A day of learning magic at Hogwarts

Because of the yelling letter, there was a little conflict between Ernie and Justin.

But this little conflict between boys always gets better quickly.

After one morning, they forgot all about it.Ernie no longer cared that anyone was laughing at him for yelling at the letter.

With the end of the morning spells class, it also meant that their first week of classes was also completely over.First-year students have no classes scheduled on Friday afternoons, which means they can have more than a half-day over the weekend.

Just when Ian was planning which book to read in the library in the afternoon, Justin told him a surprising "secret" during lunch:

"Ian, Ernie, I know where the kitchen is!" He lowered his voice and whispered.

"Kitchen?" Ernie said nonchalantly while chewing on the chicken leg, "What does that have to do with us?"

“Cedric told me,” Justin continued, “just off our common room, there’s a door hidden behind a painting of a bowl of fruit, just scratch that pear , it will chuckle, and then——"

"That's it!" Ian suddenly realized.

He even had an impression of the painting of a bowl of fruit that he often passed by.Unexpectedly, there was a huge underground kitchen hidden behind it.

After taking a look at the mountains of food on the four dining tables, I saw that the underground kitchen must be quite large, with dozens of chefs at least.

Justin also added: "Cedric also said that the chefs in the kitchen are very enthusiastic, especially towards us Hufflepuff students. They will stuff a lot of food into our hands..."

"Nani, is there such a thing?" Ian immediately cheered up.

Growing up, I ate in many canteens.He has seen a lot of naughty cooks, but he has never seen a chef who takes the initiative to serve food for free!

"The three of us, let's go to the kitchen together and have a look?" Justin suggested.

"I agree!" Ernie, who was not interested, responded first, "Anyway, if I go back to the common room, I will definitely be asked about the shouting letter by a lot of people."

"Okay, let's go take a look!" Ian nodded in agreement, "But first, let me go back to the common room to get something..."

……

Just do what you say, and after lunch, the three of them set off.

Justin and Ernie waited in front of the painting for a moment, and Ian quickly returned to the common room and took out the things he had prepared.

It was a gift prepared in advance for the chefs at Hogwarts.But because I couldn't find where the kitchen was before, I finally gave up.

Return to the painting of the silver bowl filled with fruit.

Justin stretched out a finger and gently scratched the big green pear; the pear squirmed, chuckled, and suddenly turned into a big green doorknob.

Then, Justin grabbed the handle and opened it, and the three of them burst into the door together.

Passing through the door, you will see a room almost as big as the auditorium. There are many gleaming copper pots and basins piled beside the surrounding stone walls, and there is a large brick fireplace at the other end of the room.

"Is this the kitchen?" Ian said softly.

This place was obviously shabbier than he imagined.

"Gentlemen...Hello...Gentlemen..." A little thing rushed towards him quickly: "May I ask what you want me to do!"

What caught their eyes was a very ugly "little monster"... It had two big bat-like ears and a pair of protruding green eyes the size of tennis balls.He is very short, a full head shorter than an average first-year student.He was covered in a bunch of scattered rags and looked quite scary.

"There's a ghost!" Justin seemed frightened by this thing and ran away.

"Don't be afraid!" Ernie quickly grabbed him, "It's just an ordinary house elf, there's nothing to be afraid of."

Ernie's figure was stronger than that of Justin, so Justin was easily pulled back by him.

"House elf?" Upon hearing this title, Ian reacted instantly.

He calmly put away the wand he had pulled out before.

"House elf?" Under Ernie's comfort, Justin gradually calmed down again, "What is that?"

"House elves are servants of wizards." Ian explained calmly: "A low-status magical race, they must serve their masters for generations. Generally, house elves are slaves of ancient and wealthy wizard families. They are responsible for all housework and are bound by their master. They cannot disobey the master's orders casually. If they disobey, they must punish themselves. They have magical abilities, but casting spells requires the master's permission..."

"Ian, you don't even know this." Ernie glanced at Ian in surprise.

"The book "A Thousand Magical Creatures" in the library, pages 41 and 42 are the descriptions of house elves." Ian answered truthfully.

It's just that the illustrations in the book were so abstract that Ian, who saw the "real thing" with his own eyes, didn't recognize it for a while.

……

From the corners of the surrounding walls, little heads poked out, each one representing a house elf.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is indeed "wealthy". It is said that an ordinary wizarding family is already very wealthy with just a few house-elf slaves; but in the Hogwarts kitchen, these heads that peek out quietly are even more... There must be at least a hundred of them.

If the average wizard family is just a northern capitalist with one or two servants, the kitchen in Hogwarts in front of them can be called a southern plantation.

But the current situation is a little embarrassing.

Justin's overreaction just now seemed to scare these ugly little guys in front of him.

Except for the house elf standing in front of them, the rest of the house elves were huddled in the corner and did not dare to come out.

Ian took the initiative to step forward, bent down with a smile, and said: "Hello, my name is Ian Traister. They are my friends, Ernie MacMillan and Justin Finley. Here. We came here to bring a gift to the chefs at Hogwarts."

"A gift?" In the eyes of the house elf in front of him, in addition to fear, there was also a bit of confusion.

Ian gently opened the gift box in his hand and took out the contents, which contained a whole box of latex gloves.

This was of course a gift he had prepared in advance for the Hogwarts chefs... But Ian had no idea that the Hogwarts chefs were not humans, but the short house elves in front of him.So it may not fit well, but I have no choice but to take it out.

"No, Ian!" Ernie suddenly stood up and shouted.

He tries to stop Ian's next move:

"You can't! You can't give clothes to house elves!"