Chapter 398 Les: It's time to visit the Gaunt family

Looking at Neville walking away happily, Les narrowed his eyes slightly: This guy is quite interesting.

His perception of the round-faced boy changed a little, and he believed that such a person would be richly rewarded one day.

After lunch, Daphne and Astoria found Les and invited him to take a walk by the Black Lake.

"Now that we have some free time, why not go to the lake and relax?" Daphne shook a food box in her hand and invited Les.

After Daphne and her classmates finished their final exams, they were forced by Professor White to do hard labor. They accidentally got into an accident during the labor, and only now have they been able to completely relax.

Rice blinked: Isn't the best way to relax to lie on the soft bed in the dormitory and take a nap without anyone waking you up?

However, considering that the children had worked hard for the entire semester and had no peace after the final exams, Rice decided to give in to their wishes and meet their insignificant little requests.

Blindly admonishing will only cause students to resent it. If they want harmless little pleasures, just give them what they want.

So, a few minutes later, Rice and his three companions appeared on the shore of Black Lake.

Although it is summer, the temperature in the Scottish Highlands remains below 20 degrees Celsius, and the weather is extremely comfortable and pleasant.

Walking along the shore of Black Lake, the cool breeze brushed across his face, and even Rice, who originally didn't want to go out, felt refreshed.

“The four founders back then really chose a good place.” Daphne on the side exclaimed from the bottom of her heart.

Isn’t it? Surrounded by mountains and rivers, with dense forests full of rich resources nearby, the geographical location of Hogwarts is really first-rate. So much so that when the four people saw it for the first time, they fell in love with this precious land.

"That's right." Rice agreed with a smile: "I have seen records in ancient books that the Muggle lords around Hogwarts tried to compete with the founders for the land rights here."

As he spoke, he picked out some interesting stories from the time when the school was founded and told them to the two little girls.

"I can't believe there are so many stories about when Hogwarts was first established." Daphne said with emotion.

In her impression, the establishment of Hogwarts was just a simple sentence: "The four founders established Hogwarts in 990 AD", but she didn't expect that there were so many stories behind it.

It is these stories that make everything seem so real.

While Daphne was filled with emotion, Astoria was thinking: How did Rice know these things that were not recorded in "Hogwarts: A History"? Can we really see so many secrets by reading the letters between ancient wizards?

But she didn't want to delve into this issue.

Les took the two little girls to find a shady place by the lake and sit down.

Sitting on the ground, feeling the breeze blowing from the lake, Les felt that he had never felt so comfortable.

Thinking about it carefully, when I was young, I traveled around with Godric and others, collecting spells and understanding the mysteries of magic; in my middle age, I fought with the Nordic gods; in my old age, I began to plan to build Hogwarts and teach and educate people. There are only a few leisurely and carefree times in my life.

How nice it would be if time froze at this moment.

Les closed his eyes, and then he heard Daphne whispering beside him: "The fish in the Black Lake should be very plump, right?"

Astoria, Les: ...

This is a good question.

However, the students and professors in the school don’t seem to eat much fish. Most of the fish on the table are salmon and mackerel.

Even Hagrid only hunted in the Forbidden Forest and rarely went fishing in the Black Lake.

"Big fish are not necessarily delicious," Rice said based on his experience.

However, he did not say anything definite, because he knew that there were some fish in the sea that were very large, but had thick intermuscular fat, leaving a lingering flavor in the mouth when bitten.

"Just give it a try and you'll know." Daphne was eager to try.

She stood up, looked around, and then plucking a branch from a nearby tree.

After getting the branches, she took out a piece of ribbon and turned them into a fishing rod.

Looking at Daphne who was busying around, Les wanted to use the Flying Spell to catch the fish directly, but he quickly gave up the idea - what Daphne enjoyed was not the fish, but the process of fishing, so just let her do it.

Daphne ran to the lake to fish, while Les and Astoria sat in the shade of a tree not far away and watched her fishing.

"My sister..." Astoria looked at Daphne's back with a complicated expression.

"Let her be." Les rolled his eyes: You couldn't tell when Daphne was a child, but as she grew up, she became more and more like a Gryffindor - bah, her ancestor Adrian.

"Any plans for the holidays?" Astoria asked softly.

If possible, she also wanted to take Les to Greengrass Manor. She knew that Les was an extraordinary person. If she spent more time with him, maybe she would be able to comprehend the domain.

Les looked up and glanced at her.

"I heard that the Quidditch World Cup Finals will be held in the UK this summer? It's worth going to see it then."

Although Les was not very interested in Quidditch, based on his knowledge of Quidditch, he knew that this must be the premier event in the wizarding world.

Along with the grand event, there will definitely be a gathering of wizards. This kind of "big fair"-like activity is quite attractive to Rice.

He could see how wizards outside of Britain lived.

"That's great, Dad will definitely be able to get tickets, and we can go watch it together!" Astoria invited Les very naturally.

Les accepted Astoria's kindness calmly.

In his opinion, this is a normal way for students to give back to their teachers, and he should not reject their kindness.

But in addition to watching the World Cup, he had one more thing to do. He had wanted to do it for a long time, but had been delayed by various things before, so he had never made the trip.

Les wanted to go to the Gaunt family, if for no other reason than to see the traces left by the descendants of his unworthy adopted son.

"Are there any descendants of the Gaunt family? I mean direct descendants." Les asked Astoria a question.

Since pure-blood families often intermarry, each family has more or less blood from other families. According to bloodline, the Gaunt family must still exist widely, but Les asked about their direct descendants.

"There should be more, right?" Astoria wasn't very confident either. She recalled the few words her father had said and sorted them out.

"Yes, but they will soon be extinct. The Gaunt family... my father said that they all have some problems with their brains. By the beginning of this century, they had fallen into decline. The last descendant of the Gaunt family was probably imprisoned in Azkaban for suspected murder of Muggles."

"Is that so?" There was no emotion on Rice's face.

This might be the retribution for using the name of Slytherin. It was also the group of pure-blood supporters led by this family that made their reputation so bad.

"The Gaunts live at Hangleton?"

"I don't know about that." Astoria shook her head and asked curiously, "Are you going to look for someone from the Gaunt family?"

She remembered that Les didn't seem to like the Gaunt family very much, because he thought they pretended to be Slytherin. As the legitimate heir of Slytherin, he could not accept such blasphemy.

"No, just going for a walk there," Rice responded vaguely.

Astoria blinked and was about to ask for more details, but was interrupted by Daphne's cheers.

The girl's simple fishing rod had now bent into a bow shape, obviously she had caught a big fish from the lake.

Les raised his eyebrows: Daphne is really lucky.

Fishing is a mysterious thing. Sometimes you can catch a fish just by standing on the shore and casting your bait. Sometimes you can't catch even a single fish scale even after preparing for a long time.

After struggling with the fish for a while, the fish finally lost and was dragged to the shore by Daphne.

Les took a quick peek and saw it was a foot-long trout.

After the fish was pulled to the shore, Daphne waded directly to the fish, caught it, and brought it to Les to claim credit.

"Look, I caught a big fish!" The girl's face was full of excitement.

"Yes, this trout is big enough. This fish tastes good. The texture of the meat is somewhat similar to salmon, but it cannot be eaten raw." Les praised.

Daphne was even happier.

However, the three people who were full did not eat the fish caught by Daphne, but chose to release it.

After Daphne used a spell to clean the water stains on her body, she sat next to Les and started chatting with him. The topic of the conversation was naturally about holiday plans.

Les: You two, you're really...

While sharing his holiday plans with Daphne and Astoria, he opened Daphne's food box, which was filled with his favorite desserts: pudding, puffs, ice cream...

This most relaxing and enjoyable day passed by with eating, drinking, chatting and laughing.

The graduation ceremony arrived in the blink of an eye.

The teachers and students of Hogwarts gathered in the Great Hall to spend the last day of school this academic year with the graduating seventh-year students.

Rice looked at the seventh graders with deep emotion. These students were about to enter the adult world, and he sincerely hoped that they would have a bright future.

To put it in more official and formal terms: we hope they can become useful to the wizarding world.

Rice's eyes swept across the Gryffindor table. He noticed that Percy Weasley looked a little pale, as if he had consumed too much energy. Considering the potions he bought from Hogsmeade, Rice was not surprised. He just wanted to advise him to be a little more restrained.

This year, the Hufflepuff students were extremely excited because this year was a unprecedented event, as Hufflepuff House became the winner of the House Cup!

Originally, the students of Hufflepuff House had no idea about the House Cup and their attitude was very Buddhist.

But when Cedric led the Hufflepuff Quidditch team to win consecutive victories over Gryffindor and Slytherin, everyone's thoughts suddenly changed.

They seem, seem, perhaps, to be able to compete?

After this thought came into mind, it spread like wildfire in the hearts of Hufflepuff students and could not be stopped.

In the following days, the Hufflepuff students showed amazing unity, and in the end, they really won the house cup!

When Dumbledore officially announced that Hufflepuff House was the winner of this year's House Cup, the hall was plunged into a sea of ​​joy. Even Helga, who was sitting in the staff seats, applauded enthusiastically with a smile on her face.

Looking at Helga who was extremely happy on the stage, Les suddenly remembered the so-called "curse".

So would Helga be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for another year? Les found himself forgetting to ask his old friend.

'I'll ask her during the holidays,' Les thought.

The school year ended with a lively ceremony.

The students packed their luggage in just one night and boarded the Hogwarts Express for the return trip.

Following the crowd, he squeezed out of the platform little by little and entered King's Cross Station. He saw Mr. Henry standing outside the platform waiting for his two daughters.

The moment Daphne and Astoria saw their father, they rushed towards him.

Harry, who was following behind the few people, had an envious look in his eyes: he had only dreamed of such a scene.

Even worse than seeing other classmates and their families reunite was seeing the Dursleys...

But at this moment, a handsome middle-aged man suddenly came in front of Harry.

"Harry, is that you?" The middle-aged man looked at Harry with a smile, his eyes full of tenderness.

"Yes..." Harry hesitated a little, turned around and looked around, and saw that the corner of the station was filled with Hogwarts classmates and their parents, and the Weasley family was not far away. Only then did he feel relieved.

"You are……?"

"I'm Sirius Black."

As soon as the name came out of his mouth, Harry's eyes widened.

After Christmas, he and Sirius exchanged no less than a hundred letters. He didn't expect that he would come to King's Cross Station to see him in person!

Thinking of this, Harry suddenly thought of an astonishing possibility, and his heart suddenly began to beat fast.

"So you are here to..." Harry stopped talking halfway, fearing that his guess was wrong and he would be disappointed.

"I remember I told you that I hope you can come and live in my house for a while. Of course, if you can't bear to leave your aunt, I won't--"

"No problem at all!" Harry interrupted Sirius. "How long can I stay? Uh, I mean..."

After hearing what Harry said, Sirius smiled very happily. He told Harry: You can stay as long as you want, but Dumbledore has told you that Harry should stay at the Dursleys' for a while, have a meal or something.

Harry was relieved to learn that he would not have to stay at the Dursleys' house.

"Then how about we go back together, have a meal and leave?" he asked in a pleading tone.

"Okay, let's go." Sirius took the initiative to pick up Harry's suitcase and walked with him towards the Dursleys.

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