The Day of the Draw at Hogwarts

Looking at the fireworks outside, Hermione was very moved. This was the first time in her life that someone set off fireworks for her, and her name was inside the fireworks.

She was not the only one who was moved, the whole Hogwarts was shaken.

Have the young wizards at Hogwarts ever seen this? ! It's almost like someone in college placed candles and played the guitar under the girls' dormitory building. The sober little wizard ran to the window, not forgetting to wake up his sleeping friend to watch the fun together.

However, due to the geographical limitations of the lounge, only the little wizards from Ravenclaw and Gryffindor houses saw this visual feast. For the little wizards of Slytherin and Hufflepuff, even if they feel it, they can't see it first-hand.

As for going out to the lounge to take a look? They don't have the courage yet.

But after being briefly moved, Hermione looked at her name in the sky and felt a little embarrassed.

To be honest, Tom's operation was a bit earthy and bossy... Hermione's whole face turned red, and her skin was so red that it looked as if she was about to bleed. Miss Granger panicked when she heard footsteps coming from the bedroom.

Should she respond or not? !

Hermione was in a dilemma.

But she soon felt relieved: she had already been with him anyway, so what did it mean to agree to be his dance partner?

After thinking about it, Hermione immediately walked to the window, opened the window and shouted: "I agree!"

Her voice was not loud, so the students in Gryffindor Tower might not hear her clearly, but the students in Ravenclaw Tower and Tom on the lawn could hear her clearly.

Tom showed a smile and pointed at a pile of boxes next to him, and the fireworks in the boxes set off on their own.

For a time, thousands of brilliant streams of light flashed across the sky, illuminating the entire night sky as if it had experienced a meteor shower.

All students who saw this scene were fascinated. Even the Durmstrang students who were on the big ship and the Beauxbatons students who lived on the edge of the Forbidden Forest heard the noise and stuck their heads out to witness this grand scene together with the Hogwarts students.

"Tom, would you like to go to Mr. Filch's solitary room with me?" At some point, Dumbledore appeared behind Tom in a nightgown, showing a kind smile.

Obviously, Dumbledore would never tolerate Tom violating school rules so blatantly. He did owe Tom and Hermione something, but he would not just give in or indulge.

In Tom's horrified eyes, he counted on his fingers the school rules that Tom had violated.

"Going out during curfew hours, setting off...firecrackers, making loud noises at night...Do you have anything else to add?"

Tom confessed to his "crime".

"Very good, then come with me." Dumbledore nodded and took the "culprit" away from the scene.

The commotion in the castle continued to expand. It was not until Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick appeared in the common room of their own colleges that the little wizards stopped and returned to their beds to rest.

Of course, as soon as Hermione returned to the dormitory, she was surrounded by her best friends who shared the same dormitory.

"Hermione, would you like to attend the Yule Ball with me~" They imitated the boys' tone and laughed with Hermione.

The girls got into a fuss and it took a long time to calm down. Padma was out of breath, stroking her hair, and said with some emotion: Hermione is also a big girl who has been confessed to in public!

Faced with Padma's straight shot, Hermione was a little panicked and nervous. She said coquettishly: "This, this is not a confession! It's just an invitation to the Yule Ball!"

Hermione's face was flushed, and her body was sweating a lot from the fun just now, and she was a little sweaty.

Padma hugged Hermione's neck and gently licked the sweat on her cheek.

"This smells like lying, Miss Granger!"

"Let me go! What are you going to do - Eh~!"

Padma let go of her hand and looked at Hermione with envy, amazed in her heart: This little girl has developed quite well recently!

Amid scenes of ridiculous laughter, the girls also spent the night.

At this time, Tom was taken to Filch's office and helped count the Christmas ball decorations all night long. This was considered a small punishment prepared by Dumbledore for him.

There are two terms in the Hogwarts academic year, and the first term ends before Christmas. In the last week of the semester, the school is getting more and more lively. There are all kinds of gossip about the Yule Ball, some of which sound ridiculous, such as Dumbledore ordering three hundred barrels of butterbeer from Lady Rosmerta of the Three Broomsticks. Some of them are quite real. For example, Dumbledore invited the famous wizard music group The Weird Sisters to join in the fun. However, the absurd news may not be false. Tom saw with his own eyes three hundred barrels of butterbeer placed in the room where supplies were stored.

Tom's fireworks show is often discussed by the little wizards. The boys hope to learn his operation, while the girls are thinking about how to deal with such a thing one day. At the same time, the sales of the toys invented by Fred and George hit new highs, and everyone bought them to play tricks on each other and had a great time playing.

The students competed distractedly, and some of the talkative teachers - such as Professor Flitwick - simply stopped teaching. He played games with the students in class. He brought the wizard's chess improved by Tom and Hermione to the Charms classroom, and then had a great time playing it with the students. For him, this is much more interesting than going to class! In his spare time while playing chess (watching time after defeat), Professor Flitwick would also discuss with Tom the set of armor he made during the Triwizard Tournament, and help Tom optimize the details of the armor.

However, the other professors were not so easy to talk to. Professor Binns continued to talk about the history of the goblin rebellion, and Professor McGonagall and Moody did not let the students idle. They would teach the class until the last second.

As for Snape, he had been looking a little haggard lately. The reason is simple. He is focusing most of his energy on the research and development of the potion for Hermione. At the same time, he also has to teach the students, which is a big challenge for him. These two things took up almost all of his energy, leaving him no time to trouble the little wizards.

Tom's slaughterhouse business is booming, and it can be said that it is prosperous. In the letter Yuri wrote to him, Tom learned that the production capacity of his factory had increased several times, and there was a peak slaughtering period near Christmas. Tens of thousands of cows were slaughtered in his factory every day. Contribute your tendons.

All this is due to the low price.

Because there is no need to consider the recycling cost of ecological waste, the asking price of Tom's Slaughterhouse is almost the lowest in Texas—and possibly the lowest among regular slaughterhouses in the United States. Therefore, Texas rednecks almost transported their livestock to Tom in droves and lined up in long lines outside the slaughterhouse.

Slaughterhouses are operating at full capacity. They kill, bleed, and acidify the livestock they deliver around the clock, and then deliver the clean meat to the hands of satisfied ranchers.

The blood color in the magic stone was increasing at a speed visible to the naked eye. In less than a month, about one-third of the progress had been accumulated. If Tom's slaughterhouse business continues like this, Hermione may be able to use the freshly baked Philosopher's Stone before Easter.

Tom's slaughterhouse attracted not only ranchers, but also meat dealers who heard about it and gathered outside the factory to start business with ranchers. Often after a car of beef cattle is delivered, they are all sold before they even enter the slaughterhouse. All of a sudden, the town of Burning Death became extremely lively. Ranchers with their pockets full of brand new dollar bills were not frugal people. They would spend their money in bars in town, gamble a little, and enjoy themselves here for a few days before going home.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that as long as this slaughterhouse can still slaughter livestock at such a low price, the prosperity of Burning Death Town will not fade away. As a result, taverns, casinos and people in the flesh business sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

If this continues, Huo Xing Town has the potential to become a commercial center.

It’s not like there aren’t people who are looking for trouble. For example, people from the National Environmental Protection Agency are very curious about where the ecological waste from this factory goes. In this regard, the slaughterhouse's explanation is that the most advanced biodegradation technology is used here to degrade blood and internal organs into water, carbon dioxide and some inorganic salt clouds.

People at the National Environmental Protection Agency were speechless. The local government, which had reaped the dividends brought by the slaughterhouse, did not welcome this group of people, so they had no choice but to leave in despair.

What happens in the non-magical world has no effect on the magical world. British wizards are still more concerned about the changes in Gringotts.

Gringotts has been in chaos ever since the dementors took away all the senior officials of Gringotts. Fortunately, the Ministry of Magic intervened in time and took over Gringotts. Coupled with the perfect system of Gringotts, the absence of leadership did not affect the normal operation of the grassroots, so the chaos was controlled to a fairly small range.

While the Gringotts board members were in custody, the Ministry of Magic quickly stepped into their shoes and took over their jobs - the people at the Ministry may not understand finance, but they do understand administration. After gaining the support of a group of goblin traitors, the wizard-led Gringotts was finally fully formed.

Wizards changed the power structure of Gringotts. It used to be that the upper echelons of Gringotts were all elves of noble birth, but now they are a combination of wizards and elves from ordinary families. The top of the pyramid of power was shoveled away and replenished by external forces and draws from the middle levels of the pyramid. After coming and going, the goblins below did not lose anything. Some of the goblins also took this opportunity to achieve a class jump that was impossible to achieve in ordinary times. This made the resistance within Gringotts not as great as imagined.

Gringotts is now more closely tied to the Ministry of Magic. It is said that the Ministry of Magic will open a new department after the year - the Department of Magical Finance. For the first time, this department will appoint a goblin as deputy director. As for the powers and responsibilities of this department, it is responsible for coordinating the work of Gringotts and supervising Gringotts' financial activities.

This is what happened before Christmas.

As Christmas approaches, Hogwarts Castle looks its best. The entire castle was decorated overnight: the marble handrails were covered with icicles that would never melt, and the twelve Christmas trees appeared in the auditorium again, covered with various baubles. ——The bell that shakes automatically, the golden owl sitting on the tree head combing its wings, the small salute that explodes when passers-by come near... These small gifts are hanging there for anyone to take, and anyone who is interested in them can Any little wizard can pick a few. The armor in the castle has also been polished until it sparkled, and it has been enchanted so that it will sing Christmas carols whenever anyone comes near them. Interestingly, some of the armors only know half of the lyrics, so they quickly get stuck once someone stops to listen.

There are so many things, which are eye-opening for students from the other two schools. It can only be said that the house elves at Hogwarts have worked hard and earned a lot of face for Hogwarts.

Finally, the Christmas holidays begin. The teachers left a lot of homework - including Professor Flitwick, who was having a great time with the students before the holidays. However, when the holidays started, the students were still in no mood to do their homework, and everyone was having fun.

Along with the Christmas holiday, there is also a very suitable snowfall. The heavy snow dyed the forbidden forest and lawn outside the castle white, and also caused a thick layer of ice to form on the surface of the black lake. Looking out from the castle window, Beauxbatons' carriage looks like a big pumpkin, and Hagrid's hut looks like a gingerbread hut hung with icing. Due to a layer of crystal clear ice hanging on the outside, Durmstrang's ship seemed to have an extra layer of ice shell, and Hogwarts had become a world in a fairy tale.

There is no happier time than this. The little wizards didn't have any worries. They spent the whole day relaxing in the lounge, playing chess with their friends, skewering food on iron skewers and grilling it over the fire... everything was so leisurely and comfortable.

Hermione also changed her temper and kept silent about studying. But she seemed to be secretly preparing something, because she often disappeared for a short period of time during the day, and even Tom didn't know what she was doing.

Just like that, Christmas has arrived.

On Christmas morning, Tom woke up from his sleep. He opened his eyes and found that the sky outside was still dark, with only a faint light shining on the horizon. It was just before dawn.

Tom was a little curious as to why he woke up so early. Soon, he had the answer because he touched the second person's body on his bed!

That is a smooth and tender body!

The smooth touch in his hand immediately drove away the sleepiness in Tom's mind. He opened his eyes, rolled over and sat up, then was knocked down.

"Tom, your Christmas gift has arrived~" Hermione's voice rang in Tom's ears.

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Two in one, 4,000 words! Good night~

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