In the past, there were hardly any people on the paths outside Hogwarts in the evenings.
Now, if you go out for a walk, you have to say hello at least a dozen times.
The nearby woods are also in constant turmoil.
The professors in the school don't seem to care at all, and they really aren't afraid of someone getting killed.
In the last week of this semester, the school is getting more lively and noisy day by day.
Rumors about the Yule Ball are spreading all over Hogwarts, most of which are obviously fake.
For example, Dumbledore bought eight hundred barrels of honey-flavored mead from Rosmerta at the Three Broomsticks for the Yule Ball.
Although the mead at the Three Broomsticks Pub is famous throughout Britain, even Fudge is a regular there.
But as everyone knows, underage wizards are prohibited from drinking alcohol.
Even though most young wizards have secretly tasted alcohol before adulthood, and there are even young wizards secretly selling alcoholic beverages within Hogwarts, it is obviously unrealistic to put it on the table, especially when that person is Dumbledore.
There are also some rumors that might be true, such as Dumbledore booking the Weird Sisters to attend the Hogwarts Yule Ball.
Ethan thinks this is likely to be true, after all, in the second year, Dumbledore really invited the skeleton dance troupe to Hogwarts for the Halloween banquet.
It's not impossible to invite the Weird Sisters this time.
Ethan knows a little about this group from magazines.
They are a rock band in the magical world, specializing in fashionable pop music, which they probably learned from Muggles, and maybe even took courses there.
They are a very famous musical group on the Wizarding Wireless Network.
Also, don't think that the name Weird Sisters means it's really a musical duo of two sisters; in fact, there are male wizards involved.
Similarly, as the Yule Ball approaches, the young wizards are a little absent-minded in class.
Every day they are either discussing dresses or dance partners, and of course, gossip is indispensable. Today it's this couple breaking up, and tomorrow it's that couple cheating.
Terri is hardly seen during class breaks; he has been eating melons to his heart's content during this time.
Therefore, Professor Flitwick simply stopped lecturing, allowing the young wizards to play games in his class, while he himself found Ethan, Harry, and Ron to impart some of his little tricks to help them achieve good results in the upcoming Triwizard Tournament.
Of course, Professor Flitwick actually only needs to teach Harry and Ron. Ethan had already obtained Professor Flitwick's notebook and thoroughly understood it. It must be said that Professor Flitwick's various spell tricks are quite useful.
It's just that the other professors are not so easy to talk to.
For example, Professor Binns, as a ghost, cannot have his attention diverted by the Yule Ball at all.
He continues to trudge through his pile of notes on goblin rebellions, but it must be said that he has the ability to make the bloody and thrilling goblin rebellions sound dull.
Professor McGonagall and Moody also don't let the students idle, and continue to teach according to their teaching plans, without being affected at all.
Snape, needless to say, would be damned if he were looking forward to the Yule Ball.
Perhaps it was intentional, but in the last class of the semester, Snape announced that every young wizard had to make an antidote potion and then drink it himself.
This made many young wizards' faces change, and they wouldn't even have a comfortable Christmas.
The final result was that there were indeed a few young wizards who forgot to add bezoar, causing the potion to go wrong, and the consequences of drinking it were that they were rushed to the school hospital.
However, according to the level of medical care in the wizarding world, they will be fine in at most two days, and it will not affect the Yule Ball in a while. If it were in Muggle society, it would be completely different.
After the Potions class was over, it was announced that the semester's courses were completely over.
The students excitedly packed up their textbooks and ran out of the Potions classroom, from which they could enjoy the Christmas holidays to their heart's content.
Of course, there is no shortage of holiday homework, among which the fourth-year students have a lot of holiday homework, but at this time, who is in the mood to write homework? At least before the Yule Ball, it is estimated that no one will choose to start writing.
At the same time, the entire Hogwarts castle has been decorated anew.
In order to leave a deep impression on the guests from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, the teachers and students responsible for decorating the castle this time are also particularly serious.
The banisters of the marble staircase are covered with never-melting icicles, and the twelve Christmas trees that are usually placed in the Great Hall are decorated with all kinds of little gadgets, from sparkling holly berries to live golden owls that keep chirping.
The suits of armor have all been enchanted, and as soon as someone passes by, they will sing Christmas carols. Hearing an empty helmet sing "O come, all ye faithful" can be startling.
It's just that these armors only know half of the lyrics, but after Peeves found out, he liked to run inside. Whenever the armor couldn't sing anymore, Peeves would fill in some lyrics himself, which were all very rude and nasty words.
Therefore, caretaker Filch had to drag Peeves out of the armor several times, which also led to a significant increase in his workload, and he didn't have much time to supervise the young wizards, and he was just fighting wits with these Peeves.
As time came here, the fourth-year students and above who participated in the Yule Ball had basically found their dance partners.
At least most of the people Ethan knew had found female partners, such as the three roommates, who were all looking for Ravenclaw girls.
Michael's partner is Padma Patil, who is the twin sister of Gryffindor's Parvati Patil.
Jean's partner is Lisa Turpin, who is also a fourth-year student.
Jean's partner is a junior, there is no way the competition among the same grade is too fierce, and many people have set their sights on the juniors who can't participate in the Yule Ball.
If it weren't for this, it is estimated that many fourth-year and above young wizards would be alone at the Christmas dinner.
Of course, there are also some who just like juniors, such as Cedric.
He is quite popular at Hogwarts, even if he was not selected as the champion of the Triwizard Tournament this time, he is still second only to Ethan.
He is handsome, has a good personality, and his grades are also very good. Every year on Valentine's Day, he receives a lot of love letters.
In Lockhart's year, he and Ethan made a lot of jokes together.
It's just that Cedric finally chose a Hufflepuff third-year junior, and this junior is also a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.
According to Fred and George, this junior has been Cedric's little fan since she entered school, and she only joined the Hufflepuff Quidditch team for him.
This time, this junior took the initiative to invite Cedric.
I just don't know if Cedric's wave counts as getting a fan.
At the same time, Fred's female partner is determined to be Angelina, and Ethan already knew this, after all, he had seen them messing around together earlier.
But George hasn't heard that he's found a girlfriend yet. According to George's personality, he's quite popular in Gryffindor, and he could definitely find a girlfriend if he wanted to.
Ethan didn't ask the specific reason.
However, he himself was not affected at all. On the contrary, his business has been quite prosperous recently.
The canary cream cookies he made at the beginning were very popular. In the first day or two of the holiday, someone would suddenly grow feathers all over their body.
These were all transformations caused by accidentally eating cookies handed over by others.
But after only two days, the students learned their lesson and were very wary of food handed over by others, lest there be a canary cream cookie hidden in it.
In response, Fred and George said they were working on a new product and would be successful soon.
Three or four days before Christmas, goose feather snow began to fall on the Scottish Highlands.
In just one night, Hogwarts became a silver world.
The light blue carriage of Beauxbatons looked like a frosted giant pumpkin in winter, and next to it was Hagrid's gingerbread cottage sprinkled with icing sugar.
The gunwale of the Durmstrang ship was covered with a layer of ice, becoming smooth and translucent, and the rigging was also dyed with a layer of white frost.
Now, those couples who were still hot and bothered ran outside, and with the protection of magic, they were not afraid of the cold.
At the same time, Ethan also took Cassandra and others away from Hogwarts. Anyway, it was the holiday period, and usually no one would count the number of people when they had nothing to do, as long as they could be back on Christmas Day.
Having subdued the entire Slytherin organization, Ethan now has portkeys that can be used in most countries in the world.
This was also one of the conditions Ethan promised to Cassandra and the others: to spend a few days with them before Christmas, instead of shutting himself in the practice room to study magic as soon as he had a break.
Chapter 269: The Ball
"Ethan, Ethan, wake up!"
On Christmas morning, Ethan sat up helplessly when he heard someone calling his name.
It's not even dawn yet, and the Christmas ball is held in the evening. Why are you so excited so early in the morning?
"Is something the matter?"
Turning his head to look, it was indeed Terry, and Michael and Gene were already up.
Ethan also came back last night, mainly to send out Christmas gifts. For those farther away, Ethan had already taken care of the business locally while traveling.
Yesterday, he returned to Hogwarts mainly to handle the mailing of gifts to Hogwarts students and professors. Because there were too many gifts, he also went to the post office in Hogsmeade.
There was no way. Although Hogwarts has free public owls, there are only so many.
Usually, it is enough to use, but yesterday almost all the young wizards in Hogwarts needed to use owls, and the gifts sent out were not just one. This number was seriously insufficient, and it was impossible for Ethan to monopolize all the owls, so he simply went out and spent some money.
"Look at the number of your gifts, it's too exaggerated!"
Terry pointed to the gifts beside Ethan's bed, his face full of shock.
It has already started from Ethan's bedside and almost blocked the entire aisle. It's simply too exaggerated.
The specific number is unclear, after all, he has never received such a large number of Christmas gifts.
But his is definitely not as much as a fraction of Ethan's.
He always knew that Ethan was popular, but he didn't know the specifics. Now he has seen it.
"There should be more than three hundred!"
Ethan glanced roughly. It's a little more than last year, but it's limited.
Hearing this, Gene gasped and exclaimed:
"So, half of the young wizards in Hogwarts gave you gifts?"
Hogwarts has about seventy people in one grade, and just over five hundred in seven grades.
Only wizards use owls to send Christmas gifts, and the main force among them is definitely the students of Hogwarts. Even if there are some other friends of Ethan's in the wizarding world who send gifts, at least two hundred of them are contributed by the young wizards of Hogwarts.
"About, I guess!"
Ethan said vaguely.
Anyway, the members of Slytherin and Wizard's Heart Society don't know his true identity. Even if they want to give gifts, they don't know where to send them, otherwise there would be even more.
"Why are you up so early?"
Although he didn't look at the time, judging from the current sky, it should be around six o'clock.
Isn't it crazy to get up so early in the cold winter instead of sleeping a little longer in a warm quilt?
"Opening Christmas gifts, aren't you looking forward to it?"
Terry picked up a gift box from the side of the four-poster bed and looked at Ethan suspiciously.
Every year, the thing he looks forward to the most is opening Christmas gifts. Thinking about this, he naturally wakes up early.
"Not looking forward to it, isn't it almost the same every year?"
Saying that, Ethan also lifted the quilt and prepared to get out of bed. After all, he had already been woken up by the noise.
In the past, when he was at home, he would sleep until he woke up naturally on Christmas Day and then open the gifts.
When he was in the first grade, Ethan was indeed looking forward to Christmas gifts, but now, he really doesn't care anymore.
After washing up, Ethan joined his roommates in opening the boxes.
It's no different from previous years. The first few opened were mostly filled with various candies and chocolates, and the rest were some books and gadgets from the alchemy shop.
So Ethan took the lead in finding the gift boxes for the professors and Cassandra and the others.
Only their Christmas gifts are a little different, but for Ethan now, the Christmas gifts given by the professors now are not very useful, but Ethan also carefully put them away.
Cassandra and the others also sent some handmade items they made themselves.
Hagrid was still rich and generous, sending magical animal materials, a small box of colorful jewels. Ethan recognized at a glance that these were from fire crabs.
Although the name is fire crab, it is actually a XXX-level magical animal that looks like a sea turtle.
The reason why it is called a fire crab is also because they have their own defense method. When they are attacked, their butts will spray flames.
And the jewels inlaid on the carapace of the fire crab, although not very practical, are highly sought after by wizards due to their overly gorgeous appearance, which leads to their high value.
Some potion masters also like to use the shell of the fire crab as a cauldron.
In its homeland, Fiji, people have built a protected area on a coastline to protect them, just because wizards are tempted by their valuable carapaces and frequently go to poach them, and even some Muggles have set their sights on them.
I don't know where Hagrid got these fire crab jewels. Ethan only knows that the blast-ended skrewts that Hagrid is currently breeding are hybridized from fire crabs.
Ethan carefully put these away. Later, he can completely use alchemy to make some tools that combine beauty and practicality. These will be the Christmas gifts to be sent out next year.
In addition, Lucius, Herpo, and Little Tom also sent Christmas gifts.
