If there is anything that is most depressing, it is being just a little bit short.
However, sometimes, a little difference can make a big difference.
Ravenclaw House ultimately failed to take advantage of the opportunity and was still ranked second in the House Cup by five points until the end-of-year banquet. It would be a lie to say that Ravenclaw students were not depressed.
That evening, Albert went to the auditorium with his roommates to attend the year-end banquet.
The hall had been elaborately decorated in the red and gold colours of Gryffindor, and a huge banner with the Gryffindor lion hung on the wall behind the head table.
The Gryffindor students were all talking loudly, their words filled with joy and confidence at winning the house cup.
Compared to Gryffindor, their next-door neighbor Slytherin students were not happy at all. No wonder they were not happy. Slytherin had won the House Cup for four consecutive years, but... it was broken just like that, and they lost to Gryffindor, whom they hated the most. It was strange that they were in a good mood.
The Ravenclaw students were probably the ones with the most complicated and depressed emotions present. They were only a few points away from becoming the champion, and they felt regretful that no one took advantage of them, but they were also happy to see Slytherin's defeat.
As for the Hufflepuff students, they hadn't won the house cup for a long time, so they didn't care too much about it. Anyway, seeing the Slytherin family, who didn't like fair competition, being defeated was something worth celebrating.
Not long after, Dumbledore hurried over. He stood on the podium and raised his hand to signal everyone to keep quiet. The noise in the hall gradually subsided.
"Another year has passed!" Dumbledore said cheerfully, "You certainly don't want to hear nonsense from an old man like me before you enjoy the delicious food. However, we still need to hold the award ceremony for the College Cup. The specific scores of each college are as follows: fourth place, Slytherin, 250 points; third place, Hufflepuff, 395 points; second place, Ravenclaw, 439 points; first place, Gryffindor, 444 points."
At this moment, a thunderous cheer broke out at the Gryffindor table. The sound was deafening, and some students even shouted themselves hoarse with excitement.
Fred, George, and Lee Jordan all stood up and cheered and applauded along with the crowd. Albert also clapped hard, pretending to be excited. But in his mind he couldn't help muttering, "What an unlucky score."
Lee Jordan cheered, nudged Albert with his elbow, and pointed at his next-door neighbor. The Slytherin students all had ugly expressions on their faces, as if they had just been punched in the nose.
In the hall, everyone except the Slytherin students was applauding, whether celebrating Gryffindor's victory or Slytherin's defeat.
Professor McGonagall, who was sitting in the guest of honor seat, also stood up and shook hands with Professor Snape, a happy smile on her face.
The dinner was rich in delicious food, and during the meal, Fred and George invited Albert to visit their home during the summer vacation.
Unfortunately, this invitation was declined by Albert because his family already had their own summer vacation plans. Herb wrote to Albert a while ago to tell him that the whole family was planning to go to France for the summer vacation.
Fred and George felt sorry about this. They had always wanted to thank Albert for saving them. The Weasley family obviously had similar ideas.
At the dinner, everyone ate very well, except Fred and George.
After all, it's easy to feel sleepy after eating and drinking. If they missed the revenge action tonight, they would never have another chance to take revenge on Filch this semester, which was obviously not what the Weasley brothers wanted to see.
We finally waited until Gryffindor won the house cup, and now we don't have to worry about anything anymore. How can we give up
After twelve o'clock, Fred and George began to act. With the help of Albert's Disillusionment Charm, they first made some noise in the castle and attracted Filch, who was about to rest, to the Armor Corridor on the fourth floor of the castle.
Then, George took the opportunity to sneak into Filch's office and smeared the bottle of garlic-scented beeswax in the corner of Filch's office. I have to say, the smell was really pungent, even more amazing than the effect of the dung ball.
After all, you can still see the source of the smell of dung eggs, but once beeswax is smeared in the corner, you can't even find it, let alone remove the source of the smell. In just a moment, the entire office and Filch's bedroom were filled with a pungent smell of garlic.
After Fred discovered through the Marauder's Map that George had returned to the Gryffindor common room, he immediately withdrew, leaving Filch on the fourth floor struggling to find their whereabouts.
After realizing that he had been fooled, Filch returned to the dormitory to rest in annoyance.
When Filch opened the wooden door of his office, he was immediately choked by the strong smell of garlic and shivered all over. He rushed into his office in a rage, trying to find the source of the smell.
After a moment, Filch's angry roar echoed in the administrator's office. As for his Mrs. Norris, she stayed away from the administrator's office that was filled with the smell of garlic.
"Tell me, this matter is a bit too much!" George turned his head and said to Fred as he listened to Filch's roar.
"If I were you, I would get rid of the garlic smell on my body first to avoid people suspecting you." Albert appeared quietly in the lounge and reminded the two people who were discussing.
"Oh, you're right!" George also smelled the garlic on his hands and hurried to wash his hands.
The next morning, news of Filch's revenge spread throughout the castle, and everyone was speculating about who had made Filch's office smell like garlic.
However, no one sympathized with the administrator, and most people were gloating over his misfortune.
Albert and his group also pretended that they didn't know about this. In fact, they were more focused on the final exam results.
Hogwarts will announce the students' final exam results on the last day.
"Look, you are indeed the first in this class." Fred poked Albert with his elbow and said with a smile.
“You all have very good grades too.”
Fred, George and Lee Jordan all passed the exam with high marks.
"I guessed you would be the first place." Shanna came over and talked to Albert with a smile, "But I think Katrina must be very angry."
Albert smiled and shrugged, indicating that there was nothing he could do.
He himself didn't really feel anything about getting first place. There were only so many students in this class, and it seemed like there was nothing to be proud of being first. His goal was to complete the panel tasks, and fortunately, the tasks of "in the name of genius" and "all-round crushing" had been completed.
Although Katrina said she wanted to compete with him to see who had better results, and was rejected by Albert in the end, the competition seemed to be effective, at least according to the panel's judgment.
Katrina won the second place in this session, also with excellent results in all subjects, but she was still a little behind Albert in terms of scores.
At this moment, Katrina, who was also standing in the crowd checking her own grades, was staring at Albert with an extremely annoyed look.
She was angry, angry at herself, angry that she lost to that guy who didn't even study hard for the final exam.
While everyone was still excitedly discussing the test results, Professor McGonagall appeared with a pile of notices.
She asked the freshmen to sign a letter of commitment, promising that they would abide by the "Law on Reasonable Restraint of Underage Wizards" outside of school.
After signing, everyone was given a notice and warned not to use magic during the holiday.
"I really hope they forget to send this to us." Fred Weasley shook the notice in his hand regretfully. It was a torment not to be able to use magic during the holidays.
"You don't have to worry at all. In a wizard's family, the Ministry of Magic can't figure out who is using magic, so even if you use magic at home, the Ministry of Magic won't warn you." Albert curled his lips and explained. "As long as you use magic in a place where there are many wizards like Diagon Alley, the Ministry of Magic can't be sure whether you are using magic, because the trace can only locate and monitor whether someone is using magic within a certain range around you."
"You seem to know all this very well?" Sana was a little surprised that Albert knew these things.
"Of course he knows." Li Qiaodan couldn't help laughing, "After all, someone has been cheated by him before."
"Someone?"
"Hufflepuff's Truman," Fred reminded kindly, "So, as long as we stay at home, we can use magic without any scruples?"
"That's right, as long as you are at home, students born of pure-blood wizards can only rely on their families to supervise them voluntarily." Albert said disdainfully, feeling a little dissatisfied that he could not use magic during the summer vacation.
"According to what you said, the Ministry of Magic relies on the trace to determine whether we use magic, but when did they..." Shanna asked doubtfully, "use the trace for us secretly?"
"Used secretly?" Albert's expression was a little strange. "No."
"there is nothing?"
"Didn't you just sign the magic contract?" Albert reminded.
"You mean... the letter of commitment?" Not only Shanna, but everyone else also understood what was going on.
"According to the information I got from Professor Brod, the letter of commitment we just signed is a magical contract, also known as a trace. Of course, that thing also has loopholes."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier? I wouldn't have signed if I had known." Li Qiaodan looked depressed.
"No?" Albert repeated softly, "Can you not sign?"
"What if we break the date?" Fred asked curiously.
"The Ministry will know immediately and send an owl to warn you."
"What's the loophole?" George was even more curious about it.
"It can't figure out who is using magic." Albert gave a simple example, "If you live in a community full of Muggles, when someone around you uses magic, the Ministry of Magic will monitor it and think it is you who is using magic.
"Is this how you tricked Truman?" Fred asked curiously.
"Yes, this is the loophole I was talking about. The Ministry of Magic can monitor your location through the Trace. When you are in Diagon Alley or staying at home, if someone uses magic around you, the Ministry of Magic cannot determine who is using magic, because the wizards and witches in Diagon Alley and your family may all use magic."
"Great, so we don't have to worry about being discovered by the Ministry of Magic when we use magic." Fred and George high-fived.
"But you need to worry about your family finding out." Li Qiaodan said unhappily.
Everyone returned to the dormitory to pack their things, only to find that their closets were empty and all their things were packed into suitcases.
"It should be the house-elves who helped clean it up." Fred explained to everyone.
"I guessed it." Albert nodded. "Let's go. Don't miss the train."
As everyone was dragging their luggage towards the entrance hall, Filch suddenly rushed out from the hidden corridor, staring at Albert and the others with his two red eyes, and said hoarsely: "You did it, right!"
The four of them looked at each other and pretended to have an expression that said "I don't know what you are talking about."
"Don't think I don't know. It was definitely you who did that garlic smell in my office."
"We don't understand what you're talking about!" the twins said in unison.
"We went to bed early last night." Lee Jordan coughed lightly and defended himself. As for whether the "we" here includes the Weasley brothers, he didn't know.
Albert spread his hands helplessly, indicating that he knew nothing about the matter.
"You grow garlic!" Filch's eyes flashed with anger.
"You mean that?" Fred looked like he understood. He smiled and said, "Last time, Albert made it into garlic scrambled eggs. It tasted pretty good."
"If you don't believe me, you can ask the house-elf." George added, "That dish was cooked by the house-elf."
The four of them walked past Filch, who looked stunned, and tried hard not to burst out laughing as they boarded the carriage to the Hogwarts Express.
Along the way, everyone was talking about Filch, predicting whether he would cause trouble for them next semester and how they would deal with it.
In fact, the only ones who have this kind of trouble are Fred and George.
As the train passed through Muggle towns, they were eating Beebe's Every-Flavour Beans provided by Lee Jordan to see who had worse luck.
Before the train pulled up to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station, they took off their wizard robes and put on jackets and short tops, which were commonly worn by Muggles.
There was an old guard guarding the ticket gate, who only allowed two or three people to pass at a time. It took Albert a long time to line up and walk out of the platform.
"Here, Albert, we are!"
As soon as he stepped out of the platform, Albert saw Nia waving at him.
"Nia has become a lady." Albert praised his sister with a smile.
"I've always been a lady." Nia complained unhappily.
"Where's Tom?" asked Albert.
"It will be kept with your Grandpa Luke for the time being." Herb took Albert's luggage and explained casually, "You know, we are going to France for vacation in the summer and don't have time to take care of it. Your owl will be kept with Grandpa Luke for the time being."
"Oh, God, I must write to Grandma Sansa and ask her not to feed Tom too much food." Albert couldn't help but cover his cheeks with his hands. He seemed to foresee that when he saw Tom again, he would have been fed into a fat cat.
"It's okay for cats to be a little fat," Daisy consoled. "I think it's cute."