great-warnovel Chapter 133 Waiting for Christmas
Chapter 133 Waiting for Christmas
Chapter 133 Waiting for Christmas
After everything was settled, Hermione became a hands-off manager. Under Professor Lily's witness, she and seven upperclassmen made an unbreakable vow, and then she made a separate vow of unwavering loyalty with Lily.
She left the rest to them and returned to her busy study routine.
After the castle entered Spanish territory, the senior students finally began their field practice class. Although the location was changed at the last minute, it did not affect the experienced Professor Lockhart.
He led his students to deal with the cold-resistant groundbats that had invaded from Africa, helped them defeat a horde of trolls that nearly breached the Muggle settlement, and also eliminated a group of vampires who were keeping humans captive and building castles in the wasteland.
The students' opinion of Lockhart grew increasingly positive, and news of their chivalrous deeds even reached the outside world. Wizards in many settlements were talking about how, under Lockhart's leadership, Hogwarts would see the emergence of more chivalrous wizards.
But regardless of what others think, Lockhart's own condition seems to be getting worse.
After Halloween, the tranquilizer Madam Pomfrey prescribed for him did have a good effect for a while, and his mental state improved a lot. However, after Beauxbatons arrived, Hogwarts set off and traveled south to Spain.
It was visibly that he was becoming more and more haggard each day. Although he was still forcing himself to teach, and there were no blunders like Draco's in Quidditch, everyone could see that he was getting thinner, his dark circles were getting worse, and he would often drift off into thought, muttering to himself, and sometimes even suddenly stop halfway through a lecture, taking a long time to come back to his senses and continue teaching.
Many professors and students advised him to take a good rest, and Professor McGonagall even considered granting Lockhart some leave.
This responsible and competent defense professor sets too high a standard for himself; he doesn't need to put so much pressure on himself.
No one considered other possibilities. First, Lockhart himself was a powerful wizard and a professor of Defense Against Curses. He had also achieved considerable success in the field of anti-curses. It wasn't that no dark wizard had ever tried to curse him, but he always found a way to counter it. Second, Hogwarts was very safe, with layers upon layers of mysterious and powerful barriers that ensured that even if someone wanted to curse the teachers and students there, most of the power would be weakened.
This situation continued intermittently for another month.
The perfumery workshop next to the potions classroom is now basically on track, and the perfumery apprentices have mastered the production of inducing sprays. They are now able to ship out small quantities steadily.
However, because the magical plant cultivation at Professor Sprout's place takes longer to show results, production cannot be expanded at present.
Fleur arrived the week before last, riding her broomstick. She brought many Beauxbatons specialties as gifts for Hermione.
Because she learned that it was this junior's strong request that allowed her to get the coveted position, and Hermione even helped her apply for auditing privileges, allowing her to audit classes in different grades according to her own learning progress.
She had not received any systematic magical education since the second year, and had been learning on her own in secret. Therefore, she chose to audit classes starting from the third year.
After the professors and managers of Beauxbatons returned, they summoned Fleur back to the school from the carriage, carefully inquired about all of Fleur's interactions with Hermione, and then offered her their utmost condolences and demoted the impolite saleswoman Mary.
They specifically instructed Fleur to tell Hermione all these details, as Beauxbatons was extending goodwill to her in another form.
Even though they didn't know that she was the real developer of the perfume, it didn't stop them from seeing how much the little girl meant to the professors.
Hermione neither confirmed nor denied this. Her kindness and abilities were limited, and she might not be able to help all those students trapped in the dark and low-lying areas of Beauxbatons. However, she would not hesitate to lend a helping hand if she had the ability to do so.
As Christmas draws closer, the attention of teachers and students is largely drawn to the upcoming holiday.
Hermione had already arranged Christmas gifts for most people and asked the elves to deliver them on Christmas Eve.
Those who stay at school are fine, but for someone like Ron who goes home every Christmas without fail, he needs a fairy with Professor McGonagall's special pass to Apparate out. However, once the Ghost Owl is tamed, it shouldn't be so troublesome anymore.
Besides the gifts bought in Beauxbatons, some of the gifts were handmade by Hermione.
For example, based on her memories of the borderlands, Hermione wrote a booklet about Hagrid, titled "The Weakness of Spiders."
She explained from the enemy's perspective where spiders might exist or be easily targeted in battle. Hagrid could use this booklet to focus on strengthening the protection of Aragog, which would also be equivalent to strengthening his own protection.
For Lockhart's gift, Hermione originally wanted to find some sword techniques used by the Faded Ones from her memories and try to copy them, but after trying it, she found that the style was too bad to look at. In the end, she chose to ask Professor Lily for help. With the help of the Potions Master, she made a "sword oil"—that's what Lily called it, of course.
Ancient wizards like Gryffindor would typically make this oil to enhance and maintain their melee weapons, but modern wizards rarely do this, and very few can wield a sword properly. Modern wizards mostly make oil to protect their wands and brooms.
Hermione, on the other hand, preferred to call the new product she and Lily collaborated on "Rope-Attached Hypnotic Oil." She added a very high concentration of the Water of Life and Death to the sword oil and preserved its effects for a long time by solidifying the oil, though it was certainly not as good as the bottled version. She then used a spell-enchanted thin rope to secure it. When needed, she simply placed the oil block on the sword and pulled the rope, and the hypnotic sword oil would quickly melt and be evenly applied to the sword.
When engaging in close combat with an enemy, the sharpness provided by the sword oil, combined with Lockhart's Sharpness Charm, will make an ordinary longsword indestructible. The evaporating Water of Life and Death will greatly destroy the enemy's concentration, making it more difficult for them to dodge the dangerous longsword. If they are accidentally cut, they may be directly hypnotized until death. In addition, Lockhart's expertise in memory and confusion charms will make the effect even better.
Lily praised Hermione's ingenious idea, but unfortunately it wasn't widely applicable. Even if all the wizards in Durmstrang switched to melee combat, it wouldn't necessarily have a large market; they preferred sticks.
Besides Hagrid and Lockhart, Hermione was also troubled for a long time about Dumbledore's gifts. Ghosts rarely needed anything, and the old man was too powerful; most of the little things were meaningless to him.
After much thought, Hermione finally found out from the library that Eastern wizards use incense to satisfy ghosts.
So she spent a lot of effort, even going to Sprout's greenhouse to get some immature mandrake leaves to create a unique fragrance, which she named Ghost Meal.
As the name suggests, this perfume, once lit, has no scent for the living, but ghosts will feel incredibly comfortable, and even experience a brief restoration of their sense of smell and taste. They will feel extremely satisfied, as if tasting their favorite food in life—obviously, Dumbledore would taste a pile of cockroaches.
Unfortunately, she had not systematically learned the art of spirit summoning and only knew basic prayers. Furthermore, there was no lily of the valley plant in this world, so she could not enhance the power of the soul in the ashes of the Faded Ones like Rodrik, the spirit summoner of the Round Table Hall.
However, given Dumbledore's power, he is at least a legendary ashes, so ordinary lily of the valley in a cemetery probably wouldn't be effective.
Just when everything was arranged and she thought she could relax and wait for the Christmas dinner, an accident still happened. On the day before the Christmas holidays, Lockhart suddenly became dazed and fainted in the classroom after finishing her fifth-grade theory class.
Although she was rushed to the school hospital, Mrs. Pomfrey concluded that she was simply overworked and otherwise perfectly healthy.
"Let him get some sleep." She gave the unconscious Lockhart a dreamless sleeping potion.
"He's been working too hard lately. These medicines will help him sleep until tomorrow night, and if he's lucky, he might even make it to the Christmas dinner."
Lockhart was fast asleep and showed no other symptoms, but the professors, still worried, even asked Dumbledore to examine him to make sure he wasn't affected by dark magic, but they found nothing.
"That's strange, how could Lockhart exhaust himself like this?" Lily scratched her head, puzzled.
"Did he also suddenly faint like this when he was traveling alone in the wasteland a few years ago?"
However, neither Dumbledore, McGonagall, nor Flitwick, who was skilled in spells, could find any trace of curses or other dark magic items. Therefore, they could only attribute it to Lockhart's uniqueness and planned to investigate further when he woke up.
Hermione had initially considered whether it was a curse or something, but since the professors hadn't found anything wrong and the Eye of Heaven hadn't given any warning, she didn't pay much attention to it and planned to visit the professors in the medical wing after enjoying the Christmas dinner the next day.