"...Look, this is the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom in our school! Yes, it has a slight curvature in the longitudinal direction. Isn't it interesting?"
Near noon, Maka, who had accompanied the two Hohenheim brothers and sisters to enjoy the natural scenery near Hogwarts all morning, was walking with them in the corridor on the fourth floor of the main castle.
To be honest, he, as the "tour guide", did his duty today, leading the brother and sister around from inside to outside. Of course, there is no end to the shopping, even if it takes several weeks, because even Maka, who has lived in this castle for several years, dare not say that she has been to every place.
But after all, he is leading the guests to visit Hogwarts and experience the environment here, so he still has to put in some effort.
"Go straight in from here, and you'll find the Charms classroom just around the corner." Maka pointed toward the depths of the corridor while walking in front, "But... well, it should be there in a while." It’s lunch time. Let’s go to the aisle on the left to take another look, and we’ll be able to go downstairs just in time... "
"Yah ho—"
The fat young master was following Maka and looking around curiously when he suddenly heard a buzzing noise. Immediately afterwards, he discovered that in a painting on the right wall, a guy with a loud tongue suddenly howled in this direction.
"McLean, you promised to treat us to drinks last time! When will you honor it—"
When Maka, who was walking in front, heard this, she shook her head helplessly and turned around.
"Brother Anna, I am accompanying guests to visit Hogwarts!" He waved his hand towards the portrait and said, "Wait a minute, I will definitely get you some good wine next time..."
"Oh! We're in a hurry!" the monk in the portrait said drunkenly, "Since the fat lady and her friend Violet came over last time and drank all our wine, our life has been very difficult. Very…”
Before he finished speaking, several other monks also joined in.
"Okay!" Maka looked at him speechlessly, "It's hard for you, and it's hard for others too! I remember that after the Fat Lady went back that day, she immediately changed the password to enter the Gryffindor common room to 'Quit. Because of the alcohol, several junior students were blown by the cold wind in the corridor for most of the night!"
After that, he stopped talking nonsense and immediately greeted Fatty and Sarah to continue walking forward.
"What's wrong with them?" Fatty asked, turning his head several times in succession, "Do you feel uncomfortable if you don't drink for a day?"
Maka then smiled and spread her hands.
"What do you think?" He explained, "The name of that painting is "The Drunken Monk", and the people in it are all out-and-out drunkards. People in other paintings will come here to sit if they want to drink. Sit down. In this case, no amount of wine is enough for them, right?"
"Well... that's understandable, that's understandable!"
The fat man chuckled, but unexpectedly, Sarah, who rarely spoke, snorted softly next to him, which shocked him and broke out in cold sweat on his forehead.
When Maka saw it, she couldn't help but smile knowingly.
"Come and take a look here again! The famous Armor Corridor in Hogwarts Castle -" He led the two of them to turn to the left, and then stretched out his hand to signal, "The armors here are all imbued with ancient magic, especially the The two-handed swords in their hands are powerful enough to cut giants when they are swung. They also exerted a lot of strength in the previous defense battle of Hogwarts!"
In this long corridor with a row of vertical windows, the light slants down to the ground through the window openings, and the knights in armor standing upright against the wall with swords look even more imposing. The Hohenheim brothers and sisters followed Maka as they walked among them, and they couldn't help but feel a somewhat solemn atmosphere.
"The end of this corridor is the prize display room," Maka pointed to the end. "Although I also wanted to invite you to go in and have a look. Unfortunately, since some students ran in and took a look around in the middle of the night, the administrator Feier Qi locked it... But it doesn't matter, today I will show you a little secret of Hogwarts."
He greeted the two of them and walked forward a few steps, then pointed to another two-meter-high portrait on the wall and said: "In our school, there are various hidden special places, and this is one of them. .”
Having said this, he paused for a moment, and then said to the painting of a male wizard with a blank expression: "Forget-Me-Never."
"Don't forget who?"
Before he finished speaking, the wizard in the portrait responded vaguely, and the portrait creaked and turned sideways.
This time, Sarah, who had never given Maka face recently, finally raised her eyebrows slightly, tilted her head and glanced at the dim passage revealed behind the portrait.
"Secret passage?" She blinked and said, "Mr. McClain, if you do this... aren't you afraid that Ms. McGonagall will cause trouble for you?"
"No, no, it doesn't matter what you say here," Maka said with a smile, "There are indeed many secret passages in Hogwarts, and many of them need to be kept secret, but this one is not included... Come with me!"
After a casual explanation, he took the brother and sister directly into this relatively spacious secret passage. Fortunately, the width and height of this sloping downward passage were sufficient, otherwise the fat young man of the Hohenheim family might not be able to walk in.
Not long after, when they came out from the other end of the passage, they had already arrived in another corridor that seemed familiar to them.
"Remember? I brought you here before..." Maka gestured to the door on the side of the exit, "This is Professor Slughorn's office... Yes, this is a way back to the third floor. As a shortcut, there are stairs going downstairs just opposite, so we can save a lot of walking."
Speaking of which, in this morning, except for the inevitable teaching period, he basically spent the rest of his free time wandering around with the brother and sister. Although this sounds like a waste of life, in fact, if you think about it carefully, you will understand that this is necessary for both public and private purposes.
In terms of scenes, the background of the Hohenheim family cannot be underestimated. Especially when the alchemy competition is about to be held, it is not unimportant to have a good relationship with the judges' families.
And if you look at it from a personal perspective, this mysterious genius girl from the Hohenheim family is even more worthy of Maka spending more energy to test it out.
But now it seems that at least Sarah is somewhat interested in these little secrets.
But at this moment, three acquaintances suddenly came to the stairs opposite. Judging from their hurried appearance, they seemed to have something important to do.
"Harry? Are you running in such a hurry? What's wrong?"
Maka discovered them first, so she asked them first without waiting for them to notice her.
"Oh! Maka, I finally found you!" Hermione heard this and immediately turned around, "Last night, Harry... ah, were you showing guests around the school?"
"Yes!" Maka nodded, and then keenly noticed that something was wrong with the three of them, "Noah, Sarah... you remember how to go to the auditorium, right? Wait at the stairs over there. Turn around the stairs on the right and follow it to the foyer. The time is just right! I have something to do here... "
"Don't worry, Sarah remembers the way." The little girl looked at Hermione and the other three, and then said politely, "Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, good afternoon... I believe you are in a hurry. If you want to find Mr. MacLean, Sarah and your brother won’t bother you.”
After saying that, she grabbed the fat man's sleeve and went directly to the stairs.
"Oh - what a sensible child!" Hermione walked to Maka and looked at Sarah's back and sighed, "And she looks so cute..."
"Yes, very sensible!" Maka agreed meaningfully, and then continued to ask, "Are you looking for me? What happened to Harry last night?"
He could see that Harry's expression was somewhat preoccupied, and Ron's expression wasn't much better either. As for Hermione, although she was still as calm as ever, there was a lot of seriousness in her tone when she spoke just now.
All this conveyed a message to him—something bad might have happened last night.
Sure enough, when Hermione whispered the dream Harry was talking about, Maka's brows frowned slightly.
"I see... Since Occlumency is still effective, then the problem is not that big. It should be that you have been under too much pressure during this period." He said, pondered for a moment, and then turned to, "Haha Lee, do you still remember... what the voice of the person you heard in your dream was like?"
"Voice?" Harry recalled carefully, "No, I'm not sure... The voice was far and near, and it was very difficult to just distinguish what the other person was saying... "
"Really?" Maka thought for a while and asked again, "Do you think... does that sound like Dumbledore's voice?"
"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry said in astonishment upon hearing this, "Well... I don't know, but that voice does seem familiar to me. Now that you say it..."
Maka thought about it again, and couldn't help but confirm some of her guesses.
"Well, I already know about this," he warned, "Don't worry, just continue to live as you want, and pay attention to the status of Occlumency before going to bed. Then... Harry, still remember Professor Dumbledore The book I left for you? Go back and read it carefully, I believe it will come in handy in the future!"
"What about us?" Ron asked quickly.
"You guys?" Maka smiled and shrugged, and said relaxedly, "Get ready for the next OWLs exam! Is there anything more important than this?"
After saying that, he turned around and walked slowly towards the stairs, but his expression turned slightly serious when his back was turned to the three of them.