Chapter 240 Beauxbatons School of Magic Arrives
In the next few days, the entire Hogwarts seemed to be preparing for the arrival of the Four-wizard Tournament.
The castle is undergoing a thorough cleaning.
Because this ancient castle has a history of thousands of years, many places that are not usually noticed are actually full of dust and stains.
In addition, the person in charge of cleaning over the years was just a squib and did not have the convenience of cleaning magic, so the hygiene standards of the castle have actually dropped a lot again without realizing it.
Normally, professors and students are very accustomed to these dirty looks. It is said that it retains a bit of the original flavor of the castle that has accumulated thousands of years of history, and it makes the castle appear thicker and older...
But when the castle needed to welcome guests, Professor McGonagall, as the vice-principal, suddenly realized that Hogwarts could not entertain guests from other magic schools with such a dusty appearance.
This will show that they don't pay enough attention to such an event, and will also make Hogwarts lose face.
So, all the faculty and staff went out to use magic to help Argus Filch, the castle keykeeper, clean the castle inside and out.
Among them, Dracula's land deed was of great use. He successfully used this all-round "surveillance" to discover many dirty corners that had not been taken care of. Dracula even personally activated the castle itself. The magic power spreads the cleaning spell in all directions.
Filch was out of work, so he focused on the portrait hanging on the wall.
In fact, some portraits are also covered with dust or even covered by stains, but these paintings themselves are drawn with magic and are not suitable for direct cleaning with cleaning spells to prevent the original magic from being damaged or interfered with.
The conscientious janitor Filch finally found a job, scrubbing several dirty portraits with a rag, making the faces of the characters in the paintings whiter and tenderer.
The scrubbed characters were unhappy about this. They sat huddled in the picture frame, mumbling unhappily. Every time they touched the newly exposed pink flesh on their faces, they grimaced in pain.
The armor often placed on both sides of the corridor has become shiny, and it no longer creaks as before when moving the body.
"How many times have I told you to clean the soles of your shoes before entering the castle!"
Filch's roars often came from the gate of the castle.
His ferocious and violent appearance scared many first- and second-grade wizards away from taking a walk by the Black Lake because they were afraid that their soles would get stained by the mud on the lakeside.
Not only in terms of hygiene, professors are also extremely nervous in other aspects.
"Longbottom, please be kind and don't reveal your secrets in front of the people in Durmstrang and let them see that you don't even know a simple transformation spell!" Professor McGonagall shouted sharply when class was about to end. road.
In that class, Professor McGonagall reviewed the Transformation Spell, which is a spell that converts the properties of two items. It is one of the branches of Transfiguration.
However, out of nervousness, Neville mistook the target of the spell and accidentally grafted his ears onto a cactus, and his ears turned into green plants with thorns, which looked weird.
Professor Flitwick was so anxious that he stood on the desk and jumped because Harry and other fourth-year wizards couldn't even learn the very basic flying spell, and they often smashed the soft cushions used to cast spells next to them. face, and then interfered with the casting of spells by those around him, triggering a series of chain reactions...
In comparison, Dracula seems much more relaxed.
"Speaking of which, Durmstrang will teach students how to use black magic. Are you afraid?"
On the podium in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Dracula looked at the students in the audience teasingly.
"Not afraid!" The students in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class replied loudly and confidently.
No matter how they perform in other subjects, no matter whether they study seriously or complete their homework seriously...but at least one thing is certain, that is, all students at Hogwarts have experienced the devil of Dracula train!
After undergoing such training, even if the students' written scores in Defense Against the Dark Arts are not excellent enough, at least their practical abilities will definitely not be inferior to those of their peers.
It is precisely because of this that the young wizards do not think that those Durmstrang students who have learned some superficial knowledge of black magic can pose much of a threat to them.
After all, no one knows the Dark Arts better than their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor!
"Very good. It seems that you have lived up to the special training I gave you." Dracula curled his lips, and the emotion in his eyes gradually became full of interest.
"But to prepare for the unexpected, I think I need to give you some further training in the past two days - I will use black magic on you non-stop, and you need to use black magic on various types of black magic. Magic responds in time!”
The confident expressions of the little wizards suddenly froze, and their faces were instantly filled with helplessness.
In the previous devil training, just being cursed by Professor Dracula was enough. Now if it was replaced by black magic, wouldn't it mean that they would be tortured to death?
…
Finally, the time came to October 30, the day before Halloween.
That morning, when the little wizards went downstairs to have breakfast, they found that the auditorium had been decorated overnight——
Huge silk banners hang on the clean, white walls, each representing a house of Hogwarts: Gryffindor on a red background with a golden lion, and Raven on a blue background with a bronze eagle. Crow, the yellow one with a black badger is Hufflepuff, the green one with a silver python is Slytherin.
Behind the teacher's desk hung the largest banner with the Hogwarts coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake joined together, surrounding a huge letter "H".
On this day, it seems that the air is filled with a feeling of anticipation and joy.
In the classroom, no one was in the mood to pay attention... Maybe except Hermione, most of the little wizards were thinking that people from Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Yinvarmoni were coming tonight.
In Harry's opinion, even Potions class was less unbearable than usual because it ended half an hour early.
When the bell rang early, Harry, Ron and Hermione ran out of the classroom quickly and hurried to Gryffindor Tower under Snape's gloomy expression.
Following the instructions in the announcement, they put down their school bags and textbooks, put on their school uniforms and cloaks, and then rushed down the stairs in three steps and two steps at a time, arriving at the entrance courtyard in front of the auditorium.
The deans of each college stood at the front and ordered their students to line up in neat lines.
"Wes, come on, put your hat on straight," Professor McGonagall said sternly to Ron and Harry, "Potter, fix your hair, don't let it get messy."
Harry quickly pushed his hair down with his hands, but it had no effect at all.
"Everyone, follow me," Professor McGonagall ignored the need to continue supervising the image management of the young wizards and took the lead towards the oak door on the side of the entrance courtyard. "The first-year students are in front... don't crowd..."
They filed through the oak gates, walked up the steps that everyone had walked when reporting to first grade, and stood in line in front of the castle.
It was a cold, fresh evening, night was slowly falling, and a white, translucent moon was already hanging over the Forbidden Forest.
"It's almost six o'clock," Ron said, looking at his watch and looking at the driveway leading to the front door. "How do you think they'll come? Take the Hogwarts Express like us?"
"I've never heard that the Hogwarts Express can go to other countries." Hermione said, "And the boat on the lake here obviously can't accommodate three people from the school. If they come from Hogwarts If you are coming from Mode Station, we should go to the north gate to greet you."
"How come? Riding a broomstick?" Harry guessed, looking up at the starry sky.
"I don't think so..." Hermione continued to retort, "Coming from such a far away place, they might have all gone home with a cold before they even got to Hogwarts."
"Maybe it's a portkey? That's what we use to go to the Quidditch World Cup." Ron continued to guess, "Or they can apparate - maybe in their country, people under the age of seventeen are also allowed to apparate. Appear?"
"Apparition is not allowed within the confines of Hogwarts. How many times do I have to tell you?" Hermione said impatiently.
Several people were guessing, and they had no idea how teachers and students from other magic schools would come here as guests.
The next moment the moon emerged from the distant mountains, Dumbledore's voice rang.
"Ah! If I'm not mistaken, the Beauxbatons representative has already arrived!"
"Where?" Many students asked eagerly, looking in different directions.
"Look, it's in the sky!" a student with good eyesight shouted, pointing his finger above the Forbidden Forest.
A behemoth was flying rapidly across the dark blue sky, covered with starlight, flying towards Hogwarts Castle, gradually getting bigger and bigger.
...When the dark behemoth passed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and was illuminated by the light from the castle window, a huge pink-blue carriage appeared in front of the little wizards.
The carriage was as big as a house, and twelve winged horses pulled it through the air. These flying horses are all silver-maned horses, and each horse is about the size of an elephant.
The carriage was getting closer and closer, and under the horrified eyes of the little wizards in the front row, it landed with great speed and almost hit the heads of the students in the first three rows - with an earth-shattering loud noise, those horse hooves landed heavily On the ground, each one is as big as a vegetable plate.
In the blink of an eye, the carriage landed on the ground, its huge wheels vibrating. The golden pegasus retracted their wings at the same time and raised their huge heads proudly.
Standing among the staff of Hogwarts, Hagrid's eyes widened. He had never seen such a good-looking Pegasus, and its size was even big enough for a big guy like him to ride on it for a walk.
Hagrid secretly made up his mind to establish a good relationship with the person in charge of Beauxbatons by then and see if he could exchange them for another one. It would be even better if he could exchange them for a pair.
The door of the carriage opened, and the young wizards of Hogwarts could take this opportunity to see that there was a coat of arms printed on the door of Beauxbatons' carriage. The coat of arms was a pattern composed of two golden crossed wands. There are three stars above each wand.
A boy wearing a light blue robe jumped out of the carriage first, bent down and groped on the floor of the carriage for a while under the puzzled eyes of everyone.
The next moment, a golden spiral staircase stretched out from the bottom of the car door like running water, all the way to the ground, giving the people in the carriage the opportunity to gracefully step down from the car door at a height of one floor.
As everyone at Hogwarts expected, the person who walked out of the car door was indeed elegant enough. A shiny black high-heeled shoe poked out of the carriage...
However, this shoe is as big as a child's sled!
A woman appeared immediately behind the high heels. Her size was something that the little wizards and even the professors present had never seen before in their lives. Perhaps Hagrid is the only one in the entire wizarding world who can compare with her in physique.
Of course, compared to Hagrid's slovenly appearance, bulging belly, messy hair and beard, when the big woman who came down from Beauxbatons' carriage approached, under the lights of Hogwarts, Everyone noticed that she had a very handsome olive cheek.
Her hair was slicked back and pulled into a shiny bun at the base of her neck. She was wrapped in a black wrought garment from head to toe, and many gorgeous opals shone around her neck and on her thick fingers.
It was clear that despite her size, she was still a very classy lady.
Harry subconsciously looked at Hagrid, wanting to make some comparisons between the two, but found that Hagrid was looking at the big lady with a silly smile on his face, and he looked like a crazy person. appearance.
Harry covered his face in embarrassment.
In fact, it was reasonable for Hagrid to be attracted to this lady. After all, he had never seen anyone with a body shape that matched Hagrid's.
but……
Harry looked at Hagrid's dirty moleskin coat, and then at the bejeweled Beauxbatons lady, and couldn't help but feel worried for Hagrid in his heart.
Dumbledore led the applause, interrupting Harry's thoughts.
He clapped along with Dumbledore to express his welcome, and the students around him also clapped. Many of them stood on tiptoes, trying to get a better look at this strange woman.
Her expression relaxed, she smiled gracefully, stretched out a gleaming hand, and walked towards Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was already a tall and lanky man, but he barely bent down when kissing this lady's hand.
"Dear Madam Maxime," said Dumbledore, "I welcome you and the students of Beauxbatons School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to Hogwarts."
…
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