The Lonely Dragon of Hogwarts

"Clap clap clap..."

Dumbledore began to applaud.

Following his lead, the students also clapped their hands.

The applause awoke the lady.

An elegant smile broke out on her face, and she stretched out a gleaming hand and walked towards Dumbledore.

Dumbledore also smiled and stepped forward, kissing his hand.

This scene was so funny that John almost couldn't hold back his laughter.

Dumbledore himself is actually tall enough.

But when he kissed the lady's hand, he barely bent down.

"Dear Madam Maxime," said Dumbledore, "welcome to Hogwarts."

"Dumbledore," Madam Maxim said in a low voice, "I hope you are well."

As she spoke, Ms. Maxim waved carelessly behind her with a huge hand, "These are my students."

John and others looked behind her and saw that twelve or thirteen male and female students had stepped out of the carriage at some point and were hiding behind Ms. Maxim.

This seems to be a gesture of respect for Ms. Maxim.

But John always felt that they wanted to use Ms. Maxim's huge body to block the wind.

After all, the robes worn by these people seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them wore cloaks.

This caused them to shiver in the cold wind and look at Hogwarts Castle with vigilant eyes from time to time.

It was obvious that the cold weather made their first impression of Hogwarts not a good one.

Dumbledore obviously noticed this, he waved his hand and said:

"Go ahead and warm yourself up."

Madame Maxime looked down at her students.

There was no special emotion on her face, but wherever she looked, all the Beauxbatons students lowered their heads, as if they were ashamed that they had embarrassed Beauxbatons and Madame Maxime. Same.

"Okay, let's go in first." Maxim said, "But these horses..."

Dumbledore said:

"Our Care of Magical Creatures teachers will be happy to look after them."

"My horses... need a very strong person to take care of them," Maxim frowned, seeming to doubt whether the Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts was qualified for the job, "They have very fierce tempers." …”

Dumbledore said with a smile:

"Don't worry, the last thing Hagrid lacks is strength. He recently got a new little poison horn. You know, that thing grows very fast. In just over a month, it was as big as a house. It’s big. And it’s also very clingy, so he needs to wrestle with the poisonous horned beast every day to consume the poisonous horned beast’s energy before he can do other things.”

It seemed that wrestling with a poisonous horned beast was too scary. Mrs. Maxim's brows jumped sharply when she heard this.

"Very good. In this case, I think he should be qualified for this job."

Mrs. Maxim spoke and led the students into the castle.

It wasn't until their figures all disappeared that Draco came over and said:

"I don't like those guys."

"Oh? That's strange. I thought you would like them very much." John glanced at Draco and said, "After all, they behave very 'noblely', don't they?"

Draco said angrily:

"Have you noticed the look in their eyes? They look at us and Hogwarts Castle as if they were looking at a bunch of country people and shabby huts. They are full of contempt and disdain."

"Ah--"

John couldn't help but chuckled and said, "It seems that you usually look at Weasley with that kind of look, right? What? Now you can't stand it when others look at you like that?"

"It's different!"

Draco argued, but couldn't tell what the difference was, and ended up blushing a little.

While they were talking, a huge splash of water suddenly surged above the Black Lake.

Everyone was attracted by the movement.

Then a huge whirlpool appeared in the center of the lake.

Immediately afterwards, a long black pole-like thing slowly rose from the whirlpool, and then the sail...

"Oh! The people from Durmstrang are here!" Draco finally had a smile on his face. "That's their ship. My father told me about it. Originally they wanted to send me to Durmstrang." Lang went to school, but in the end he chose Hogwarts."

John and the other Slytherins ignored Draco at all.

They were all attracted by the majestic ship emerging from the black lake.

The ship looked really handsome, like a skeleton, or the remains of a sunken ship that had just been salvaged. Combined with the shimmering light in the portholes and the barnacles crawling on the ship, John couldn't help but think of it. Ghost ship.

The ship soon docked.

The Durmstrang people on the ship came out.

Almost all of them were muscular men, wearing fur cloaks with shaggy and tangled fur.

But the fur on the person walking in front of them was another kind of silver-white, soft and smooth, expensive-looking fur, much like his hair.

"Dumbledore!" the man called enthusiastically as he approached the castle. "How are you, my dear old fellow?"

Dumbledore replied:

"Excellent, thank you, Professor Karkaroff."

Karkaroff seemed very enthusiastic. He hugged Dumbledore and started chatting with Dumbledore again.

Like Dumbledore, he was tall and thin, with a goatee and a voice that was sweet and false.

This made John suspect that the enthusiasm he was showing was all fake.

And just as John was observing Karkaroff, a series of familiar and strange footsteps suddenly sounded from behind him.

It's Moody.

He was walking out of the hall step by step with a cane and a grin on his face.

Hearing this, Karkaroff suddenly raised his head.

John watched as Karkaroff's face turned pale, revealing a terrifying expression of anger and fear.

"It's you?"

Karkaroff said in disbelief.

It sounded like I thought I was dreaming.

"Karkaroff, I didn't expect you to be alive." Moody limped in front of everyone, and then opened his arms, "Come on, how about giving me a hug, my old friend?"

Karkaroff seemed to have seen a ghost and took several steps back, almost falling off the steps.

Upon seeing this, Moody let out a creepy laugh.

"Ah - it's really strange! The timid mouse is actually willing to crawl out of the hole." Snapra said in a long tone, "Is it because he smelled the aroma of the dinner and couldn't stand it? Hahaha..."

Moody turned his head and stared at Snape with his naked eyes, while his bright blue magic eye was staring at Karkaroff.

"Yes, I was indeed attracted by the smell," Moody said, "but it wasn't the smell of the dinner party, but the stench of some bed bugs!"

Snape stared at Moody coldly, and Moody took two steps forward without showing any signs of weakness.

Seeing that the conflict between the two was about to escalate, Dumbledore suddenly said:

"That's enough. It's too cold outside. Let's go back to the castle!"

"Humph--"

Moody snorted disdainfully and returned to the castle limping.

Karkaroff breathed a sigh of relief and quickly rushed to Snape's side and said:

"Thank you, Severus. If you hadn't saved me, that old guy wouldn't have let me go so easily."

Snape glanced at Karkaroff coldly and said nothing.

He doesn't seem to like Karkaroff.

And Karkaroff didn't feel embarrassed. He glanced across the Slytherins, and his eyes immediately lit up when he saw John.

"Ah! This is... the famous John Shafiq!"

Karkaroff greeted excitedly, "You are more handsome in person than in the magic photo! You are indeed the best student at Hogwarts!"

Hearing Karkaroff praise John, Snape finally looked better.

Not only him, but Dumbledore, McGonagall and other professors beside him looked much better.

After all, John himself is the pride of Hogwarts.

Praising John is equivalent to praising Hogwarts.

John stretched out his hand and shook Karkaroff's hand.

"It just so happens that I have an outstanding young man here who I want to introduce to you."

Karkaroff spoke and pulled a strong young man out from behind.

The moment the boy appeared, all the students in Hogwarts around him became excited.

Ron and many girls even screamed subconsciously.

Because that boy was Krum, the Seeker of the Bulgarian team who had caught the Golden Snitch in the Quidditch World Cup finals.

Karkaroff enjoyed the cheers and screams around him.

He put John's and Klum's hands together, asked them to shake hands, and then said:

"You are all excellent students. We should keep in touch with each other more in the future!"

Krum smiled.

John nodded slightly, but did not speak.

He could feel that Snape didn't like Karkaroff, so he didn't need to be polite to these people.

And compared to Karkaroff and Krum, John cares more about Moody.

A person with severe persecution paranoia would come to such a dinner that he considered extremely unsafe simply because he wanted to scare Karkaroff?

How can this be?