The Mightiest Badger at Hogwarts

At night, Harry finally walked out of the dormitory.

At this moment, Hogwarts was enveloped in an atmosphere of joy.

Professor Flitwick and his students have already dotted the entire Hogwarts Castle with ribbons, colored balls and various decorations. Even the grim and solemn stone statues and armors in the corridors have been replaced. Wearing a Christmas hat, it looks much cuter.

Today is Christmas Eve.

On this happy day, even the cautious Filch would not keep an eye on the students who broke the rules, so everyone had nothing to worry about.

The younger students were running and playing in the corridors, while the older ones gathered together in twos and threes, chatting happily, and setting off a few Kuiliba fireworks from time to time.

Although not many students and professors chose to stay at Hogwarts to spend Christmas, they still spread joy and laughter to every corner of Hogwarts Castle.

But in this joyful atmosphere, Harry kept his head lowered, his body filled with confusion and bewilderment, and he seemed lost.

At the moment, the spatial anchor given to him by the French wizard named Gerald is being hidden in his chest.

He spent the entire afternoon fighting the murmurs in his head and wondering whether he should follow Gerrard's plan.

This kind of intense thinking and mental confrontation made him look in a daze. He only remembered that he had an agreement with Snape to go to Professor Slughorn's Slug Club's Christmas party for dinner. .

He walked crookedly, swaying this way and that. Fortunately, the students around him still rejected him, almost to the point of walking around when they saw him. This way he avoided colliding with other people and the whole journey was smooth. Arriving at the fifth floor of Hogwarts without any hindrance.

This was the meeting place given to him by Professor Slughorn.

Harry actually couldn't understand why the Christmas dinner wasn't held in the previous Potions classroom?

That classroom was obviously well decorated by Slughorn. It was almost the best banquet venue he had ever seen besides the Hogwarts Great Hall.

Is there any place prettier than the Potions Master on the fifth floor of Hogwarts?

With doubts, Link opened the door of an abandoned classroom.

Then he was stunned by the scene in front of him.

The dusty classroom inside the door was now completely new. Two long tables covered with white cloth were placed on both sides of the center of the classroom. In the classroom, or at the innermost side of the banquet hall, There is a huge Christmas tree, which is almost covered with Christmas decorations such as ribbons, candy canes, colorful balls and light strips. The surrounding area is even more magical, and from time to time there will be the shadow of snowflakes. Falling slowly.

The golden light emitted from the Christmas tree was connected with several giant chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, making the entire banquet hall shine with splendor!

Standing at the door, Harry was almost stunned by this scene.

"Harry! You're finally here, come in quickly, don't stay in a daze at the door!"

Slughorn's voice suddenly sounded, pulling Harry out of his daze.

Only then did he suddenly realize that he was not the only guest arriving in this huge banquet hall.

In addition to him, Professor Slughorn and several other members of the Slug Club are also there, including--Link!

This made him a little panicked, and he said to Slughorn:

"Ah, Professor, I'm sorry I didn't notice you."

"It doesn't matter, it's completely understandable. After all, this banquet hall is really amazing, right? I still remember the first time I went to the banquet of my senior's house. It was a member of the Bosted family. The Bosted family was still a member of the family at that time. It was considered a prosperous one, so their banquet was very good. The scene, tsk tsk, I was just like you now, I was almost frightened!"

Hearing what Slughorn said, Harry finally relaxed a little, but only a little. The tension was still buried deep in his heart, and was transported to every part of his body through his heartbeat and blood flow through blood vessels. The corner made his muscles tense all the time.

The only thing he's lucky about right now is that both Link and Emily are being pestered by other members of the Slug Club who want to suck up to them.

Otherwise, if Link came up to say hello to him, he felt like he might faint from nervousness.

On the other side, Slughorn saw that Harry had not replied for a long time, and said with some dissatisfaction:

"Hey, Harry, what's wrong with you today? It's so rude. I'm still waiting for you to ask questions about this banquet hall! Can't you satisfy the vanity of an old man like me?"

Harry was startled by the voice. He followed Slughorn's words almost subconsciously and said:

"Then...how did this banquet hall come about?"

"It's very simple, you just need to use some connections."

A proud smile appeared on Slughorn's face, "First of all, it's the venue. I got the right to use this abandoned classroom through Link's relationship. You should also understand this, that guy Dumbledore He is simply a stingy person. Even if it is just an abandoned classroom, if you apply to him, you will definitely not succeed.

Then there is the cleaning and renovation of the classroom interior.

I left most of the work in this area to the house elves.These cute little guys were so happy when they heard I was giving them new jobs.However, I am still personally responsible for the arrangement of the Traceless Stretching Spell here.

Of course, manpower alone is not enough.

Most of the materials for the renovation were also sponsored by other members of the Slug Club. For example, these chandeliers were sent by Buck Layton.This guy is a recently rising and quite famous magic lamp businessman.He sent the lamp through another Slug Club member and attempted to join the Slug Club.There are also these tables and chairs..."

Slughorn introduced every object in the banquet hall to Harry in detail.

After this operation, Harry's mouth opened wider and wider, and finally reached a state of sluggishness that could hardly be closed.

He didn't understand the fancy words Slughorn was talking about.

The only thing he could understand was that, except for the invisible stretching spell in the banquet hall, almost every piece of furniture and manpower here were procured by Slughorn.

In Harry's opinion, this could be described as incredible.

At the same time, he also gained a new and complete understanding of the Slug Club's network of contacts.

The Slug Club doesn't actually have many members.

But these people are located in various industries in the magical world, and they generally hold high positions.

Through these people, Slughorn can contact countless other peripheral personnel, and through these people, he can accomplish his goals at an extremely fast speed.

This cobweb-like set of interpersonal relationships can be described as omnipotent!

Harry had not been very popular since he was a child, and Sirius, who he had close contact with later, was also a loner, so this was the first time he saw the power of interpersonal relationships, and he was deeply shocked by this power.

Slughorn was very satisfied with Harry's expression.

He could tell that Harry was truly stunned.

This performance satisfied his vanity more than false flattery, and made him laugh loudly.

At this moment, the door to the banquet hall was opened again.

Harry's old acquaintance Ernie walked in with ease and went straight to Slughorn and Harry.

"Look, Professor Slughorn, and Harry, you are really in high spirits today, so handsome!"

As Ernie spoke, he opened his arms and gave Slughorn and Harry a big hug. "It's so nice to see you. Oh, yes, Professor Slughorn, I'm here for you." I brought a gift, I hope you can accept it!”

Ernie took out a large gift box wrapped in Christmas paper.

This is actually a Christmas gift.

But it is somewhat embarrassing for the younger generation to give Christmas gifts to their elders, so giving them on Christmas Eve is a barely feasible method.

"Really? This is for me?"

Slughorn acted a little flattered. He accepted the gift box and opened it while talking.

What then appeared in front of Harry and others was a complete set of potion making tools.

This includes a small cauldron, a pair of dragonhide gloves, and a set of knives for handling materials.

"These are all made of mithril alloy. No matter what kind of potion they are used to make, they will hardly suffer any wear or corrosion. The most important thing is that this set of tools is a potion master from 200 years ago, Kun What Rhys used!”

Ernie raised his head slightly and introduced somewhat proudly.

Slughorn was also very generous and took a breath of air and said:

"Quinlis? I'm his fan! Ernie, I really like your gift. Thank you!"

"No, as long as you like it."

The two continued to chat for a while, and then Ernie went to Link's side again.

It can be seen that he has actually wanted to join Link for a long time, but he reluctantly stayed here because of Professor Slughorn's face.

Fortunately, Slughorn also saw this clearly, so it didn't take him too long.

At this time, Harry felt a little uncomfortable.

Now Ernie has sent a gift and he hasn't, which is really embarrassing.

This made him restless and wanted to find some gift to give.

Unfortunately, he had been in a severe trance all afternoon, and now he didn't even have the Traceless Stretch Spell bag with him except for the spatial anchor point given by Gerald.

Professor Slughorn seemed to notice Harry's embarrassment.

He smiled slightly and said:

"Harry, you don't have to be like this. I'm not really interested in gifts or anything like that. These are unnecessary and you don't need to be embarrassed."

Harry curled his lips upon hearing this.

Professor Slughorn's reputation for being a free-for-all has long spread throughout Hogwarts.

I heard that even if you gave this guy a bag of durians as a gift, he would happily accept it. Now he says that he doesn’t like gifts anymore?

Who would believe this nonsense?

Harry felt that Slughorn was dissatisfied with him because he didn't give him a gift.

Slughorn also knew that Harry didn't believe it, so he raised the set of potion tools with a smile and said:

"Do you think this will be of any use to me?"

Harry shook his head decisively this time.

After studying NWET level potions with Slughorn for so long, he has a good understanding of potions.

Therefore, it is also clear that almost every senior potion master has a set of tools that he or she usually uses, and only when using that set of tools can their strength be fully displayed.

Precious potion tools and the like are really not that important to experienced potion masters. The tools that best suit you are the perfect ones.

"So you should understand that this thing is not of high value to me, so why would I choose to accept it?"

Slughorn asked himself again and answered, "It's very simple, because this is Ernie's heart. If I don't accept it, then Ernie will not only not be happy, but will be very frightened, thinking that he has offended me somewhere." . And now that I accept it, he will be relieved. At the same time, I will give him a gift in return, although the gift in return will not be too precious.

But if you help me, I will help you, if you give me something, I will give you a gift. This is a human relationship.

The so-called interpersonal relationships are constructed through such interactions.

So you may only think that I just accepted Ernie's gift, but what you didn't see is that I actually gave Ernie an opportunity to have a personal relationship with me.

This is the art of being a human being, Harry, and you still have a lot to learn. "

Harry nodded thoughtfully.

This was the first time he had received similar education, and it felt very novel.

At the same time, he also felt that this was quite useful knowledge.

After all, Slughorn had just shown him his complete experience of using interpersonal relationships to buy a banquet hall for nothing.

Harry thought he might as well find something to give to Slughorn.

In the words of the other party, this is called building communication opportunities.

In this way, he can be integrated into Slughorn's personal relationship.

And just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard a cold voice say from behind:

"Professor Slughorn, you'd better not mislead others, especially Harry. What you do can't do anything but turn people into villains who are good at business. It's just useless."

Harry was startled, and when he suddenly turned around, he realized that Snape was standing behind him at some point.

Slughorn was also a little angry when he heard this. He shook his head and said:

"Being good at management is also a kind of ability. All the ministers of the Ministry of Magic in the past were also good at management. According to you, are they all villains?"

"sophistry!"

Snape sneered, "But I'm too lazy to argue with you, as long as you stop instilling that into my students. Especially Pote, whose brain is only as big as a walnut kernel can't stand you." Such deception."