Hogwarts Card System Chapter 033

Ted, Harry, and Hermione all looked at Ron, who wasn’t very good at lying, with suspicious eyes.

Ted: Why is your face yellow?

Ron: I put wax on it because it was cold (the cookie was too hard and hurt my teeth)!

Ted: Why is it red again?

Ron: I’m glowing with health (I lied)!

Little Neville truly believed him. He picked up a heavy, hand-crushing rock cake and took a bite, “Crunch~”

“Wuwuwu~ You two scoundrels~” Neville covered his mouth, his eyes welling up with tears.

They had already learned many “special terms” from Ted.

Ted picked up a rock cake and tried a bite—is this for humans to eat? This must be a chew toy for a three-headed dog, right?

Rock cakes are similar to small cookies with raisins.

They should have cracks on the surface, resembling rocks, but they should absolutely not be as hard as rocks.

But Hagrid seemed to have misunderstood; he really baked the rock cakes as hard as rocks.

If Hagrid were to eat them, with his chewing muscles, the texture would probably be just right. But for ordinary humans, it was too advanced.

Ted casually stuffed the cake into Fang’s mouth, serving Fang the cake!

Listening to Fang’s crunching and munching sounds, it felt like he was chewing on crisp bones.

Fang gnawed loudly, savoring every bite; his teeth were truly excellent.

Ron was mesmerized, utterly envious: If only I had such teeth, I could eat anything on earth or in the sky. Voldemort would be nothing!

Everyone’s pre-meal snacks naturally went uneaten; their stomachs rumbled, waiting for the main course.

Even Ansu couldn’t wait any longer; usually, it would have already gone to the kitchen for fries. But now it hadn’t even eaten yet!

It kept squawking on the coat rack: “Eat food~ Eat food~ Gak gak gak~”

Ted beckoned it to land on the table and fed it a piece of dried beef to appease it.

Seeing Ron and Jerry’s eyes gleaming at him, he had no choice but to offer two more pieces, then shook his head: “Is it much? Not much!”

Unfortunately, no one understood the reference. How lonely~

Hagrid heard Ansu’s squawks, observed it carefully, and asked, “Is that a talking raven? Well-kept!”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be ready soon.” With that, he tossed some side dishes into the large pot.

The dish Hagrid was making was called Beef Stew, and it truly lived up to its name, a “stew” of everything imaginable. He threw all sorts of random things into it.

Ted personally watched him toss a pair of peeled large paws, resembling bear paws from some unknown creature, into the pot!

Everyone exchanged glances, watching Hagrid stir the stew with a giant spoon, feeling that he had merged with the image of an old witch brewing potions in Muggle fairy tales.

Can this even be eaten?

With a half-giant’s resistance to poison, Hagrid would be fine, but don’t let us end up in the infirmary!

Seeing Hagrid’s blissful expression, Ted had to admit that he was an outstanding representative of the dark cuisine world.

Ted: Please, Hagrid, I can give you a recipe. Don’t waste food like this!

In the end, Ted personally took over and made a meal featuring roasted pumpkin and roasted potatoes as the main course, with a stew of dried meat and vegetables, making do for the meal.

Finally, Hagrid single-handedly finished half a pot of soup, praising Ted’s soup as delicious and asking for the secret recipe!

Ted: It’s MSG, I added MSG~

…

During the post-dinner chat, Ted noticed a magazine on Hagrid’s bedside table—Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

“Can I take a look?” Ted asked, pointing at the magazine.

“Oh, of course!” Hagrid said.

“It’s a niche magazine about fantastic beasts. In the past ten years, it has published many newly discovered magical creatures from other worlds and has always been at the forefront of the fantastic beasts field. It’s my favorite; I subscribe to every issue.”

Ted nodded and read with great interest, mainly looking for any familiar creatures.

Seeing Ted reading so intently, Hagrid was very happy and said, “Ted, if you like it, I can lend it to you, but you have to return it to me; I want to collect it!”

With that, his carrot-thick finger pointed to a simple bookshelf made of a few planks nailed to the wall, which indeed held many books and periodicals about fantastic beasts.

Ted quickly thanked him: “Thank you, I like it very much, but you don’t need to lend it; I’ve already finished reading it!”

Although he hadn’t read it thoroughly, he had already memorized everything and would read it slowly in his spare time.

To Ted’s surprise, he even found an article by Professor Quirrell in that magazine. He had insightful views on the hybridization of magical creature bloodlines.

Of course, there were also many criticisms of it in the magazine. Everyone called him a madman!

After all, privately breeding new magical creatures was immoral and even illegal.

But who cared about such things?

The laws themselves were full of loopholes. For example, Ron’s father was the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but the laws he drafted specifically left loopholes for himself, not to mention other more powerful pure-blood families.

The law mainly regulated wizards without power or influence; for powerful wizards, it was all up to their self-awareness.

Like Hagrid, he didn’t pay any attention to the Ministry of Magic’s laws.

In his opinion, he would raise whatever he wanted to raise~

…

On Sunday morning, Ted found Neville and Jerry trying to calm down an angry Ron.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Jerry explained, “It’s because of Dean…”

Dean Thomas was one of Neville, Ron, and Jerry’s roommates; he was black.

It turned out that the black kid, Dean, was a football fan, which was normal for a Brit.

However, when he was explaining the rules of football to his roommates in the dorm, he got into a big argument with Ron.

Because Ron thought, what was the point of a bunch of people who couldn’t fly fighting over a ball on the ground? Couldn’t they prepare more balls? If you couldn’t use your hands, couldn’t you use sticks? Use sticks to hit the opponent!

Ron: Is that it? Is that it?! (Mocking face)

The result, naturally, was an argument, as expected.

“I see.” Ted nodded, offering no comment.

Ron, however, became more animated and asked Ted, “Ted, tell me, is Muggle football really interesting?”

Ted put down his chopsticks, thought for a moment, and replied, “Ron, you need to know that Muggles have many, many forms of entertainment and sports. Just ball games alone number over a dozen. Don’t argue because of differences in hobbies, and it’s not appropriate to belittle others’ hobbies.”

“This has nothing to do with Muggles or wizards. You like Wizard’s Chess, he likes Gobstones; none of that affects your ability to be friends. Moreover, you live in the same room and will for seven years.”

That evening, Ron actually awkwardly apologized to Dean and even gave him a Dumbledore Chocolate Frog card.

Little black kid Dean was thrilled to see the moving Dumbledore!

Upon hearing about it, Ted couldn’t help but sigh: Ron, it truly is you!

The five of them had eaten a total of six of these cards on the train.

It could only fool Dean, who grew up in the Muggle world.

It’s worth mentioning the Potions class during the last week of October.

Under Snape’s gaze, a very nervous and clumsy Neville once again became Snape’s punching bag, enduring a barrage of venomous remarks.

Speaking of which, Snape was definitely an elitist who couldn’t stand the existence of any fools. He had a strong aversion to stupidity, getting angry at the sight of a fool.

Although he also disliked Hermione, the know-it-all, and Ted, who was always calm and had a “I’ve seen through everything” demeanor, Hermione and Ted were at least intelligent. As for Neville, he particularly couldn’t stand him.

However, after enduring the old venomous snake’s barrage of poisonous remarks, Neville surprisingly didn’t cry!

Although his tears were welling up in his eyes, they stubbornly didn’t fall.

He had truly taken Ted’s words to heart and was striving to become brave and strong!

Snape, however, didn’t expect Neville to become stronger. Instead, he started to wonder if his venomous tongue had lost its edge and wanted to continue his verbal assault.

Harry and Ted both couldn’t bear to watch and spoke up in Neville’s defense.

Snape calmly glanced at Harry and said indifferently, “Contradicting a professor, five points from Ravenclaw!”

Ted calmly glanced at Snape, thinking to himself: Only five points? Haven’t you eaten? Be stronger!

Harry: What about me? Come on! Deduct my points!