Chapter 67 The Return of the Fire Crossbow

The Christmas holiday is over, and the little wizards have returned to Hogwarts, making the deserted school return to its usual lively state in an instant.

The first class after school started was the Care of Magical Creatures class. On this cold and wet January morning, the last thing anyone wanted to do was to stay on the field for two hours, taking care of the boring Flobberworms. Unexpectedly, Hagrid made a bonfire full of salamanders to make them happy.

This class was particularly interesting. The students collected firewood and leaves to keep the fire burning. Those lizards who liked flames jumped around in the crackling firewood. After Schelling asked around, he found out that all the Flobberworms had died because they ate too much lettuce.

Then came the alchemy class. The alchemy class had begun to become interesting. After the students had memorized the theory of the conversion of matter and magic, Professor Bock began his first practical class.

He found a lot of broken alchemical items in Hogwarts, such as old flying brooms, cracked golden snitches, rusty pocket peepholes, etc., and asked students to disassemble them to observe the structure inside and practice the skills of repairing them.

The repair spell (Reparo) can only repair ordinary objects that are physically damaged, while most alchemical items contain powerful or complex magic. If you use a normal wand to use the repair spell to try to repair it, although it can repair its physical form, its damage at the magical level cannot be repaired.

Of course, there are exceptions to everything. Schelling knows one of the exceptions - the Elder Wand. The repair spell cast by this powerful wand can repair other wands. If Schelling is not wrong, other alchemical items can also be repaired by it, as long as they are not too large or complex items, such as the Vanishing Cabinet, the Mirror of Erised, etc.

The students enjoyed the practical class of repairing alchemical items and felt that they had learned a lot of useful things. Professor Burke even moved the vanishing cabinet that Peeves broke last semester into the classroom. He said that as long as the students mastered the basic skills of repairing alchemical items, they would be able to learn how to repair the vanishing cabinet in the next class.

On Thursday night, Harry officially started his weekly Defense Against the Dark Arts class, with Professor Lupin giving him a private lesson to learn the Patronus Charm.

Harry was very anxious because the learning process was not smooth, and even doubted Professor Lupin's teaching level - this was different from the original book. After all, in the original book, Harry was the first student in the same class to learn the Patronus Charm, while in this book, there were at least 60 young wizards who could cast the unformed Patronus Charm, and there were also many who could cast the physical Patronus.

Harry heard about it from Hermione - Hermione, under the guidance of Schelling, practiced it in one night, and Harry's nemesis Draco also did the same. Harry was upset when he thought that he was not as good as Draco in learning. This made him impatient, which affected his progress in learning the Patronus Charm, forming a vicious circle.

In the potion class on Friday, Professor Snape taught the knowledge of poisons for the first time in class. Just as he liked to choose a difficult style, he chose the "Undetectable Poisons" category. These poisons are colorless and tasteless, and cannot be detected by general detection methods such as silver spoons. They are hard to guard against.

(Note: People's Publishing House translated Undetectable Poisons into undetectable potions. The author is powerless to complain. Isn't Poison the English level of elementary school students?)

It is very surprising that in this class, all the students of Slytherin showed their brilliant strength. Even Goyle and Crabbe, who have always been the worst, showed their strength to crush Hermione.

This shocked the little lions of Gryffindor. Hermione showed an expression of disbelief and was greatly hit. Harry and Ron hated the potion class even more. They thought it was Snape's conspiracy to suppress Gryffindor. They guessed that Snape was giving Slytherin students some special lessons in private. Of course, Harry selectively forgot that he was also enjoying private tutoring from Professor Lupin.

Snape was innocently blamed. Slytherin's performance was of course due to Schelling's credit. After Schelling shared Snape's notes in September, the potion level of the third-year wizards in Slytherin has greatly improved, and it is no problem to crush Gryffindor.

On Saturday, Ravenclaw played a Quidditch match with Slytherin.

Under the leadership of Roger Davis, the overall strength of the Ravenclaw team is indeed extraordinary. Both offense and defense are very sharp and smooth. No wonder they can crush Hufflepuff. Unfortunately, it was not enough to face the Slytherin team, which was known for its meanness and unscrupulousness.

Under the continuous fouls of Marcus, Cassius and Montague, Ravenclaw lost two players due to injuries. Although they had a 100-point lead with frequent free throws, Draco caught the Golden Snitch faster than Zhang Qiu in the end, which laid the foundation for Slytherin's victory, although it was a narrow victory.

Of course, this was also because Draco retained his strength. He chose to follow Schelling's advice and did not take out the Firebolt in this game, but continued to use the Nimbus 2001.

According to Wood, this is good news for Gryffindor. If they also defeat Ravenclaw, they can be ranked second.

As a result, Wood increased the number of team training to five times a week. This meant that, including Lupin's Dementor-proofing sessions - which were more grueling than six Quidditch sessions - Harry only had one night a week to do all his homework.

Even so, he didn't act nervous like Hermione.

Hermione's heavy workload seemed to finally overwhelm her. Every night, Hermione was sure to be seen sitting in a corner of the common room. The tables in front of her were spread out with textbooks, Arithmancy charts, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles moving heavy objects, and another book. A dense note. She hardly spoke to anyone and always made nasty remarks when disturbed.

January turned into February without even realizing it, and the bitingly cold weather didn't change at all.

The match against Ravenclaw was approaching day by day, and Harry still hadn't ordered a new broom. Now, every time after Transfiguration class, he would ask Professor McGonagall for news about the Firebolt. Ron stood behind him hopefully, while Hermione turned her face to the side and hurried past.

On Thursday night, after Harry finished his fourth Dementor-resistant training class with Professor Lupine, he met Professor McGonagall on the way back to the lounge, and finally took back the Firebolt he had longed for from her.

Back in the Gryffindor common room, teammates who had heard the news excitedly surrounded Harry. Captain Wood even shouted: "With the Firebolt, Ravenclaw will definitely be out of luck. They are riding They are all sweeping seven stars!" (Don't doubt it, the author is not wrong, it is actually Wood, the big guy who made a mistake. Zhang Qiu's broom is Comet 260)

People passed the Firebolt around, admiring it from every angle. After about ten minutes, the crowd gradually dispersed, and Harry and Ron finally saw Hermione. Hermione was the only one who didn't rush to their side, carefully avoiding their gazes as she buried herself in her homework. Harry and Ron walked toward her desk, and finally, she looked up.

"I got it back." Harry looked at her with a smile and raised the Firebolt high.

"See, Hermione? There's no problem at all!" said Ron.

"But - maybe then!" said Hermione. "I mean, at least you know it's safe now."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Harry. "I'd better put it upstairs -"

"I'll get it!" Ron said enthusiastically, "I just want to give Scabbers a strengthening potion."

He took the Firebolt and carried it up the stairs of the boys' dormitory carefully, as if it were made of glass.

While Harry and Hermione were chatting and trying to repair their friendship, Ron's screams came from the dormitory at an inappropriate time.

The entire common room suddenly fell silent, and everyone stared blankly at the stairs. The sound of hurried footsteps became louder and louder - and then Ron jumped out, dragging a sheet in his hand with a large blood stain on it.

Then he angrily threw something at Hermione's rune translation assignment. Hermione and Harry hurried up to take a look. A few long ginger cat hairs lay on top of the weird, pointy words.

Ron and Hermione had a big fight in public.

Ron suspected that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, and he didn't give Hermione a chance to explain at all. He scolded Hermione to tears as if she was madly venting. He even said that Hermione had been brainwashed by Slytherin and had forgotten about it. It is my duty to be a Gryffindor.

This incident caused a great disturbance, and even students from other colleges, including Xie Lin, heard about it.

Because of this incident, Hermione became very sensitive and seemed to burst into tears at any time. This incident had a huge impact on her; she became even more lonely, often spending time alone in the library, and less likely to go back to Gryffindor to rest. room.

Two days later, in the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, due to Harry's outstanding performance and the superior performance of the Firebolt, Gryffindor easily won, and it was a 200-point lead. Unlike in the original book, Draco, who started to become a little more stable and mature this semester, did not turn into dementors with his friends to try to interfere with Harry's game, and Slytherin did not lose face because of the deduction of points.

After the game, everyone hugged Harry and headed to the Gryffindor common room together, where a lively party continued into the evening. Fred and George disappeared for two hours and returned with arms full of bottles of Butterbeer, Fizzing Pumpkin Juice, and large bags of Honeydukes candy.

Only one person did not attend this joyful gathering. Hermione sat in the corner in disbelief, trying to read a large book called The Life and Social Habits of Muggle Households in Britain.

When Fred and George started playing tricks with Butterbeer bottles, Harry took the opportunity to leave the table, come to Hermione and ask, "You never went to the game?"

"Of course I have been there." Hermione didn't even raise her head to look at Harry, and her voice was a little strangely high. "I'm very happy that we won. I think you did a really good job, but I have to finish reading it before Monday." This book……"

"Come on, Hermione, come and have something to eat." Harry glanced at Ron, who was smiling happily. He couldn't help but wonder: Is Ron's mood good enough to be with Hermione? Min made peace?

"I can't, Harry, I still have four hundred and twenty-two pages to read! Besides..." Hermione's voice sounded a little hysterical. She also looked over to Ron and whispered: "I'm afraid he won't want me to participate."

This is obvious. Because Ron deliberately picked this moment and said loudly: "If Scabbers is not eaten, he can eat a few of these butterscotch flies, which he always likes to eat-"

Hermione burst into tears. Her nerves have been very tense recently, whether it is busy with courses and studies, or the things that happened with Ban Ban, it has always kept her in a state of depression... But Harry still didn't expect that she really said Just cry.

Before Harry could say or do anything, Hermione put the big book under her arm, sobbed and panicked, opened the door and ran out of the Gryffindor common room.

"Can't you let her have a rest!" Harry couldn't help but said to Ron, and then looked at the door, "It's already night, I think it's best to get her back as soon as possible..."

Ron also glanced at the half-open doorway. He hesitated for a while, but still had a stubborn face. "No," Ron said with a straight face, "if she shows she's sorry - but she never admits she's wrong, that's the way Hermione is! She still looks like Scabbers is on holiday or something... "

Harry hesitated, sighed, and then ran out of the doorway helplessly.

In the original novel, Harry allowed Hermione, a little girl, to go out for a night out at midnight, which was a bit unreasonable. Here, the author decided to add a little more brilliance to Harry's character and let Harry chase Hermione out.