Capítulo 129: On the way to the Botanical Garden
After assigning the excited students to various cars—Anthony specifically called out to a few who were rushing into the rain and arranged for them to share the car with him—they finally embarked on the final journey to the Botanical Garden.
Anthony closed the car door for the students (and stopped them from exploring the assortment of buttons and handles in the car with their curious eyes) and then settled into the passenger seat. "Thank you, Mr. Linde."
"You're welcome," Linde replied. "Not an easy journey, is it?"
"It's going well," Anthony said, "thanks to the students cooperating."
A student in the back seat leaned forward between the front seats, asking curiously, "Are there any extra points for this, Professor?"
"Well..." Anthony glanced back at him. "If I were you, Mr. Toller, I'd sit back right now."
"Um, why?"
"Your potato chips are about to be eaten," Anthony warned.
While Anthony was buying a raincoat, the students had also picked up some interesting snacks from the convenience store inside the train station. Just like Mr. Toller, his friends were evidently very curious about the sour cream-flavored crisps. They were quietly picking them out of the shiny silver packet with two fingers and slipping them silently into their mouths.
With Toller's exclamation, Anthony relaxed back into the passenger seat.
Linde laughed. "When you arrive at the park, you can eat at the entrance first."
"Everyone should have prepared food for the picnic," Anthony said, turning to the students in the back seat, who were busy resolving their snack-related disputes. "Did you bring lunch?"
"Here you go, Professor," Toller said, patting his bulging pockets. "Chicken pie."
"No wonder that dog always looks at you," his friend remarked. "I brought food too—bacon sandwiches and cupcakes." He opened his backpack to show Anthony the chaotic mix of a hat, sunglasses, tissues, owl treats, and his lunch.
Toller said, "The cupcakes are good." He reached out and took a cake from his friend's bag.
"Don't eat in the car, gentlemen," Anthony warned. "I don't want to find out a month from now that Mr. Linde's seat was chewed through by a rat."
Linde smiled and said, "It's okay, this is the Botanical Garden's car. As long as it gets cleaned up, I don't mind what happens in here."
...
The wipers swept across the car window back and forth, making the red light ahead suddenly clear, only to submerge it again in the turbulent rain.
"I was a little surprised when I got the call," Linde said, hands on the steering wheel, casually chatting. "At that moment, I was wondering how you would manage to get here... You're very adept with the phone, Professor Anthony. By the way, if it's not too presumptuous, what subject do you teach?"
Anthony smiled. "A subject that requires proficiency in using a telephone."
"What?"
"The full name is Muggle Studies," Anthony replied. "And by the way, gentlemen, this is not the final exam question for the year." He could hear Toller quietly discussing with his friends the order in which he had inserted the coins and used the phone.
"Wait, Professor Anthony—Mr. Linde—"
Anthony nodded. "Mr. Linde knows." In fact, even though this is a completely Muggle botanical garden, judging from the correspondence with the garden and Professor Sprout's statements, it's very likely that most of the staff are aware of the magical world.
"Are you also a graduate of Hogwarts?" a student asked curiously. "Can we really work in Muggle society?"
Linde said, "Unfortunately, I am not. I'm the Muggle you're studying."
The next moment, Anthony felt as though a pack of Exploding Snap cards had gone off in his ears—everyone was talking at once.
"Sorry—"
"How would a Muggle know—"
"Oh no, did I just violate the Statute of Secrecy?!" wailed a particularly prominent voice. "Am I going to be expelled?"
"Oh, wait! There are exceptions! I heard Midgen say that Muggle relatives of wizards can know about the existence of magic, which is allowed by the Statute of Secrecy."
Before the trip, Anthony had specially asked Professor McGonagall, the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, to give everyone a lesson on the terms and consequences of the "Statute of Secrecy." As someone who had once skirted the edge of the law, Anthony felt that he wasn't the best person to teach that class.
After all, if the students asked him, "But what if I use magic unintentionally?" he might have honestly told them, "Headmaster Dumbledore can solve all problems," rather than Professor McGonagall's stern, "Then you'd better restrain your accidental magic, Miss, or we'll all be very sorry."
In the suddenly heated discussion, Anthony heard the sound of more rustling. Toller's friend was eating potato chips again, carefully holding them in his hands to avoid dropping any crumbs in the car.
Anthony decided to give each car a thorough clean when no one was watching. Thanks to his beloved cat, he had become quite skilled at tidying up.
The light turned green, and Linde slowly started the car. "I am a special case among special cases. As far as I know, there are no magical people among my relatives."
Anthony asked curiously, "Why is that?"
Mr. Linde grinned, "If you, too, came across branches that want to dig out your eyeballs fourteen times while searching for rare plants—" bowtruckles, "leaves that shine like copper coins—" sniffing magic grass, "yelling fruit—" Screaming fruit, "baby-like roots that make people faint—" Mandrake, "you'd understand..."
"Oh my God," Anthony sighed. "That sounds incredibly difficult." Over the past year, he had become increasingly aware of how dangerous magic could be for those without it—and for those who weren't prepared to encounter it at all.
"Plants? That's the easy part," Mr. Linde said, following his colleague's car in front and driving into the side entrance of the botanical garden. "We're almost there."
Anthony put on his raincoat, and the students in the back seat followed suit, pulling out their own raincoats from the sides of their seats or from under their backpacks, which were warm and wrinkled from being sat on.
When the car stopped, Anthony saw a group of wet Hogwarts students standing outside. Some had remembered to wear their raincoats, while others just stood under the eaves in their short-sleeved shirts and shorts, happily chatting with their friends.
He quickly opened the car door, got out to check on everyone, and thanked the staff of the botanical garden once more for going to the trouble of picking the students up from the train station in the pouring rain.
"It's no trouble at all. They're very lovable," a woman said with a smile. Anthony remembered that she was the driver of the first car. "Very lively and very curious."
Anthony smiled and accepted her praise on behalf of the students. "Thank you. I won't be humble on their behalf—they really are a good group."
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