Chapter 119: Gifts
In an atmosphere of anticipation bordering on prayer, Halloween arrived.
Everywhere was filled with laughter and cheer. All the students looked forward to the castle, decorated today in fantastical splendour.
They exchanged gifts with joy and shared sweets. It was the same in the Hope Room.
"Oh, Shawn, rare that you can carry it all," Justin said, his words unusually tinged with teasing. The reason was that when Shawn pushed open the door, everyone saw him buried in floating sweets.
Shawn calmly placed the sweets in the wooden cabinet not far from the fireplace. The six‑compartment cabinet already had three sections full.
With the sweets from the others added in, all sorts of strange snacks had filled more than half the cabinet.
Justin was now using the Levitation Charm to transfer some of the sweets out of the cabinet.
"Want to try this?" he said, holding up a blue mouse‑shaped gummy.
Soon everyone heard Neville's teeth chattering and a squeaking sound.
"It is in my mouth!" Neville said in fright, sticking out his tongue, trying to scrape away the "non‑existent" mouse.
"Neville, we told you before you ate it. That is normal," Hermione said, raising an eyebrow, though her eyes held laughter.
"Try this one," Justin said, eating a red sweet.
"They say Pepper Imps let wizards breathe fire. Stand back!"
"Whoa!"
Watching black smoke pour from Justin's mouth and flames shoot from his ears and nose, Hermione's smile grew wider.
In the wooden cabinet, her compartment had many sweets, but they were all gifts from her companions in the Hope Room. Fortunately, that was enough.
On the wooden table,
The Fanged Geranium seemed stimulated by the flames. Its vines slowly contracted, flipping over a letter Shawn had placed on the table.
Beside the letter was a silver cat figurine. It looked unremarkable, but actually employed very complex Transfiguration – Multiple Transfiguration.
The principle of this advanced Transfiguration was to use Transfiguration multiple times on one object. That way, the Untransfiguration Charm could not immediately undo it.
It was like an equation: you only needed to find one unknown to find the solution. Now you had to find multiple unknowns.
From that perspective, it was easy to understand why the difficulty increased so sharply.
And this was not the only gift Shawn had to prepare today, so his movements were very quick.
A hooting sound came from the distance. A pure white owl landed at Shawn's window.
Its feathers were messy, tail feathers from some other bird clamped in its beak. The whole owl looked proud and upright.
After all, it had just defeated ten other owls before landing at this window.
"Una, thank you for helping," Shawn said, looking up. He placed several letters and small parcels under its claws, then brought out a small plate filled with meat, toast and salad to treat this helpful messenger.
As for the owl's name, Shawn remembered every owl's name.
"Hoot—"
The pure white owl nuzzled Shawn's fingers, then flew off with the letters.
Also by a stained‑glass window, Minerva McGonagall accepted the owl's letter. She looked at the silver cat figurine. Her eyes were like deep lake water, rippling gently and softly.
On her desk lay countless letters.
Every one of them was addressed to the Croydon district. Many were not replies, but original letters the owls had brought back.
And today, these letters were no longer addressed to Minerva McGonagall, but to a lady named Rowland.
A lady who had volunteered many times in Holloway.
The Charms classroom.
Professor Flitwick was as spirited as ever. He stood on a tall stack of books and called out in his high voice, "Now, do not forget that subtle wrist movement we have been practising! Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important too!"
About half a month had passed since the last Levitation Charm practice. The students still found the spell difficult to master.
However, today's changes in the classroom left Professor Flitwick stunned.
Last time, Harry and Seamus had gone swish and flick, swish and flick, over and over, but the feather they were supposed to send into the air still lay motionless on the floor.
Seamus had even lost his temper and jabbed his wand at the feather, which caught fire.
But today, a good portion of the students seemed to have received some kind of unified training. Their pronunciation was neat and uniform, their gestures precise and stable.
So unsurprisingly, at least the feathers reacted. Some students could even make their feathers float for quite a while.
"Tremendous progress, ladies and gentlemen!" Professor Flitwick called out in his squeaky voice.
"I never thought Charms could be this simple. Just follow the notes," Harry heard Ron mutter excitedly. He nodded with conviction.
"But you are still saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione say mercilessly at that moment.
"It is Wing‑GAR‑dium Levi‑O‑sa. Make the 'gar' nice and long."
"You think you are better than Shawn?" Ron's face flushed red.
Shawn, beside Hermione: "?"
"You only have the old version. Shawn's Levitation Charm has improved more than you evolved from a troll to a wizard!" Hermione said, rolling up her sleeves and waving her wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
"Oh, well done!" Professor Flitwick cried, clapping.
"Everyone see here, Miss Granger's Levitation Charm is excellent!"
Near the end of class, Shawn was kept back by Professor Flitwick. The professor held a sky‑blue notebook and said with some curiosity, "Ah, a very intuitive method. Quite interesting. For those wizards just beginning to learn Charms, it could even be called profoundly meaningful. But my dear Mr Green, the mysteries of Charms go far beyond these simple things…"
Professor Flitwick offered a few words of praise, then earnestly cautioned him.
Shawn knew what the professor meant. He nodded gently.
Following the sweet scent of pumpkin, Shawn saw Hermione leaving with her head held high and Ron looking deeply curious.
Ron, eager to find the new notes, probably had no mind now to badmouth Hermione. That meant Hermione would be unlikely to encounter the troll in the girls' lavatory.
Shawn thought.
In the corridor,
Ron's mood was not bad. Compared to the somewhat annoying Hermione, he was more concerned about Shawn's notes.
He quietly sidled up to a group of Gryffindor girls.
"Have the Green notes… been updated?"
A Gryffindor witch who shared a dormitory with Hermione said irritably, "Who knows? She says unless we practise seriously with her, she will never show us. Ha – swot!"
"Poor Mr Green. She must have given him a love potion," another witch added.