Half An Fried Egg
"Potter! Weasley! Can you concentrate a little bit?"
Professor McGonagall's annoyed voice crackled like a whip through the Transfiguration classroom on Thursday, causing Hermione to look up from her pile of notes.
This class is almost over. They finished their assignment: the guinea fowl they had turned into guinea pigs, now in a large cage on Professor McGonagall's lectern (Neville's was still feathered); homework on the blackboard , the students have also copied it in the notebook ("Try to illustrate how the transfiguration spell must be adjusted when performing cross-species conversion").
Harry and Ron were fencing in the back of the room with two fake wands invented by Fred and George, Ron holding a tinned parrot, Harry a Rubbery haddock.
"Can Potter and Weasley behave appropriately for their age?" said Professor McGonagall, casting an angry glance at them both, just as Harry's haddock's head fell off. Down, falling soundlessly to the floor—Ron's parrot's sharp beak pecked it off—"I have a few words for you all."
"The Yule Ball is coming up - a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and a great opportunity for us to mingle with foreign guests. Well, the Ball is only open to students from Year 4 onwards - but if you wish, A junior student may be invited—”
Lavender Brown let out a piercing smirk. Parvati Patil poked her hard and the muscles in Parvati's own face tensed as she struggled to keep from laughing. They both turned to look at Harry. Hermione glanced at them with some contempt.
Professor McGonagall ignored them.
"Put on your dress robes," continued Professor McGonagall. "The ball will be in the Great Hall at eight o'clock on Christmas evening and ends at twelve midnight. Listen—"
She looked at the whole class calmly.
"The Yule Ball will certainly give us a chance to - um - let our hair down and relax-"
Lavender laughed harder and put his hand over his mouth to keep the sound out. Although Hermione knew what was being funny this time (Professor McGonagall's hair was always pulled up in a tight bun and she never seemed to let it out.) she still thought it was rude. Besides, such high-decibel laughter is really annoying.
"But that doesn't mean," continued Professor McGonagall, "that we're going to relax our behavior requirements for Hogwarts students. I would be very saddened if a Gryffindor student disgraced the school in any way." .”
The bell rang for the end of get out of class. Everyone stuffed the books into their schoolbags as usual, and then threw the schoolbags over their shoulders. There was a panic in the classroom.
It seems that all the students above the fourth grade will stay for Christmas this year. From Hermione's point of view, they are too obsessed with the upcoming prom-at least all the girls are like this, she has not been in the library these two days. It's too noisy there and she couldn't focus on studying the silent spell textbook borrowed from Fred.
The girls giggled, whispered, and shrieked every time a boy walked by in the corridors, exchanging excitedly about what to wear on Christmas Eve.
"Hermione, who are you going with?" Hermione's roommate Nancy gossiped.
"What? Oh I don't know," she shrugged. "I didn't think about it."
Even Harry didn't miss an opportunity to ask his best female friend for advice.
"Why do you think they are all moving in groups?" Harry asked Hermione—at this moment, a dozen or so girls were passing by, and they looked at Harry, secretly giggling.
"Ask them directly, have you thought about who you will invite?"
Harry didn't answer.
Hermione seemed to see through Harry's heart.
"Listen Harry, don't overthink it. You just beat the Hungarian Horntail and you're afraid you won't be able to get a date?"
At the library door the next day, a black-haired boy in the fifth year of Hufflepuff House, whom Hermione had never spoken to before, offered to invite Hermione to the dance together. Hermione refused on the grounds that she suddenly wanted to go to the cleaning room. The next day, two more boys came to invite her, one was from the second grade, and the other was from the seventh grade.
Of course Hermione didn't mention this to Harry and Ron at all. With their emotional intelligence level, she might as well talk to the big octopus in the lake.
There was one more thing that surprised Hermione quite a bit.
After a week of self-encouragement in the library, Krum finally stopped hiding behind the two rows of bookshelves near Hermione.
He swayed his massive arms nervously as he walked towards Hermione.
"Excuse me, have you finished reading this book? Can you lend it to me?" He said politely with a heavy accent.
Hermione really didn't expect that the famous Krum would take the initiative to talk to her, she nodded slightly in surprise and handed him the book. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the distraught faces of the girls wearing Bulgarian scarves not far away.
Krum looked happy, his usually serious black eyebrows unfurled. He took the book and smiled at Hermione, pulled the chair beside her and sat down to read.
Hermione didn't expect an international football star to love studying so much, and she didn't understand that there were so many empty seats in the library, why did he have to sit next to her.
In the last week of the semester, the school is getting busier and noisier day by day.
Rumors about the Yule Ball were floating around, but most of them Hermione didn't believe - Dumbledore bought eight hundred casks of spiced mead from Rosmerta of the Three Broomsticks. However, the rumor of he ordered the Weird Sisters to perform seems to be true. Judging by the excitement of their classmates who grew up listening to WWN (Wizards Wireless Network), the Weird Sisters seemed to be a very well-known musical group.
Some professors, like Professor Flitwick, simply stopped lecturing when they saw that their classmates were clearly absent-minded. He allowed them to play games in his class on Wednesdays, but Hermione thought it was a waste of class time.
Other professors are not so easy to talk to. For example, nothing could distract Professor Binns from continuing to slog through his pile of notes on the Goblin Rebellion—students speculated that since Binns hadn't let his own death get in the way of continuing to teach , something as small as Christmas, it is simply impossible to distract him. Strange to say, he could make a bloody, thrilling goblin rebellion as dull as Percy's report at the bottom of the cauldron.
Professor McGonagall and Moody didn't let the students idle until the last second before get out of class ended. Not to mention Snape, whom Hermione felt would rather adopt Harry as a godson than let his classmates play games in class. He surveyed the class sullenly and told them that he would be testing their antidote in the last class of the term.
"He's so evil," Ron said angrily that night in the Gryffindor's Christmas-decorated common room, "to quiz us on the last day. Spoil the last bit of term with a load of homework."
"Well...you're not really trying too hard, are you?" Hermione looked at Ron from her Potions notes.
Ron was busy building castles out of his deck of crackling exploding cards - a far more fun pastime than Muggle playing cards, and if not done well, his whole build would explode at any moment.
"It's Christmas, Hermione," said Harry lazily. He sat in an armchair by the fire and read "Flying with the Cannon" for the tenth time.
Hermione looked at him seriously again. "Harry, I think you'd do something more creative right?"
"Like what?" Harry asked, watching as Joel Jenkins of the Cannons slammed a Bludger hard at a Chaser of the Fort Barry Bats.
"That golden egg!" whispered Hermione through gritted teeth.
"Well, Hermione, I can rest until February twenty-fourth."
"But it could take weeks to solve that mystery!" said Hermione. "If everyone else knows what the next project is and you're the only one who doesn't, you'd be a real fool!"
"Leave him alone, Hermione, he should be resting," said Ron, placing the last two cards on top of the castle, and with a bang, the whole castle exploded, scorching his eyebrows.
"It's very pretty, Ron...it goes really well with your dress robes."
It's Fred and George.
They sat down at Harry, Ron and Hermione's table, and Ron stroked his brow, examining the extent of his burns.
"Ron, can we borrow Piggy?" George asked.
"No, it's out delivering mail," said Ron. "What for?"
"Because George wanted to invite him to the ball," said Fred.
"Because we've got a letter to send, you big stupid fool." said George.
"Who do you two write to, huh?" asked Ron.
"Mind your own business, Ron, or I'll burn your nose too." Fred threatened Ron, waving his wand. "Why...you guys haven't found a dance partner yet?"
"No," said Ron.
"Then you'd better hurry up, or you'll be the last one." George said.
"So who are you going with?" said Ron.
"Ginny's roommate, Olivia." George replied without thinking, without any embarrassment.
"What?" Ron asked in surprise. "You already invited her?"
"Good question," said George. He turned his head and shouted across the common room, "Hey, Olivia!"
Olivia was chatting happily with Ginny on the woolen rug by the fire when she heard the shout and looked towards George.
"What?" she asked aloud.
"Will you go to the dance with me?"
Olivia looked at him with weighing eyes.
"Okay," she said, and then turned to continue chatting with Ginny, a slight smile on her face.
"It's done," said George to Harry and Ron, "Piece of cake."
He stood up, yawned, and said, "We'd better use a school owl, Fred, see you later..."
Ron stopped touching his eyebrows and looked at Harry across the ruins of the smoking castle of cards.
"It's time for us to take action too...invite someone. George's right. We don't want to end up dancing with a couple of uglies."
Hermione was furious, glaring at Ron and asking, "I'm sorry, couple of...what?"
"Well - as you know," said Ron, shrugging his shoulders, "I'd rather go alone - than find, say, Heloise Midgen."
"Her acne has been much better lately - she's actually pretty!"
"Her nose is a little crooked."
"Oh, I see," said Hermione, exasperated. "So, basically, you're trying to invite the most beautiful girl who'll accept you, even if she's a total bad person?"
"Um - yeah, that's pretty much true," said Ron.
"I'm going to bed," Hermione said gruffly, and without another word, she walked quickly towards the stairs of the girls' dormitory.
Fred followed her silently and stopped Hermione at the foot of the stairs.
"What's the matter, is my idiot brother offending Miss Granger again?" Fred leaned against the wall at the corner of the stairs, put his hands in his pockets, and smiled casually.
"It's nothing, didn't you hear everything, he is really a superficial guy." Hermione folded her arms, and then shrugged, "Maybe all boys are like this."
"Hey, Miss Granger, don't generalize," Fred pretended to be very sad, and put his right hand on his chest, "I'm not that kind of man at all..."
Seeing Fred's funny look, Hermione, who was originally tense, burst out laughing.
"What does it have to do with you, I wasn't talking about you."
Seeing Hermione's smile, Fred felt relieved, and the corners of his lips curled up slightly. But he still wanted to tease her again, so he said, "Not me? Am I not a man?"
Why is this guy talking like that……
Makes people blush.
Hermione immediately shook off the little thoughts in her heart and coughed lightly.
"Ron's brain is not as big as half a fried egg. Don't take it to heart. How about we watch him dance solo together? I guarantee that he will be crying and begging Heloise to dance with him."
"That's right, he needs some basic respect for women. I hope Harry doesn't get carried away by him."
At this time, the two of them had already moved to the door of the girls' dormitory.
"Okay, if there's nothing else, I'll-"
"Well, is Miss Granger free this weekend?" Fred rubbed his brows with his knuckles, put his hands down and unconsciously put them behind his back.
Hermione sensed his unnatural nervousness.
"This weekend? Yes, I'm free."
At this time, the warm light in the corridor cast down, gently sprinkled on the side of Fred's side face, outlining his profound and handsome outline.
Hermione couldn't look away for a moment, and Fred curved his lips into a smile the next second.
There was a smile in his peach blossom eyes, and now his gaze was full of indulging tenderness. She was dazzled by it for a while, but there was a bit of persistent seriousness in this tenderness, which made people want to lean forward.
Before she had time to carefully analyze what the smile meant, Hermione heard a deep and bewitching voice:
"Then," his dark blue pupils sparkled, "would you like to come to the swimming pool to watch my latest underwater fireworks?"