Chapter 634: A Fulfilling Holiday

Two dozen students lined up in a long line and made their way to the yard. The temperature outside was freezing and biting, and there was little wind. The students exhaled white air from their mouths and looked up at the bright, clear moon in the sky.

"A full moon." Ron muttered.

Without having to say it, Harry knew he was thinking about Lupin, and he couldn't help but miss him, who by this time would have taken a wolfsbane potion and hidden in a secluded place.

Harry knew he didn't want anyone to see him in his transformed form.

"... starts with a full moon and ends with the next full moon, if you fail halfway through, you must start again, I don't want you to play with your health." Professor McGonagall said in a loud voice, and paused for a moment in an imposing fashion, "All of you come forward to receive your mandrake leaf."

One by one the students stepped forward, then retreated to the side and murmured excitedly. Harry stepped forward as the space in front of him emptied, Professor McGonagall nodded at him and handed him a green leaf, Harry took it and watched as it glowed faintly in the moonlight.

Harry was just about to walk away when he suddenly felt someone poke him, he looked up and saw Professor Hap holding Valen in his arms, Valen is clutching a sheaf of parchment in her arms, "Notes, and recipes." Felix reminded him.

Harry took the parchment from Valen and stepped aside, reading the words on it with the bright light of his wand.

Most of it he already knew, though a few were highlighted separately in red ink, and he read the third section: for the next month their meals would be taken in Classroom Eleven on the ground floor of the castle and a special house elf would prepare the food for them at that time.

Harry's heart sank.

Ernie Macmillan had made a nasty joke about his uncle's attempt to learn Animagus Transfiguration by sticking a funnel down his throat at each meal to avoid swallowing mandrake leaf from eating and to consume a liquid meal. Ernie described it in graphic detail, which caused a group of people who couldn't stomach it to surround him, and then he admitted that the story was made up and that his uncle did try to learn Animagus, but it only lasted a week before he gave up.

"Check when you have it in your hand, the edges of the mandrake leaf will glow whitish when there is a full moon, similar to a fluxweed... Okay, if it's clear, put it in your mouth." Professor McGonagall barked orders.

Harry double-checked to make sure it was okay and put the mandrake leaf in his mouth, he felt an extra bitter taste in his mouth after just enjoying his Christmas dinner, and then he saw Draco opposite to him frowning and averting his eyes.

Sirius had told him the night before about how the Malfoys were faring. The short summary of their situation was that they received a mixed response. Because they had rebelled in the middle of the war, it had saved them from being liquidated, like their fellow Death Eater 'friends', and they had managed to bring in the remaining Purebloods together and retain some of their influence, but it had also earned them the resentment of some of their former Death Eater allies, like Crabbe and Goyle.

Sirius also gave the example from a few weeks ago.

Lucius Malfoy, who had kept a low profile after the war, suddenly came forward for an interview with the Daily Prophet, talking about the dangers and contributions he had made while working undercover - "Some newspapers said that Potter, Weasley, and Granger had asked for help that night in the graveyard with the help of the Ring of the Ouroboros ... ...which is actually not entirely accurate, as I similarly risked my life at the time to inform Mr. Hap, only I was unable to disclose my exploits to the outside world due to the heavy responsibility I was carrying ..."

"The Ministry of Magic has been calculating merit recently," Sirius explained, "and he's trying to get an Order of Merlin for the Malfoys, but he's wasting his time, all he has done was just enough to save him from going to jail ... " he vaguely said, "On the contrary, Snape is likely to get a major award, now that we all know where he got all that information from ..."

After hearing these words a realization dawned on Harry, and he instantly understood why Professor Slughorn's former student - Eldred Worple, who wrote Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires - had been pestering Snape at the dinner party; he apparently wanted to use Snape's life experiences to write a book, but Snape coldly refused him.

...

In the dormitory, Harry looked at Ron and Neville with a knowing look on his face.

"What about me?" He exclaimed in discontent.

"At least you don't snore." Ron said in annoyance, and he closed his eyes with a look of generosity, "Come on, I've had a hard time making up my mind."

Harry looked at him and then at Neville, who already looked too nervous to speak.

"All right."

The flashes of the Full Body-Bind Curse and the Stunning Spell fizzled off alternately. Ron and Neville fell stiffly to the floor and Harry used the Levitation Charm to move the two men to the bed, covering them with the quilt and getting himself under the warm, cosy quilt too as the cold wind howled outside the window, and it chilled Harry's heart.

He hesitated for a long time about whether or not to cast a Stunning Spell on himself, after all, not everyone had the courage to fall asleep in the face of two stiff bodies, and he tossed and turned in bed for a long time before finally pulling a roll of magic tape from under Ron's bed and sealing his mouth shut.

The whole time Harry forced himself not to look at Ron's stiff face in the moonlight. He crawled back into bed and stared at the ceiling as he counted the numbers, and after an unknown amount of time - but it must have been the second half of the night - drowsiness hit him, and he drifted off to sleep.

He woke with a start and felt the mandrake leaf still on his tongue, only the bitter taste in his mouth grew stronger as if it had seeped into his teeth, but his mood was generally pleasant, and he couldn't wait to wake Ron and Neville and share his method with them.

"That's good, I've got a bit of confidence." Ron said with a strained expression, "There's a problem though, I seem to have a stiff neck ..."

Over the next few days, Felix didn't pay much attention to the students.

He was busy enough on his own - Tom Riddle in classroom seven had graduated two years ago by his count, but he had never been able to master the Patronus Charm, though Riddle had recently gained inspiration from the Peeves Ghost, and he had acquired a flimsy Patronus by quietly gathering the emotions of the students in the school.

Felix was happy to see this, which meant that Riddle had become even more inseparable from the school.

Felix also got some data from Snape from when he and Damocles Belby had improved the wolfsbane potion, and in order to familiarize himself sufficiently with werewolves, Snape very generously gave him some werewolf blood and fur.

"You will find - the view of some researchers who said that 'werewolves are just beasts in human skin' is not really an overstatement, as their bloodline is completely tainted."

Felix shrugged, "It may shock you when I say this, compared to me, werewolves are considered normal."

Of course, Snape didn't believe him, that much was evident from his false offer to study 'him', Felix scoffed at this and mentally categorized his former Head as a 'stupid wizard'... ...

"Better practise your acceptance speech! Lupin said that magical television sets have not been widely promoted as they should be and that most wizarding families still rely on magic radios to listen to the broadcast of the ordination ceremony; they'll take the unnecessary pauses in your words as stuttering."

"Just think how undesirable it should be to have the parents of your students question the standard of your teaching because of this issue ..."

Felix's good intentions were not reciprocated - instead, he was met with closed doors for several days in succession, the former professor of Potions and current professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts refused to speak to him, always putting on a cold face whenever they met, and when Felix approached the other professors on this matter, only Dumbledore expressed his sympathy.

"Severus does speak little, and for the sake of Hogwarts' image-" Professors McGonagall and Grindelwald stared at him expressionlessly as he said this. "-at least persuade him to change his outfit, fix his hair or something."

Felix didn't know how Dumbledore managed to do it, but all in all, on the day of the ordination ceremony, although Snape was still in black, he had at last switched from his all-time wizard's robes to a suit with a high-collared white shirt under it.

Snape was awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. "For his second time going undercover in a dangerous situation and bringing a constant stream of intelligence to the advantage of the side of justice." Ms. Bones announced in a loud voice. Shortly after him, it was Harry's turn, who also received a First Class award for a reason directly related to Voldemort's downfall, and although no one knew the full details, with both Dumbledore and Felix Hap testifying, no one questioned it.

Of course, Ron and Hermione did not receive an award, and the one they still held is the Second Class Order of Merlin, which was awarded for their valour.

"It's all because the war ended so quickly." Ron muttered in a small voice.

"Ahh, just shut up for a once!" Hermione said sharply.

With a mandrake leaf stuck in his mouth, Harry's sentiments were extraordinarily snappy and his mind was in a trance due to the special diet he had received these days, and as he came down, Ron and Hermione heard someone next to them whisper a question, "The boy doesn't look too bright in the head, there isn't any lingering effect of the Cruciatus Curse on him, is there?"

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Those words caused a group of unknown wizards watching the ceremony to blow their noses emotionally.

That evening, the Ministry of Magic held a grand dinner, and Harry depressingly left early to go back to have his tasteless dinner - small cubes of cheese jelly and vegetable meatballs made with a special process that was said to be nutritious and would make you feel positively full when you swallow it.

The key point is that the whole eating process is reduced to less than a minute, fully reducing the possibility of all sorts of surprises.

This leads to a lot of missed fun for the students.

And because of the drastic lack of entertainment - Harry was surprised to find that he had finished all his homework in less than a week, and had nothing to do for the remaining days until almost the start of the new school term when Professor Hap finally seemed to remember them and assemble them together.

"How many of you still left in the group?" Felix asked.

A bunch of arms was raised with a clamour and Harry turned his head to look around and found a surprisingly large number. "Fifteen people, not bad." Felix nodded, "Looks like the previous two weeks of practice did seem worked wonders. I had you all come over here today for a summary, well ... to make the most of the collective wisdom."

The students - including those who had failed - all stared at Professor Hap.

Felix raised a parchment in his hand, "Remember the forms you've been asked to fill out in dueling class since the second year? Of course, dueling classes are only available in second to fourth years now, which happen to coincide with first-year flying classes and fifth-year O.W.Ls exams, and have been combined with the assessment of spells ..."

"It keeps track of how fast each person learns the spell, preferences, learning styles, and so on, and now four years later, the accumulated data is stacked up in a wall of cabinets."

"There's no doubt that it's an undiscovered treasure trove."

Felix said with conviction.

"You should have experienced group discussions where we used a similar approach, talking out the problems you found difficult and thinking together about solutions."

The students looked at each other, but on second thought, it did seem like a good approach. After a short while, a student finally came forward and mentioned that he was depressed and had been groggy all day.

A steady stream of students nodded along behind him, as they also experienced the same symptoms.

"Yeah, everything that makes you feel happy can't be done, you can't eat well, you can't sleep well, you can't even speak out loud." A Ravenclaw girl said in a sharp voice, "It's a nightmare."

The other students focused their eyes on Felix.

"Don't look at me, I told you to discuss it among yourselves." He said with a poker face.

"How about using potions? Like an Elixir to Induce Euphoria?" Ron came up with the idea.

"Oh, Nah," Ernie said ruefully, "I asked Professor McGonagall, and she said there is a probability that the potion would contaminate the mandrake leaf."

The crowd began to diverge in their thoughts, giving progressively more outrageous answers, but Felix had no intention of stopping them, instead leaving Hermione to record them all from the sidelines, and in the end, it was surprisingly Neville who came up with the solution.

"I - er, I tried a method," Neville whispered, his teeth clenched tightly as he feared he might let the mandrake leaf fall off as he spoke, "using a Daydream spell."

"Daydream spell? What's that?" A student asked.

"Hey! I know-" Ron shouted excitedly.

"The daydream spell constructs a real dream, and I only thought of it yesterday ... Anyway, I came out of it much better after a good half day of speaking inside." Neville described his experience.

"Talking to yourself? What did you say?"

"Uh ... reciting the herbology class textbook out loud." Neville said reluctantly and the crowd roared with laughter, but when Professor Hap encouraged him to try it out on the others, everyone immediately changed their opinion.

Felix also experienced it first hand.

When Neville cast the spell, he found himself on top of one of the mountain peaks around Hogwarts castle, with silence and emptiness all around him; from his professional point of view, this dream had quite a lot of flaws, but at least -

He tried shouting twice and his voice travelled a long way and echoed quite well, which did have a very satisfying emotional venting effect.

The discussion continued. Harry raised his own questions, wishing for a relatively safe way to speak loudly, considering he is the team captain, he can't avoid shouting at the top of his voice when he explains a tactic or corrects a player who has made a flight error.

But to his surprise, he received feedback almost immediately on the dilemma he had in mind.

"Use the Amplifying Charm -" Hermione, who was taking notes from the sidelines, said.

"Cover your mouth with a scarf!" Susan Bones said.

"Use both of the methods together." Ron suggested.

Harry's eyes lit up. The other students' eyes lit up too; this seemed like a better idea, and they were ready to go back and try it.

Of course, the discussion wasn't all smooth sailing, as there were so many ways to curb the bitterness of the mandrake, which in turn led to questions about food taste preferences, which led to a heated argument among the students.

One of them, unfortunately, spat out a mandrake leaf in the process and everyone froze in their tracks, with the whole room falling silent, even the student himself staring at the leaf on the floor as if he couldn't believe his own stupidity.

"Ahem - Perkins has just demonstrated the error of his way for us." Felix said not quite comfortably, "It serves as a reminder for us to remain calm for the rest of the session ...

Personally, I recommend wearing some kind of amulet with a calming effect. Just let it function at a minimal level." He added.

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