On the morning of Halloween, Harry woke up with everyone and went downstairs to have breakfast. He was in a terrible mood, but on the surface he tried to look as normal as possible.
"We'll bring you lots of sweets from Honeydukes." Hermione felt very sorry for him.
After all, for most young wizards, Hogsmeade is a magical and charming place.
"Yeah, bring a lot." Ron echoed.
With Harry depressed, he and Hermione finally forgot about their argument about Crookshanks.
"Don't worry about me." Harry hoped that he looked casual, although he had to hold back his anger. "I'll see you at the dinner. I wish you a good time!"
He accompanied them to the front hall, where Filch, the caretaker, stood by the door, checking everyone off with a long list. He looked at everyone's faces suspiciously, wary of anyone slipping out who wasn't supposed to be there.
"Stayed behind, Potter?"
Malfoy looked around and found that Maka was indeed not here, and then he shouted at Harry - he, Crabbe and Goyle were all standing in the line.
"Oh! How pitiful! Poor Potter—"
Crabbe and Goyle also laughed. All three of them had the same virtue.
Harry ignored Malfoy and the others. He walked up the marble stairs alone, walked through the deserted corridors, and returned to Gryffindor Tower.
"Password?"
At the door of the lounge, the fat lady in the portrait yawned and asked - she had just woken up from a nap.
"Lucky stars are shining," Harry said listlessly.
At this time, Maka was being dragged by Luna's sleeves towards Ravenclaw's tower.
"... Ms. Gray told me that there," she said softly as she pulled Maka forward. "She said that is the best secret path to Hogsmeade."
"That's really good." Maka nodded and let Luna tug on her sleeve.
The bronze door knocker of the Ravenclaw common room still showed no reaction to him, just going about its business as usual.
After Luna answered the knocker's question, the two of them walked around the bookshelves, tables and chairs in the common room and arrived behind the marble statue of Ravenclaw.
There is a small marble platform here, which looks like a protruding part of the base of the statue. On the smooth surface of the marble table, there are more than a dozen rows of slightly sunken dots, which you really can’t see unless you look carefully.
Luna took out her wand and carefully clicked on certain dots.
Suddenly, several straight lines appeared between the dots, which were connected with each other to form a strange pattern.
"This should be some kind of puzzle... It is indeed Ravenclaw's style." Maka thought to herself.
As the pattern formed, Maka immediately felt a slight vibration under her feet—the marble table moved away automatically, revealing an old trap door underneath.
Just as Luna said, this secret passage is not as narrow and cramped as the others, it appears to be very spacious. Not only do people not need to hunch over when walking inside, Maka and Luna can even walk forward side by side.
After they walked a short distance, Maka heard another slight vibration behind her - the marble table moved back automatically.
The exit of the secret passage is in an abandoned underground warehouse in Hogsmeade Village.
Probably because few people knew about this secret passage, the underground warehouse outside the exit looked very dirty. The crooked shelves around were covered with thick dust, which made people feel like covering their mouths and nostrils to avoid choking on the raised dust.
The two avoided the dirty shelves and walked up the creaking wooden stairs to a private house above the underground warehouse.
Here, like down below, it was not only dark, but also dirty. It can be seen that no one has lived here for a long time.
This house is at the end of the avenue in Hogsmeade, next to the back entrance of Devis and Bans Magical Equipment Store. If you walk a few steps back, you will find the Pig's Head pub.
Hogsmeade looks wonderful today.
Although the place was still covered with white snow, and it was equally cold when walking on the street, the huge pumpkin lanterns that could be seen everywhere in the snow dispelled the gloomy feeling caused by the Dementors.
Occasionally, you can see enchanted snowmen. They are waving the dead branches stuck in the snowball in the middle and saying hello to the passing wizards.
"Oh, that's my nose, please give it back to me—"
As Maka and Luna walked past a snowman, a carrot rolled to Maka's feet.
"Um?"
Maka bent down and picked up the carrot - it just fell into the snow and didn't look dirty at all.
"Thank you," Maka took a bite, crunchy!
As he chewed, he mumbled to the frustrated snowman, "Oh, it's fresh... Happy Halloween, Mr. Snowman."
"Oh my God - my nose -" the snowman waved his slender arms vigorously and said angrily, "Yes, happy Halloween, Mr. Bandit!"
"I'll give you something better." Maka held the carrot in her mouth, stretched out her hand to grab a ball of snow from the wooden fence next to her, and pointed at it with her wand.
Suddenly, the snow block quickly deformed and turned into a crystal clear pumpkin-colored carrot in the blink of an eye.
After the transformation was completed, Maka inserted it into the snowman's nose, but immediately pulled it out the next moment.
"Sorry, pretending to be backwards."
He threw the translucent "carrot" up and turned it so that the tip was facing him, and then inserted it back in.
"Let it sparkle again," Maka tapped the snowman's new nose with her wand on a whim. "At night, you will become the most eye-catching snowman."
With the last bit of Macana, the snowman was surprised to find that its nose began to shine with a pumpkin-colored light, as if it was equipped with a light bulb.
The blinking lights were like neon lights invented by Muggles, dazzlingly colorful.
"It's so beautiful." Luna looked at the snowman's nose and patted her hands gently.
The snowman tilted his head, and then said happily: "Oh! Thank you! This is much prettier than carrots! Thank you..."
With the snowman waving wildly, Maka and Luna continued to walk to Bee Duke Candy Shop - the candies there were indeed pretty good, at least the ones that looked normal.
"jingle"
As a pleasant doorbell rang, the fiery atmosphere in the store immediately rushed towards them.
Honeydukes has always been one of the most popular stores in Hogsmeade among young wizards. Every Halloween, it is always crowded with excited little wizards.
The arrival of Maka and Luna hardly alarmed anyone - it was so lively here.
Most of the little wizards just bought the candy they wanted and couldn't help but eat it in the store. From time to time, you will see some little wizards munching on ice cream balls, which float up without noticing; some little wizards probably ate some pepper-flavored candies and are spraying them out constantly. There was thick black smoke.
There was even a little girl with freckles on her face, breathing fire at her friend. When the flames were about to go out, her friend's face turned completely black.
"Hahaha… "
They smiled happily at each other as if it was no big deal.
Here, everyone's mood is clearly written on their faces. Those seemingly childish jokes made Maka inexplicably touched.
"Maka, what's wrong?" Luna touched Maka's hand, leaned forward and asked.
"Huh? Oh, it's okay..." Maka came out of that touch, and he shook his head slightly.
Perhaps, that subtle touch was not an illusion, but an opportunity - it truly told Maka that her emotions still existed.
On this basis, using Dumbledore's story as a reference, if you want to crack this test, it seems that you can only passively wait.
"...Maka?"
Suddenly, a voice emerged from the crowd. It was Hermione—she was with Ron, holding a lot of various candies in her hands.
"Hermione?" Maka nodded towards her, looked at the candy in her arms and said, "Bring it to Harry?"
"Oh, yes." Hermione said, subconsciously glancing at Luna next to Maka, "Harry can't come over today, Ron and I will bring more for him... Is she?"
"Luna Lovegood, from Ravenclaw House." Ron suddenly answered.
Maka looked at Ron and nodded again.
"Yes, this is Luna - my friend." He said, "We met before the first grade started."
"Oh, that's nice... Hello, I'm Hermione Granger."
"… Hello."
Luna was in a daze, looking at Hermione and responded.
For some reason, the scene seemed a little awkward.
"Well, can you introduce me to the candies here? Ron, I remember you are very good at this." Maka patted Ron's arm.
Ron seemed to be interested after hearing this, and he said: "Then you definitely can't miss these... follow me!"
Under Ron's leadership, the four of them rushed into the crowd.
Not long after, Maka and Luna also held many candies in their arms. After bidding farewell to Hermione and Ron, they left.
Behind them, Hermione and Ron stood at the door of Honeydukes, looking at the backs of Maka and Luna, watching them leave.
"I heard from Fred and George that Lovegood was often called 'Crazy Girl' by others. She and Maka often walked together, so they never called her that in person." Ron said quietly, "But it is said that , she is quite popular in Ravenclaw."
"Crazy girl?" Hermione showed a confused expression.
"As you can see, she always wears strange clothes and often promotes her strange ideas to others... Moreover, she seems to be a little out of touch with reality in some aspects, and her ideas about behavior are also very strange. "
"That's not a nice thing to say about other people!" Hermione accused.
"Oh, yes... but everyone else is talking secretly." Ron argued in a low voice.