Chapter 733: Epilogue: Longbottom
Today, the Floating Island serves as the largest wizard transportation hub and transit point, linking wizard settlements in major regions of the world together, and inadvertently connecting the entire magic world in the process, greatly easing communication between wizards.
The cross-country shipping business on the floating island is also very prosperous. Any ambitious company would find a way to establish an office here, a phenomenon that can be explained by the popular saying: Here, the world is within your reach.
But there is also a piece of advice that comes along with it: make sure you have your clearance paperwork before you cross the flames, otherwise, you will be kicked back without any ticket refund and will even receive a summons in addition to a footprint on your arse. But don't worry too much, the government departments stationed on the floating island are set up specifically to deal with such troubles.
After a few years of running to court, at least you won't have to worry about conflicts due to language differences.
A week before the World Cup opening ceremony, Neville got a letter from Harry. He was washing up upstairs at the Leaky Cauldron when an owl flew silently into the second-floor window and landed on the sink holder, startling him.
"Hello, Hedwig," Neville said with a mouth full of bubbles, stretching out a hand.
Hedwig raised her wings and bounced back two steps, thus avoiding the wet hand as she raised her leg with the letter tied to it. Neville carefully opened the letter and quickly skimmed through it, his eyes gradually brightening.
After a few minutes, two heads came together.
"There's plenty of time for us to leave with the other professors." Hannah said. "I'll write back to Harry right away." Neville said, as he excitedly searched the room for a paper and pen.
The two got married a few years ago, and after Neville left the Ministry of Magic, he took over the Professor Sprout post and became the Herbology Professor at the school, while Hannah took over the Leaky Cauldron and became the proprietress. This combination of the two made the students think it is quite cool.
Two days later, at dawn, the early risers in Diagon Alley noticed a sign on the door of the Leaky Cauldron with a 'Closed during the World Cup' sign along with a lock. No one was surprised; this year's World Cup attracted so many people who wanted to join in the fun even if they had no interest in Quidditch. It was rumoured that there would be plenty of new and interesting merchandise made available during the tournament.
Neville and Hannah arrived at Hogwarts through the Diagon Alley fireplace; it is summer break right now, so not even a single student is present, and Professor McGonagall is standing in the middle of a group of professors, wearing a feathered hat and matching slender, dark green robes, looking as elegant as Emmeline Vance beside her.
Pomona Sprout was waving at the two of them, and Neville waved back in return. Professor Sprout was retired and usually lived in Hogsmeade, although she would often drop by the school to visit the little darlings she kept in the greenhouse, and to give Neville many pointers during his induction, especially teaching him how to deal with Professor Snape.
"Well, we don't get into serious scuffles, but ... a lot of herbs are needed to brew potions."
This kind of advice helped Neville a lot.
Professor McGonagall nodded toward Neville and Hannah, "Is it just you two? What about Frank & Alice, and Hannah's parents?"
"They're already on the island," Neville said cheerfully, "and they even sent us a bunch of photos together with Luna, Seamus, and Dean. Grandma's staying home, she's not interested in Quidditch." Professor McGonagall huffed.
"My parents couldn't spare free time." Hannah said, shaking her head.
"Well," Professor McGonagall said, glancing at the others, "Emmeline, Pomona, Sybill, a total of - oh, sorry, Filius, exactly the right number. Our Deputy Headmaster is unsurprisingly absent once again, though this time he can be slightly excused; according to the Daily Prophet, he seems to be in the middle of a power transfer (floating island power) ... which I deeply doubt. Let's go."
"I wonder how Professor Burbage is doing now." Neville whispered, this professor had helped him a lot too.
"Well, she'll be just fine in the sky." Hannah said in a quiet voice.
Neville nodded, and at that moment Professor McGonagall's eyebrows knitted hard as she passed by the two and overheard their conversation.
"Professor Burbage was just invited to go to the moon to do research, she'll be back." She couldn't resist the urge to explain.
"Well, I really hope everything goes well for her." Hannah said sincerely.
"If it had been me, I wouldn't be so sure," Trelawney interjected, "I made a deliberate attempt to observe the stars before I travelled and judging from the angle between the Moon and Mars, it's not a good idea to travel for some time in the near future, it's prone to unexpected misfortunes."
"Thanks for the warning, Sybill." Professor McGonagall said, "Felix happened to have been to both places you mentioned, I will ask his opinion about it for you." She led the way and walked on.
"I never knew Professor Trelawney would be interested in Quidditch." Hannah whispered.
"I didn't know that either," Neville replied in a whisper, "but the other Divination professor at the school made it clear that he didn't like Quidditch, so ..."
Trelawney, who wore a half dozen scarfs over her head, suddenly turned her head as if she had heard the two whisperings, startling them into shutting up. Emmeline smiled at them. A group of people appeared in Hogsmeade Square, where a temporary fireplace could be seen erected in the midst of the messy crowd.
"Everyone don't crowd! Come in order, the entrance of the Three Broomsticks Inn is the Portkey storage center ..." a somewhat sheepish Auror shouted to maintain order, in front of wizards jumping into the flames one by one in turn and disappearing, soon it will be Neville's group turn.
"Designated location, Pacific Ocean - thirty kilometers west of the floating island, Ingersoll Island -" Auror shouted out of habit as he looked down and checked Professor McGonagall's ticket, then only to get startled when he got a good look at the members of the group, "Principal McGonagall? And all Professors? You are perfectly free to apply to go directly to the island without a transit."
"We're not in any rush," Professor McGonagall said, "and we will be able to see some scenery along the way."
"Well, then, have a nice trip, everyone." The Auror said.
The swirling green flames carried Neville through one archway after another, followed by a period of monotonous dizziness, it was more uncomfortable than any other past experience of using the Floo network, and then he finally felt his legs settled on the ground. He stood on a sandy beach, the sea breeze, and dazzling sunlight hit his face, with footsteps and talking coming from everywhere around him. Neville looked around and froze for a moment: unlike the desolate island he had pictured, there is a lively beach in front of him.
There should be at least a thousand umbrellas on the beach, people surfing in the sea, paragliders and flying brooms soaring in the sky, a little girl walking past him clutching a purple flying carpet on which a middle-aged man with a round belly was dozing.
"Whoa, did we come to the wrong place?" Hannah, who had just arrived, asked, she nearly fell when her foot stepped on the soft sand, and Neville rushed to support her.
"No." Neville said brightly, pointing in one direction, the sky over the sea was clear, so he could clearly see the island hovering above the sea in the distance, and Hannah abruptly laughed, "It does look a bit like a rolled ice cream. What are those little dots next to it?"
"If you look closer, they don't look like that," said Neville, "those dots are probably wizards on broomsticks, probably detecting the weather and watching out for storms at sea, or they could simply be playing a dueling game, you know, riding on broomsticks and aiming for a knockdown, either one-on-one or in a melee, but only a specific spell can be used, and this sport was trendy among the Aurors for a while, and I forget whether Harry or Ron came up with the idea."
Hannah looked at Neville.
"Umm, well, I'm not very good at Quidditch," he said, somewhat sheepishly, "Professor Sprout also believes that as a Professor of Herbology it's best to keep my feet on the ground at all times."
"I did say that," said Professor Sprout, emerging from the flames, exuding a cheerful vibe, as her soft gray hair blew back high in the sea breeze, "Have you ever been to classroom seven? I always thought the other me is kind of wild-natured, but it's pretty cool."
"I've interacted with everyone in there and benefited greatly." Emmeline Vance said.
Several professors stood on the beach with Neville and Hannah, looking over the golden sands and endless blue waves, the floating island seemed to be slowly turning, the sunlight shining on it, faintly reflecting the scales of the giant snake coiled around the bottom base of the island.
Twenty feet away, two staff members under the umbrella waved a small flag. When they stepped within range of the umbrella, they were surprised to find that it was much cooler underneath.
"Special perks." One staff member said, "Worrying that we would suffer from 'crowd-phobia,' there are tens of thousands of people here."
"There are that many people? Are they all tourists?" Professor Flitwick asked in amazement.
"Yeah, there's always some people who would worry about the floating island falling down, even though it's been floating on the sea for twelve years. Those kinds of people can be found in both wizards and muggles, for that reason they would choose to come to this island to spend their nights in tents." Another staff member said, casually handing them a form, and Neville wrote the names of the group.
"What about the opening ceremony? It was at night, no?" Emmeline Vance inquired curiously.
"Maybe they will get themselves drunk." The registration staff said humorously.
From his mouth, Neville and the group learned that the passenger ship to the island would come every hour, which gave them almost half an hour of free time. They wandered around and ran into acquaintances along the way. It was Bill and Fleur, both dressed very coolly, Bill was wearing a beach pant, with sunglasses and a silver earring on his left ear that just happened to complement with his wife's moon feldspar earrings, while Fleur looked dazzlingly gorgeous in a one-piece swimsuit with a silver waterfall like hair draped behind her head, and there was a similarly gorgeous looking young girl standing next to her.
"This is Gabrielle, my sister." Fleur said in a somewhat whispery voice.
Neville and Bill exchanged a look, then the two walked to the side.
"You got the letter too, right?" Neville asked.
"Yes," Bill said briskly, "the island is short of manpower, we are happy to help, the children can be left in Gabrielle's care," he whispered, "do not let her hear this, she still thinks she has been assigned to a great task."
Neville glanced over to where the girls in question were giggling and chatting happily, and he heard Hannah point to an African witch and say, "Lee Jordan courted her." Neville blinked in confusion at the sight of a tall, dark-skinned girl, and it took him a few seconds to barely recall her identity - the participant who had represented Uagadou in the Tournament of Champions in his fourth year, Nona Leibert.
"We're waiting for the rest of the family to arrive, they will be here pretty much today or tomorrow." Bill said, "Except for the duo of Ron and Percy, both of whom are working at the ministry to coordinate this big event and probably won't be able to get a day or two off until the opening ceremony. We have already stayed overnight, the Fiji wizards rushed over with their mascot Dakuwaqa, a distant kinsman of merpeople who can transform into sharks. Oh, there was a dragon too, Charlie would have loved it."
Half an hour later, Neville's group and Bill's family parted after one last sentence from Bill-- "Sirius and I have formed a band called 'The Furry Boys'!" -- the passengers boarded the ship to Floating Island. The huge ship parted the sea waves, seagulls followed on the side, and the people on board stood on the deck talking and laughing with anticipation in their eyes, but as the ship approached the floating island, the sound of talking became sparse, as if all of them were struck by a silencing charm and fell completely silent. A seemingly upside-down mountain stood in the middle of the sea floating in the sky, casting a huge shadow that covered the passenger ship from a long distance away. They made their way through the shadows for a long distance, surrounded by the tranquil sound of the ocean, and finally came under the island. Suddenly someone shrieked, and Neville looked up to see an impossibly large snake's head facing them, its rough scales spreading upward to form a rocky forest-like landscape, its mouth containing its tail, its long body wrapped half a dozen times along the island's inverted base, nearly merging with the island itself.
The ship anchored at the bottom of the island. Everyone leaned over the railing to look around when something glittered in the distant shadows.
Then they heard the sound of hauling ropes and motors, and after a while, a glowing mass came toward them, hovering steadily above the water, linked to the ship's ladder. The glowing mass became visible as well, a lift, with a magic lamp hovering at the top of the lift.
The people on the ship looked at the phone booth-sized lift and gaped.
"Get in line! Prepare to disembark!" At that moment the crew shouted, "The interior space of the lift is very limited, it can only carry one hundred people at a time, please do not crowd."
The atmosphere froze for a few seconds, and one man yelled, "It's magic!"
"Yes, it is indeed magic." The crewman said grimly.
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