Study Days at Hogwarts

  Chapter 166 Trifles

  Mafalda Hopkirk has been working for the Ministry of Magic since graduating from Hogwarts, and now serves as an assistant to the Director of the Office of the Prohibition of Misuse of Magic at the Ministry of Magic.

  Hopkirk’s daily job is to replace the director and mail a warning letter to the violator after receiving illegal information, explaining the violation of the law. If the situation is serious, he needs to notify the emergency team to take action.

  However, just today, Hopkirk encountered something that made her extremely depressed.

  Someone actually wrote back and told her: Your Ministry of Magic has an oolong incident.

  The sender is Albert Anderson, who is studying at Hogwarts.

In the letter, Anderson clearly pointed out that he and his family were on vacation in France at the time, and he did not carry a wand when he left the country, let alone use the Flying Charm. The Ministry of Magic must have made a mistake. He hoped that the Ministry of Magic could resolve the misunderstanding between the two parties. And write him back.

  Actually, Hopkirk didn't think Anderson was lying, because the most favorable evidence was that Anderson didn't know how to use the Flying Charm at all, and the other party had just finished his first year at Hogwarts.

  Can freshmen in the first grade use the Flying Charm?

  Even Hopkirk himself didn't believe it.

  If you don't know how to use the Flying Curse, it is naturally impossible to cast spells.

  So the Prohibition of Misuse of Magic Office is undoubtedly wrong, and this is not the first time that this kind of thing happened, Hopkirk was not too surprised.

  But... what does this matter have to do with me?

  Hopkirk is only responsible for sending letters and notifications. She is not responsible for dealing with these issues, nor does she have such rights.

  Oh, no, this matter really has something to do with her.

  Hopkirk has the right to decide whether to hand this letter to the current director of the Prohibition of Misuse of Magic Office, or just throw the letter into a trash can.

  Based on her understanding of her boss, the other party probably wouldn't care about this kind of thing!

   After all, this is just a trivial matter no matter how you look at it, so there is no need to delve too deeply into it.

   Mafalda Hopkirk was about to deal with it privately.

  Well, the so-called private processing is actually to destroy the letter or throw it into a trash can. After all, she is just an assistant herself.

  Although I have some understanding of the law that reasonably restrains underage wizards, I am only an assistant after all, and my duty is to help write warning letters and other tasks.

  When Hopkirk was about to throw the letter into the trash can, she suddenly remembered something from last year. She still remembered the oolong incident caused by Zongsi, which was quite a big trouble at that time.

  Finally, it was exposed by the Daily Prophet, and Nutley, who was in charge of handling the matter, got himself into trouble because of this, and was almost transferred to the Horseman Liaison Office.

   "It doesn't seem very good to throw it away, let's leave it to the director!" Hopkirk hesitated for a while, but still thought it was her responsibility. As for how her boss would deal with it, it was none of her business.

  Of course, Hopkirk can also guess what will happen after this letter is delivered.

  As Hopkirk expected, his boss didn't even glance at the letter, and just threw the letter by the desk.

  By the time Hopkirk saw the letter again, it had already been thrown into the trash can.

  However, what Hopkirk didn't know, this result was also expected by Albert.

   It’s just that Hopkirk didn’t even know that they had already stood in front of the big hole dug by someone else, and behind them, someone was about to lift a foot and kick them into the hole.

  …

  After returning to China, Albert began to write replies to the people he sent letters.

  The Weasley brothers naturally also received Albert's sender list, along with the gift Albert bought for the twins—a rubber duck.

   Well, the yellow rubber duck is actually a gift that Albert bought in a grocery store near his home. Of course he knew that Fred and George wouldn't like the gift, since it was for Mr. Weasley.

   Albert wanted the twins to ask Mr. Weasley what to do in this situation.

  Fred and George expressed sympathy (gloating) for Albert's experience in their reply, and wrote in their reply:

  ...Dad thinks it's just a small thing, so you don't have to worry about it. He suggested that you should write a letter to the head of the Misuse of Magic Office and explain the matter to him...

   At the end of the letter, they also wrote: "By the way, Dad asked me to ask you, what is the rubber duck used for in the Muggle world."

   "Is it a small matter?" Albert muttered, "That's right, for those who have nothing to do with themselves, this is indeed a trivial matter."

  Albert put the twins' letter aside and continued to open the second letter.

  Professor Broad's reply was a bit unexpected to Albert. He also thought it was just a trivial matter, so Albert didn't have to worry about it.

  In Professor Broad's reply, he told some information about the Extraordinary Pharmacist Association, and also expressed his liking for the gift Albert gave him, and briefly mentioned McDougal's new book at the end.

"Small matter?" Albert put the letter aside, picked up the gold card and muttered, "Now let's see Hetok Dagworth's reaction. See if he thinks his gold card is lost, Is it also a small thing?"

  From Professor Broad's letter, it is not difficult for Albert to guess the value of this gold card in his hand.

   He believed that Hutok Dagworth would not remain indifferent.

  …

  …

   There are several letters, and it is impossible to reply immediately.

  The last letter was written by Rowena Smith. In addition to talking about some common interests between the two parties, Rowena Smith also mentioned in the letter that there will be an unexpected surprise for Albert after a while.

   Regarding the so-called unexpected surprise, Albert can probably guess what it is: Rowena Smith is going to Hogwarts to serve as a professor of defense against the dark arts.

After reading all the letters, Albert put the letters in the box, got up and stretched, drank the cold milk tea, touched Tom lying on the cushion by the table, and refocused on On the remaining summer homework.

  This is the homework left before Albert went to France for vacation, because he didn't have the habit of doing homework while on vacation, so he temporarily put down his summer homework when he went to France for vacation.

  Going to France for vacation, Albert only brought the few books on ancient runes that McDougal gave him.

  As long as you study these books carefully, your rune skill experience will increase at a gratifying speed.

   Now, it is a big step closer to level 3 runes.

   It's not that Albert doesn't like to use experience to upgrade directly, but he prefers the feeling of studying magic.

  Every time there is a slight breakthrough in the rune, Albert will feel an inexplicable sense of accomplishment, and this kind of achievement is what Albert wants.

  There was a knock on the door of the room. Nia pushed open the door and poked her head in. She said to Albert who was sitting at the table, "Dad told you to go to bed early today. We're going shopping in Diagon Alley tomorrow."

   "Got it." Albert knew why Nia was so excited, because she would also go to Diagon Alley in London with her.

   "Tom, it's time to go to bed!" Nia reached out and picked up Tom who was lying on the cushion, and put him on the floor, "Go by yourself, you have become so heavy, I can't even hold you."

   "That's why I said Tom should lose weight." Albert said with a smile, "Go back and rest early."

   "Leave Tom, or tomorrow's ration will be halved." Nia's threat was quite effective, Tom got up obediently, followed Nia and left.

   Albert looked at the closed door and focused on his homework.

   These vacation homework assignments are not really difficult, they just take time to write the answers on parchment.

  He is thinking about whether to stay up late and solve all the holiday homework at once? Finally, remembering Nia's expectation of going shopping in Diagon Alley tomorrow, she gave up.

   Half an hour later, Albert capped the ink bottle, inserted the quill pen back into the pen holder, got up and yawned lazily.

  Sheila has just returned from foraging, and since Albert told it last time that it is not allowed to bring prey home, it has never brought a dead mouse home.

   "Good night!" Albert looked at his owl and then at the night sky outside the window, suppressed a yawn, and lay back on the bed to rest.

  (end of this chapter)