The old bee moved swiftly.
After dinner, he slipped through the secret passage beneath Hogwarts and arrived at the Hog's Head.
There, he saw Ariana's photograph, greeted her, and met his brother, Aberforth Dumbledore, who was taking a break from his busy schedule.
Their meeting did not turn into a dramatic argument or fight.
Aside from a slight awkwardness, they sat down peacefully.
After handing the note to his younger brother, Albus Dumbledore cautioned him, "The herb business in the Forbidden Forest is booming. Be careful. Large sums of money can easily attract the attention of dark wizards."
Aberforth nodded slightly.
"I know. That is why I have invested a lot of money in the village's newly formed guards. I have also prepared many magical traps in the shop. More importantly, I will not keep all my money in the shop."
Seeing that his brother was already prepared, Albus did not say anything more.
"If you get into trouble, just call me. If Garfield is with you, you can talk to him directly."
Aberforth nodded.
"That is a must. Actually, I have something to discuss with Garfield. I hope to hire some power from him."
Garfield's power.
Albus Dumbledore's first thought was of that huge pile of golden cat paw bricks.
Aberforth noticed his brother's strange expression and instantly understood what he was thinking.
"I guessed what you were thinking. It was not the endless gold. It was his subordinates with special powers."
"What are you going to do?"
"Make someone pay the price."
"That is what I should do."
"That is what I should do too."
"I am the brother."
"Me too."
Seeing that the two were about to start arguing, Ariana in the photo frame looked helpless.
Her brothers could talk for a few minutes, but after a while, they would inevitably talk about revenge, and then they would argue.
Headache.
"Brother, stop arguing."
Ariana tried to dissuade them, and they both shut their mouths.
Albus sighed and stood up.
"I still have patrol work at the school. I will leave for now."
Aberforth nodded.
"I should go up and take a look too."
The two stood up.
Albus Dumbledore said goodbye to Ariana before disappearing into the dark secret passage.
After watching her brother leave, Ariana looked at Aberforth, who was somewhat helpless and regretful.
She began to lecture him.
"Why can I not talk to my brother properly? It is always like this."
Aberforth said, "I know. But I just cannot help it."
After pacing around the room for a while, Aberforth left his room and returned to the unusually bustling pub.
Looking at the chaotic customers outside, Aberforth became even more determined to hire a group of people from Garfield.
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
According to the reply on the note, Garfield would come around 11 PM, bringing a midnight snack.
Garfield's quick arrival surprised him a little.
Actually, Garfield felt that if he did not hurry up and finish his work in the Harry Potter world, he did not know when he would be able to come back if he had to leave in a couple of days.
As for why 11 PM, Garfield usually took a nap after dinner and woke up before 11 PM to start his night owl life.
Why become a night owl?
Because if a cat sleeps too much during the day, it naturally needs to come out at night to catch mice or gather in groups for some fun.
It was rare for Hogwarts students to keep toads, mice, or spiders as pets.
Most chose a furry liquid creature as their companion.
At night at Hogwarts, unless a rat was a rare breed that hid in the cat free boys' dormitories, it would quickly become prey for the cats if it ventured out.
Were there rats at Hogwarts?
The answer was no, unless they were domesticated.
The school was home to a multitude of cats and hundreds of owls.
Their favorite prey was rats.
Hogwarts had been teaching for a thousand years and had kept cats and owls for hundreds of years.
It was no wonder that wild rats were not prevalent.
They had been hunted by their natural predators in one place for centuries.
A biological clock is the mechanism by which the quality and quantity of time and space events within a living organism are controlled.
All animals on Earth possess a physiological mechanism called a biological clock.
It follows a 24 hour cycle from day to night, such as a light dark cycle, coinciding with one rotation of the Earth.
Before eleven o'clock, Garfield, nestled by the fireplace in his room, woke up precisely on time.
He opened his eyes, stretched, and chewed a couple of times with his mouth empty.
Garfield glanced at the dragon figurine that had vanished from the fireplace.
Then he looked at the clock in his room.
It was almost eleven o'clock.
Just the right time.
"Ah, another day gone. Time to go find Aberforth."
He snapped his fingers, summoning Shrek.
The snap echoed, and Shrek appeared before Garfield instantly.
"Professor Pendragon, the midnight snack you ordered is ready."
Garfield took a small wooden box from Shrek's hand.
It was a food box shrunk by a shrinking charm.
"Hmm, thank you, Shrek."
"It is my pleasure."
"Go and rest. I will be back a little late tonight, or maybe not at all."
"Yes."
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
The Hog's Head Pub had many magical traps.
One of them was to prevent Apparition and invisibility spells.
These were useless to Garfield.
He had already been to the Hog's Head Pub once and left his spatial coordinates.
This was the effect of high level magic crushing low level magic.
Garfield simply drew a circle with his paw, indicating he was in Aberforth's room.
Aberforth's room naturally had detection spells.
He knew Garfield was not hiding his presence and sensed his arrival the moment Garfield entered.
Having already prepared to welcome Garfield, Aberforth had actually closed the shop around 10 PM, kicking everyone out.
Wizards in the 1930s and 1940s did not have many special forms of entertainment.
Besides playing cards, drinking, and wizard chess, they mostly just wandered around.
Due to the impression left by Grindelwald's activities, aside from some dark wizards and Aurors sent by the Ministry of Magic to patrol, almost no wizards ventured out at night.
Some regulars at the Hog's Head Pub were unhappy, but out of respect for the pub owner Aberforth, they obediently left.
Grindelwald's spies, wanting to gather intelligence, deliberately placed some monitoring magical artifacts.
But the meticulous Aberforth rendered them ineffective with a counterspell.
Aberforth entered his room and, seeing the lavish supper, could not help but drool.
"So lavish."
"Absolutely. Come on, let us eat and talk."