Are You Planning to Play Baseball?

Harry felt a bit restless.

If that wand wasn't in Silvan's hands, what would happen to Ron's Christmas present? It seemed too late to prepare anything else now.

"Can you make another one?" Harry asked cautiously.

"I could, and the materials are all on hand," Silvan said, "but are you sure? A wand isn't parchment; a new one might not necessarily suit Ron."

"Then what should we do..."

"Don't worry, we can try. Christmas is the day after tomorrow, and my grandfather shouldn't have gone too far." Silvan glanced out the window.

"If everything goes well, we should make it in time." He stood up. "Let's go. We'll check the owlery first to see if there's a strong enough messenger."

"Use Hedwig," Harry said.

"Huh?"

"My owl, Hedwig," Harry said. "She's a snowy owl!"

"Oh, that's perfect." Silvan patted his forehead.

Harry had an owl, how could he have forgotten that? Besides, a snowy owl was a twenty-Galleon pet, belonging to the most expensive tier in the pet shop; its flight speed and stamina were naturally much better than an average owl.

Silvan wrote a letter and went with Harry to the owlery to find the beautiful snowy owl.

She was truly worthy of being a twenty-Galleon breed; she stood out in the owlery like a searchlight, visible at a glance.

Seeing Harry, Hedwig flew over immediately and affectionately nipped his finger, making Silvan feel a pang of envy.

He thought of his own pet, Tom, who spent his days wandering around out of sight and was obsessed with how to eat his colleagues.

Bah, he shouldn't have been so cheap in the first place.

Silvan and Harry arrived at the Great Hall ten minutes after dinner had started. Although they were a bit late, they at least didn't have to go hungry.

Ron found it very strange. Harry had said earlier that he had something to do, so why did he come back with Silvan?

During the meal, he kept fishing for information, wanting to know what Harry had been doing, but he never got an answer.

Harry simply didn't take the bait and pretended not to understand. When he really couldn't avoid it, he racked his brains to make up an excuse about doing homework, which managed to brush Ron off.

Ron didn't seem entirely convinced, but he stopped asking.

Afterward, the two of them huddled with Hermione, whispering about other things.

Silvan sat nearby, and even though he had no intention of eavesdropping, he vaguely caught the gist of it.

Simply put, Hermione wanted Ron and Harry to go to the library during the holidays to look for someone named Nicolas Flamel.

However, expecting Harry and Ron to go to the library during the holidays... let's just say Hermione's idea was very optimistic.

To welcome the upcoming holidays, the Gryffindor students held a small celebration in the common room.

The food was brought from the school kitchen by the Weasley brothers, including pies, whole roast chickens, tender and juicy steaks, pumpkin juice, pea biscuits... it was much more sumptuous than dinner.

There was also Butterbeer from Hogsmeade.

However, only a few people had this, or more accurately, Fred and George only brought one bottle for Silvan.

Of course, this wasn't because they were closer to Silvan; they wanted to know the secret to how Silvan could use multiple wands.

A wizard could only use one wand; this was a recognized common sense in the wizarding world.

Of course, it wasn't as if no one had tried buying a second wand—there were quite a few such people—but they soon discovered that this so-called second wand was almost useless.

Wands that were perfectly normal in the shop would not only produce spells slowly once held in their hands, but the magical intensity would also be significantly weakened. Not to mention being useless in a fight, even the simplest cleaning spell would sometimes leave behind bits and pieces of residue.

This situation would only change if they voluntarily gave up their first wand; otherwise, it was just a waste of a dozen Galleons.

No one knew why this was, and even if they went to Ollivanders Wand Shop to ask, they would only get the cryptic answer that "the wand chooses the wizard."

Silvan's words that afternoon had almost opened a new magical door for Fred and George.

They wanted to learn it so badly; even if they couldn't wield three at once, just being able to use one in each hand was very tempting.

Silvan wasn't a stingy person either. Since he had drunk their Butterbeer, he naturally had to help answer their questions.

So he told Fred and George that it was simple to achieve this: they just needed to learn how to make wands.

Afterward, the two of them actually went to the library overnight to look for books on wands... though it was hard to say how long they would keep it up.

Early the next morning, the students going home for the holidays left the castle to take the train at the station, and the once crowded and lively Gryffindor common room suddenly became empty.

Silvan had woken up early and was now sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, fiddling with a "baseball bat" that had been split in two down the middle.

When Harry and Ron came over, Silvan was using a scarlet quill to draw and mark on it.

"Good morning, Silvan." Harry greeted him and sat down with Ron in the armchairs nearby.

Today, they could sit in these usually most popular spots as they pleased.

Ron found some leftover bread and flatbread from last night, poked them with a toasting fork, and roasted them in the fireplace.

Harry, however, frowned and looked around for something.

"What's wrong with you?" Ron handed him a charred piece of flatbread.

"Do you smell something?"

"Ah, it's a bit burnt," Ron said, feeling a little embarrassed.

"No, not that." Harry shook his head, hesitated for a moment, and said, "I think I smell blood."

"Now that you mention it, I think I smell it too." Ron looked up and also started searching around.

"No need to look, it's this." Silvan said, showing the red quill in his hand to the two of them.

"You're using blood as ink?" Ron stared, his voice full of disbelief.

"It's not ink, it's... well, you can think of it as a kind of medium," Silvan explained.

"I wanted to ask just now." Harry looked at Silvan. "Are you planning to play baseball?"

"What's baseball?" Ron asked.

"A Muggle sport," Harry explained. "They use a wooden bat to hit a ball away."

"A Beater?" Ron immediately thought of his two brothers, who had to use wooden bats to hit balls away in Quidditch matches.

"Sort of." Harry thought for a moment. "But the bat is much longer, and they don't hit Bludgers."

"I don't know, I've never played," Harry said. "My cousin Dudley bought a baseball bat, but he never played baseball, not even once. I guess he just liked the stick itself."

"I've never played baseball either," Silvan said. "Actually, this is the wand I'm going to make next."