Chapter 251 Bright Night

The sky outside the window has completely darkened. The window was half-open, and from the outside to the chair, and then from the chair to the ground, the wet cat paw prints formed a clear trail, showing the patrol route of the cat who finally returned.

The cat raised its head from licking its fur, put down its paws, arched up and stretched, jumped off the cat climbing frame, rubbed him in a good mood, and jumped back on the shelf. Its fur was wet and sticky, and it was dripping with water, making the cotton platform of the cat climbing frame a mess.

Anthony breathed a sigh of relief, smiled, and removed the cat's fur. The cat that was licking its fur was stunned for a moment, holding up its bone paw and hesitated for a while, then slowly lay down and curled up into a ball.

Anthony lit the fireplace, took off his coat, poured out the remaining cold tea in the cup, and boiled a pot of hot water again. He changed his shoes and walked slowly into the bedroom amidst the crackle of the flames. Both the Wraith Chicken and the Wraith Rat were in the room, sleeping at the head and end of the bed. The Wraith Chicken opened its eyelids and glanced at him, then curled up its neck and fell asleep.

"Good evening," Anthony greeted, lighting the fireplace in the bedroom. Perhaps because of the cold weather, the frequency of fights between the Wraith Chicken and the Skeleton Cat has dropped a lot.

In the corner of the room, there was a hole in the bag of dried fish with colorful balls, and dried fish of different shapes were scattered on the floor. The perpetrator did not shy away from leaving evidence of his identity at the scene: several dirty paw prints.

Anthony probably knew where the cat's good mood came from. He put away the dried fish, picked up the charms book he read last night from the bedside table, returned to the office, leaned back on the chair, and flipped the bookmark back to where it was.

In addition to undead magic, he has recently been learning various conventional spells. Whether it was the capture and trial of Peter Pettigrew or the recent bad weather, everything reminded him how important it was to master "normal" magic. Beyond that, he did find charms to be an interesting subject. Unlike curses, short spells generally place considerable emphasis on accuracy of pronunciation and gestures.

Professor Flitwick liked telling the story of Wizard Balufio and the Buffalo very much, and Professor McGonagall accidentally mentioned in the chat that Neville's grandmother, Augusta Longbottom, failed the Charms O.W.L exam - because She memorized almost all the spells and gestures for the Charms, and made the examiner's shoes across from her burst into laughter while demonstrating the differences between the Happy Charm and the Tickling Charm.

Professor Flitwick thought that Mrs. Longbottom might have used Transfiguration out of stress, but Professor McGonagall pointed out that she did not turn the shoe into a squeaking rubber duck, but added a mouth to it. , this is a very typical charm effect, just like making a teacup grow legs is a test content of Charms rather than Transfiguration.

On the table, Anthony's teacup was staggering like a drunkard, with its legs awkwardly entangled with each other. Anthony believes that this has nothing to do with his level of magic, but entirely a problem with the illustrations in the book. It's hard to imagine how something with seven legs could walk.

The skeleton cat jumped over suddenly, put a paw on the teacup, opened its mouth and bit the handle sideways. The teacup struggled under its claws, making a harsh scraping sound of ceramic and bone.

"Don't you have Roger Snake to play with?" Anthony protested.

The cat turned a deaf ear and continued to nibble on the tea cup, until Anthony made all seven legs disappear, then sat down on the desk with satisfaction, looked at Anthony with eyes burning with soul fire, and then looked in the direction of the pile of white wine.

"No," said Anthony.

The skeleton cat moved forward, jumped into his lap, and rubbed its skull against Anthony's chest.

"Don't even think about it," Anthony insisted. "You bit the corkscrew just yesterday - did you know that you are an undead kitten, cat?" He picked up the persistent skeleton cat and stared at it seriously. Burning soul fire, "Huh? You know what? Do you know that if you use necromancy when biting something, it will be very difficult to repair?"

The cat stared at him for a while, stretched out its paw, scratched him impatiently, broke away from his hand, jumped off the chair and walked away.

Just then, the teapot screamed. Anthony suddenly realized that the water had been boiling for a long time, and he jumped up and took the teapot off the fire. The cat stared up at it very dissatisfied, wagging its tail. The magic creature from Diagon Alley screamed for a while longer before closing the spout with a bitter clang.

There is only half a pot of water in the teapot. The room was filled with water vapor, and the windows were also covered with mist. Anthony opened the curtains, wiped it casually when he came back with the tea can, wiped out a small window, and looked outside.

It was a bright night, the snow reflected the bright moonlight, and there were no owls flying back to the shack in the sky. Apart from the howling wind and the faint sound of human voices, no other sounds could be heard.

The cat suddenly jumped to the window, its skeleton body reflecting golden light in the firelight. Anthony followed its line of sight and saw a familiar golden color appearing in the layers of water mist.

He put down the tea leaves, stretched out his hand to wipe the window again, leaned close to the window and looked down carefully. The skeleton cat sat on the windowsill, leaning its head, squeezed next to Anthony's head and looking out.

Under the moonlight, a little unicorn stumbled across the snow, looking left and right hesitantly from time to time, or suddenly turning back and running wildly for a while. Judging from the direction it was walking, it was gradually moving away from the Forbidden Forest and slowly heading towards the ordinary forest outside Hogwarts.

"Is it lost?" Anthony whispered, not sure if he was asking himself or the skeleton cat. The skeleton cat put its head against the window with great interest, looking at the magical animal cub it had never seen before.

Anthony stood up, looked around the office, grabbed his coat, and hurriedly opened the door. He only had time to change the cat back to a ginger cat before he saw it nimbly get into the bedroom, followed by a very loud "hiss". While Anthony was thinking about whether he should hide the dried fish balls, he closed the door and walked down the stairs quickly.

As curfew approached, the students who were still in the corridor or the hall hurried to the lounge. Filch was guarding the stairs, looking at the students with unfriendly eyes, and checking his pocket watch from time to time. Anthony greeted him, walked out of the gate under the curious eyes of the students, walked around the castle, and finally found the little unicorn next to a bush.

The unicorn was studying a half-buried glove that some student had dropped in the snow, and was sniffing it gently. The crunching sound of the snow under Anthony's feet startled it. It raised its head, looked at Anthony with its round eyes for a while, and then lowered its head to observe the wool.

Anthony squatted down slowly.

"Are you lost?" he asked in a low voice, "This is already far away from your home, how did you run here?"

The little unicorn arched the glove out of the snow, stared at it carefully for a while, shook its ears, and focused on Anthony. Anthony held his breath and watched it slowly approach him.

It seemed to be a little bigger than the last time Anthony saw it - it was possible that they were not the same one, he didn't know - after he squatted down, he had to look up a little to see the unicorn's eyes. The hair on its body seemed to be thicker, emitting a warm golden light, its ears stood up, and there was a small patch of hair on its forehead that was more golden than the ones next to it, which seemed to be the place where the horn would grow.

"Do you remember how to get back to the Forbidden Forest?" Anthony whispered, "Is there anyone taking care of you?"

The unicorn's hooves were covered with a layer of long golden soft hair, and the white snow on them fell down as it walked. It slowly approached Anthony... and then bit the laces on his boots.

"Hey, don't do that." Anthony said, reaching out to press the laces and trying to pull them back a little bit with difficulty, "I think it's polyester, which is not easy to digest."

The unicorn chewed the laces and lay down.

"Get away from her, human!" An angry shout came from behind Anthony. He turned around and saw Bane running out of the woods, glaring at him, with his bow fully drawn. A flashing arrow was pointing steadily at Anthony's chest. He seemed to think that the unicorn, who was lying on the side of Anthony's shoes with his head down, was injured.

"I don't mean any harm!" Anthony said loudly, standing up.

The unicorn was so scared that it stood up and jumped back, pulling his laces apart. It still had a small piece of shoelace firmly in its mouth.

"I just saw it from the window and thought it was lost." Anthony explained, "I was worried that it would go somewhere outside Hogwarts."

Bane slowed down his pace, still looking at him distrustfully, with his arrow pointed at Anthony. He tilted his head at the little unicorn that was looking over, motioning it to stand over. The golden unicorn stubbornly bit the shoelace and stood there.

There was another noise in the woods. Another centaur appeared outside the Forbidden Forest. He had a chestnut horse body and black hair like Bane.

"Ronan noticed you left our forest, and he was worried that you were irritated by the discussion this afternoon." The chestnut centaur said calmly, his eyes sweeping across Anthony and the unicorn, "But now I see the reason."

"Magri, Ronan's worry is an insult to me." Bain said, his eyes still not leaving Anthony, "I am indeed irritated, but I will not leave the group for this... You heard me, I said stay away from the cursed wizard who polluted the star track!" His last words were said to the unicorn.

"What does that mean?" Anthony asked, "Pollution of the star track?"

Bane pulled the bow a little more and did not answer him. Margery explained calmly: "You make our stars incomprehensible, wizard. They shouldn't be like this."

"Don't explain to him, Margery." Bane said impatiently, "It's impossible for humans to understand the meaning of stars."

Margery looked up at the night sky and continued in a steady tone: "Mars shouldn't be so bright."

Bane still stared at Anthony and said to the little unicorn: "Come here, foal! If it wasn't for your group's request - if it wasn't for my group's request - I would never interfere."

Anthony bent down and pulled the laces out of the unicorn's mouth with force.

"You know, he has a point." He said to the unicorn, reaching out and touching its silky, warm fur, "You shouldn't be here. You belong in the forbidden forest."

The unicorn stared at his boots. Anthony felt that he could understand. If he lived in a forest full of hooves and furry giant spider legs, he would probably be curious about such strange things.

Anthony laughed. "I can't possibly take it off and give it to you, okay? But I know the giant squid in the Black Lagoon has a shoe, maybe you can find where the other one is."

Bane moved forward, standing between Anthony and the unicorn. The unicorn poked his head out from under his horse's belly and continued to look at Anthony.

"You'd better leave, human," Bane said threateningly, "and never come into our woods."

"This is not the time when Mars should light up." Margery looked up at the sky and said calmly and undisturbed, "I also saw Jupiter..."

"That's good," Anthony said, waving to the little unicorn, "Bye...well, I hope to see you when you're an adult."

Bain turned around, bent his front legs, lowered his body, and reached out to pick up the little unicorn. The unicorn seemed to say something to him. He glanced at Anthony suspiciously, stood up again, and stared up at the sky.

"I also saw Jupiter." Bain said seriously, "Let's go back, Margaery."

Margery looked away, looked at Anthony, and asked calmly: "What about you, human? What did you see?"

Bain gave a disdainful and rough laugh, like a horse neighing.

"Humans can't see, Margery. They are arrogant, but they are no different from blind people." He said, "I know what Firenze said, but I say again, Firenze is mistaken. He is not that A star. No one can be a star, no matter the stars or destiny!

"I agree," Margery said, still looking at Anthony unblinkingly, "but we all know that something is disturbing the stars. What do you see, human? What is so special about you?"

Anthony raised his head and looked at the moon. With his ordinary, dull, human eyesight, he could only see this bright stone hanging in the night.

He looked away. The distant mountains have become a shadow, hidden in the night. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The moonlight fell on the snow without any hindrance, illuminating the entire lawn with an icy cold glow. At the end of the lawn stood Hogwarts Castle, with the flickering light of the fireplaces dimly peeking out from hundreds of windows.

"Above the stars and destiny," Margery asked solemnly and calmly, "what can you see, human being?"

"I see... I guess it will be a sunny day tomorrow," Anthony said.

Probability and weather forecast, it was a cloudless, clear night.