Meeting Professor McGonagall was actually just a matter of courtesy, just like when Maka met Madam Maxime when she was a guest at Beauxbatons. It would be a disgrace to Hogwarts if she didn't show up when she was there.
Therefore, even if the Hohenheim brothers and sisters came to play in the name of Maca's friends this time, this trip to the principal's office was inevitable.
Of course, in the final analysis, this is just a meeting to say hello. As long as the attitude is up to the mark, the task is considered completed. Therefore, not long after, Sarah and the fat young master Noah, who had exchanged a few casual words with Professor McGonagall, left the principal's office under the leadership of Maka and started casually visiting Hogwarts Castle.
But not long after they left the principal's office, an interesting thing happened.
…
As Maka had expected, Charlotte went to the Pig's Head Bar early in the morning to work as her unscrupulous waiter, creating wealth for Aberforth and herself.
To be honest, in a place like the Pig Head Bar, there are not many customers on Easter.
Especially during the day, in this festival that is full of vitality and energy, everyone is gathering with their relatives and friends, and the day almost passes by chatting.
Therefore, the customers who go to the bar in broad daylight are usually sporadic people who live a lonely life.
In addition, this is the Pig's Head Bar after all, and the regular customers in the past were mysterious wizards who covered their heads and faces. Since the traffic here has increased greatly due to Charlotte's arrival, the number of old customers has suddenly decreased a lot. Only when there are fewer people, they will occasionally come and sit, order a glass of wine and sip in silence as they did in the past.
Today is a sunny day, and even Hogsmeade, which is covered in ice and snow all year round, seems to be slightly warmer. Charlotte stepped on the crunching snow covered in the morning sun and walked to the door of the Hog's Head pub, chatting for a few words with Aberforth who was waving his wand to clear the entrance.
In Charlotte's eyes, Aberforth is a very strange old man, and some of his ideas are actually contradictory.
For example, he gets up early every morning to clean the snow in front of his door, but he always ignores the dirty doors, windows and floors that have been there for decades; another example is that his attitude towards every guest is almost loving Ignore the answer, but you can remember all the images, voices, and names of the drinkers in your mind, and you can even tell which customer visited the bar for the first time on which day without thinking.
After explaining her purpose to Aberforth, Charlotte walked straight into the dim bar store and carefully scrubbed the bar counter that was the only one designated by Aberforth to be cleaned.
As mentioned before, there were really few guests in the morning. Only a few young wizards who happened to be passing by the bar found out that Charlotte was on duty and called some friends over on a whim, making the bar a little livelier.
Well, maybe after noon, there will be more guests coming here to relax! Unfortunately, Charlotte has to go back to Hogwarts this afternoon to help Professor McGonagall sort out some information and letters. It is impossible to stay in the Pig's Head Bar and continue to entertain guests.
So she spent most of the morning leaning behind the bar, holding her chin in boredom.
Without enough turnover, she would naturally lose a lot of gold galleons. To be honest, Charlotte was not having a very happy Easter this year.
At noon, after she had eaten something to fill herself up, she apparated back to the door of Hogwarts with the half-day reward that Aberforth had given her. Obviously, compared with strolling there leisurely in the morning, she basically has no intention of hanging out at this moment.
"Oh! Professor McGonagall, who sent this Easter egg?"
As soon as she entered the principal's office, Charlotte immediately saw the easter egg placed in the basket. Needless to say, it must have been given by someone else, because Professor McGonagall has not been in the mood to do this recently.
Due to Maka's active presence in France, Hogwarts got a golden opportunity. As the current principal of Hogwarts, McGonagall was of course working hard.
"It's MacLean," Professor McGonagall raised her head, glanced at the chocolate egg first, and then replied with a smile, "That child always takes these little things to heart..."
"Is it Maka?"
When Charlotte, who was walking to the desk next to her, heard this, she couldn't help but look back, with some unexplainable meaning flashing across her face. Although she just looked at it again, Mag, who was also a woman but had rich experience, could not notice the incongruity in her expression.
I saw her smiling slightly behind Charlotte, with a thoughtful look at the corners of her eyes covered with fine wrinkles.
"Charlotte, I remember that you like chocolate, right? You should take this easter egg and eat it!" Mag lowered his head and continued to read a document, and said in a relaxed and casual tone, " You know, I can't handle chocolate, and it would be a waste of McLean's heart to stay here."
"Oh, no... how is this possible?" Charlotte, who had just taken out a few reports from the document basket next to the desk, paused for a moment after hearing this, and then put them on the table after a moment, "Then It was given to you by Ma...McLean, how could I..."
She said so, but it could be seen from the fact that she did not turn around that she was hesitant about this in her heart.
"It's yours now," Professor McGonagall waved her hand nonchalantly, without even raising her head, "That's it! Well, let's first sift through the professors' class records from the past week and sort them out. Show it to me later..."
"Uh... Okay, I'll start the screening now."
Charlotte knew that with Professor McGonagall's style of conduct, this was considered a done deal. So after she opened her mouth, she finally gave up trying to evade and returned her mind to her work.
Speaking of which, Charlotte's life was not easy during those years when she was a student.
Although she got the opportunity to go to Hogwarts at that time, she was always bound by the surname "Witt". She was like a bird whose wings had been taken off, and could only silently look up at the sky in this seemingly free land.
What can be foreseen is always those destined to have a gloomy future.
Therefore, even though her talent is not inferior to other outstanding students, her academic performance has never been outstanding. Only Quidditch could make her temporarily forget the troubles in her heart and let her fly freely in the sky.
But now, Maka's help has finally freed her from the heavy shackles of the past, allowing her to enjoy this hard-won freedom. Although being an assistant at Hogwarts did not pay much, and her life gradually became much poorer, she was still satisfied every day she spent now.
She was really happy that she could live an ordinary but fulfilling life relying only on her own efforts without using the money her father had given her.
In order to give herself a better future, she now picks up books again every day after work, and concentrates on self-study in order to pass a few more NEWTs tests.
She believes that as long as she is willing, nothing is impossible.
Today, after finishing the work assigned to her by Professor McGonagall, Charlotte opened the textbooks and materials again after dinner and studied quietly until late. When she felt herself starting to feel sleepy, she silently closed her book, sorted out the information, and stretched out.
Professor McGonagall has long since returned to the inner room, but Charlotte knows that the new headmaster of Hogwarts has not yet rested. The light that came out from the gap under the door spread quietly on the ground and extended to her feet.
Charlotte respectfully said good night to the closed door, and then walked to the door of the principal's office with a few books.
But when she passed the principal's desk, she paused.
The lights in the principal's office had been extinguished by her. At this moment, only the moonlight outside the window fell slantingly on the corner of the desk, which happened to illuminate the colorful Easter egg.
The chocolate colored egg was bathed in the silvery moonlight with a hint of coolness, and the color tone became much simpler. On the contrary, it had a more unique beauty than during the day.
After a moment of hesitation, Charlotte sighed slightly, reached out and picked up the small basket containing only one easter egg, and then slowly left the principal's office and went to her room.
…
While at Hogwarts, Maka lived in the back room of the office. Most professors' offices in schools have this design. The outside is an office space and the inside is a living room. Although not all professors are like this, at least Maka is also one of the mainstream.
Today, as usual, he did not go to bed to sleep. Instead, he was still writing and drawing behind his desk, busy working on some of his own research topics. Maybe I'll get some sleep soon, but most likely I'll just make do here.
To a certain extent, wizards' bodies are fragile, and can even be said to be a bit weak compared to those rough-skinned and thick-skinned magical creatures; but wizards who rarely get sick are, in some sense, fragile. It's quite straightforward, and staying up all night for research is usually not a problem.
But tonight, when he was immersed in some relatively complex and boring theoretical research, he was surprised to sense that there seemed to be an active magic source that was not Filch's and was moving towards him little by little.
"It's already so late, who else would come to me in the dark?" He said to himself with a puzzled look on his face, "Is it the fat young man from the Hohenheim family? Who else could be there besides him? So free?"