The term had ended, and a silence as heavy as the snow on the ground settled over the entire castle.
The young witches and wizards going home for Christmas had left the castle on the Hogwarts Express the previous evening.
The whole school had suddenly grown much quieter, even feeling rather empty.
Zhang Xiao did not find it dreary. Instead, he found it peaceful.
Because of the attacks, particularly few students had chosen to stay at Hogwarts.
Although Fred and George had decided to remain at school, they spent their days in Hogsmeade and only returned to sleep. Their experiments seemed to have reached a critical stage.
Mrs. Weasley was still terribly worried about Ginny, but as the mandrakes in the greenhouses gradually matured,
her spirits had steadied considerably. Professor Sprout had told her that Ginny would be restored, completely unharmed, in just a few months.
Zhang Xiao thought ordinary people would go mad if they learned about this technique. Even in 2023, there had not been a reliable method of cryogenic preservation.
People with serious illnesses could simply find an opportunity to exchange a soulful gaze with a basilisk through a mirror.
Safe, painless, and reliable-it was just like freezing time. Incredibly useful.
Perhaps Ginny's petrification had stirred something in Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, for they decided to visit Bill and Charlie in Egypt and Romania.
One of them worked as a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts, breaking the curses pharaohs had left in their pyramids so the goblins could obtain their treasures.
Naturally, all the treasure belonged to the goblins.
The Egyptian Ministry of Magic was simply too weak. The goblins were practically shitting on their heads, and they could do nothing even while their ancestors' tombs were being looted.
It just went to show that although the goblins had