The Admiral of Hogwarts

"I thought you two, Xue Da, would arrive a bit later," Hugo and Hermione's maternal grandfather, Karl, said to Mrs. Granger.

"Come in quickly. Your mother and I have been busy all morning preparing this welcome dinner. It'll be ready in about an hour. I even made your favorite gingerbread cookies—"

After a quick clean-up, Mr. and Mrs. Granger immediately went to the kitchen to help. Hugo and Hermione rested on the sofa in front of the fireplace in the living room, with a box of pastries that Grandpa Karl had given them on the coffee table.

"Cream cookies, gingerbread men, cream-filled cupcakes… these are all my favorites—Hugo, want some?" Hermione exclaimed excitedly after opening the pastry box.

After all, for a teenage girl, the temptation of sweets is very strong. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Granger are both dentists, so they basically don't allow their children to eat any sweets.

They even wrote separate letters to Hugo and Hermione after they went to Hogwarts, reminding them to eat as few sweets as possible at school.

"Thanks," Wallace said, taking a gingerbread man from his sister and taking a bite. But just as they had eaten two or three pastries, Mr. Granger came out of the kitchen.

"Looks like Dad got kicked out of the kitchen again," Hermione said, turning to look at Hugo, a smile on her face.

Mr. Granger usually likes to help out in the kitchen when the family is cooking, but he always gets kicked out quickly because he ends up being more of a hindrance than a help.

"Okay, you two can laugh if you want," Mr. Granger said, shaking his head helplessly at the two children who were trying to hold back their laughter.

After the two kids finished laughing, he said to them, "Alright, I think you're done laughing, right? Next, let's decorate this house together."

Soon, Hugo and his father and grandfather got busy. When Hugo's mother and grandparents finished cooking dinner and came out of the kitchen, they had already hung up all the decorations that hadn't been put up yet.

The Christmas decorations were actually just a few kinds: some small plastic or glass ornaments, some long strings of small colored lights, and some metallic-colored paper.

When everyone entered the living room, all the lights in the room were turned on. After all, it was winter here, and it was snowing. So even at noon, the room was still a bit dim.

These colored lights, combined with the original lights in the room, illuminated the entire hall. Although you could see the heavy snow falling outside the window, the room seemed vibrant, and everyone sat around the dining table, eating and sharing their experiences.

This lunch was very sumptuous. The two elders prepared a delicious meal from every angle to welcome their younger relatives.

Whether it was the golden-brown roast chicken, the fragrant roast venison, or the honey-glazed shortbread, they were all Hugo's favorite things to eat.

So, more than an hour later, everyone sat in the tearoom next to the dining room with a satisfied expression, drinking hot cocoa and continuing the topic from the dining table.

"I never thought that legends like magic, wizards, and even dragons actually exist in this world," Hugo's maternal grandfather, Karl, said with a sigh after taking a sip of the hot cocoa in his hand.

Then he leaned forward slightly and looked at Hugo and his sister. "Listening to you, I think some of the legends from my hometown might be true."

Earlier at the dining table, Mrs. Granger had told Hugo's grandparents that Hugo and his sister Hermione were wizards. After listening to Mrs. Granger's description, Karl immediately remembered some of the stories he had heard in his hometown as a child.

As for why Hugo's grandparents didn't know they were wizards until now, the reason is simple. Because Hugo and his family had moved to Norway after receiving their letters from Hogwarts.

Out of concern for others eavesdropping or stealing information, the Granger family did not notify the two elders of this information by phone or letter.

"Legends from your hometown, Grandpa? Isn't your hometown Oslo?" Hugo asked, puzzled.

He only vaguely knew that his grandfather's hometown was in Norway, but he didn't know exactly where. Therefore, he naturally regarded Oslo, where his grandfather now lived, as his hometown.

"Of course not. I live in Oslo now because I'm old and I've lived in England for too long, so I can't stand being in my hometown in the winter at all."

After hearing Hugo say this, Karl shook his head gently and said, "My hometown is in a fjord in the north, a small city with a population of less than 20,000."

"A city on an ice field, sounds pretty cool," Hermione said softly.

For a girl who grew up in the big city of London, this small city built in a fjord on the east coast of the North Atlantic is completely different from her hometown. So the whole person suddenly became excited.

"Cool? No, no, no, that word is too gentle to describe the temperature there. I think coldness is a more standard way to describe the temperature there," Grandpa Karl obviously misunderstood the meaning of the word Hermione said.

"My hometown is Narvik in Nordland County, which is also the northernmost port city in the world mainly for mineral transportation." Then Karl briefly introduced his hometown to everyone present.

"Although this city is not big, it can be regarded as the Pearl of the North near the Arctic Circle as the main export port of Swedish iron ore. But I think you people who grew up in England may have never heard of this remote small city."

"Grandpa, I've heard of this place," Hugo waved his hand to indicate, "I remember that there should have been a large-scale naval battle in that place in the 40s."

"Yes, that's right. Back then, the German devils landed here in order to occupy Norway and obtain Swedish iron ore. My father was a member of the resistance organization at the time and stayed in the surrounding mountains for a long time."

"And it was at that time that he saw some strange and obviously abnormal things."

"According to the story he told me when I was a child, he once ran into a deep mountain that basically no one had ever been to in order to avoid the search of the Germans, and then saw a big guy—"

"What was that big guy?" Mrs. Granger asked with wide eyes. Obviously, Karl had never told his daughter this story before.

"My father doesn't know either," Karl shrugged helplessly. "At that time, he saw five or six huge black shadows like small mountains slowly moving in the valley below the mountain, but unfortunately, he passed out directly afterwards."

"When he woke up, half an hour had passed, and he found himself lying in a cave, with a pile of bonfires burning next to him and several pieces of dry food placed there."

"But no matter how he recalled afterwards, he couldn't remember what he encountered in that half hour."