"Perhaps you have already met her on the Change today, but you must still have some doubts. Before the new students are divided into classes, I would like to introduce to you the transfer student, Maka McClain."
In the auditorium of Durmstrang Castle, a regular welcome dinner for the first semester of school was being held.
This is a large auditorium not much smaller than the Hogwarts Great Hall. Although the furnishings on the four walls are very simple, they are as meticulous as Durmstrang's long-standing philosophy of running the school.
The school emblem and banners composed of the extinct two-headed waterfowl and ram-horned skeletons are neatly arranged on the walls on both sides. Although not fancy, they are impressive.
But on the back wall facing the door, there is only an ancient long wand carved with an unknown shield-shaped badge in the background of a perfect black circle, which makes people feel puzzled.
The atmosphere of Durmstrang's dinner was also very different from Hogwarts. The tables here were all placed horizontally, and everyone sat neatly in fixed positions. There were only the sounds of tableware clashing and deliberately lowered whispers.
At the front, in addition to the faculty and staff's dining table, there is a large platform half a person high, which is currently empty.
It can be seen that under Karkaroff's cold teaching policy, the students' individuality has been suppressed.
At this moment, Karkaroff's words made the whispers below a little more confusing.
Not to mention the influence of a major event like the Quidditch World Cup on Durmstrang, which has many fans. There were also many students and even teachers who were present at the game.
As for the name "Maka McLean", although not everyone knows it, it's not much different.
"... Then, all freshmen are invited to enter!"
As soon as Karkaroff finished speaking, the door to the auditorium opened, and the freshmen, led by Maka, walked slowly to the faculty and staff seats at the front of the hall.
"Principal, is this okay?"
At this time, a thin, stooped male teacher suddenly asked.
Karkaroff frowned and said impatiently: "Of course, no problem, Orson."
The other teachers just glanced at the two of them and didn't say much. In their opinion, the most appropriate choice is not to argue with Karkaroff.
The old wizard who didn't know whether his surname was "Ossen" or "Ossen" opened his mouth, but in the end he shook his head and ate the food on his plate.
In front of the auditorium, the freshmen lined up in a row with Maka, and stood still in front of the staff table with a little uneasiness.
Most of them hadn't eaten yet, but seeing that the meal had already begun in the auditorium, the stomachs of several little wizards began to growl.
"McLean, you are different from other freshmen. You are a transfer student, and logically you should be promoted to fourth grade... But I hope you know that in terms of teaching arrangements alone, our school and Hogwarts are the same. There’s a big difference.”
Karkaroff paused, then continued, "Every new student who enters our school will be freely selected by each teacher to teach, and each student also has the right to change his or her teacher at any time - the number of times you can change will be determined by each of you. Determined by the number of credits earned.”
Yes, credits!
This is a very interesting rule in Durmstrang: in this school, many resources can be exchanged for credits, including library borrowings, potion materials, various magic props, and so on.
It is said that this is an important school rule introduced by the second principal of the school, "Halfang Monte".
The principal who established Durmstrang College's tradition of focusing on duels and combat magic based the way students obtain credits on the strength of each young wizard.
Whether it is obtaining individual rankings in the three duel competitions each semester, or obtaining group rankings in the class competition at the end of each school year, or even invitation-based duels due to various personal grudges - as long as you are in the venue and rules specified by the school If you win, you can get corresponding credits.
It has to be said that when Maka learned about this rule from Krum, he immediately became very interested in this very competitive teaching model.
"Teachers, who of you wants MacLean as a transfer student?" Karkaroff asked the teachers sitting on both sides of him very directly.
However, the teachers who had been staring at Maka since just now fell silent.
Maka made a big fuss at the World Cup and her confrontation with the British Ministry of Magic made headlines. Who would dare to accept such a thorny figure as a student now
I heard that he also fought against Dumbledore once. Although the fight didn't seem to be successful, even if he escaped unscathed from Dumbledore, it was an amazing achievement.
To be honest, if you become his teacher, will you get beaten
If someone asks Karkaroff this, he will definitely tell you - this kid may use Expelliarmus with his right hand, but punch you hard in the face with his left hand!
Seeing that the teachers were all looking like "don't ask me about this", Maka couldn't help but shrugged and stretched her hand towards the position of the "Orson" who just spoke.
"Professor Orson, are you willing to teach me?"
Orson was stunned for a moment. He looked at Karkaroff, then at the other teachers around him, and finally nodded hesitantly.
"Then just follow me and learn..."
Immediately, some of the students below opened their eyes—obviously, those should be Orson's current students.
Then, after the freshmen were selected by one type of teacher, the dinner officially began. Seeing that Karkaroff didn't seem to have any intention of arranging a seat for her, Maka simply found an empty seat at the back and sat down.
The meal was quiet, and he could tell that the students didn't want to get too close to him. The little fat man next to him even moved his chair to make way for Maka.
On the right side of Maka, the weak-looking little witch did not move, but her head was lowered and lowered, and the tip of her nose almost touched the vegetable salad on the plate.
Maka himself was fine with being ignored, but he seemed a little scared of the little girl.
…
Compared with Durmstrang College, the atmosphere at the Hogwarts orientation dinner was much more lively.
At this moment, in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, Dumbledore began his speech...
"Okay!" Dumbledore looked at everyone with a smile and said, "Now that we have eaten and drank enough, I must ask everyone's attention again. I want to make a few announcements."
"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, would like me to tell you that this year, several more items are prohibited in the castle. They are screaming balls, toothed flying saucers and combo boomerangs... The entire list includes about four hundred and three. Seventeen items can be seen in Mr. Filch’s office, and those who are interested can check them out.”
You can notice that the corners of Dumbledore's mouth seemed to twitch a few times.
He continued: "As before, I would like to remind everyone that students are not allowed to enter the Forbidden Forest on the other side of the venue, and students below the third year of Hogsmeade are not allowed to visit."
"I would also like to inform you with great regret that the Academy Cup Quidditch Tournament will not be held this year."
Everyone couldn't help but cheered.
Dumbledore continued: "This is because there is a big event starting in October and continuing throughout the school year, taking up a lot of teachers' time and attention - but I'm sure you will all get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I'm very I am pleased to announce that this year at Hogwarts—"
At this moment, a deafening thunder sounded from the clouds outside the castle, and the door was rudely pushed open.
A man stood in the doorway, leaning on a long cane and wrapped in a black traveling cloak. Everyone in the Great Hall turned to look at the stranger, and suddenly another fork-shaped lightning flashed across the ceiling, and Hermione gasped.
The lightning illuminated the man's face so clearly that the students could not help but shrink their heads because they had never seen such a face before.
It looks like it was carved out of a piece of rotten wood. If I had to use just one word to describe it, it would be "incomplete."
Every inch of skin on the face seemed to be scarred, the mouth was like a big crooked hole, and the place where the nose should be raised was missing.
The most terrifying thing about this man is his eyes.
One of his eyes is small, but it shines sharply; the other eye is large, round like a coin, and it is a bright blue with a faint light.
The blue eye didn't blink, it just kept moving in the eye socket, rotating up and down, left and right, completely unrelated to the direction the normal eye looked - later, the blue eyeball Suddenly, it turned to the man's eye socket, and there was only a big white eyeball left in the eye socket.
The man was leaning on crutches, one foot deep and one foot shallow, but he walked to Dumbledore very quickly. He held out a hand, one as scarred as his face.
Dumbledore shook his hand and whispered something. He seemed to be asking the man something. The strange man shook his head expressionlessly and answered in a lowered voice.
Dumbledore nodded and motioned for the man to take an empty seat to his right.
The stranger sat down, shook his head, and shook his long gray hair away from his face, then pulled a plate of sausages, raised it to his incomplete nose and smelled it. He took a knife from his pocket, poked the end of a sausage in, and ate it.
His normal eye was focused on the sausage, but his blue eye was still moving around in its socket, looking at the auditorium and his classmates.
"Allow me to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Dumbledore broke the silence happily, "Professor Moody."
Normally, when a new teacher meets everyone, everyone will applaud and welcome him, but now, except for Dumbledore and Hagrid, no teacher or student applauded.
No, surprisingly there was one more person, and that was Hermione!