nothing?"

 “Didn’t you just sign the magic contract?” Albert reminded.

 “You mean...the promise letter?” Not only Shanna, but others also understood what was going on.

"According to the information I got from Professor Brod, the letter of commitment we just signed belongs to a magical contract, also known as a trace. Of course, there are loopholes in that thing."

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? If you had known about it, you wouldn’t have signed it.” Lee Jordan looked depressed.

 “Don’t sign?” Albert repeated softly, “Can you not sign?”

 “What if we ruin the date?” Fred asked curiously.

"The Ministry of Magic will know immediately and send an owl to warn you."

 “What’s the loophole?” George was more curious about this matter.

"It can't figure out who used magic." Albert gave a simple example, "If you live in a community full of Muggles, and when someone uses magic around you, then the Ministry of Magic will detect it after , will think you are using magic.

“Is this how you tricked Truman back then?” Fred asked curiously.

"Yes, this is the loophole I'm talking about. The Ministry of Magic can monitor your location through traces. When you are in Diagon Alley or staying at home, and someone is using magic around you, the Ministry of Magic cannot determine who is using it. Magic, because the wizards in Diagon Alley and your family may use magic."

“That’s great, so we don’t have to worry about being discovered by the Ministry of Magic when we use magic.” Fred and George high-fived.

“But you need to worry about your family finding out.” Lee Jordan said angrily.

Everyone returned to the dormitory to pack their things, only to find that their closets were empty and everything was packed into their suitcases.

“The house elves should have helped clean it up.” Fred explained to everyone.

“Guessed it.” Albert nodded, “Let’s go, don’t miss the train.”

When everyone was dragging their luggage to the foyer, Filch suddenly jumped out of the hidden corridor, stared at Albert and the others with two bright red eyes, and said hoarsely: "You did it, right?"

 The four of them looked at each other, all pretending to be "I don't know what you're talking about."

“Don’t think I don’t know, it’s definitely you who made that garlic smell in my office.”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about!” the twins said in unison.

“We went to bed very early last night.” Li Qiaodan coughed slightly and defended. I don’t know if the Weasley brothers are included in our group here.

 Albert spread his hands helplessly, indicating that he had no idea about the matter.

 “You grow garlic!” Filch’s eyes flashed with anger.

“That’s what you said!” Fred said with a smile, with the same expression as before: “Last time, Albert made it into garlic scrambled eggs, and it tasted pretty good.”

“If you don’t believe it, you can ask the house elf.” George added, “The house elf cooked that dish.”

The four of them passed by Filch, who had a look of astonishment on his face. They suppressed their laughter and boarded the carriage to head for the Hogwarts Express.

Along the way, several people were talking about Filch, predicting whether the other party would cause trouble for them next semester and how they should deal with it.

 Actually, only Fred and George have this kind of trouble.

As the train passed through Muggle towns, they were eating Bibi's multi-flavor beans provided by Lee Jordan to see who had worse luck.

 Before the train stopped at platform 9 and 3/4 of King's Cross station, they took off their wizard robes and put on jackets and blouses commonly worn by Muggles.

There was an old guard guarding the ticket gate, and only two or three people were allowed to pass at a time. It took Albert a long time to line up and walk out of the platform.

 “This way, Albert, we’re here!”

As soon as he walked out of the platform, Albert saw Nia waving to him.

 “Nia has become a lady.” Albert smiled and praised his sister.

 “I’ve always been very ladylike.” Nia complained dissatisfiedly.

 “Where’s Tom?” asked Albert.

"The supplies are temporarily with your Grandpa Luke." Herb reached out to take Albert's luggage and explained casually: "You know, we are going to France for vacation during the summer vacation and don't have time to take care of it, so your owl is also temporarily fostered. At Grandpa Luke’s.”

"Oh, my God, I must write to Grandma Sansa and ask her not to feed Tom too much food." Albert couldn't help covering his cheeks with his palms. He seemed to foresee that he would see Tom again. By the time, it had been fed into a fat cat.

 “There’s nothing wrong with the cat being a little fatter.” Daisy comforted her. “I think it’s quite cute”

 (End of this chapter)