Gryffindor's Gift

The Great Hall, on the Gryffindor table.

Since there were no formal classes, the young wizards no longer had to wear the uniform magic robes and mostly dressed more casually.

This is where the difference becomes apparent. Students from Muggle families wear stylish and varied shirts, short-sleeved shirts, and jeans. In contrast, students from wizarding families, except for a few wealthy Pure-blood Families, mostly wear simple and unadorned clothing.

Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, two Gryffindor Chaser, are surrounding a brightly dressed little Witch.

"Listen, we'd cover your Transfiguration assignments for next semester, all for a pleated skirt." Angelina grasped the little Witch's hand.

Alicia nodded approvingly, "But we don't want white, black, we want red, the redder the better."

Similar conversations were taking place at other college desks.

When Hermione returned to her dorm to pack her luggage, she changed out of her magic robes. She wore a pure white cotton short-sleeved shirt under a slightly oversized, lightweight blouse, and a knee-length skirt with stockings.

If it weren't for her thick, messy brown curly hair, which almost completely covered her upper body, little Witch would also place orders with her to buy things for them.

Loren asked, "Does red really look good?"

Hermione was still worried about not being able to cast spells during the holidays, and looked downcast. Upon hearing this, she rolled her eyes slightly and did not answer him.

"I heard from my dad that you Muggle enslave a kind of creature called a production line, making them weave clothes day and night." Ron's tone was exaggerated, as if he were just repeating hearsay.

Normally, Hermione would definitely give him a science lesson, but not this time. Hermione was eating bread, and that piece of bread had been munching on for half an hour.

Loren leaned close to Hermione's ear and whispered something.

As if by magic, Hermione's face suddenly lit up, and she stuffed the bread into her mouth in a few bites. "Mmm... I'm done eating... Let's... go."

Hermione's cheeks were bulging, making it difficult for her to speak clearly.

After speaking, Loren began to eat, slowly and deliberately. He tore the bread along the grain into strips, chewing each strip 15 times and swallowing it in 3 bites.

He planned to spend half an hour eating this piece of bread as well.

Hermione went from patiently waiting to clenching her fists, and the fists clenched tighter and tighter.

Loren looked up at her and grinned. "Breaking the Trace isn't easy."

Hermione loosened her fist and regained her patience.

The situation escalated to the point where the two arrived at the Room of Requirement, where Loren took out the Sorcerer's Stone and easily washed away the Trace from Hermione's body.

Inside the Abandoned Classroom provided by the Room of Requirement, Hermione held her wand, feeling her Magic Power stabilizing. Her expression was blank; she had been blank ever since Loren pulled out the Sorcerer's Stone.

"Alright! From now on you are a free little wizard." Loren put the Sorcerer's Stone in his pocket and clapped his hands.

"Why, why is the Sorcerer's Stone with you?" Hermione asked mechanically, her eyes unfocused.

She racked her brains but couldn't understand why the Sorcerer's Stone, which countless wizards craved and which even Voldemort Hogwarts to steal, was in Loren's hands.

"I asked Dumbledore for it, and he gave it to me." Loren said with an air of entitlement.

You ask Dumbledore for...

He gave it to him...

So Voldemort and Quirrell didn't directly ask Dumbledore for it?

This was clearly a complicated problem. Hermione snapped out of her daze and pondered for a while, pursing her lips.

She asked another question, "Is this what you mean by 'not easy'?"

It's not easy to eat a slice of bread for half an hour.

"It really wasn't easy!" Loren nodded.

Hermione pursed her lips again, looking at him with a strange gaze. After a while, she said, "Our Magic Power has both increased. Let's have a duel to test it out."

"Are you trying to teach me a lesson?"

Loren was delighted. In their duel, Hermione's score had remained at 22 for a long time and hadn't increased since.

Even after the two stood facing each other with their wands held upright in front of their chests, Loren still didn't think the duel was going to be a foregone conclusion.

"Ready!" Hermione called out sternly.

Loren pondered whether to use Repelling Charm or Binding Charm, wondering which would make Hermione's defeat less humiliating.

Then he watched as Hermione, with superhuman agility, suddenly closed in, quickly grabbed one of his arms and pinned it behind his back, pressing down on his shoulder.

"Ouch!! Ouch!" Loren felt like his hand was going to break.

After he cried out a few times, Hermione released his hands, a jubilant smile on her face, "0 to 1, Mr. Morgan."

Loren's face flushed red as he looked at Hermione strangely. The speed just now was definitely abnormal, and he had never heard of such magic.

He looked the little Witch up and down, then finally remembered something and exclaimed, "Gryffindor's Gift!"

Hermione smiled broadly, "I've noticed since I came back from the hospital that my physical fitness has improved a lot, and my reaction speed has also improved a lot."

"What do you mean 0 to 1? It's over Dobby 23," Loren muttered, somewhat unconvinced. Physical ability couldn't determine the outcome; in the end, a wizard's duel depended on magic.

"Again!" Loren thought that as long as he could create distance and prevent Hermione from getting close, he could use a spell to pull her away.

Hermione was also quite excited after her victory and did not refuse Loren's request for a rematch.

"Preparation!"

Hermione pushed off with both legs, closing the distance between them at a speed that Loren couldn't comprehend.

There was no way to create enough distance, and he didn't even have time to cast a spell. He could only back away while trying to push Hermione away.

But to Hermione, these actions seemed to happen in slow motion. She quickly grabbed one of Loren's arms, flipped it over, and pinned it down, thus capturing Loren.

The little girl's eyes sparkled with excitement, and her voice unconsciously became a little agitated. "Do you submit?"

Just like this posture, it's naturally suited to asking this question.

Loren didn't speak; submission was out of the question.

"You win, you win." Finally, under the pain in his hand, Loren conceded defeat.

Hermione released her grip on him, a smile spreading across her face.

"Gryffindor's Gift, enhancing a wizard's close-combat abilities, truly matches my imagination of Gryffindor perfectly," Loren said sourly while rubbing his shoulders.

The main problem is that Loren can't use spells freely, and the Sectumsempra isn't something that should be used in friendly sparring.

Furthermore, the two were still too close; they couldn't create any distance between them. If they were in an open area, he could simply unleash a fiery attack to prevent Hermione from getting close. Or, once he mastered Apparition, he could defend himself.

In the original story, Harry also gained the sword's recognition, so why wasn't he as powerful as Hermione? Loren fell into deep thought.

Harry first held a sword when he fought the Basilisk, and then at the Harry of twelve, he killed the more than twenty-meter-long Basilisk with a melee weapon.

Hiss~

Loren fell silent. This didn't mean that Gryffindor's Gift hadn't strengthened Harry's body.

Next time, he will also try to hold that precious sword.

Hermione ignored Loren's philosophical contemplation and said triumphantly, "Don't try to trick me anymore!"

Kind-hearted Hermione didn't say anything more to rub salt into Loren's wounds; she had important things to do.

Hermione pulled Loren out of the classroom and back into the Room of Room of Requirement, where things were kept. "There are a lot of notes on practicing spells here. I plan to take some back and learn some advanced spells during the holidays."

Mountains of old books, layers of dilapidated furniture, various metal utensils, and armor are still haphazardly piled up in this room, waiting for people to unearth their treasures.

Loren saw the dust and grime, and his face showed utter rejection.

Hermione hunched over, rummaging through old books and notebooks.

The useful things will be piled up and taken away later. The useless things will be piled up in another pile; that counts as tidying up the room too.

Dust billowed up, and near the ground, the little girl's stockings turned from white to yellow, and soon her clean little face was covered in grime like a kitten's.

But Hermione didn't mind at all, and still enthusiastically rummaged through the pile of old things for books, categorizing them. Useful and useless items alike were piled up into two small mountains.

"Even if you previewed the next school year's material in one vacation, you couldn't read that many books," Loren said.

Hermione put down a book, wiped her face with the back of her hand, making it even smudged. "Many of the upperclassmen in Ravenclaw who exchanged notes with me complained that they couldn't cast spells during the holidays, the books at Flourish and Blotts were too expensive, and the textbooks weren't enough. I was thinking that since I couldn't show them the Sorcerer's Stone to help them untangle the Trace, I could help them find some books to learn the theoretical knowledge."

When Loren heard Hermione's plan, he looked at the little tabby cat that seemed to glow. He went to Hermione's side and helped her sort through the old books one by one.

He was also Muggle-born wizard, with no shortage of learning opportunities, and he wasn't familiar with those people, let alone bother to change the world.

From the moment I first heard Flamel talk about the implications of the Trace, I thought that someone like Hermione would one day change these laws.

Hermione may not yet realize that this is persecution of young wizards in Muggle families, but she is already doing everything in her power to change the reality that lies before her.

For example, a few years later she resolutely founded the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, ignoring everyone's ridicule and defying the ancient traditions of the Wizarding World.

Until the sun outside turned a golden-orange, dyeing the clouds the color of orange.

The books in the Room of Requirement were gradually cleared out from the various piles of clutter and neatly stacked into two piles. They only cleared out a portion of the books in the room, but the quantity was already more than enough.

I plan to pack it in Loren's box tomorrow and lend it to some Muggle wizards who want to study during the holidays.

The two walked out of the Room of Requirement side by side. Hermione's dirty little face was flushed; she was happy to have defeated Loren again.

"Pfft!" Hermione couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Complete victory, twice!"

Why are you suddenly happy now?

"I'm happy, so what?"

The little girl skipped and hopped, her swaying brown hair resembling a radiant flower.

Outside, insects and birds are chirping noisily as the height of summer approaches, their calls seeming to penetrate one's very soul.

At night, Loren lay in his soft bed, looking through the curtains at the moonlight streaming in through the window.

While his other roommates were chatting, Ron finally finished telling his epic story of how he intercepted and severely injured Quirrell, laying a solid foundation for his later victory over Quirrell.

Seamus finally managed to tell Harry some terrible news.

Harry missed the last Quidditch Match, Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor, while he was hospitalized.

Lacking their most crucial Seeker, they naturally lost, Ravenclaw emerged victorious, racking up 150 House Cup points and securing the House Cup title.

"Harry, you don't know, the Hufflepuff hate you now, but the Ravenclaw are praising you." Seamus said succinctly.

But Harry was filled with disappointment, calculating whether Gryffindor could win the Quidditch Match if they scored 150 points.

Harry was devastated to discover that their nighttime outing had only cost them 120 points; if they had scored another 150, they could have won. He closed his eyes, wanting to escape this cruel world.

"At least it's definitely not Slytherin winning, right? We won't have to see green as the main color at the year-end party." Ron always managed to find the bright side to things.

Loren entered the Fantasy Book and tried to turn the small linen pouch over and trace the Alchemy Array of the Untraceable Extension Charm on the inside.

He needed to finish making a gift for Hermione before the holidays.

Compared to the hard leather of a suitcase with a flat inner bottom, the soft, wrinkled linen fabric is extremely difficult to draw. Unicorn Hair often ends up as a blotchy mess with ink, or the strokes break up unintentionally.

This isn't a matter of materials or magic; there are no shortcuts, only hard work to improve your proficiency.

This time was even more painful than the previous arduous practice on the bottom of the box. The linen was smaller, requiring a more precise magic array.

Loren's eyes were getting tired from looking at it.

Finally, before dawn, after countless attempts, I successfully drew a double-ring base on the linen. The rest should be completed much faster, and I should be able to finish it before the holiday.

After getting up and tidying up for a while, Loren and his roommates went to the restaurant for dinner.

As they left the lounge, Harry, who had been standing next to the group, hid behind Neville, trying to use Neville's tall frame to block the others' view.

But his hopes were quickly dashed.

A tall, dark-haired boy waved and cheered from a distance with exaggerated gestures and a loud voice. "Harry Potter! Ravenclaw's the Chosen One!"

Roger Davis, the Chaser for the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team.

Compared to the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team's excellent teamwork and the Slytherin Quidditch Team's ferocity, Ravenclaw's Quidditch team is not particularly strong. Their players' overall abilities are also inferior to Gryffindor, making them almost the worst of the four houses.

So the school has a long-standing rumor that Ravenclaw are a bunch of bookworms who only know how to study.

But Roger Davis was clearly different; he was tall, had a loud voice, and was obviously an athlete.

He never dreamed that Gryffindor would lose the game, which they thought was a sure win, because they didn't have a backup Seeker, Ravenclaw would be the biggest winner.

"Harry Potter, Ravenclaw's the Chosen One!"

In the corridor, the other young Ravenclaw wizards were also cheering; this was a rare moment of glory for Ravenclaw.

Loren looked back and saw that from Gryffindor's lead, to Gryffindor and Slytherin falling into the water at the same time and Hufflepuff taking the lead, and now Ravenclaw taking the lead, Harry had truly played a crucial role every time.

What about 100% participation in Seeker?

This is Harry Potter, reporting for our station, from the Wizarding World.