#36 - An unexpected bonus
Hagrid's mysterious expression gave Moon an odd feeling.
"I was just about to send it over to you today." After closing the door tightly, Hagrid turned to face a large package.
"You know, they shed in the fall, and there's a lot of this stuff in the Forbidden Forest."
As Hagrid spoke, he took out a clump of tangled, silvery-white threads from the package in front of him.
"What is this?"
Moon had never seen such pure-colored threads before. They even emitted a faint, silvery-white light, clearly illuminating the fine lines on Hagrid's palm.
"Oh, I forgot you haven't seen it. This is unicorn tail hair. I saved you a bunch."
Hagrid said, stuffing the threads into Moon's hands.
Looking at the silvery-white tail hair, barely a handful in Hagrid's hand but requiring both of his to hold completely, Moon asked curiously.
"There must be at least a thousand strands here, right?"
"Strands? Are we describing these little things in strands? I've always used 'a bunch,' 'a bundle,' or 'a package' or something."
"Are there many unicorns in the Forbidden Forest?" Seeing Hagrid scratching his head in confusion, Moon asked his question.
"Not many, only about a hundred or so. This might be the last unicorn herd in Britain."
Speaking of this, Hagrid would inevitably feel sad. He always believed that the unicorn herd should be able to live freely in the forest, rather than being trapped in the Forbidden Forest.
He thought that would allow the unicorn herd to grow larger.
"Actually, you're already doing a great job."
After deciding to make a wand, Moon had specifically consulted some books about unicorns.
He knew that these magical creatures rarely allowed men to touch them, and Hagrid being able to care for them in the Forbidden Forest was already an amazing feat.
"Oh, thank you." Hagrid's sad expression came and went quickly. Looking at the unicorn tail hair in Moon's hand, he continued.
"I know you're making wands. This is a relatively easy wand core material to get, and it should be enough for you to experiment with."
Hagrid was absolutely right. Although there were many wand core materials, the mainstream ones in Britain were dragon heartstring and unicorn tail hair.
Of course, this mainstream status was also controlled by the Ollivander family, and outside of Britain, there were many who used Veela hair, troll whiskers, or cat panther fur as wand cores.
However, obtaining these materials was even more difficult.
Moon had originally planned to buy a batch of wand core materials with Galleons, but now that Hagrid had prepared so much unicorn tail hair, it saved him a lot of expenses.
"Thank you very much."
"Don't mention it. Anyway, unicorns have to shed. There's a lot of this tail hair in the Forbidden Forest right now. I just picked it up casually."
Hagrid's words reminded Moon of his only friend in Xilin: the horse breeder Gerald.
He had once told Moon that horses would shed some old hair in the autumn, growing denser and thicker fine hair to cope with the cold winter.
And unicorns, being similar to horses, should have the same experience.
"Okay, since you say so, I'll accept it." Moon put the tail hair into his pocket and then looked at Hagrid again.
"By the way, I had 'Hagrid's Rock Cakes' in the Great Hall today."
When Moon asked this question, he saw the corners of Hagrid's mouth unconsciously turn up.
"That's right, I recommended it to Dumbledore. He also likes sweets very much, and the Great Hall's menu hasn't changed for decades..."
Hagrid explained that he had given the final version of 'Hagrid's Rock Cakes' to Dumbledore, and unsurprisingly, he had won the headmaster's favor.
Dumbledore had even specifically sent house-elves to learn the production process.
"You didn't see it, their learning ability is very strong, they learned it after seeing it once, but they kept suggesting to steam the rock cakes instead of baking them, but I didn't agree."
Hagrid said, giving Moon a playful look.
"Why didn't you agree?"
Moon immediately understood Hagrid's meaning and, without any hesitation, picked up on his cue.
"Oh, that's the soul of 'Hagrid's Rock Cakes,' isn't it!"
"Of course!"
Seeing Hagrid's face filled with pride, Moon happily echoed.
Moon chatted with Hagrid for a long time. He also took some spare branches from here and visited the pumpkin patch behind the hut.
According to Hagrid, the pumpkins here were all prepared for Halloween, but they hadn't matured yet and had attracted some bugs that were stealing the pumpkins.
Near dusk, Moon returned from Hagrid's hut.
As soon as Moon entered the dormitory, he heard Ron's shout.
"What's going on, Scabbers! Your fur is all over the sheets!"
Scabbers, lying on the bed, ignored Ron. He looked very tired.
Moon subconsciously looked at Bouncing, and found that it was just waving its old magic wand toy, so he was slightly relieved.
Putting the unicorn tail hair into his suitcase, and then taking a branch from under the bed, Moon went to the common room.
The wooden stick from the morning had already been ruined.
Even though Moon had wood carving experience, the craft of making wands, which focused more on delicate feel, was indeed a bit difficult.
In fact, carving and polishing the basic shape of the wand was not difficult for Moon. The current difficulty was how to perfectly split the wand.
The book said that this step must be done along the wood's natural grain, otherwise the wand, with its structure destroyed, would not be able to channel magic.
The book introduced it very briefly, but Moon knew that sometimes the fewer the words, the more difficult it was.
Before the wood grain was split, it was impossible to predict its direction, and he could only rely on extremely subtle feelings to control the direction of the knife.
This was a very difficult challenge for Moon.
Throwing the carved wooden stick into the fireplace, Moon started making the next one under the illumination of a bright flame.
After the new wooden stick was polished again, Moon began his magic studies for the day.
Hermione, sitting not far away, originally wanted to speak, but seeing Moon's very serious attitude towards learning, she had to give up the idea of communicating.
......
Early the next morning, there was another bright flame in the fireplace.
Moon had no choice but to start carving and polishing again.
Fortunately, the bad luck in making wands did not affect Moon's performance in class.
In the morning's Herbology class, Moon once again perfectly mastered the planting and care methods of Knotgrass, and he received another house point reward.
In the afternoon's Charms class, Professor Flitwick explained a new spell: the Fire-Making Spell.
As the most basic of all fire-based spells, Professor Flitwick required all students to master it, and also left a fifteen-inch essay on the evolution of fire-based spells.
In Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall asked the students to turn a quill into a fountain pen. This was much harder than turning a match into a needle. Moon tried three times before succeeding.
When Moon returned to the dormitory after finishing his homework in the library in the evening, he heard Ron let out a wail again.
"Scabbers, where did your whiskers go?"
