💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎
🔥 30→2ch | 60→5ch | 100→8ch | 200→15ch | 400→25ch
⏰ Resets Monday!
------
After seeing Neville off, Anthony sat in his chair thinking for a while, then decided to find Hagrid for a drink.
Winter's sun set early. By evening, only the western sky still held a few golden clouds. From the mountaintops beyond Hogwarts, deep blue and purple had already spread. Cold wind stirred the withered grass. Only a few students remained outside the castle—most rested by the school's warm fireplaces.
Hagrid wasn't in his hut. Anthony walked around the castle before spotting him near the Quidditch pitch.
"Henry!" Hagrid clutched a large bundle of brooms, calling out loudly. "What brings you out here?"
"I was looking for you," Anthony said. "I bought quite a bit of white wine earlier, and some brandy too. Thought you might be interested."
Hagrid's beetle-black eyes lit up. "Oh, brandy! Of course!" He looked down at the brooms. "But not now, Henry. I've still got work."
The bundle of brooms looked like inadequate kindling in Hagrid's large hands, pitifully squeezed together.
"What are you doing?"
"Preventing frost," Hagrid said proudly. "Though I still have to de-frost them every morning. Too cold, Henry, and Quidditch season's started again. Can't have them going out with frost—those brooms wouldn't be nimble enough. Besides, students would slip off."
Anthony watched with interest as Hagrid expertly polished and oiled the brooms. "No problem. I've got nothing else today." He wasn't afraid of cold at all. If Hagrid was willing, he could even sit with him at the Quidditch pitch all night.
"Have you watched Quidditch?" Hagrid asked.
"Not yet," Anthony said. "Minerva invited me to watch the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match."
Hagrid said happily, "Oh! That's the next one! I'll be there too. I go whenever Gryffindor plays. Do you know the Quidditch rules?"
Anthony answered carefully, "Uh, a bunch of people on brooms, hitting balls in the air...?"
"Good heavens, Henry, you won't understand the match like that," Hagrid said loudly. "First remember the Golden Snitch, the most important little thing... oh right, do you know what a Seeker is?"
Then he began explaining Quidditch rules, history, and terminology to Anthony, rattling off the Seekers, Chasers, Beaters, and Keepers of Gryffindor house teams through the ages. The brooms in his grip creaked under the strain.
"Charlie flew brilliantly!" he said excitedly, his large hands waving through the air, demonstrating the famous pitch's goal posts for Anthony. "One second here, next second he'd charge over there. But I dare say Harry won't be any worse! He could fly around on toy brooms when he was tiny. James always said his son would become a Quidditch star!"
His hand suddenly froze, his bushy beard twitching.
"Hagrid?" Anthony quickly gripped his elbow. "What's wrong?"
"I... I really wish James could see Harry play Quidditch." Hagrid piled all the brooms into the broomshed and slammed the door shut, saying stiffly, "Let's go have a drink, Henry. Gryffindor will definitely win the next match."
When Hagrid said "have a drink," he meant bringing out the entire stock of all available alcohol, then drinking as much as possible.
Anthony was also slightly drunk. He asked Hagrid, "That big spider of yours—how is he now?"
"Oh, excellent," Hagrid said. "Thanks for asking about him. Last time he was just frightened, didn't mean to leave without saying goodbye... he's always been a gentle, polite good friend..."
"That's wonderful. Can he still sense the Basilisk?" Anthony asked.
Hagrid scratched his head. "He won't talk about that topic with me, but probably not anymore. Though he hasn't wanted to leave for a long time now. I guess that Basilisk probably died long ago."
Anthony was still somewhat uneasy. "I'll check on the Basilisk matter again later. If something died, there should be a corpse."
After Hagrid's parade around Hogwarts with two roosters, Anthony had also walked carefully through the school, trying to sense any large magical remains, but found nothing.
Unless that Basilisk was absurdly small, or extremely far from Hogwarts's corridors, Anthony should have found traces of its death.
But Hogwarts was too clean to be such a monster's tomb. Besides discovering a huge mass grave of small animals beneath Hogwarts—probably dead snakes, rats, toads and such from Potions class, perhaps also cattle and sheep bones from the kitchen and other food waste, all composting there—he'd found nothing else.
Hagrid took another gulp of alcohol. "This is really good. Where'd you buy it, Henry?"
"The Muggle world," Anthony smiled. "Though they can't make drinks requiring magic, I must say Muggles perform better than the magical world when brewing regular alcohol—like ordinary brandy. And it's very cheap."
When his salary was calculated in Galleons, converting back to pounds to buy supplies made everything seem very cheap.
Anthony left Hagrid three or four bottles and returned to the castle. Curfew had arrived. Not a soul walked the entire path—only firelight from the castle shone through windows. He saw a dark figure on the stairs walking carefully, alert for anyone who might discover them.
Anthony smiled. He didn't plan to catch night-wandering students today... he never had. Though he often wandered outside after curfew (thank goodness he was a professor, not a student) and had encountered students out late exploring or dating several times, as long as they didn't head toward the third-floor corridor or Restricted Section, and weren't unlucky enough to bump right into him, he basically didn't interfere.
He suffered from insomnia himself. He knew that when you couldn't sleep, you just couldn't sleep.
He wondered which student was out alone this time. Judging by the figure, probably an upper-year student.
Anthony let his thoughts wander aimlessly. Under alcohol's influence, he felt somewhat lazy, as if immersed in a gentle dream.
Today was another clear day. Stars filled the sky above him, radiating distant, cold, diamond-like light.
Anthony felt something and turned to gaze at the Forbidden Forest. In the pitch-black woods, a centaur with a silver-white body looked at him from afar. Seeing Anthony look over, he nodded, then turned and walked back into that dense forest.
------
🔥 Want to read the next 30 chapters RIGHT NOW?
💎 Patreon members get instant access!
⚡ Limited-time offer currently running...
👉 Join on -
✨patreon.com/GoldenLong