Chapter 223 Charlie's Letter and Lock Your Heart Club

"What did he write?" Anthony asked with interest, looking around Hagrid's house, thankful that he didn't see another dragon egg.

The room was filled with the aroma of steam and onion soup, and books about dangerous magical animals were still placed in the corner, seemingly more numerous than when he last came. On the table were open envelopes, a few scattered pieces of parchment, and what seemed like a photo.

Anthony looked closer and saw that it was not a picture of Noble, but a large empty space. The trees next to the clearing all fell down, and the ashes of the fire were still floating feebly in some of the fractures. Some broken fence-like things were piled in the corner, with various - things scattered in the middle. Anthony really couldn't tell what they were, because they were either broken into pieces or tangled and twisted together, and half of them were burned to black ash.

"Norbert bit the researcher's robe to pieces and made a scene when they tried to isolate him." Hagrid introduced happily, "Charlie said this was the worst-tempered Norwegian Ridgeback he had ever seen - you See for yourself, Henry. The letter is there."

He asked Anthony to sit down on the chair and turned to find the teapot to boil water.

As soon as Anthony picked up the letter, he felt a sudden weight on his leg. He lowered his head and found that Yaya was resting his head on his lap, drooling and looking at him longingly, as if what he picked up was not Charlie's letter but some kind of snack.

"Do you also want to know what Charlie wrote?" Anthony lowered his head and asked.

Hagrid finally found his kettle - not the copper kettle with the leaky bottom that Norbert had been in - he moved the onion soup aside, put the kettle on the fire, and turned around: "What?"

"I'm asking Yaya." Anthony said, unfolded the letter and started reading.

"Dear Hagrid: It's great to hear from you. I wanted to write to you a few weeks ago, but there was so much going on that I never found the right time.

"First of all, I'm very happy to tell you that your Norwegian Ridgeback, Norbert, has arrived at the reserve in perfect condition - the one that's not intact is my friends' broom, but the reserve will naturally reimburse us for it.

"We plan to all replace them with the latest model of Nimbus 2001. As I write this, I am anxiously looking forward to the approval of this application.

"Secondly, Norbert is the most picky and vicious Norwegian Ridgeback I have ever seen. God! What do you usually feed him and play with him? He was very angry the first moment he woke up in the box. , colleagues had to take turns reinforcing the box to ensure that it would not directly smash through the crate and fly out.

"Speaking of which, this is the first Norwegian Ridgeback I've ever seen that was able to fly and breathe fire proficiently at such a young age. The researcher didn't expect it to be able to breathe full-blown flames, and almost got burned. ..." Anthony paused and looked up at the smiling Hagrid. Fang pressed his wet nose against his arm, so Anthony continued to read, "At the same time, it made a mess in the entire New Dragon Isolation Field. Attached to the letter were photos. We originally wanted to take a photo of Norbert, but he flew away as soon as he had enough fun.

"So, I think I'm getting close to the point of this letter - how did you raise Nob so well, Hagrid? For the sake of our venerable researcher's head, I implore you to give us some experience and pointers .

"It is now as ferocious as a female dragon guarding the egg, desperately protecting the black cloth (Anthony thinks Charlie may be referring to his wizard robe that was robbed by the dragon) and the bear doll. We can no longer Imagine how busy the reserve will be when it matures and comes into heat.

"He seemed to be adapting well, but did not like the prying eyes of researchers. Although we were curious about Noble, given that he had just arrived in the reserve, we preferred not to provoke him too much and therefore did not observe his life in more depth.

"By the way, if you get another dragon egg, please don't hesitate to contact us. A Hungarian Horntail just lost her fourth egg and is going berserk. There have been seven forest fires this month - oh , no, eight times. That’s it for this letter, I think I need to leave.

"Yours faithfully, Charlie

"Also, all that's left of the stuffed bear is its head. We found half of the body in the crate it escaped from, but the other half is missing. Norbert seems to like using the stuffed bear's head as a ball. , rolling around with its tail. We guess this is one of the reasons why its tail is flexible and powerful.

“And by the way, your rock pancakes—they are rock pancakes, right—are loved by the Romanian Longhorned Dragon. We would be very happy and honored if you would share the recipe with us. "

After Anthony finished reading the letter, he looked up and saw Hagrid looking at him expectantly.

"That's great, Hagrid!" Anthony said sincerely, "That's great, that's really good news!"

Especially since the other party, like Hagrid, sincerely admires the dangerous parts of the fire dragon. Anthony was a little worried that they would blame Hagrid for trying to exercise Norbert's hunting ability, but judging from Charlie's letter, they were just marveling at how "wild" the little dragon growing out of the teapot was.

Hagrid's face lit up with joy.

"Do you think so, Henry?" he said, rubbing his big hands. "So, where do you think I should go to help that poor Hungarian treetop mother find her dragon egg?"

…

After trying hard to persuade Hagrid to give up the idea of ​​looking for the missing dragon eggs (from Hagrid's tone and his glance at the "magic zoo" plan, it was hard for Anthony to tell whether his persuasion had any effect), Anthony proposed to go to the fire dragon sanctuary in Romania with Hagrid to see Norbert during the holidays.

You know, he definitely didn't want to see the dragon eggs of "the most interesting species of all fire dragons" quietly (or crackling) in his small iron pot when he knocked on the door one day.

After that, he and Hagrid shared onion soup and rock skin cakes that were highly praised by Romanian longhorn dragons. In the process, Anthony was more certain that he was not a longhorn dragon.

Finally, after telling Hagrid not to act recklessly (Hagrid muttered "but" and "help"), Anthony scratched Fang's head and left the cabin.

Leaving the room with a warm fireplace, the cold wind of late October immediately penetrated his wizard robe. It was completely dark, without stars or moon, and the forbidden forest was silent. Hogwarts stood quietly at the end of the path, emitting an alluring warm light.

Even more alluring, the activities of the Lock Your Heart Club should obviously be over. Anthony stepped into the brightly lit hall and noticed that the long tables of each college had been cleaned up. Lockhart was not at the staff seat. Only Filch and his gloomy Mrs. Norris were eating fish and chips slowly.

Anthony nodded to Filch and walked quietly to the staff lounge out of curiosity.

"Hello." The gargoyle said melancholy.

"Hello." Anthony said softly, raising a finger to his lips. He was hesitating whether to open the door to take a look, and saw Professor Binns floating out through the wall in a daze.

Anthony was startled: "Good evening, Professor Binns."

Professor Binns turned to him, obviously forgetting who he was. A thoughtful look appeared on his wrinkled face.

"Good evening, good evening," he said. "Good evening... um, Smith."

Anthony didn't correct him, just nodded, walked up the stairs and left, wondering if Lockhart had given Professor Binns any advice on how to lock someone's heart. From the perspective of whether he could touch the lock, Anthony thought Peeves might be a better teaching subject.

...

It wasn't until Monday morning that he realized that he had underestimated the first faculty event of the Lock Your Heart Club.

Although no current faculty members participated in his event (except Professor Binns), there were many other ghosts in addition to Professor Binns, and even Myrtle accepted the invitation.

The Fat Friar announced that he had no desire for worldly marriage and love, but he was willing to support the club opened by the new professor. Nearly Headless Nick was depressed because he received a rejection letter from the Headless Hunters, and was persuaded by the Fat Friar to relax at the event. In addition, he was about to usher in his 500th anniversary, and he just needed some reference experience for holding events.

After hearing what the fat monk said, the Bloody Baron also attended the party, which was said to be full of love and joy, with a dull look, and arrived earlier than Lockhart. In contrast, the belated Ms. Grey, the ghost of Ravenclaw, snorted coldly the moment she stepped into the room, interrupting Lockhart who was giving a passionate speech in the air-conditioned room. After that, the Bloody Baron left quickly.

After the Bloody Baron left, Peeves also quickly poked his head in. After discovering that the staff lounge was full of ghosts and almost no professors, he almost ecstatically asked if he could also be invited.

"Did Professor Lockhart agree?" Anthony asked breathlessly.

"Did you hear the sound of glass breaking yesterday?" Professor Sprout asked back.

Anthony recalled: "No."

Professor Sprout nodded with satisfaction: "The sound insulation of the staff lounge is indeed good. Peeves smashed the chandelier in the lounge to the floor."

...

After the chandelier in the lounge was repaired by Professor Flitwick, Lockhart did not mention his club among the professors for a while.

Dumbledore's Albacore Club was very lively. Anthony heard that while communicating with the mermen, a prefect accidentally learned some unfriendly words in the merman language, and he enjoyed getting into the bathtub in the prefect's bathroom and mumbling curses in the water.

He also heard that several other prefects had joined the Albacore Club.

In this way, the last few days of October passed quickly, and Anthony welcomed his second Halloween at Hogwarts. At this time last year, he was obsessed with necromancy and missed the opportunity to see the trolls in the textbooks.

This year, he sat in the staff box and looked at the efforts of the staff and house elves in amazement. Millions of candles in the hall turned into millions of pumpkin lanterns, and the magical little bats flew around the pumpkin lanterns. Anthony's cat disdained them, but Mrs. Norris squatted at the end of the long table in the staff box, wagging her tail and looking at them eagerly. Professor McGonagall looked at Mrs. Norris several times and her face became more tense.

Anthony thought the bats looked familiar, and after staring at them for a while, he realized that they looked like the flapping wings of the keys guarding the Philosopher's Stone. He confirmed with Professor Flitwick that they were indeed decorative magic contributed by the Charms professor.

Professor Flitwick was very happy to teach him this little magic spell, so when Hagrid took his seat, Anthony's cup was surrounded by two flying teaspoons.

"Good evening, Henry!" Hagrid rumbled, squeezing himself into the already large seat, "What's that?"

Anthony directed one of the teaspoons to fly to Hagrid's hand. Hagrid grabbed it and accidentally bent it.

"Oh, I'm sorry -" Hagrid said angrily, "I thought it was some big flying insect."

"Nice catch, Hagrid," Professor Sprout said kindly, placing a new teaspoon on the edge of his teacup.

Hagrid said with some pride: "If it weren't for the fact that the broom couldn't carry me, maybe I would be quite suitable for playing Quidditch."

Even knowing that Hagrid was referring to the Seeker, Anthony couldn't help but think of what a great keeper Hagrid would have been - he would have been able to seal the ring - and play Gryffindor Quidditch that year. Captain Qi is sorry to lose such an outstanding player.

"How are you today, Henry?" Professor Sprout asked.

"Not bad, very good." Anthony said, "I finally finished writing the summary report of the third group of practical activities."

"That's good," said Professor Sprout. "What about you, Hagrid? I assume you're a bit busy today?"

Hagrid said: "Indeed. The pumpkins are all ripe. I spent the morning hollowing them out, and Professor Flitwick helped me carve them all in the afternoon."

Anthony followed his line of sight and saw a long row of huge jack-o-lanterns placed against the wall in the hall, each with a different carved pattern. Anthony even felt that he saw a jack-o'-lantern that looked very much like a fire dragon showing its fangs, and was secretly worried about it.

He turned his attention to Hagrid, wanting to warn him again not to try to find the Hungarian Horntail egg. But Hagrid's eyes were scanning the Gryffindor table, and he frowned.

"What's wrong, Hagrid?" Anthony asked worriedly.

"I didn't see Harry, Ron or Hermione. I wanted to tell them that Charlie wrote to me," Hagrid said. "It's strange that all three of them are not here. Where have they been?"