[Anniversary celebration (act 2): Accumulation of registrations with completed benefits]
[Reward received: Entangled Fate × 1]
[Extra reward: Entangled Destiny × 10]
Tom was on the stargazing platform of the Astronomy Tower, completing his latest registration.
September and October passed in a flash, and the second act of the system's fifth anniversary celebration had come to an end. The second act of the anniversary wasn't unique either, it was a simple, uncomplicated monthly card given to Tom at the beginning of the year, with some magic stones and 'Tangled Destiny' as rewards for visiting certain locations each day.
Specifically, from Monday to Saturday, you get a total of 210 magic stones for signing up, an Entangled Fate and an extra item on Sunday, a ten-row draw for the fourth week, and knowledge and spells for the remaining three weeks.
For example, the first week gives you an anti-theft spell, the second week gives you some tips on alchemy, and the third week gives you a recipe for a vitality potion and tips on how to brew it, all good gadgets.
The anti-theft spell is a useful little spell that can be cast on a room and an object to set off an alarm if someone enters the room: the object will instantly burst with a bang and then explode. The Vitality potion is a potion that energizes the recipient, a true energy potion.
During four weeks of enrollment, Tom has earned a total of 840 magic stones and 14 'Entangled Fate'. With 90 stones a day and 40 stones for daily quests, by the end of October, Tom had earned a total of 5,860 stones and 14 Entangled Fate, bringing his tally to 5,970 stones and 22 Entangled Fate.
If they were all converted to magic stones, Tom's reserves would approach five figures.
With the second act of the anniversary celebration over, the third and fourth acts also began.
[Anniversary Celebration (Act 3) Contents: Scary Halloween]
[Description: Halloween is coming, Professor McGonagall is decorating the school, as a member of the school teachers, of course you are obligated to help her, go find Professor McGonagall!]
[Reward: Professor McGonagall's notes]
[Anniversary Celebration (Act 4) Content: Total Wizarding War]
[Description: Professor Flitwick of Ravenclaw has improved a new type of magical chess game called 'Total Wizarding War', and wants to promote it to everyone during Halloween. Total Wizarding War? How interesting! Traveler, go check it out!"]
[Reward: Professor Flitwick's notes]
A cold wind blew into the room and Tom shivered.
The weather at Hogwarts in October was cold and damp in general, and the air here seemed to have magic attached to it, penetrating straight through robes and underwear and making you question your life when a gust of wind blew.
The weather, which peaks in late October before it snows at all, is much more bearable because, for one thing, it's not the coldest time of the year due to the proverbial "It's warm, so it's not the coldest time when it snows" and the fact that water turning to ice releases heat, Secondly, since all the vapor in the air that could do "magic damage" was turned into snowflakes, mages were still able to withstand the physical damage without the magic damage.
But Tom thought: too bad! Muggles can be wiped out by "magic damage", but we're wizards, and aren't wizards supposed to have magical resistance and defense? It's a pity we're as afraid of the cold as Muggles are.
So Tom decided to solve this little problem, so that he wouldn't be cold at the end of October.
He now had three ways ahead of him: the first, to change the climate of the Scottish Highlands so that it would be like the south of France in all seasons, but there was a small technical snag that prevented Tom from achieving this. The second way, to create a magic potion that would keep his body warm at all times. It wasn't difficult, I believe Professor Snape had the recipe, but it had to be taken every day, it was dispensable and impractical. That leaves the last option: modifying the robes to make them more resistant to the cold.
So it's very simple.
All that was needed was to add a "constant temperature spell" to the wizard's robe. The fact that a large number of young witches were still shivering with cold despite the simplicity of this solution could only mean one thing: this method has not caught on.
The reason is also very simple: it is expensive.
If an ordinary wizard's robe cost a galleon, a robe with a constant temperature spell would cost at least ten galleons, and the spell on the robe could easily fail.
Tom quickened his pace and returned to the warmth of his office, where the fire was burning, and breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled a bottle of butterbeer and a Russian sausage from his desk drawer. As Tom cut the sausage into thin slices with a cutting spell, there was a knock at his office door.
As soon as he opened the door, a damp chill entered, and with it cold entered Hermione, whose nose was red with cold. Once in the office, she closed the door quickly and stood by the fireplace for a moment before recovering.
"It's clearly not snowing, but it's still very cold!" Hermione took off her woolen gloves and Ravenclaw scarf and, meanwhile, removed her wizarding robes and hung them over the back of the chair, exposing the grey sweater she wore underneath.
"You can't keep out the cold if you're wearing a sweater," Tom said as he pulled out a small glass and poured a bottle of butterbeer he'd bought at the Three Broomsticks.
"Protego Diabolica!" Immediately, a small circle of blue flames erupted from the outside of the glass, heating the contents. Tom did the same again, using the Diabolical Protego Curse to fry the thinly sliced sausages on a small plate. The sausage sizzled and puffed up, and a rich bacon aroma emerged from the surface.
Tom's [Diabolical Protego] was less powerful than Grindelwald's, who gobbled up a dozen Aurochs in one go and nearly burned down half of Paris-why half of Paris, by the way? It wasn't because the French had a "strong" firefighting team. It was because the city was divided into two parts by the Seine River and Grindelwald's flames could only selectively burn one side.
It wasn't powerful enough, but it had the control to be used as a makeshift gas stove to roast a sausage and warm a glass of wine, for example.
Tom handed Hermione the grilled sausage and warm butterbeer. Before handing out the butterbeer, however, Tom pulled out a small bottle and put in a drop of the invigorating potion.
"Hey, are you drugging me in front of me?" Hermione slapped the table, "Mr. Yodel, you've learned wrong! It's not even two months into the school year and you're already drugging underage witches!"
Despite the shocking statement, Hermione spoke with a hint of amusement in her eyes.
"It's an invigorating potion, it will help with fatigue." Tom was convinced, she had been very kind. He saw that Hermione had thick circles under her eyes, and it looked like she had been overworked lately, so he decided to give her a potion to help with her fatigue.
Some potions are better than coffee, they are like sports drinks, they help with fatigue, and some potion masters have modified them to be nutritious, so a few drops will give you energy and nutrition.
Coffee, the drink that Muggles use to refresh themselves, is actually mildly addictive, but it is overlooked because the symptoms are not as strong and the side effects are not as severe. The symptoms of coffee addiction are headaches and distractions if you don't drink coffee for more than 24 hours. But don't worry, it is very easy to stop drinking coffee by reducing the amount of coffee you drink each day and stopping after a week or two without experiencing headaches.
The stronger the coffee, the more addictive it is and the more violent the reaction when you stop drinking it. There is a black Arabian coffee which is the strongest. Normally, all the powder is dissolved in the hot water after brewing instant coffee, but the Arabian coffee had a residue after brewing, which could be used for a second or third brew. After I got used to that type of coffee, other coffees have no bitterness at all, of course, some are just unpleasant, like a certain Nespresso.
Once you get used to coffee, its refreshing effect is almost nil, and some of them are even good for a drink before bedtime to warm you up and get a good night's sleep.
"Energizing potion?" Hermione's eyes sharpened: so you're serious?
"It's not Dumbledore's potion!" Hermione's eyes flickered, and Tom knew what was going on in her mind, he felt he was about to get a bad reputation, so he resolutely blamed Dumbledore.
Tom carefully explained to Hermione what an invigorating potion was and what it did. Hermione was a little surprised, "Is it a potion that only fifth years can make? Can you do it now?"
"It's not that hard," Tom said as he took out his notebook, "Here's the procedure and the basics, you'll know how to do it after you read it."
Hermione took a small sip of butterbeer as she looked at Tom's notes. Butterbeer was the best tasting drink she had ever had, and it warmed her from the inside out. She had just finished her Herbology class with her fellow Ravenclaw students, and the cold seemed to have invaded her insides from the harsh weather outside. It was a great pleasure to have a warm butterbeer around the fire in these conditions.
Hermione could feel that, in addition to the warmth, the tiredness that had built up in her body over the past few days was being taken away, and the invigorating potion from the butterbeer was taking effect.
Hermione couldn't help but let out a small sigh.
"Have you been tired lately?" asked Tom, and Hermione looked at him with a small grimace, "If you didn't give so much homework, then I could relax a little."
Tom felt a little embarrassed, and grumbled, "You assigned less homework than Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape!"
"But there are group projects," Hermione counted off on her fingers, "I've read three books this week, and counting the previous weeks, there are still six reference materials to read..."
Tom: "..."
You're so serious you're going to stress out the professor giving the assignment.
"Actually it's a simple research paper..." Tom tried to get Hermione to tone down her demands a bit. Needless to say, Hermione sternly rebuffed him: studying is for me, not to get good grades, etc.
But Tom was sure Hermione was just saying that if he gave her a low grade, he wouldn't have a peaceful day at Hogwarts for the next five years.
"Then let me see what books you use as sources of information." Tom gave up trying to persuade her and asked Hermione for her book list: seventeen books! That was almost as many books as the rest of the class had used as references for their papers together.
Tom's eyes darkened: he felt he could postpone the thesis submission date a bit: the professor who approved the thesis also needs time to review the reference materials!
Now he was glad that he was a native English speaker and did not have to read papers while turning on Google Translate. The Hogwarts library had books written in Latin and even runes, of course, but young wizards didn't have the luxury of using them as reference materials.
"By the way," looking at Hermione's flushed face, Tom suddenly remembered something, "I could try to modify your robes to keep out the cold."
He picked up Hermione's robe that was leaning against the back of his chair.
It was the normal wizarding robe that came standard with Hogwarts students, a bit damp on the outside, with a hint of warmth and scent remaining on the inside.
"Tereo!" Hermione pulled out her wand and pointed it at the robe, wiping all the moisture from its surface. Tom pulled out his own wand and carved runes into it out of thin air.
It was a little trick he had learned: etching magic into a holder in the form of lines, thus building up clusters of runes. The advantage of this was that he did not need to find metal or wood, or a small knife to carve, he could simply use his wand, but the disadvantage was that the carved runes would not be stable and would break after a while due to wear and tear and would not be able to continue to function.
Since it is obvious that a wizard's robe is not a medium for storing magic, Tom also put a piece of magic silver in the robe as a source of energy. He turned it into the Ravenclaw shield and pinned it to the chest of Hermione's robe.
"Entry, Exit, Summon, Heat..." Tom waved his wand, and in less than half an hour, with Hermione watching, he had inscribed four sets of runes: one to summon magic, a second to generate heat, a third to transfer heat to all corners of the robe, and the last is to energize the runes.
[Winter mage's robe (2 stars): a warm mage's robe, with a one-month warranty, lifetime maintenance and free repair. One star in summer, five stars in winter, star rating goes up as the temperature drops]
"Try it on!" Tom handed Hermione the transformed robe, who put it on and went for a walk, and when she returned, she gleefully told him that she didn't feel the cold outside at all.
Apparently, Tom's alchemical creation had been a great success.
Hermione and Tom talked some more, then dressed and left the office.
Although Tom had made the cold less of a problem by modifying his wizard's robes, this personal modification was clearly a "small benefit" that no other wizard could take advantage of. So when the cold snap reached its peak, an epidemic of colds broke out among Hogwarts staff and students, leaving the head nurse, Madam Pomfrey, scrambling.
In the midst of his hectic schedule, he brought Dumbledore a cold remedy and watched him gulp it down before leaving. Earlier he had been frightened by Dumbledore's unexplained cold: he couldn't find the cause. Dumbledore, powerful as he was, was still a hundred years old, and age was not kind to him, and a cold could do what neither Grindelwald nor Voldemort had managed.
Madam Pomfrey's potions had an immediate effect. Most students who came to her were cured with a single dose of the potion. For her patients, Madam Pomfrey also prepared a special cooling potion that, when drunk, caused steam to come out of the ears for hours on end, as if water had been drained from the brain.
When the steam was gone, the whole person was refreshed. Victoria Brown had been depressed lately, losing her hair, memory and energy, falling asleep in class several times and being punished as a result. Her roommates forced her to drink the potion and she revived slightly.
At the end of October, in addition to the cold, wet wind, it rained continuously in Scotland. Bullet-sized raindrops pounded on the castle windows for days on end.
Tom was glad he didn't have to go to quidditch training now, for the autumn rain and weather had dispelled the enthusiasm of the Chamber of Secrets, but not the enthusiasm of the quidditch team captains of the four Houses; indeed, as long as there was no rebellion hitting Hogwarts Castle, nothing could prevent the Quidditch League from taking place.
In fact, if one were to observe the enthusiasm of the captains, one might conclude that it was not rain, but oil. It was not uncommon to see Quidditch teammates returning to the castle one night, soaked to the bone and covered in mud.
But what did this have to do with teachers and ordinary students?
Everyone's attention was focused on the upcoming Halloween, which by convention is a public holiday, but this year there was a bit of an accident....
October 30, 1992 is a Friday, Saturday is Halloween and Sunday is Halloween, see what the problem is? Halloween and Sunday overlap!
This is terrible news, a great loss.
Like most of the UK, Hogwarts also has no Halloween vacation. For this end-of-year holiday, which has its roots in the ancient Celtic world and is closely associated with wizards, Hogwarts simply throws a party.
However, there are still many European countries that have Halloween parties. In France, for example, the vacations begin on the last Monday in October and run until November 1, known as "Vacances de Toussaint", the longest vacation before Christmas in the second half of the school year, and followed by mid-term exams.
The word "Toussaint" in French for All Saints' Day (Halloween) is very interesting, "Tous" meaning "everyone" and "Saint" meaning "saint", which actually means Halloween.
But Hogwarts is not a school like Beauxbatons, Hogwarts does not have vacations, or in the style of most British schools, it has less vacations. So if one day you get an offer from both Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, and you happen to speak French, it's probably best to apply to Beauxbatons: they have lots of vacations and lots of girls.
How many vacations are there in French schools? There seems to be a holiday every other day... There's All Saints' week, two weeks of Christmas, summer and winter vacations, a week of winter vacations at the beginning of March, and then spring vacations at the end of April, which also last a week and can be combined with Labor Day on May 1.
In addition, there are Ascension Day, Easter, Pentecost and Victory Day in 1945 (?). The French have scandalously chosen May 8 for this holiday, not to mention that France has no right to celebrate the victory of World War II, which ended properly on September 2, 1945.
But the French have made a very clever play on words by not saying it is Victory Day, it calls it "Victoire 1945", we are celebrating the victory of 1945, it is just a coincidence that the day of the German surrender was chosen.
There are 11 days of vacations in France throughout the year, the government has five weeks of paid vacations by law and, with weekends, the French have about 150 days off a year, with more days off for students, although, of course, you can run out of the usual classes.
The only holiday for the French that is shorter than the rest of the world is Easter, which is only celebrated on one day.
What is even more outrageous is that the French have a thing called a "bridge". If you have a day off on Tuesday of the week, the French will take Monday as a holiday; there is no transfer, they just take Monday as a holiday.
So Beauxbatons has a lot more vacation than Hogwarts.
On Friday, Tom gave the students their last lesson before Halloween.
"Well, class, that's it for today. Happy Halloween in advance. I just want to remind you that when we come back from Halloween, I'm going to give you a new test in the classroom-"
At this point, the classroom was enveloped by the groans of the little wizards, but Tom's heart felt like stone: he had to give a couple of in-class tests to check everyone's learning and use the data as grading, and he said to himself, "And I want to remind you to start working on the first drafts of your group papers...or at least outline them, take the midterms before Christmas, and submit the papers after the vacations."
"Class dismissed!" Tom walked out of the classroom, leaving the students sighing, while Tom went to find Professor McGonagall to decorate the school's Great Dining Hall with her, and the third act of their anniversary celebration can only open through her.
In fact, Tom is more inclined to go to Professor Flitwick first to play his "Total Wizarding War", but it is obvious that Professor McGonagall's task is a time-limited one: if she missed Halloween, it will be over, but Professor Flitwick would always be there.
There were priorities, and naturally the most urgent tasks took precedence. Tom met Professor McGonagall in the Great Dining Room, where, coincidentally, Professor Flitwick was also present.