A day at Hogwarts

There were only two people in the rest area of ​​Fallbottom Castle in the early morning. Charles and Gabrielle were sitting on the sofa in front of the transparent wall. Outside was the snow-covered garden. Ruby was playing hiding from the snowballs with the children in Hogsmeade.

"You look very tired." Gabrielle looked at Charles worriedly, "Did you sleep well last night?"

Charles just smiled and said: "It's okay, I slept well last night."

These days, Charles and the others have been busy discussing various technical issues.

Among the wizards, Charles has the lowest level of magic, and he needs to concentrate and think in order to keep up.

Thinking consumes a lot of energy, and people naturally become tired.

Charles said to Gabrielle: "I'm sorry, I can't even play with you."

"No!" Gabrielle shook her head, "I heard your meeting was very interesting."

Then she said: "I went to play with Ruby today!"

After Gabrielle said she was about to run away, Charles said to her seriously: "You can't let Ruby fly on your back anymore!"

Gabrielle pretended not to understand French and slipped away.

Charles leaned on the sofa, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and rested for a while. He had something to do later.

I don’t know how long it took, but the breath of a young girl floated around me.

"Aren't you going to play?" Charles asked Fleur.

The holiday at Hogwarts ends tomorrow, and the Delacour family will also return to France tomorrow.

Not only did Charles have no time to play with Gabrielle these days, he also didn't have much time to talk to Fleur.

"No." Fleur shook her head, "Are you still busy today?"

Charles smiled helplessly and said, "Don't I have a greenhouse experiment? I will go there to work on it later."

They had talked about this in previous correspondence. During the Christmas holidays, only the elves were working in the greenhouse to water and weed. Charles had to visit before the start of the new semester.

Fleur asked him: "Then...can I go and have a look?"

Charles said: "I think it's okay, I'll ask the principal."

He wrote a note and asked a working elf to deliver it to Dumbledore. Dumbledore was relaxing on the massage chair and quickly replied in agreement.

There was some snow yesterday, and the greenhouse was covered with a white cap. Charles removed the snow and opened the greenhouse door with Fleur.

There was an ordinary canary in a cage behind the door. It kept chirping when it saw someone coming. It seemed that the vent was not blocked during this time.

When I walked into the greenhouse, I immediately felt a wave of heat coming over me, and the smell of the air was not very pleasant.

The two hung the coats on the rack. Charles said: "Today I mainly check whether there are insects in these herbs and whether the soil in the flower pots is dry."

"There is a water tank next to it, which will automatically pump water up from the ground. If the soil is dry, you can go there to get some water."

Furong looked at several pots of herbs nearby and saw familiar plants. She said in surprise: "Why are those pots of phoenix feathers so big? Do you have the talent to raise phoenixes and can make them fat?"

The phoenix feathers that Charles bought from Germany are now growing well. The leaves of the phoenix feathers grown normally are only two fingers wide at this stage, while the phoenix feathers made with Muggle and wizard fertilizers are as wide as a palm.

"Maybe," Charles said. "It's been fed fat now, but it just doesn't know how effective the medicine is."

"I plan to start testing the drug's efficacy in May, obtain the first batch of complete data and publish a paper, and then test it again around October, and I can write another paper."

Fleur and Charles observed other herbs carefully while chatting. After reading several, they couldn't help but sigh: "I didn't realize it just from what you said in the letter, but now I saw it and found that it is really much bigger than the ones from other places."

She pointed to the thorn bark tree in the distance and asked, "Can I take a thorn and have a look?"

Charles replied: "It was no problem at the time, just be careful not to hurt your hand."

Fleur took out her wand and said, "I'm not a daredevil."

Thornbark trees originally grew on the European continent. Beauxbatons had taught her about it, and she took out a long thorn with ease.

Fu Rong held the wooden thorn and looked at it carefully for a moment, and then lightly pricked the back of her hand.

"Hey!" Charles didn't expect her to be like this, "The one with venom on it!"

Fleur smiled and said: "It's okay. Its skin can be used to make magic potions to eliminate some bad effects, and the same goes for the juice in the thorn."

"If you are bitten by a mosquito, you can try pricking the swollen area. The itching and swelling will disappear immediately."

"It can also...oh, that's a girl thing."

Charles understood that he really didn’t understand the medicinal properties of foreign herbs.

There is a large cabinet made of three-layer glass in the corner of the greenhouse, with mandrakes planted inside.

Fleur wanted to see it, but Charles refused.

"It's too dangerous." Charles shook his head and said, "We estimate that its cry will be more powerful, so the cabinet is prohibited from being opened."

Fleur thought for a while and said, "I read a paper not long ago. The paper said that when many mandrakes grow together, when they leave the soil, they will fight for the fertile soil."

"The fertilizers in the flower pots here are different. Some mandrakes grow well and some grow poorly. I'm worried that they will fight. It's best to separate them."

Charles was stunned, he had never heard of such a thing.

But it makes sense when you think about it. Mandrakes in the wild rarely gather together. The ones grown in the greenhouse are relatively even in terms of water and fertilizer, and they won't deliberately create differences like now.

Fleur said which magazine the paper was published in, and then said: "The author of the paper is Erica from Durmstrang School of Magic, is that the one you mentioned?"

When Charles gave the dancing grass to Gabrielle, he mentioned Erica, and thought: "It is very likely that it is Erica who planted the dancing grass. She put a lot of effort into growing herbs."

Fleur pretended to ask casually: "Is she beautiful?"

Charles pretended to answer casually: "More special."

He wanted to say "not as beautiful as you" at first, but thinking of Fleur's displeasure that others only paid attention to her appearance instead of her efforts and achievements, he changed his words to avoid this minefield.

Fleur didn't understand at all, and asked: "What do you mean by more special?"

Charles replied: "It's the color of her hair and eyes. You will know when you meet her."

The two continued to chat in the greenhouse while checking whether the herbs had insects.

Charles was not the only one who came to the greenhouse in advance. Professor Sprout also returned to school in advance to check the greenhouse.

When the professor came to this greenhouse, he found someone outside the door.

When Harry saw someone clearing snow from the greenhouse in the castle, he knew Charles was coming, so he came to report the situation caused by the holiday homework.

But when he saw Charles and Fleur together, he didn't bother them.

Harry saw Professor Sprout coming and said to her mysteriously: "Professor, Charles and Miss Delacour are dating in there now."

Professor Sprout smelled the smell of gossip as soon as he heard it, and immediately asked: "Are they the only two in there?"

Harry nodded quickly.

Professor Sprout looked like "as expected". He had known that Charles had saved Miss Delacour's life before. After Professor Delacour came, he often asked about Charles in a roundabout way. The professors all knew it in their hearts.

"Ahem..." She cleared her throat and said to Harry seriously: "Come on, I'll take you to learn about the herbs you will learn in the new semester."

Although she said so, you can see from her eyes that herbs are not as good as gossip.

Harry also thought so. With the professor leading him, he was not afraid of Charles.