[HP] Flower of Eternal Life

On Friday night, the four partners came to the party held by Professor Slughorn as scheduled. After saying hello to the professor, they immediately chose a remote corner to sit down and enjoy refreshing butter beer and delicious snacks.

"I don't know when we will be able to go back. To be honest, I really miss my family, Professor Weasley, Professor Lupine and even Professor Snape." Will shook the half-empty bottle in his hand with a bitter face, and sighed Said, "I want to play Quidditch in my dreams, even if we fight Slytherin ten times in a row?"

Rose wanted to scold him for being immodest at first, but soon she found that she had a similar mood to Will. She also missed the bed she was familiar with very much. The heavy books and interesting classes made her dream, and she felt It's been a century since I last saw my family.

They fell into a delicate silence, and Albus looked around for something to talk about, and then he noticed a few students shoved and shoved at the door before disappearing, it seemed to be some senior Slater Lin students.

"They took Tom away." Esther seemed to have noticed the incident before him, with a hint of worry on her face, she asked softly, "Should we help him?"

The four children quickly stood up after exchanging glances.They left the banquet scene under the leadership of Albus, and headed towards the direction where they had seen the students leave before, and soon there were quarrels in their ears.

"—Unfortunately I don't think our dear Tom is entitled to this banquet, what do you think?" said a languid voice in an obnoxious tone, as if echoing his words, the bathroom There came the harsh and contrived laughter of the other two boys.

"I was invited by Professor Slughorn, you have no right to do this to me!" It was Tom who retorted, with strong hatred and a tremor in his voice.

"No, I think I have the right. A mudblood student dares to refute a pure-blood. It seems that maybe I have to teach you what respect is. I think it's a good choice to start by washing your head with toilet water?" The owner of the voice laughed.

Albus glanced back at Will, who almost immediately understood what he meant, and they pulled out the wands in the pockets of their robes, and together, without counting down, they blew open the closed bathroom door in front of them.

Accompanied by the sound of the explosion, there were screams from several people, and smoke and dust billowed everywhere. Esther nimbly passed through the dust and went into the bathroom to find Tom, who was sitting on the ground, his hair was completely wet.Esther didn't care about this, but pulled Tom's wrist forcefully and dragged him out of the bathroom.

The three Slytherin students who were attacked almost immediately launched a counterattack, firing spells frantically outwards. Rose cleverly cast a full-body binding spell on the nearest student, the male student who was firmly bound by the twine Just fell down.Meanwhile Albus had cast a bat spirit spell he had learned from his mother, and a swarm of bats erupted from the tip of his wand and covered the face of the boy in the middle, screaming and stumbling around. ran away.As for the last student, he was hung upside down by an invisible force, twisting desperately in the air, and his wand flew to nowhere.

Naturally, this is not an occasion to celebrate victory, but before the children could run away, a figure blocked their retreat.

"Okay, let's see who I caught." They raised their heads and happened to meet the face of the administrator, Mr. Fant, who was distorted in anger.

-

In the middle of the night, when they were thrown into confinement in the trophy room for the first time, Rose yelled loudly: "I can't believe you guys chose to blow the door open when you could just go up and knock on it and tell They Professor Slughorn is looking for Tom!"

Will grinned, and said rather innocently: "Who made us all Gryffindors."

"The situation was urgent at the time, and I thought it might be too late..." Albus's face was dyed orange-red under the dim candlelight.

And Esther couldn't help pursing her lips and smiling when she saw the appearance of the two boys, and said, "Anyway, I think it's really fun to do this, and Albus's bat spirit spell is very wonderful."

"Oh my god Ashe, why are you even standing on their side?" Rose pouted dissatisfiedly, but quickly compromised with her partners, "Okay, okay, it's over now. It’s useless, I think we’d better clean up as soon as possible, so maybe we can catch up with tomorrow’s breakfast time.” Resignedly, she picked up the rag and dipped it into the iron bucket filled with water.

If Tom hadn't spoken, they would have even forgotten that there was a fifth person here.

"Thank you, I..." The dark-haired boy was about to say something more, but Will and Albus patted him on the shoulder together.

"It's okay, we're friends after all."

Probably the fastest way to make a few boys make friends other than Quidditch is to put them in confinement together, not to mention that other people were put in confinement to help this boy.

Tom looked around at the boys and girls. The boys smiled brightly, and the girls smiled softly. They looked bright and shining.

For the first time in his life, Tom Riddle has a real understanding of the concept of friends.If this is not a friend, what else is a friend?

-

Since that day, their party of four has added a new member, and Tom has been with them doing homework under the beech, reading books in the library, having a tea party in the Room of Requirement, and even secretly breaking into the school's storage room to borrow flying lessons Playing simple Quidditch on a broomstick.

They are at the critical point of transition from ignorance to maturity. 14 years old is a wonderful age. No one will blame them for being too mature or too immature. Therefore, every 14-year-old child can live unscrupulously and act recklessly.

At the end of November, the weather began to turn towards the unique bleakness and coldness of winter, and the plants were covered with new golden clothes. Although the wild grass seemed lonely, the huge Forbidden Forest was like a dancer in golden and red clothes dancing gently in the wind. Dance beautifully, and if you look down from the owl tower, you can take in this stunning view.

"These camellias are dying too."

One day, when they were returning from the greenhouse to the castle after taking herbal medicine course, when they passed the garden with gorgeous flowers, Esther suddenly stopped and looked at these beautiful flowers and muttered to himself.

"Don't you like winter?" Tom walked up to her and asked in a low voice, looking at the girl who bent over to caress the flowers with her fingertips.

"No." Esther shook his head, stood up straight and smiled at him, and replied, "On the contrary, my favorite season is winter. Winter is a season for all things to rest and live. These flowers grow in winter Returning to the earth, it will become the nourishment of new life in the coming year. Only when the cold winter passes, spring will come. What's more, I like snow very much. When it snows, if you look up at the sky, sometimes you can see Don't you think it's really beautiful to see the light golden light shining through the gaps of those thick stratocumulus clouds, and above those clouds, maybe a clear sky and sunshine all over the sky?" She paused for a moment , Looking up at the distant horizon, a few wisps of floating clouds dotted the light blue sky, making the sky look so far away and unreachable.

"It's as if the dawn will finally come after the long dark night. I think it symbolizes a kind of hope." She smiled peacefully, as if she had already outlined the whole spring in her mind.

Tom quietly savored the girl's words, even though he had never considered the girl's words, he seemed to be able to understand the scene Esther narrated just by imagining.That is indeed beautiful.

"Hey! What's the matter?" Albus called from a distance, and he had already walked up the steps, only to realize that his two friends hadn't followed.

Hearing this call, Esther came back to her senses as if she had just woken up from a dream, and walked towards her partner briskly, while Tom watched the girl's back going away, with a trace of undetectable jealousy in his heart.

-

"I want to show you something."

This afternoon, just after the Charms class that Gryffindor and Slytherin shared together, Tom gathered the four partners together and said to them with a somewhat excited and mysterious look.

As usual, they came to the corridor outside the Room of Requirement, and when they noticed that there was no one around, Tom took the thing out of his arms—the glass flower that the four children had seen before.

Staring at Esther, Tom, who didn't notice the surprised expressions that flashed across the faces of the others, continued on his own: "I was lucky enough to pick this camellia that hasn't bloomed yet. The spell found in Charms and Applied Laws turned it into this, gold and red for Gryffindor where Will and Rose are, green and silver for where Esther, Albus and I are Slytherin, the crystal flower will never wither, may our friendship never fade like this flower."

Compared to the other three friends who were in shock and unable to respond, Esther was so calm that she seemed to have completely forgotten about that incident. She narrowed her eyes and smiled happily, her voice soft like the breeze of March: " This flower is so beautiful, and I believe we will be good friends forever." She looked at the other three young wizards, and they came back to their senses and said in unison, "Of course!"

Tom looked very content with the approval of his friends.He gave a shy smile and said, "I think we need a place to keep it, maybe a hiding place?" He took a step and walked up and down the wall three times, the door of the Room of Requirement It suddenly emerged from the wall.

"Looks like a good idea," Albus agreed, his face draining a little, but not too much.

The four of them followed Tom into the city full of sundries they were familiar with. Perhaps because there were so many items, they couldn't even tell the difference between this place and the storage room on their timeline.

"It's really nice here. It's really a good place to hide things. Do you think there will be Hogwarts guns and other things in it?" Tom asked casually, his eyes scanning the city, as if looking for A suitable place to place this flower.

"I guess anything that appears here is something that will make Mr. Fant look fierce." Esther's disturbing detached appearance almost made Rose resent her friend. Why? At a time like this, can she still maintain her terrifying calmness as always?

But without giving her any more time to think about it, Tom found his target. He stepped forward, picked up the black wooden box from under the half-tilted tattered bookcase, and said briskly, "I want to This one is pretty good." He put the flowers in the wooden box to see if the box could fully contain the flowers - which it did perfectly.

"It looks pretty good, what do you think?" Tom Riddle turned around to try to get his friends' opinions, but he found that there was nothing behind him, and there was no one there.

"Esther? Albus? Rose? Will?" He casually threw the box into the bookcase and anxiously called out the names of his friends. Is this a joke?Do they want to play hide and seek with him here?

But there was no sound in the huge city except his own calling.

— as if the whole world had abandoned him.

☆、Chapter 8