Chapter 654: Chapter 654: Christmas Gift (Edited)
Watching the fireworks outside, Hermione felt deeply moved. It was the first time in her life that someone had dedicated a fireworks display to her, and moreover, her name was written in them.
Not only did she feel moved, but all of Hogwarts was astonished.
When had the young wizards of Hogwarts ever seen anything like this? It was as if someone had set up candles and played the guitar under the girls' dorm at college. The students who were awake rushed to the windows and woke up their sleeping friends to witness the spectacle.
However, due to the geographical location of the common rooms, only the students of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor could witness this visual feast. The Slytherin and Hufflepuff students, even if they felt it, couldn't see the situation firsthand.
Did they go out of the common room to take a look? They didn't have the courage to do so.
After the brief excitement, Hermione looked at her name in the sky and felt a little embarrassed.
The way Tom did this, to be honest, was a bit cheesy and arrogant... Hermione blushed intensely; her skin seemed on the verge of bleeding. When she heard footsteps coming from the dormitory, Miss Granger panicked.
Should she respond?
Hermione found herself in a dilemma.
But she soon felt relieved: after all, they were already together, what did accepting to be his partner at the ball mean?
When she came to that conclusion, Hermione rushed to the window, opened it, and shouted, "I accept!"
Her voice wasn't very loud; the Gryffindor Tower students didn't necessarily hear it, but the Ravenclaw students and Tom on the lawn heard it clearly.
Tom smiled and pointed to a pile of boxes beside him, which began to light up with fireworks and crackers on their own.
In the blink of an eye, hundreds of bright lights streaked across the sky, illuminating the entire night as if a meteor shower had occurred.
All the students who saw this scene were amazed. Even the Durmstrang students on the ship and the Beauxbatons students who lived near the Forbidden Forest heard the noise and poked their heads out to witness this magnificent scene along with the Hogwarts students.
"Tom, would you like to accompany me to visit Mr. Filch in the Punishment Room?" At some point, Dumbledore appeared behind Tom in his dressing gown and a kindly smile.
Evidently, Dumbledore couldn't tolerate Tom's flagrant violation of the rules. While he owed Tom and Hermione, he wasn't going to blindly yield or condone.
To Tom's horror, Dumbledore counted on his fingers the number of school rules Tom had broken.
"Out after curfew, setting off fireworks, causing loud noises during the night... do you have anything else to add?"
Tom freely admitted his "crimes."
"Very well, then come with me," Dumbledore nodded, leading the "culprit" away.
The commotion in the castle continued to spread until Professors McGonagall and Flitwick appeared in their respective common rooms. The young wizards calmed down and returned to their beds to rest.
Of course, Hermione was surrounded by her friends in the dormitory as soon as she returned.
"Hermione, would you like to accompany me to the Yule Ball?" - they imitated the boys enthusiastically, joking and laughing with Hermione.
The girls got excited until they finally settled down. Padma, panting, adjusted her hair and expressed with some nostalgia, "Hermione has become a young lady who has been publicly confessed to!"
Faced with Padma's direct question, Hermione felt somewhat nervous and anxious. She responded timidly, "This... this isn't a confession! It's just an invitation to the Yule Ball!"
Hermione's face was flushed, and due to the recent teasing, she was sweating a bit.
Padma wrapped her arm around Hermione's neck and gently licked a drop of sweat from her cheek.
"This smells like a lie, Miss Granger!"
"Let go, what are you doing?! Hey!"
Padma released Hermione and looked at her with envy, thinking to herself how surprisingly well Hermione had grown up lately.
Amidst laughter and jokes, the girls spent the night.
Meanwhile, Tom was taken to Filch's office and spent the whole night helping to set up the Christmas Ball decorations as punishment imposed by Dumbledore.
Hogwarts had two semesters per academic year, and the first one ended before the Christmas holidays. In the last week of the semester, the school became increasingly lively. Rumors about the Christmas ball were flying everywhere, some seemed ridiculous, like Dumbledore ordering three hundred barrels of Mrs. Rosmerta's butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks. Others seemed very real, like the appearance of The Weird Sisters to perform at the event. However, even the most absurd rumors could be true, as Tom saw the three hundred barrels of butterbeer stored in a supply room.
Tom's fireworks display was often a topic of discussion among the young wizards. The boys hoped to learn his skills, while the girls considered how they would respond if they found themselves in a similar situation. Meanwhile, Fred and George's inventions continued to sell very well, with everyone spending money on pranks and having fun.
The students were distracted, and some professors, like Professor Flitwick, stopped teaching altogether and played with the students instead. He brought Tom and Hermione's modified magical chess set to the Charms classroom and enjoyed playing together. For him, this was much more interesting than teaching. During the free moments between chess games (after losing one, he watched Tom and Hermione play), Professor Flitwick discussed with Tom the suit of armor he had created for the Triwizard Tournament and helped perfect the details.
However, other professors were not as lenient. Professor Binns continued to lecture about the Goblin Rebellion, Professor McGonagall and Moody didn't allow the students to relax and kept them busy until the last second of their classes.
As for Snape, he looked more exhausted lately. The reason was simple: he was focusing most of his energy on developing the potion for Hermione while still teaching the students, which was a considerable challenge. These two tasks absorbed almost all of his energy, leaving him with little time to bother the young wizards.
Tom's slaughterhouse business was thriving, and it could be said to be booming. According to Yuri's letter, the factory's capacity had multiplied several times, and around Christmas, they reached the peak of slaughter. Thousands of heads of cattle were being sacrificed in his factory every day, contributing their succulent meats.
All of this was thanks to the low prices. Since they didn't have to worry about ecological waste recycling costs, the slaughter prices at Tom's slaughterhouse were among the lowest in the entire state of Texas, or possibly even in all regular slaughterhouses in the United States. As a result, Texas farmers flocked to Tom's slaughterhouse, forming long lines outside the place.
The slaughterhouse's production capacity was at its maximum, and it never stopped killing, bleeding, and disposing of the blood and acids from the delivered animals, delivering clean meat to the satisfied farm owners.
The blood color inside the magic stone increased visibly, and in less than a month, it had accumulated approximately one-third of the progress. If Tom's slaughterhouse business continued like this, Hermione could have a newly created magic stone before Easter.
Tom's slaughterhouse not only attracted farm owners but also caught the attention of butchers who gathered outside the factory to do business with farm owners. Often, when a load of cattle was taken there, it was sold out before entering the slaughterhouse. Suddenly, Firetown became very lively. Farm owners, with their pockets full of new bills, spent money at the town's bars and played a bit, enjoying a few days of leisure before heading back home.
Clear-headed people could see that as long as the slaughterhouse could maintain such low prices, Firetown's prosperity would not diminish. As a result, pubs, casinos, and people involved in the meat and fur trade sprouted up like mushrooms after rain.
Continuing like this, Firetown had the potential to become a commercial center.
There were some people who sought trouble. For example, officials from the Environmental Protection Department of the country were very curious about where the ecological waste from this factory went. The slaughterhouse's explanation was that they used advanced biological degradation technology to break down the blood and entrails into water, carbon dioxide, and some inorganic salts.
The Environmental Protection Department officials were speechless. The local government, which was enjoying the benefits of the factory, also didn't welcome these officials, so they had to leave disappointed.
What happened in the Muggle world did not affect the magical world. British wizards were still more concerned about the changes at Gringotts.
Since the Dementors took away the top officials of Gringotts, the bank had been in chaos. Fortunately, the Ministry of Magic intervened in time and took over Gringotts. Furthermore, thanks to its improved system, the absence of leaders did not affect the normal operation at the basic level, so the chaos remained within a fairly small scope.
During the time when the Gringotts council members were detained, the Ministry of Magic quickly took their positions and took over their work. Ministry of Magic employees might not understand finance, but they knew about administration. With the support of a group of traitor goblins, the wizard-led bank was fully formed.
The wizards changed the power structure of Gringotts. Previously, all the top positions in the bank were held by noble-born goblins, but now it was a combination of both family-born goblins and goblins. The top of the power pyramid was removed and replaced by external forces, and the central part of the pyramid was replaced by the middle class. Both the lower dunderborn goblins and the family-born goblins did not lose out; some of them even managed to perform class shifts that would not have been possible under normal conditions. This made the internal resistance in Gringotts not as strong as imagined.
Now Gringotts was closely tied to the Ministry of Magic, and it was said that after the New Year, the Ministry of Magic would establish a new department: the Magical Finance Department. This department would historically appoint a goblin as the deputy director. As for the responsibilities of the department, they would be in charge of coordinating work with Gringotts and overseeing the bank's financial activities.
This is what happened before Christmas.
As Christmas approached, Hogwarts Castle showed its best appearance. For one night, the castle was adorned with lights and decorations: marble pillars hung with ice columns that would never melt, and the twelve Christmas trees reappeared in the Great Hall, hanging with all sorts of automatic gifts: bells that rang on their own, golden owls combing their wings while sitting atop the trees, small fireworks that exploded when someone approached... These small gifts were there for anyone to take. Any interested young wizard could take a few. The castle's armor was also polished until it shone, and they were enchanted to sing carols when someone approached.
What was interesting was that some of the armor only knew half of the song lyrics, so once someone stopped to listen, they would soon stop because they stumbled.
With all these things and many more, the students from the other two schools were amazed. It can only be said that the house-elves of Hogwarts put in a lot of effort and brought a lot of prestige back to the school.
Finally, Christmas holidays began. The teachers left the students with many assignments, including Professor Flitwick, who had enjoyed his time with the students before the holidays. However, once the holidays began, the students had no inclination to do the assignments; they were all busy having fun.
Along with the Christmas holidays, heavy snowfall arrived. The snow covered the Forbidden Forest and the castle's grounds, and it even formed a thick layer of ice on the surface of the Black Lake. From the castle's windows, the Beauxbatons carriage looked like a large pumpkin, and Hagrid's hut resembled a gingerbread house with icing. With a crystal-clear layer of ice on the outside, the Durmstrang ship looked like it had an ice shell, turning Hogwarts into a fairy tale world.
There was no happier time than this. The young wizards had no worries and spent their days lounging in the common rooms, playing chess with friends, skewering food on iron spikes and roasting it over the fire... Everything was so relaxed and enjoyable.
Hermione also changed her attitude and stopped mentioning studying. However, it seemed that she was preparing something in secret, as she often disappeared for a short period during the day, and not even Tom knew what she was up to.
And so, Christmas arrived.
On Christmas morning, Tom woke up from a deep sleep. He opened his eyes and realized that it was still dark outside, with only a faint glow flickering on the horizon, indicating that dawn was near.
Tom felt curious about why he had woken up so early. Soon, he found the answer, as he felt another body in his bed.
It was a soft and tender body.
The sensation of smooth, silky skin completely dispelled sleep from Tom's mind. He opened his eyes, sat up, and was immediately pushed back down.
"Tom, here's your Christmas present!" Hermione's voice sounded near Tom's ear.
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