Chapter 251

Hermione returned to the Gryffindor common room a little dazed, and couldn’t figure out which of the three suggestions the professor had given her is more reliable until she saw an idle Harry and Ron fiddling with a set of Gobstones.

‘Maybe the professor was just joking?’ she thought to herself.

Ron put his whole face on the table, as he kept the stones in his hand in a circular motion, ‘I think this one will work, Dean told me about a muggle marble technique -‘ he snapped his fingers and the stone in his hand flew straight out, arcing in midair.

The stone belonging to Harry expanded violently and split apart, from which a foul, slimy liquid spurted out and coated Ron’s face.

“Oh, shit!” Ron wiped his face, his eyes were glued shut.

“Gentlemen, will you grow up!” Hermione said in no good humour as she drew her wand and chanted at Ron, “Scourgify!” The goo on his face immediately disappeared.

“Care for a round, Hermione?” Ron said with a playful smile.

Hermione scowled and said, “I’m not going to waste my time on a child’s game.”

Ron retorted, “It’s not child’s game, my dad told me that there is an official Gobstone Club on the sixth floor of the Ministry of Magic, and they win honours internationally. Hogwarts actually has a Gobstone Club too, except you never pay attention to …”

He looked at the expression on Hermione’s face and stopped talking.

Harry changed the subject, “What did the professor say about Buckbeak?”

“He gave me three suggestions,” Hermione said, wiggling her fingers: “First, postpone the hearing on the grounds that the procedure is incorrect, and change the department in charge of the case to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, if possible;”

“That sounds good, what exactly do we have to do, write a letter to the Ministry of Magic?” Harry asked cheerfully, this is much easier than going to the library to flip through the sea of boring legal cases.

“The general public can’t do that, I don’t think the Ministry of Magic will care.” Hermione said: “Professor Hap’s advice is to obtain the support of a prominent figure, who is not afraid of the power of the Malfoy, preferably related to the field of magical creatures, and also familiar with the appropriate law.” Hermione said.

“How would such a person know us.” Ron said with discouragement, then he picked up the Gobstones from the ground.

Harry thought hard, people related to the field of magical creatures, he only knew Hagrid.

“The second way, sneak away and release the Buckbeak.” Hermione raised her second finger.

Harry greatly tempted by this suggestion, but he quickly shook his head: “The official letter from the Ministry of Magic stated, Hagrid should keep an eye on Buckbeak, if lost, he will be in trouble. Malfoy must be expecting Hagrid to do that, so he can put Hagrid in jail afterwards.”

He didn’t quite understand Hagrid’s fear of wizard prisons in the past, but after dealing with the Dementors a few times, he had come to fully understand Hagrid’s perspective.

Hermione did not deny it and told the last suggestion: “Third, let Lucius Malfoy voluntarily withdraw his complaint.” She hesitated, but still expressed Professor Hap’s words completely, “The professor was probably joking at the time, you guys just listen – he proposed that Hagrid should ask Malfoy out and force Malfoy to comply. He also said that he might offer a limited amount of support if we wanted to try this approach …”

Ron’s eyes lit up: “That’s a good idea, I already can imagine.” He had seen his father and Malfoy fight just last year, now all he had to do is replace his father with a tall, burly Hagrid, and he muttered, ” Little Chicken…”

Harry magically understood what he meant – compared to Hagrid, Lucius Malfoy did look like an underdeveloped chick.

Hermione said pointedly, “The Professor must be joking!” She said, a little unsure about it, ” it should be a joke, right? But in any case, this method is too dangerous.”

“Professor Hap must be teasing you, because he knows there is no way we would agree to this method.” Harry said sullenly, “So it seems that, not counting a trip to the library to look up for information, the only real viable suggestion is the first one -”

“But where are we going to find the relevant authoritative figure?”

“Maybe we could ask Hagrid?” Ron suggested, “He should know a friend or two with similar interests, right? He’s a professor for a Care of Magical Creatures class.”

“Wait-” Harry suddenly stared at Ron, “Did you just say, professor of the Care of Magical Creatures class?” His eyes lit up, and he lowered his voice, “Hagrid just got the position this year, do you guys remember who was the last professor …?”

“Professor Silvanus Kettleburn,” Hermione said without thinking, “I heard he retired on the grounds that he needed more time to spend with his little rascals.”

She froze for a moment, then responded, “Yeah, why didn’t I think of that, Hagrid must know Professor Kettleburn!”

…

Hogwarts kitchen.

Felix said gently to the house-elf, “I inquired from Professor McGonagall that I could ask you to send Christmas presents?”

“Yes, sir.” A house-elf wearing a uniform made out of tea towels said, bowing deeply, “But only within the confines of Hogwarts, we are limited by our obligations and cannot leave easily.”

“No problem, I’ve already sent out the gifts outside of school.” Felix said in a relaxed tone, “Then I’ll trouble you.”

“It’s an honour.” The house-elf said.

Felix led the elf back to his office, pointed at a small pile of gift boxes in the corner, and said, “It’s all here. It has names on it and the number of people is actually not that many … but I don’t know if you know exactly where they are?.”

“Please don’t worry, sir, we clean the rooms in the castle every day and know the names of all the wizard gentlemen very well.”

Felix nodded and smiled: “Thank you, then.”

The elf went to work, his figure kept disappearing and appearing, and after a dozen times, he appeared with empty hands, “It’s done, sir.”

Felix looked at him curiously, “Where did you put it? At the foot of the bed?”

The elf replied, “A few of the students’ gifts I placed them at the foot of the bed to make sure they could see them as soon as they got up; but not for the professors, we are not allowed to be in the professors’ bedrooms, so I placed them in the office under the small Christmas tree, or at the bedroom’s door.”

Felix nodded, it looked just like How he had received his gift last year.

The elf then said, “If there’s nothing else, Cloudbur will excuse himself.”

“Cloudbur is that your name?”

“Yes, sir.”

Felix took out a book from the ring, and some coloured paper and ribbons flew out from the corner, they wrapped the whole book, and finally a beautiful bow tied by the ribbons.

“This is your Christmas present, Cloudbur.”

“This, Cloudbur can’t have it–”

“Take it, it’s just a book of recipes from all over the world, I’ve been trying to find a chance to recommend it to you.”

Cloudbur bowed deep and then accepted the gift, his big eyes looked at him, “Thank you, sir.” Then he gave a deep salute and suddenly disappeared.

Felix looked at the gift that belonged to him in the corner, nearly half of it had not been opened, and he decided to save the surprise for tomorrow.

Before going to bed, he deliberately left the window open so that the owl could come and go freely. Then turned and went into the bedroom, looking forward to the arrival of Christmas next day.