The Unwelcome One

The talk of saving the Fire Salamander was just a made-up excuse. Fred, George, and Lee Jordan had no good intentions from the start.

As for how to take the Fire Salamander away, the three of them had already thought about it seriously last semester.

Unfortunately, after that Care of Magical Creatures, Kettleburn never allowed them to come into contact with Fire Salamander again, and they never found an opportunity to put it into practice.

Those original ideas were kept until today, when they finally had the opportunity to be implemented.

The three of them naturally wouldn't let this opportunity slip by; even without Albert's help, they could still "save" the Fire Salamander.

Fred put in a lot of effort in this regard, using Transfiguration Spell to turn a tree branch into a glass bottle, George released Portable Blue Magic Flame into the bottle—a spell he learned from Albert —and Lee Jordan stuffed Fire Salamander he had caught from the campfire into a container prepared by the Twins.

For the fire Fire Salamander, which is born of fire and feeds on fire, it can continue to live as long as the magical flame in the glass bottle remains burning.

In a sense, it could be considered a form of salvation, because any Fire Salamander that had its blood drawn would almost always die a gruesome death at the hands of the students.

Unfortunately, most students simply don't have the proper blood-drawing skills to save the Fire Salamander's life after the blood is drawn.

However, for Fire Salamander that only has six hours to live after leaving the flames, death is not terrible; it's just a matter of dying a few hours earlier or later.

Kettleburn paid no attention to Fred and his friends' little antics in class, probably assuming they were planning to catch a Fire Salamander to keep as a pet. He kindly reminded them, "Magic flames are only suitable for moving Fire Salamander Fire Salamander around; they cannot provide them with food in the long run. If you try to use magic flames to feed Fire Salamander, it will only lead to the Fire Salamander dying from malnutrition."

"We understand."

All three of them were a little embarrassed, but they still nodded seriously to show that they understood.

"Everyone should focus on learning how to properly draw blood from Fire Salamander, because such opportunities are rare," Kettleburn said earnestly, sitting in his chair and looking around at everyone. "I've seen too many people kill the Fire Salamander just to draw blood. This is a shameful waste. If the Fire Salamander survives after blood is drawn, it can still be bled again after being kept in the campfire for a while. After all, it's not unusual for firewood to burn in the fireplace for a long time in winter."

Keeping a few Fire Salamander in the fireplace is commonplace for a professor who protects Magical Creatures; Hagrid did it too. Kettleburn even kept a pet several sizes larger than the Fire Salamander in his fireplace, which he said he had been keeping since he came to teach at Hogwarts.

Before the end of class, Kettleburn brought it out to show everyone its size; it was really huge and could even spit out Mars.

"By the way, this prize belongs to Mr. Anderson." Kettleburn held up Albert's glass test tube that emitted red fluorescence and announced the results happily, "Except for the few that were killed at the beginning, the Fire Salamander that Mr. Anderson collected blood from are basically still alive."

The professor who Care of Magical Creatures continued, "The best way to preserve the collected blood is to put it in Fire Salamander flames. If it is stored directly in a bottle, the healing and recovery functions of the Fire Salamander blood will gradually weaken. Therefore, most Fire Salamander blood needs to be preserved in a special way or used immediately after it is collected."

"I remember a small bottle, something like... ten Sickle?" Fred looked at the test tube in his hand, muttering something to himself.

"Don't be silly. To paraphrase Albert, if it were that easy to make money, would you even be here?" Lee Jordan labeled the test tube and handed it to Kettleburn.

"Is this thing really made of silver? Is it very valuable?" George asked Albert, fiddling with the Occamy Statue in his hand.

"Don't be silly, even if it's silver, it's not worth much." Albert looked at George speechlessly; this thing was more of a souvenir.

After class, everyone extinguished the campfire and hurried back to the Common Room in the rain.

Then, she couldn't wait to take a hot shower, carefully clean off the dirt, change into clean clothes, and then run to the fireplace in the Common Room to warm herself and chat.

When Fred and George arrived at the Common Room with glass bottles, ready to try feeding the Fire Salamander fireworks, Wood suddenly appeared and pulled them away to train.

"Wait, I remember we didn't have Quidditch practice today," Fred shouted, struggling to speak.

"Oh, no, not at all," Wood said with a smile. "However, Hufflepuff skipped training today and gave us the Quidditch Pitch."

"How pitiful!" Albert sighed softly as he looked out the window.

It's no wonder he got sick and caught a cold, since he had just come back from outside and was dragged out into the rain again.

The rain intensified, and raindrops pattered against the castle windows.

Albert picked up his teacup, took a sip of his milk tea, sent a message to Isobel using his Communication Bookmark, and then picked up a book to read. This damned "Reading Maniac" quest had taken him three whole years to complete, and his progress was currently stuck at 76, very close to 100.

"How about we give it a try?" Lee Jordan felt a little itchy and wanted to feed the Fire Salamander fireworks to see what would happen.

"Forget it," Albert said casually. "Let's try it again when Fred and George get back. They've been waiting for this for a long time."

"Oh, okay!"

After Angelina and the others went to the Quidditch Pitch for training, Lee Jordan couldn't find anyone to chat with, so he took out his homework and sat down next to Albert to start working on it quietly. It just so happened that Albert was free, so he could ask him any questions he had.

Just then, Percy took a notice and posted it on the old Gryffindor bulletin board. It announced the first Hogsmeade Weekend of the term, at the end of October.

For Albert and his friends, who frequently visited Hogsmeade, this thing no longer held much appeal for them.

However, it's actually not bad to be able to visit Hogsmeade, at least you don't have to sneak off to Hogsmeade.

The happiest people were the third-year students, as this was their first time visiting Hogsmeade. Many of them gathered together, whispering and discussing the interesting things about Hogsmeade.

They talked about the joke props in Zonko's Joke Shop and how to bring them into school without Filch noticing.

This Mr. Filch has practically become the school's number one villain. I heard he recently caught a cold and is in a particularly bad mood, always looking for trouble with the students.

The group seemed to be planning to give Filch something to do so that he wouldn't have time to cause trouble for them.

Albert paused in his book-turning motion, listened intently to their brilliant plan, and was immediately speechless.

These guys planned to "accidentally" smear Frog Brains on the ceiling of the Fifth Underground Classroom, forcing Filch to spend a lot of time cleaning it up.

"I think throwing a few rotten eggs into Filch's office would be more fun than this," Lee Jordan muttered under his breath.

In fact, many students like to use the former method to cause trouble for Filch. However, if Filch catches them in the act, they will be ordered to clean up the mess.