The days of hanging out at Hogwarts

The last day of June, Monday.

Grandpa Bates stayed in the backyard, wearing an old vest he used to herd sheep. There were several rips and puddings on the trouser legs, revealing a few threads. I don’t know if it was intentional or accidental, but the ranch farmer’s clothes were actually worn by him to look fashionable. The fashionable old man was holding a hose nozzle and watering his trees in the backyard.

The temperature is high in summer, and the water vapor of trees evaporates quickly, so they need to be replenished with water regularly. Watering is a job that is more particular. Some places need to be watered thoroughly and fully, and some delicate trees cannot be watered too much, otherwise the roots will easily rot.

The old man was very patient and watered meticulously.

I don’t know how many trees died in exchange for this experience.

“Tsk…”

Loren smacked his lips after watching for more than ten minutes, staring at the water flowing from the nozzle. He was a little thirsty, so he turned into the house, opened the refrigerator, took a bottle of Coke, and when he closed the refrigerator door and was about to leave, he glanced and noticed a sticky note stuck on it.

That was the summer vacation plan he made when he just got off vacation. It listed Loren's daily schedule: study with Hermione in the morning and complete the summer homework on time and in quantity every day; take time to study space movement in the afternoon and explore magic different from Apparition; read fantasy books before going to bed at night and discuss the characteristics of the strange soul stone with Flamel...

"Emm..."

It has been two weeks since the vacation, and it seems that nothing has been completed, and a lot of homework that should have been completed has been overdue.

Loren pondered for a while, stopped to think for a moment, opened the refrigerator and took out another bottle of Coke.

Hermione should have finished her homework on spells, so I borrowed her paper for reference. This bottle of Coke is a thank you gift.

...

Granger's house.

Today is a working day, and the Grangers went to work at the dental clinic early in the morning.

Hermione washed the dishes, walked out of the kitchen, wiped off the water drops on her hands, and felt a little subtle.

After returning from vacation, perhaps stimulated by Loren, her parents somehow noticed that she was not good at housework and began to let her take over some housework within her ability. In the past, she occasionally participated in cleaning the oven, tidying up the utility room and cleaning the whole house, but she was basically a supporting role, and her parents were the main force. Now she has become the main force. Washing dishes in the morning, helping to prepare ingredients for dinner...

Unconsciously, she has taken on a lot of housework.

Sometimes Hermione wants to use magic to be lazy, but her mother tells her to do it herself, saying that she is an adult and should be trained.

The air made a slight explosion, and after a slight air flow, a figure carrying two bottles of Coke appeared in her living room.

Hermione put down her handkerchief and slowly turned around, her head tilted slightly, revealing a puzzled look.

Loren handed over the opened Coke in his hand: "Hermione, let's do homework."

"?"

Hermione looked at him strangely, but still followed him to the study.

The soft light illuminated the room, and the desk was filled with beige and gray parchment and reference books. Both of them had their homework here, sorted out in the order of the courses, but some were still at the beginning of the book, while others had already finished Transfiguration and Charms.

Each sat down and started studying!

The quill pen dipped in ink left smooth traces on the paper.

While dipping the pen in ink, Hermione looked up and saw that this person was referring to her Charms paper. In his words, he was taking the dregs from it, removing the valuable essence, and reducing the length and number of words by half, so that it could pass the professor's review without being noticed.

"..."

Hermione thought about it, but still didn't interrupt him.

It was good to be able to sit down and do homework with peace of mind. If it was a few days ago, he would have dragged her to watch fantasy movies to find inspiration.

But I was always convinced by his weird reasons.

Ten minutes later.

Loren dusted the parchment, feeling quite pleased. He already had the first draft of the paper, and the rest were some mindless steps, such as collecting examples, arranging the wording, and finalizing the copy.

As long as he had hands, he would be fine!

Loren thought for a moment, put down his quill, and looked up at the outstanding student: "Hermione, Hermione, I have exceeded today's task, and I plan to reward myself by having a good meal at noon. Do you want to eat anything?"

Without waiting for the girl to answer, he immediately added: "How about stewed beef brisket with potatoes? Your mother bought good beef, but unfortunately there was not enough time that day to make the stew."

"..."

Hermione was a little helpless, and even more helpless was the saliva secretion between her lips and tongue: "Can't you finish the paper first?"

"I promise to finish the paper today!" Loren promised solemnly, and then changed the subject, "But the ingredients are freshest in the morning. If you don't go shopping now, you can't make the stew in the afternoon. It will wilt, and the quality of the meat will also deteriorate. We will buy the meat and stew it. We can copy the paper while waiting for the stewing time. What do you think? "

"Are you sure you can finish the paper?"

"Don't you still believe in my speed of rushing the homework?"

"I don't believe your attitude."

"Well..."

Loren hesitated for a moment: "Your suspicion is reasonable, but I really want to stew beef brisket now. I advise you to cooperate a little and save time."

"..."

Hermione wanted to say something to refute, but this person had already come over, snatched the feather pen in her hand and threw it into the ink bottle, dragged her hand and walked out, turned off the lights and closed the door, came to the living room, and even put on his shoes when he came to his senses.

He sighed silently in his heart and let this person drag him to the fresh food supermarket.

...

"Put the beef in the pot and fry it before stewing. It will taste more fragrant."

Loren held the spatula and flipped the cut beef brisket inside. The spices and hot oil inspired a strange aroma: "Sometimes I think the potatoes inside are more delicious than the meat, but the most delicious thing is the gravy. I used to use Broth bibimbap, I’ve learned from you now, soak the bread in broth. Don’t tell me, the bread absorbs more juice and is quite delicious.”

"Why do you need to dry the flesh soaked in blood? Don't you have to add water later?"

"You have to stir-fry before stewing. There should be no water during stir-frying."

"Why can't the potatoes be put into the pot at the same time as the meat?"

“Potatoes cook easily and will melt if simmered for a long time.”

"That's it..."

Hermione stood aside and watched, silently jotting down the recipe in her mind. Her face was rosy and glowing due to the fire, and there was a glint in her eyes, both because of the delicious food she was about to taste and because of the person in front of her.

"alright."

Loren finished all the preparatory steps, covered the pot, washed his hands and wiped them dry: "Now wait for it to simmer slowly until it becomes fragrant..."

Hermione took off his apron and sorted out the recipes in her mind. She nodded slightly and stared into his eyes: "Are you going to write your thesis now?"

"certainly!"

Loren turned around and was about to walk towards the study, but suddenly stopped, frowned, and said with a serious expression: "The kitchen is stewing meat, the fire is so strong, and I have to go to the room to write a paper now, what if something unexpected happens?" The pot is just a small thing, what if the gas leaks? "

"I've finished writing my thesis, I can keep an eye on it in the living room."

Loren was startled, frowned, and thought about how to retort: ​​"Then let me ask you, then I ask you...how do you know when the meat is stewed?"

"You tell me a time, and I'll call you when the time comes, or I'll call you every fifteen minutes."

"I'm still worried, forget it, I'll stay in the living room and wait."

"Then I will continue to do my homework."

"No, you doing homework alone will make me feel uneasy. You watch TV with me."

"I knew it."

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, she was used to it.

It's been like this for the past two weeks. He can always find various reasons to interrupt his study plan. At the same time, he can also interrupt her study plan to watch movies, chat and play video games. She can finish writing Transfiguration and Charms. She had to catch up on her homework after dinner, but she didn't reject this feeling of getting along with each other, and even vaguely enjoyed it.

When the TV was turned on, it made an extremely subtle sound of electricity, and the light, shadow and sound made the room lively. Loren put his arm around her shoulders, and the two of them sank into the sofa like this, feeling soft and warm.

Hermione leaned on his shoulder naturally, rubbing her head gently and finding the familiar pillow position.

…

The progress of revising the first draft was a little slower than expected.

On July 3rd, Loren came to the neighbor's house again, knocked on the door of the outstanding student's study room, spent nearly an hour looking for examples, deleted and revised them, and then transcribed them. The thesis on Charms was completed, but what followed was Hermione hasn't finished her Defense Against the Dark Arts thesis yet. She probably spent more time on it because she was striving for perfection.

Today's study quota has been used up, and Loren doesn't want to start a new paper immediately, let alone without Professor Granger's sample essay for reference.

I looked at the clock on the wall and saw that it was just ten o'clock in the morning, two hours before lunch.

Today's lunch menu was decided last night, and Hermione thoughtfully prepared the ingredients, which are very convenient pasta and salad. There is no need to start preparing them two hours in advance.

Loren couldn't find a reason, so he had to open his notebook and read the topic assigned by Professor Bagshot: read the recommended books (see Appendix 17 of the textbook for the book list), try to analyze the magical animals that may appear in the swamp jungle environment, and how to deal with them.

Also read recommended books, no wonder Hermione isn't done yet.

Opening the book list again, I saw a series of books whose names seemed boring.

Loren sighed, rubbed his eyebrows, and began to chew on the documents.

Hermione raised her eyes to glance at his movements, and the corners of her mouth curved. As long as the preliminary preparations were sufficient, he would have no excuse to interrupt his study plan.

"Hermione, it's been two weeks since the holiday. Do you think the visit from Principal Dumbledore and Professor Snape has produced any results?"

"I don't know." Hermione's expression was a little complicated.

"Let me ask."

Loren took out his communicator, and considering that Professor Snape had arrived in Ilvermorny earlier, he sent him a message first.

Loren: "Professor, how is the snake tree? Have you found any living Horcruxes?"

After waiting for half a minute, there was no reply.

Undeterred, Loren immediately sent an identical message to Dumbledore.

While waiting for a reply, Loren incorporated copy-paste and long-press forwarding into his communicator improvement plan, planning to cooperate with Weasley's Wheezes and upgrade in two phases, each time a year apart.

Of course, as a conscientious merchant, the price remains unchanged.

While preparing a grand business plan, the principal's reply came.

Dumbledore: "We have confirmed that the snake tree is not a Horcrux and there are no traces of soul fragments. However, the snake tree has a problem of shrinking vitality. The new buds that sprouted this year are fewer than in previous years, and the leaves are sparser. There are leaves that have grown even before autumn. Yellow falls and Newt and Pomona are trying to heal."

Loren: "Is it related to Voldemort?"

Dumbledore: "This possibility cannot be ruled out, but no traces of dark magic have been found so far."

Dumbledore: "In addition, the Magical Congress of the United States has found traces of Death Eaters, and the Aurors are chasing them. I will inform you if there are other clues."

Loren: "Oh, that's right."

He gently stroked the communicator, with many questions in his heart, but across the Atlantic Ocean, he could not get any detailed information through text communication, so he had to say goodbye to the principal.

"What's the situation?" Hermione, who was sitting opposite, raised her head.

"..."

After listening to Loren's retelling, the little witch showed a thoughtful expression, a little surprised that Professor Sprout also went to Ilvermorny, but then she thought it was normal, after all, she was a professor of Herbology.

"I'll ask Harry again." Loren pressed the communicator.

Loren: "Harry, how are you doing recently?"

Loren: "How is your Legilimency training going?"

Loren: "Any news about living Horcruxes?"

This is the embodiment of how to deal with people. When facing friends who have not been in touch for a long time, first send warm summer greetings to give the other party a little buffer. After fully warming up, cut into the topic. Sincere roommate friendship makes the topic less stiff and the other party will be more receptive.

Perhaps because he felt his friendship, Harry's reply was fast and urgent.

Harry: "You finally remembered me!"

Harry: "Before the holiday, we agreed to write to each other, but half a month has passed and only Ginny wrote to me!"

Harry: "You guys!"

Harry: "If it weren't for Voldemort and the Horcruxes, would you have to go back to school to remember me!"

I didn't expect to underestimate Harry's resentment. The opening remarks should be longer to make the roommate friendship more sincere. Loren showed a thoughtful expression and pressed the copper nut carefully.

Loren: "So did Legilimency find clues to the Horcrux?"

This time I waited for several minutes before receiving a reply.

Harry: "hjdoiuwehiuWith the help of Hagrid and Grawp, Legilimency practice went smoothly. I have basically mastered it. Trying to use the Mirror of Erised to do Legilimency on myself is not very smooth. The mirror image of my family always reminds me of the memories of being with them, and I can't guide other content."

Loren: "The Mirror of Erised does not always reflect your desires. Remember, Dumbledore once hid the Philosopher's Stone in the mirror. You can try to use the mirror in other ways. In addition, what do the letters in front mean?"

Harry: "Nothing, there are too many curses about you guys, I can't delete them, so I just sent it like this."

Loren shook his head. If he had known, he would not have asked.

Then he put the communicator back on the pendant, conveyed the content of the communication to Hermione, glanced at the wall clock, it was almost lunch time, packed up the paper and pen, got up and went to the kitchen. The meat sauce of pasta is also very particular.

Hermione looked at his back, a gleam in her eyes.