"Tuk-tuk-tuk."
On this quiet spring night, three knocks on the door were so soft as if they were afraid of scaring someone. Maka knew that the person outside the door was probably not the fat man from the Hohenheim family. After all, that guy would not treat a door as gently as the one outside - he seemed to have guessed wrong just now.
"Please come in."
Just as he stood up and waved his hand, the office door opened silently.
The weather has indeed been getting better and better in recent days, but Hogwarts is located at a relatively high altitude, so it is still quite cold here at night. So today, he still lit the fireplace, and when the fire flickered, he couldn't really see anything outside the door.
He looked over here, and basically could only see a vague outline. It seemed that the other party was still hesitating slightly in the corridor outside.
"What's wrong? Don't you want to come in?"
It is difficult to tell who is coming based on the fluctuations of magic power alone. Although everyone's fluctuations are different, it is still somewhat difficult to remember their characteristics. Of course, a squib like Filch has a very low level of magic power, so it is easier to distinguish.
After Maka asked, there was about ten seconds of silence, and the other party finally seemed to have made a decision and slowly walked into the office. When the light from the fire gave it a soft orange-red color, Maka finally saw clearly who it was.
"Senior?" He asked doubtfully, "Why are you here? What's the matter?"
The visitor is Charlotte, a rare visitor that Maca never expected.
Even though this beautiful lady got along very easily with him, and was even a little careless on weekdays, she was quite conservative in some basic principles. It's a bit strange to come to a boy's residence so late today.
What's more worth mentioning is that she is actually wearing a set of simple cotton pajamas now, with her thick long hair tied loosely on her shoulders, making her look like she has a lazy temperament.
In front of the neck with one button missing, half of the slender neck was covered by hair, but it made the other half look more delicate and white.
Maka looked at her inexplicably and blinked, and suddenly found that her eyes were vaguely confused, and her cheeks had a slight warm blush. She didn't know it was the fire in the fireplace causing trouble.
"Hmm... Maka, your place is still so crowded, I think you should apply to Professor McGonagall for a bigger office." Charlotte put her hands behind her back and walked briskly among the books, one step at a time. The words in his mouth were a little unclear, "...and why do you still call me 'Senior Sister'? Let's not talk about invisibility. The shelf life of this title has long passed, right?"
"Oh, okay!" Maka still looked at her with some confusion. For a moment, she was really not sure what she was thinking. "So... Charlotte, what's wrong with you?"
"I?"
Charlotte, who had just walked around to the desk, closed her eyes slightly, and her feet swayed unconsciously. When she opened her eyes again and looked towards Maka, there was already a layer of hazyness in her eyes. of brilliance.
"I'm here to see you?" she said quietly, "you know? I can't sleep a little bit today... I was just lying in bed, and I was thinking about one thing."
Having said this, she and Maka's eyes met, and they looked at the window behind Maka. Through the window, one can clearly see a crescent moon hanging high in the sky, but it is not as round as it was a few days ago.
Charlotte stared blankly at the bright moon while murmuring and continued: "I should thank you properly... If you hadn't taken me out of that dark home, I would have been used as a bargaining chip by the family. I went to another family to marry a man I have never met a few times. I should thank you... "
"You don't need to care so much," Maka persuaded, "I just raised my head accidentally and saw you in that carriage... Even if I decided to help you escape, I still had some other concerns. Purpose.”
What he said was really not shirk or modesty. Although the decision to help Charlotte basically had some friendship between friends, in terms of purpose, the pursuit of intelligence was the one that took the lion's share of the effort.
But after Charlotte heard this, she just shook her head slightly.
"No matter what the reason is, you saved me from that abyss, but this is a fact." She said calmly, "But the more grateful I am to you, the harder it is for me to express my gratitude to you... Well. , I don’t know how to describe it... It’s like, what I want to say to you is not just a 'thank you', but something else... something more important... "
As she spoke, her voice became softer and softer, and her vision became more blurred with the moonlight. At the end, she suddenly lost consciousness, and suddenly staggered around the desk, walking toward Maka with one unsteady step.
"Senior?"
Maka subconsciously called her again. Seeing that her feet seemed a little weak, she quickly reached out to hold her shoulders to prevent her from accidentally tripping on the books at her feet.
When there was less than two feet of distance between the two, Maka's nose twitched slightly. He often relied on his sense of smell to judge the refining status of potions, and he immediately smelled a slightly familiar smell—it was the fragrance of rum with a slight chocolate flavor.
"You drink-" He was only halfway through his words, and finally said suddenly as if he had recalled some key points, "Ah! Is that the Easter egg?"
When he was in the principal's office, when he saw Mag, he suddenly remembered that he had not prepared an Easter gift for her, so he had an idea and took out the Easter egg that he had taken away from the Three Broomsticks. Because he remembered very clearly that Professor McGonagall actually had a good drinking capacity. During several banquets, the other party had several drinks but was only slightly tipsy.
However, he did not expect that the easter egg would unexpectedly fall into Charlotte's hands.
"Oh... I mean senior sister," Maka said dumbfounded, "Come on, be careful and stand still... You are now the signature waiter of the Pig Head Bar! How did you become such a virtuous person after just a few drinks?"
While talking and laughing, he casually opened the window next to him, and suddenly the cool air from outside flowed into the house with the night breeze. Countless flowers have already bloomed in the front garden in spring, and the fragrance is still lingering at night, mixing with the cool air and spreading throughout the office.
Charlotte, who was supported by Maka with both hands, sniffed gently, and a light sweet fragrance lingered in the mouth and nose, with a bit of the unique comfort of the night air.
Are you drunk? Or not drunk at all? She couldn't tell the difference herself...
"Maka, senior sister has a question for you..."
Charlotte raised her head slightly, and was slightly surprised to find that the little boy who had just entered school had grown taller than herself.
It was at this moment that the two people's eyes finally overlapped silently. One was clear and translucent, while the other was as deep as a thick mist.
"... Do you think senior sister is pretty?" - In fact, she originally wanted to ask this question using her remaining drunkenness.
Ever since she finished sipping the wine in the chocolate eggshell in her room tonight, this lingering question in her heart has been swirling between her lips and teeth. She walked out of the room step by step and wandered over to Maka. Wasn't that exactly what she wanted to say
But when she opened her slightly slow mouth and almost blurted out the words, she caught a glimpse of a picture frame in the corner of her eye sooner or later. Behind the glass of the picture frame, a blond girl was facing away, looking up at the moon in the distance.
The moonlight spread quietly among her long hair, spreading a hazy light golden halo silently.
This was what he saw on the hillside outside the house after dinner on the first night when Maka stayed at the Lovegood house, the Luna standing under the starry sky.
Even though the girl in the magic photo was always staring at the sky and never looked back, Charlotte could still tell who it was at a glance. Immediately, her throat seemed to be blocked by something, and her lips gradually pursed again.
At this moment, she suddenly threw Maka's shoulder.
"Snapped!"
A loud slap echoed in the quiet room at night, and the slightly sweet air seemed to be swept away.
"Ha, you've been fooled!" Charlotte straightened Maka's body and giggled, "Little guy, sister, my charm is pretty good, right? Look at you, how dare you keep staring at your sister, you're so petty I can’t even pull out the beads!”
While laughing, she casually patted Maka's shoulder twice more, then took a step back lightly and stood to the side again with her hands behind her back.
"Don't think that being a professor is great! Sister, I am studying every day. Maybe we will be colleagues someday!"
After a short pause, Charlotte dropped this last sentence and gave Maka no chance to speak. She turned around and walked around the stacks of books with brisk steps. Just in the blink of an eye, with a soft click from ahead, the office door closed.
Maka stood by the window, feeling the numbness on his back that was like an illusion, burning his nerves. After standing there for a long time, he closed the window with his own hands, and then quietly looked at the moon in the sky, lost in thought.
"…Happy Easter, senior."
In the dim corridor outside the office, Charlotte leaned against the wall next to the door in her pajamas and sighed silently.