Chapter 164. Hannah, Hermione, Our God!
Chapter 164. Hannah, Hermione, Our God!
After dinner, Harry had had enough of everyone else's curious looks.
He hurriedly said goodbye to the others and dragged Ron back to the dormitory.
Duncan, meanwhile, strolled to the library with Hannah, Hermione, and the others, chatting idly along the way.
Standing at the entrance and glancing around, they found an empty long table by the window and hurried over to sit down.
Duncan and Neville, eyes brimming, shifted their gaze and stared pleadingly at Hannah.
"This is the last time!" Hannah met the looks from Duncan and Neville and said, helplessly repeating what she had already said several times.
Then she rummaged in her bag, took out her Transfiguration homework, placed it on the table, and pushed it in front of Duncan and Neville.
"Thank you so much, Hannah, you're simply our God!" Neville said with exaggerated gratitude.
Watching the two of them scribbling away by copying Hannah's work, Hermione frowned.
"You ought to finish your homework yourselves!"
"I want to," Duncan said to Hermione while studying Hannah's homework and racking his brains over how to alter the sentences so Professor McGonagall wouldn't see through it.
"But I was too busy over the holidays, and Professor McGonagall assigned so much—twelve inches of parchment! It'll drain me dry to write that much!"
Hermione recalled how Duncan had jumped straight off the train.
It did look rather urgent—more important than homework.
She hesitated for a moment, then took from her bag a sheet of parchment far longer than twelve inches, crammed full of tiny letters.
"You can also refer to some of my homework—make more changes, so Professor McGonagall won't notice."
"Hermione, I hereby declare you are now our God as well!" Duncan snatched the parchment from Hermione's hand at speed.
Madam Pince, who was presiding over the library at the moment, turned her gaze on them; her vulture-like face was filled with annoyance.
"Shh—keep your voices down, or Madam Pince will throw you out!" Hermione whispered, carefully reminding them.
Duncan and Neville nodded quickly and obediently, fell utterly silent, and devoted themselves to wrestling with the long parchment.
Hermione continued leafing through the hefty volume, hoping to find more information related to Nicolas Flamel.
Hannah and Ellie, meanwhile, lay over the table together to draw a picture—only their quills were a bit unusual.
Every stroke seemed to have been given life, wriggling like worms, so the designs they produced were surprising above all else.
At eight o'clock, Duncan wrote the last stroke of his work, and Madam Pince turned off all the lamps and came over to chase them out of the library.
"I haven't finished yet!" Neville said, pulling a long face as they walked back along the corridor to their dormitories.
"It's all right.
Back in the dormitory you can copy mine.
Then you can give it free rein—no one will stop you," Duncan said with a smile.
He could only wonder whether the repeatedly altered sentences would stray so far from the originals that they would end up creating a brand-new history of Transfiguration.
At the fork, Hermione waved goodbye to Duncan and the others and went off alone, gradually vanishing into the dim depths of the corridor.
Duncan and the rest turned toward the Hufflepuff common room.
Neville, Hannah, and Ellie chatted along the way about the Christmas presents they had received.
Back in the dormitory, Duncan tossed the homework to Neville, set his case on the floor, opened it, and slid half his body inside.
Neville's eyes filled with envy and longing—playing inside Duncan's case was far more fun than doing homework in the dormitory.
"Hurry up and do your homework, or tomorrow you may see Professor McGonagall turn into a furious, roaring dragon," Duncan said.
A vision of Professor McGonagall glaring at him in a rage flashed through Neville's mind.
He shivered all over, dared not delay, and obediently went to write.
Duncan ducked fully into the case and went down the stairs.
Although it had been greatly rebuilt, the workshop was still as simple as ever.
But stepping out through the narrow doorway and looking into the distance, the case's interior had completely changed.
First, the Thunderbird Kray's area now had a towering cliff for two Thunderbirds to perch and roost upon.
Trees had been planted along the edge of the lake where the Kelpie Mori lived and on the open plain where the two Graphorns resided, so they could have shade.
The Acromantula's habitat had expanded several times over—no longer just a cave sheltered by a single large tree, but an entire forest.
And in the centre of all the areas, an endless stretch of dense jungle had been added, much like the Forbidden Forest outside the castle.
Two Unicorns, little elves, and the Horned Serpent Duncan had captured would live there together.
In future, those forest creatures with gentler dispositions—those that did not often fight with others—would also be kept in this region.
In addition, at the edge of the case there was a very special area, veiled by milky white mist so that nothing within could be seen clearly.
That was where the crazed Hungarian Horntail lived—an undulating mountain range that looked no different from the outside world.
Only after more than a day of hard work by Professor Dumbledore, Newt, and the other wizards—plus Nicolas hauled out of the Vanishing Cabinet—had they barely managed to finish it.
Besides the changes to the animal habitats, a huge coloured mural had been added to the outer wall of the workshop.
In the painting, the starry sky glittered and the bright moonlight fell.
Duncan lounged on a thick tree branch, surrounded by a crowd of creatures.
Niffler, Kelpie, Thunderbird, dragon… all the animals around Duncan appeared in the painting.
It was a Christmas gift rushed out for him by the two sisters, Olivia and Kiana, after pulling two all-nighters.
"It still isn't as cute as me!" Pro stood on Duncan's shoulder, looked at the round, chubby Niffler, and said with disdain.
"Oh, please—that Niffler was reproduced one-to-one based on you, wasn't it?" Duncan said with a laugh, walking toward the dragon's area.
He had to check the Hungarian Horntail's condition, to see whether he needed to increase the dosage of potion.
"Impossible!" Pro shook his head violently, utterly unconvinced.
"There's no way I'm that fat.
There's something very wrong with their painting!"
"Oh? Really?" Duncan raised an eyebrow, produced a mirror with a backhanded motion, and held it up to Pro.
"Have a look for yourself, then?"
"No, no—take it away!" Pro clapped his paws over his eyes and turned his back to the mirror at once.
"There's no point lying to yourself like that!" Duncan poked Pro's head lightly with a finger.
"Anyway, I can't possibly look like that.
I'm a slender Niffler!" Pro squeezed his eyes shut and spoke loudly, unwilling to face reality.
"All right, all right—enough theatrics.
I'm not going to make you lose weight," Duncan said with a helpless smile.
Pro's eyes snapped open at once.
Beaming, he turned his head, cocked it, and stared at Duncan.
"Do you mean it?"
"I do," said Duncan.
"But you should still watch it a bit—don't end up so plump you can't even walk."
"Heh-heh, got it, got it."
Pro plopped himself down on Duncan's shoulder and, rubbing his round, soft belly, chuckled foolishly.
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