Draco Malfoy’s somewhat sharp face became startled, and he looked up eagerly, eyeing Felix as if trying to read the real meaning in the professor’s calm face.
“Adequate sleep gives satisfaction, this is something I won’t normally tell somebody.” Felix said, “The one thing that can compete with that is a great meal, but only on Halloween we can get it when there are a lot of exotic cuisines…”
After he left, Draco remained where he was. The light gray eyes kept flickering, not quite sure if he had got away with it.
Professor Hap is a person who is afraid of hassle, this is a point that is recognized by the students and faculty of the whole school to a certain extent.
For example, he would leave many of his assignments on ‘answer space’ because it would greatly save time in correction. Similarly, although he gave no fewer tests in class than any other professor, he is the only one who would request students to answer questions in a fixed format.
There are gossips that it’s because this will allow a very special kind of advanced golem to correct the test papers.
Besides, there are other supporting evidence. Professor Hap rarely detain students, even the number of points deductions are rare, more than one Hufflepuff student met the professor in the kitchen, and they will discuss the experience of eating seafood together, also he modified a Deboning spell (Ossio Dispersimus) into ‘Fish Deboning spell’ which once became popular in the school.
But if a student asked him about it in class or if they asked him about some food spell in class, they would find their assignments immediately went up a notch, and the trend then slowly subsided.
And now Draco Malfoy is considering the issue – Professor Hap has taken over this task from Professor McGonagall, and if the latter does not bring it up, might he have got away with it?
He spent the next two days on the edge, being careful in his Ancient Runes and Potions classes, not daring to meet the two professors’ eyes. He didn’t even participate in the hilarious moment when Neville Longbottom burned the crucible to a crisp – a very rare sight now – he wondered when that Longbottom’s grades had got better and better.
Care of Magical Creatures Class was also difficult, have to put up with the mocking eyes of stupid Gryffindor students, especially that Weasley, laughing at the sight of him, and often slapping his pants leg in a pretentious manner, making him secretly want to hex him, if he could only make Weasley vomit slugs once more! But unfortunately, he did not find that spell in the library.
Hagrid, the big guy, was making them watch over the Flailtail Snail in class as usual, and the students were reluctant. It looked like a slimy gray worm, sort of like a large lobster with its shell removed, messy with many legs, with hundreds of them crammed into a single box, squeezing together and crawling around, oozing what looked like snot-like mucus.
Despite his dislike of Gryffindor, when the girl named “Lavender Brown” squealed, “Gross!” He felt good while feeding these six-inch worms some lettuce. But Crabbe, the brainless one, overturned the box, and the Flailtail Snails fled in all directions with sparks spewing from their tails, filling the open space with the stench of rotting fish and shrimp, making them vomit so hard that they couldn’t stand up …
Thursday was a special day, and he saw Moody again.
Moody was as crazy as ever, blatantly demonstrating the Unforgivable Curses in class. While talking about the Killing Curse, Moody remarked with a wide grin, “The Killing Curse requires a very powerful magic power as a foundation – you can all get your wands out, point them at me, and chant the spell – I expect I’ll get a nosebleed at best.”
For a moment he felt a tug in his heart, as Professor Hap mentioned a dark thought appeared in his mind, and then he realized with dismay that he simply could not muster the courage to point his wand at that ugly nose.
On Friday, he saw Professor Hap again and was surprised to find the classroom of the Ancient Runes class greatly changed, with soft light illuminating the room perfectly, and he looked up, along with the other students, to see the Magic Lamp made up of the Four House animals which symbolizing the Four Houses.
“Professor Hap, will the rest of the classrooms at Hogwarts also switch to magic lamps?” A girl raised her hand to ask a question.
“Your question is not relevant to the classroom, Miss Parvati. Nevertheless, What I can reveal is that someone from ‘Future World’ will come to school in a couple of days to discuss this part of the matter.”
Felix smiled and said, “Personally, I think the magic lamp is quite a lot better than the Torch or the magic flame, at least you don’t have to worry about hurting your eyes when you read in the classroom and library.”
Below the podium, Harry and Ron muttered –
“Isn’t ‘Future World’ Professor Hap’s?” Ron asked, in confusion.
“Maybe not so convenient since he still holds a teaching position at the school,” Harry said, with some anticipation, “Maybe we’ll get to meet Professor Lupin.”
“And Penelope.” Ron said, without thinking, revealing a piece of information. “Percy brought her over to the house before school started, and mother talked about getting married, which scared her off.”
Felix cleared his throat and swept his gaze around the room as the young wizards off the podium quieted down.
He clapped his hands, “Okay, class, today we’ll be translating a manuscript that you were exposed to in third grade with its excerpts …”
For the remaining twenty minutes, Felix arranged for students to self-study, and Hermione finished her homework on the ‘answer space’ in only ten minutes, while Harry and Ron were still chewing on their quills as they struggled to think.
“How did you do that?” Ron asked her.
“It’s mostly from my memory, and it doesn’t involve much effort on my part, it’s a lot easier than making up some unlucky story to fool Trelawney as you guys did.” Hermione said as she looked at the professor sitting in the corner of the podium, holding a half illusory book, occasionally tossing a few runes into it.
“The Book of Runes …” she muttered longingly.
“What?” Harry asked, he had just finished the last part with only a few minutes left before the end of class, he heard Hermione’s whisper just when he looked up from the parchment.
“The Book of Runes,” Hermione repeated, “I wish I could do that too.” On the podium, Felix turned another page. She blinked and seemed to see a flash of black lightning.
Ron whispered to Harry in a mutter, “I’ll settle for anything as long as we don’t talk about ‘Spew’.”
Harry wanted to laugh a little, Hermione these days spent most of her time in the library looking through information about house-elf, being indignant at the injustice they had suffered for centuries, and she had created a non-profit organization, the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, with the acronym identical to ‘Spew ‘ word.
Hermione said emotionally: “You are not supposed to speak like that, you are the Treasurer of the organization -”
“Yeah,” Ron said, “Harry is a secretary, does that mean he should write down everything you say right now? But we’re busy, and we’ve got Champion training on the weekend …”
“That’s for sixth and seventh years.” Hermione raised her eyebrows and glared at him with a scowl.
“But the bulletin board doesn’t say that only sixth and seventh years are allowed to go, why can’t we just go and look at it.” Ron muttered, looking towards Harry for support, who had nodded vigorously beside him.
Hermione was about to say something else when the bell rang, so Ron and Harry immediately ran out and stood at the door, glancing into the distance. Hermione took a while to come out from inside and looked at them with a look of confidence when they met again.
“Enquired about it with Professor Hap! The way to get to the kitchen, all you need to do is to find a portrait of a fruit bowl and tickle a pear in it.” Hermione said gleefully, “It seems that the professor also supports me.”
“He agrees!?” Ron asked incredulously, “He agreed to wear the ‘Spew’ badge on his robe? What position did you put him in?”
“Oh, no.” Hermione’s face fell, “The professor said he wanted to consider it carefully, but-”
“The professor suggested that I should visit the Kitchen first, then have a chat with the house elfs and write a report about the actual situation of the Hogwarts Kitchen House elfs.”
Ron quietly voiced his thoughts, “I guess Professor Hap just couldn’t shrug it off, so he gave her something to do.”
Harry thought about Professor Hap’s reaction after being asked to join a strange organization, and he strongly agreed with Ron’s guess – it might be the truth.
He is secretly angry with himself, why he did not think of this approach?
If he had known, he would not have needed to hold any meetings, discuss the organization’s founding declaration, rules & regulations.
…
On Saturday morning, the sky looked a bit gloomy and students appeared in classroom seven in groups, with much more people showing up than expected. Many first and second-year students were carrying sweets and snacks with an attitude of watching the show.
Harry was deeply impressed with this place, during Magic Rune Club members’ selection time, he and Ron followed Hermione to work around, receiving students who came to sign up, let them fill out some forms and notes.
He also defeated Malfoy here to obtain the third-year dueling championship, with the reward of a chance to learn Apparition three years earlier.
But after a summer holiday, this place was somewhat abandoned, and from afar you could see the white wall that served as the boundary of the room, with half a ceiling that showed the blue clear sky.
———–
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