cycle

Neville's good mood didn't last long. As soon as we got off the train, we could see many people turned their heads to see him and Harry, and turned their heads to whisper to their companions without any concealment.Maybe it’s because I’ve stayed at No. 12 Grimmauld Place for too long, and the night has already begun to blow the cold wind on my face. It doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable. A burst of fragrance.But we didn't hear Hagrid's familiar voice. Harry and the others had stretched their necks to look for it for a while, only to see a neat female guiding the first-year students to take the boat.

"Where did Hagrid go?" Harry stood still, and there were already many people complaining from behind, so he reluctantly continued to walk forward with Hedwig's cage in his arms.

Walked down the rain-soaked path to Hogsmeade Station, where we had been riding in a horseless carriage for the previous three years.Hermione and Ron finally caught up to us, panting, and a group of people huddled around the station waiting for a vacant seat, looking around on tiptoe.But Neville looked at the carriages with a pale expression, as if seeing them clearly for the first time, I thought he had lost his Raffle again, but Harry on the side also showed a confused and bewildered expression, Their eyes were fixed on the air in front of the wagon, as if something there was drawing their full attention.

Vivienne thought that Tallus was playing with her by putting her cage on her head, and happily flapped her wings in the cage and shouted. Talus was very conspicuous in the crowd, but now almost everyone All eyes were on him, and they weren't even pointing at Neville anymore.But Talus didn't seem to care, he was busy asking Ron and Hermione if they saw Hagrid, and Hermione was gnashing her teeth at Draco and Parkinson's behavior of savagely driving out the junior students and occupying the empty carriage, Said that he must sue them.

"In the past, at least he would at least take care of you to restrain yourself a little... look at his nature now." Hermione took the writhing Crookshanks from Luna's hands, shaking her head, "My parents have always been right I said that what kind of attitude a person has towards those who are inferior to him reflects what kind of person he really is.”

"Yes." I replied numbly, "It makes sense."

"What's that?" Harry asked Hermione. "What are those horse-like things?"

Hermione looked in the direction of his finger suspiciously: "Harry, what do you want me to see?"

"Can you see it too?" Neville asked impatiently, "This strange winged horse——Harry, you can see it too, right? Is it because I was confused and saw hallucinations again?"

"What's the matter with you two?" Ron asked worriedly, "Could it be that the chocolate frogs sold on the train were mixed with the kind of mushroom powder that can make people see fantasy..."

"I ate chocolate frogs, too," I said as we finally lined up in a buggy, and when we got into the darkness, the damp musty smell came over my face, "I didn't see anything either. "

"I can." Luna's trance voice came from behind, "I think people with a clear mind will see them."

"Dude, congratulations you're as clear-headed as she is." Talus finally handed Vivian back to me, but Vivienne had already fondly poked her beak out of the cage to peck his thumb.Harry and Neville obviously didn't like the idea, and they'd rather have been given the hallucination mushroom powder themselves.

"I think it may require some conditions to see it." When Harry got out of the carriage, he still looked at the cloud of air in front of the carriage with doubts, and I comforted him, "You and Neville can both see the same thing. It should be objective. It exists, it is very difficult to make two different people have the same hallucination, let's go first, you are blocking the people behind."

"Yeah." He said after a moment of silence, "I was just thinking about what to do if Neville and I had already been cursed by the You-Know-Who."

"Curse you to see horses that others can't see?" I laughed. "Then he's boring enough."

"No, if it's just a side effect." He scratched his hair irritably, "If he controlled us, thinking about what happened last semester, we could have seen the clues, couldn't we? Saw Barty Jr. on the map—"

"Stop talking." I interrupted him, and many people around were already listening to him, "Thinking wildly will only confuse your brain."

"Luna just boasted that I'm as clear-headed as she is." He muttered, "Oh, don't stare at me, I'm kidding."

Slender candles have been lit in the auditorium, and above the head is the same gloomy night sky as outside, but the candlelights are well decorated to make up for the regret of not being able to see the stars.There were already quite a few people sitting on the four long tables. When Neville passed by, they all stopped chattering and turned to look at him. This made Neville look even more uncomfortable. He pursed his lips tightly to show that I didn't hear it and didn't care, but cold sweat still oozes from Yuanyuan's face.

"Don't let the harassers get into your head," Luna said to Neville, and bid us farewell and sat down at the Ravenclaw table.

Ginny has arrived, chatting enthusiastically with a few Gryffindors from the fourth year, and we find a few empty seats in the middle of the table. Nearly Headless Nick greets us, and I'm almost sure Patil Brown and Brown were still discussing things related to a few of us, because the way they greeted was a bit too enthusiastic.

"We thought you lost that barrette!" Patil pointed to the cat's-eye green barrette in my hair. "You haven't worn it in ages!"

"Uh..." I lied casually, "I forgot where I put it when I packed it, and I found it in the luggage compartment later."

"You can forget such a beautiful thing!" Brown yelled, causing many people to turn their heads to look at us. I found that this year she finally stopped staring at Talus stupidly. After a night of dancing with Greengrass, she seemed to be a lot colder towards Talus-of course Talus himself should not have noticed, and she was even angrier and said that she would never make fun of herself again.

Harry and the others were still trying to find Hagrid at the staff table, but I found that he was not there from the moment I entered the auditorium-it is difficult for you to ignore Hagrid's existence, after all, he will definitely stand out from the crowd.I saw that my father was still sitting gloomyly in his previous seat, and Professor Dumbledore was sitting in the middle of the staff table, wearing a dark purple robe covered with silver stars, he tilted his head and listened to the strange woman beside him. The hat looks shaky.

"That woman surnamed Umbridge!" Neville showed a rare expression of extreme disgust, "She attended my hearing at the Ministry of Magic-that is, she said that I was just a poor, deranged little boy, and rejected our—”

"Neville." Hermione cut him off with a little warning.

Neville closed his mouth aggrieved, but still stared angrily at the woman on the staff desk.She's wearing a furry cardigan that doesn't match her age, short taupe hair with a big funny pink bow (I noticed Patil took off the big red bow on her head Put it at hand), the bright colors make her short and fat body appear more inflated, she may have noticed that many students in the auditorium are looking at herself, she turned her face and took a sip from the goblet, and smiled at us —it made her face look more like a toad.

"So she works for Fudge?" Hermione frowned and looked at the teaching desk carefully with me, "Could it be...no..."

Her murmurs were drowned out by the sound of the first-year students led by Professor McGonagall who filed in. They all looked pale in shock and looked at the patched wizard hat in front of them with expressions of awe.I noticed that a little girl looked very disturbed, and her hand was tightly clutching the sleeve of the robe of another little boy next to her.I looked away almost immediately to try not to think about anything, but luckily the Sorting Hat started singing right away.

"This year's song is a bit off topic, isn't it?" Ron raised his eyebrows after the Sorting Hat sang, and there were a lot of whispers around, for the first time in five years.

"It's probably heard more than all of us." Tallus applauded absently. "That hat stays in Dumbledore's office all day."

"I envy him seeing Dumbledore every day," Neville said gloomily.

"Did it say that before—for example, when the mysterious man was there last time?" Hermione asked the ghost Nick who was sitting beside him, "You must know, did it send out a warning?"

Almost headless Nick just wanted to answer, but Professor McGonagall had already started reading the list of first-year freshmen. She scanned the students who were whispering with unusually severe eyes, and Nick immediately sat up straight and pressed a transparent finger to his lips. superior.The long queue of freshmen shortens a little bit, and the annual opening ceremony is like the beginning of a cycle. The familiar scene always reminds me of the feeling I had when I walked into the glorious auditorium for the first time and looked up at the starry sky many years ago.

I watched the little girl shudderingly go to the stool and sit down. Professor McGonagall gently placed the Sorting Hat on top of her head, and when the Sorting Hat called out "Hufflepuff", she instantly smiled, He trotted all the way to the side of the little boy who had just sat down at the long Hufflepuff table, his face had turned red like a freshly ripe apple.

"Great," I heard Hermione say after Dumbledore's brief welcome speech. "It's reassuring to be at Hogwarts, and everything is moving on."

"Yeah, that's great." I muttered as I looked at the piles of food that suddenly appeared in front of me, "They're lucky, they're very good."

As the Weasley twins said, the fifth grade is the year of OWL. If we used to listen to teachers endlessly chanting that a certain spell is the key test content of OWL, and feel that it is actually far away, then from As we stepped into Hogwarts this school year, this exam was like a huge giant walking up to us with heavy steps, patting us on the shoulder one by one and smashing each of us into the floor without mercy Li - the schedule seems to have never been so full.

The Weasley twins shuttled among the listless students with full energy, introduced them to the nosebleed nougat that had not been fully developed, and tried to recruit experimenters for the quick-acting skipping candy.Hermione was so upset that they dared to openly advertise for experimenters on the Gryffindor bulletin board that she finally gave up on another word-for-word interpretation of Professor Umbridge's speech after dinner yesterday - seriously, we all She was drowsy after listening to it, and she actually memorized those words. Talus said that Hermione didn't have to worry about any OWL exams just because of this.

"How did they suddenly have so much money?" Hermione asked suspiciously, "I looked at the advertisement, and they paid the experimenters a lot of money, as well as the raw materials. Joke shop. I suppose Mrs. Weasley didn't give them that much pocket money?"

"In fact, they stopped asking for money from the family a long time ago, and my mother was always worried about them doing some bad things." Ron said sadly, "I'm actually quite puzzled, they even bought me a dress this summer vacation Robes, I really don’t know where the money came from.”

"So what do you want to do after graduating from Hogwarts?" Harry changed the subject abruptly, "Our test scores this year are related to our future."

"I want to do something meaningful," said Hermione quickly, "and if I can further the House-Elf Rights Promotion—"

"Seriously? I thought you were just having a whim last semester," Tallus interjected nonchalantly.

Hermione felt insulted: "Of course not!"

"I want to travel around the world," Tallus said slowly, "not like my dad, it's too easy. I'm going to be like a Muggle and take their transport, it must be fun-they use Tin cans that can fly in the sky travel, those Muggle girls are also very interested in card tricks, of course I read it from magazines, I can use magic instead of tricks, and I will definitely attract them."

"You can attract them by sitting there as a statue," Ron muttered. "I think Muggle girls and witches have a similar aesthetic."

"Ron, what do you want to do then?" Hermione's tone seemed casual.

"Uh..." Ron stammered, "I didn't really think about it, I just thought, um..."

"What?" Harry demanded.

"Being an Auror like Harry's dad would be cool," said Ron in a half-truthy tone, "but it's hard, isn't it? Pretty much the best of the best."

"Yeah." Harry looked enthusiastic. "You think the same as I do! Is there anything more meaningful than going straight to the dark side?"

"Then you have to get an O in Potions in OWL - my dad only accepts students who get an O." I saw the half of the smile on Harry's face disappear in an instant, and I felt as if I had hit him too far , "Uh, I mean you have to seriously prepare from now on."

"Then what do you want to do in the future?" Hermione asked me curiously, "Do you also want to be an Auror, Alice? Just like your mother?"

"I didn't really think about it," I said honestly.

"Come on," said Ron, "I know I can't get an O in Potions, but it's never illegal to dream, is it?"

"Well... I think the International Association of Magical Pharmacists is pretty good." I shrugged, "Although Dad scoffed at some of the opinions in their journals, it's quite interesting. Write to Dad to invite him to the meeting."

Except for Hermione, all the boys showed expressions of "what are you talking about?" Hermione responded enthusiastically: "I also think you are more suitable for research! But the headquarters of this association is in the United States-they have offices in the United Kingdom." branch?"

"No." When I walked into the History of Magic classroom, I felt sleepy at the door, and I said, "They don't have enough staff, so the monthly magazine is always delayed into a quarterly magazine."

"Do you want to work in the United States in the future?" Talus asked me in shock. His voice was a little loud, and I felt my face burn, because the students who were half asleep in the classroom suddenly raised their heads and looked at us. here. "You actually want to live with Americans?"

"Um... I think at least the editor is pretty good." After sitting down, I whispered, "In second grade, I stole their letter of invitation to dad and wrote a messy Hell Potion Improvement Method I sent it to them with the school owl, and the editor-in-chief not only didn’t throw it into the trash can, but also sent back the manuscript that he helped me revise for five pages, and finally agreed that I published the article under a pseudonym—but I didn’t write any more after that, I thought it was a bit too troublesome to revise back and forth, after all, I was still a student.”

They seemed stunned by the idea, and they were trying before Professor Binns started talking about War of the Giants in that wheezing voice, and everyone except Hermione fell into a stupor within 10 minutes. It makes me feel that the US is much worse than the UK.

But they obviously failed. As you know, I was working for the International Association of Magical Apothecaries before I finally agreed to my husband's marriage proposal. Those three years away from my homeland made me calm a lot.To this day, I still try my best to take time to attend their annual exchange meeting, and I am sincerely happy that they have started to prepare the bimonthly magazine. The retired editor-in-chief Mr. Ted Andrew also said that he would save half of the page for my book Advertising, I kindly declined the proposal, after all, this is just a memoir of a middle-aged woman rambling, and has nothing to do with potions.

I'm trying to keep my focus on my notebook, but the boys talking about the Gryffindor Quidditch team's new keeper sounds more interesting than Professor Binns' scripted quiz.Of course Hermione seemed very dissatisfied, and she yelled at the three boys when get out of class was over that they couldn't borrow her History of Magic notebooks this year.

"Oh, come on," said Ron, "how can you bear to see us poor people without your brilliant brains, your focused attention, your photographic memory, not get the magic of OWL?" History certificate, Hermione, you are so kind."

"You know how to pour me these ecstasy soups." Hermione turned around, but her face had softened a lot. "

Like other teachers, Dad also emphasized his requirements for our OWL exam in our first class of fifth grade (maybe it sounded more like a threat to some people's ears), and he looked at Na with a sullen look. Way (Neville gasped) said he hoped every student in this classroom would get at least a pass, otherwise he would be very angry.

"I thought he would treat us better after this summer vacation." Ron muttered, "It seems like a dream now."

"Alice, sit at Miss Patil's and Miss Brown's table." He turned to me with a blank expression after finishing today's request for palliative agent, "you heard me ,faster."

"Oh...yes, professor." I threw the medicinal ingredients I just took out into the empty cauldron.

"Potter, what's this?" I heard Dad ask Harry in a sarcastic voice with 10 minutes to go, and I turned to see dark gray clouds of gas rising from his cauldron. .He wasn't the worst compared to the others, at least he had steam rising in his cauldron, not Ron's green sparks spitting out or Seamus's cauldron having stopped boiling semi-solid.

"Potter, tell me," my father's tone sounded soft, but his cold, joking voice could be heard all over the classroom, "Did your father forget to teach you to read? "

Draco laughed from the Slytherin side.

"I don't think he's forgotten." Harry's voice was tense.

"Then read the third line of the operating instructions to me."

"Add moonstone powder, stir counterclockwise three times, boil for 7 minutes, then add two drops of sneezeweed syrup."

"Then have you followed the above requirements step by step?"

Harry answered very quietly, but he obviously didn't add the sneezeweed syrup - if I was still sitting between him and Hermione I could help him, and it dawned on me that Dad probably sent me away just to make things difficult haha Leigh - he probably never forgot to pursue me for taking Harry to his office to steal gillweed.

"Of course I know you've forgotten. Potions are an art of precision. You obviously don't have a mind that's precise enough. This piece of crap you made today is useless - gone." My dad waved it lazily Wand, leaving Harry standing in front of his empty cauldron, "Weigh yourself, Potter, and don't make unrealistic efforts - in every sense of the word."

"How did Snape know that you wanted to be an Auror in the future?" Ron asked after class. "Will Mr. Potter talk to him about this?"

"I think the possibility of You-Know-Who being appointed as the British Ministry of Magic's Peace and Goodwill Ambassador is higher than the possibility of the two of them sitting down and talking about these things." Harry looked angry and aggrieved, just like Neville's bottle of cement Compared to the finished product, his potion obviously deserved at least a B-, but he got the only zero in the entire classroom.

"Neville, do you want to go to divination class together?" Tallus asked Neville who hurried past.

"No, I'll go by myself." Neville left without saying a word listlessly.

"Seamus went too far last night, I wish I could have given him a beating," Tallus said.

"What's going on again?" Hermione asked, but soon we'll be going to Arithmancy and Divination separately.Like other teachers, Professor Victor assigned us homework that was much more difficult than before. There was still one Defense Against the Dark Arts left in the class schedule, but it no longer made people feel interested in going to class.

"Good afternoon, students!" After we walked into the classroom in silence to find seats, Umbridge stood up from behind the podium (not much different from when she sat down), with The bow turned black, making one wonder if she had a whole suitcase of bows.

After a day of lessons, we were exhausted and only a few of us responded to her, and she looked very dissatisfied: "This is not acceptable, I hope you all answer me in unison, 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge', please come again Once again—students, good afternoon!"