great-warnovel Chapter 151 Postal Services
Chapter 151 Postal Services
Chapter 151 The Return of Postal Services
As February arrived, Hermione was finally able to take the tasteless leaf out of her mouth.
She used the flying carpet that Professor Lockhart had given her for Christmas to fly high into the sky with a small crystal medicine bottle.
Passing through the thick layer of radioactive dust, she saw the starry sky of this world above the sea of clouds.
Without the obstruction of impurities, like gazing at the stars in Lake Lienia, Hermione stared at the bright moon, lost in thought for a long time.
For those who study the magic of Radiant Stones, witnessing the moon seems like an extraordinary event. Unfortunately, the moon in this world is not like that of the Boundary; it seems to be just an ordinary moon.
She thought of Princess Rani of the Moon, of the Faded One who still remembered her even after becoming queen, and of her family in another world.
However, she couldn't stay at such a high altitude for long. She felt her hair-bubbling spell tightening. Although the radiation in the dust cloud couldn't harm her, the strong smell of the fairy curse inside made her feel nauseous.
That deep-seated malice, that lingering dark red, could not be felt at all on the ground.
Unlike Jaime and his companions, the three of them don't need to practice Animagus and continuously use moonlight.
Therefore, she did not choose to bring a two-way mirror up. Harry and the others were still far from human transformation, and she could prepare the potion alone up here under the real moonlight.
She carefully placed a single mandrake leaf into the crystal bottle, and then added her own hair.
Then there was the ghost-faced hawk moth that I had asked Professor Lily for beforehand, and a silver teaspoon of dew from a place that had not seen sunlight or been touched by humans for seven whole days.
However, Lily miscalculated when she was asking for these ingredients; the familiar ingredients immediately told her that the little witch was already undergoing Animagus treatment.
"You found James and the others' old Transfiguration notes?" Lily asked.
Hermione immediately realized something was wrong; she had overlooked Harry's mother!
The astute potions master immediately followed the clue and asked, "So you found the Room of Requirement?"
Before Hermione could answer, Lily narrowed her eyes and said with a dangerous, certain tone, "So James gave the Marauder's Map to Harry, right?"
Hermione wisely chose to remain silent; she didn't say a word, leaving Professor Lily to guess everything.
"Hopefully, Mr. Porter's final grades will save his father."
After saying the dangerous thing, Lily turned to look at Hermione gently: "Since Professor McGonagall already knows..."
I won't stop you, but you must be careful. When you take the final step, be sure to let me know.
Now, two professors will be there to watch Hermione transform.
After completing all this high in the air, she placed the small crystal vial containing these strange materials in the Room of Requirement, and through her imagination, she created a quiet, dark room that only she could open and that no one else could reach.
Every day thereafter, at sunrise and sunset, she would point the tip of her wand at her heart and chant the spell: "Amado, Animo, Animado, Animagus."
This process will continue for a long time until she can clearly feel her second heartbeat. At that time, she can give the Thunderbird tail feather to anyone she knows and let them choose a time they deem appropriate to suddenly burn the feather in front of Hermione. This will produce a sudden clap of thunder and a small rain cloud, and Hermione will then have to drink the potion that has already been transformed while under that rain cloud.
This part was also modified by James, who changed the random waiting for stormy weather to a friend randomly igniting a thunderbird's tail feather. This proved to be effective in causing the potion in the crystal vial to change correctly.
Aside from her progress with Animagus, the three boys have been spending almost all their free time in the Pensieve lately.
Hermione left behind three avatars composed of her memories, each teaching one of the three children.
During this time, under Harry's encouragement, they stubbornly tried to venture into Stoneville, but after stumbling and struggling to get around the trolls of Stormhill and through the checkpoint full of soldiers, they were severely beaten by the ominous goblin behind the tunnel.
Now they learned their lesson and decided to wait until they had learned the new magic before considering how to infiltrate that sinful city.
However, Hermione had already weakened the Omen Ghost's power a lot, taking into account their learning progress. Apart from the classic fast and slow blades, its strength, vitality, and reaction speed were greatly reduced. If Harry and the others tried a few more times, it wouldn't be much harder than the Tree Guardian. But this weakening would only decrease, and the later "limb-splitting" Grick would have to rely on sheer strength.
There was also big news from the school: after more than half a year of effort, and with the help of Newt and many other magical creature masters, the Ghost Owl has finally completed its initial domestication.
While Hermione and the others were eating in the Great Hall, several translucent owls flew in from outside and dropped down a few newspapers.
It was the Malfoy Castle newspaper, the Occupied Daily, which had purchased the newly established Ghost Owl postal service at their own expense to deliver several of the latest newspapers to the castle.
The largest page in the newspaper featured the enormous cat head of the Ghost Owl, its round eyes staring everywhere.
The article provides a detailed introduction to this latest magical species. With enthusiastic prose, the author envisions a future where the magical world's postal service will return to pre-war levels, a time when everyone had access to newspapers and logistics were convenient and fast.
At the end, he also included the subscription information for the newspaper, which would allow any subscriber to enjoy the fast and convenient daily delivery service from Ghost Owl.
Unfortunately, the price is still quite high. The newspaper is already expensive, and with the additional postage, almost no student can afford it.
However, considering that she was now a school board member and needed to receive firsthand information from the wizarding world, Hermione still paid to subscribe to the Daily News, even though it was full of prejudice and lies.
Of course, she was very worried that these grumpy birds would poop on the dining table.
Malfoy Castle's launch of the Ghost Owl Express service did indeed cause a great stir, especially among the old wizards who were used to owl mail. Many of their former companions had died from excessive radiation. When the cute, transparent heads of the ghosts appeared before them, some were even moved to tears, thinking that their companions had been resurrected.
Many people immediately subscribed to the "Zhanxiajia Daily" and wrote to inquire about purchasing and breeding information for ghost owls.
Unfortunately, Newt and his team had limited manpower, and the number of birds that had been tamed and could live in harmony with wizards was small, barely enough to handle the post office's business.
Meanwhile, the Malfoyburg side made a sarcastic remark that if Newt hadn't given so many Ghost Owls to other magic schools, things wouldn't be so tense now.
But Newt is not a slave of Malfoy Castle, and even for the sake of cooperative trade, he has no obligation to hand over all the Ghost Owls to them, which would allow the nobles to monopolize an industry again.
In fact, apart from the magic school in Japan that was destroyed by nuclear bombs and Cordostadt, which had to be relocated due to the Soviet-Muggle War and eventually merged into Durmstrang, all other major magic schools around the world received Spectral Owls and cubs from Newt. Each school sent professors to North America to participate in the breeding and domestication work to ensure that global magical cooperation and exchange can return to normal someday.
However, unlike Malfoy Castle, none of the magic schools chose to immediately open up the Ghost Owl mail service on a large scale. Just like Hogwarts, in this world where danger is still common, allowing these birds to freely roam within their premises may not be a very safe idea.
Like the magical owls of the past, they can bypass the school's secrecy spells and track the recipient directly, which may provide guidance to enemies outside.
Therefore, the cautious Professor McGonagall asked Hagrid and Lockhart to work together to develop a reliable checkpoint system to ensure that every ghost owl flying into the castle was healthy and harmless.
Furthermore, she reinforced the school's protective barrier, leaving only a small, weak area high in the sky. This meant that the spectral owls could only travel through the radiation clouds and land directly above Hogwarts. Unless the enemy could withstand the massive radiation and curses and clearly identify birds whose colors were almost identical to the clouds, they would have no way of finding Hogwarts by tracking the spectral owls.
Of course, these are only temporary measures. Once Hogwarts returns to the Scottish Highlands, and even Muggles now know its general location, the school will have little need to hide anymore. With the castle possessing the strongest energy, no one wants to come up and provoke them. Do you really think Hogwarts can't stand up again and come to your doorstep to fire a cannon?
Besides the regular newspaper business, mail delivery is also the core function of Ghost Owl. In this period when everyone is short of spare money, Professor Lockhart received dozens of love letters in a single day.
Lockhart is likely to be the biggest loser on Valentine's Day. Wild owls have turned the Defense Classroom into a mess, with deafening roars, love letters, scattered feathers, and bird droppings. Hermione sees a look of bewildered horror on the face of this perfect, virtuous, and upright person for the first time.
Ron and Harry, ever the troublemaker, intercepted the letters falling from the sky and read them aloud. Lockhart's face turned bright red, but everyone was having a great time.
Of course, it's said that some girls at school wrote love letters to Lockhart, but he just passed them on to McGonagall.
I believe that some heavy academic work can help them stay alert.