Facing such a big pot of noodles, Hermione had originally wanted plates and forks, but Kate stopped her.
You're supposed to eat noodles with a bowl and chopsticks!
And so the four of them sat cross-legged on the floor, gathered around the pot of noodles, each holding a bowl and chopsticks, and began picking up the noodles in their own various fashions.
Kate and Cho Chang were the most adept with chopsticks, easily lifting the noodles with almost no difficulty at all.
But Hermione and Luna, being the natives, had a harder time of it—after all, it's universally known that foreigners aren't very good with chopsticks.
After they struggled to imitate the others around them, trying again and again to pick up the noodles with chopsticks only to fail, Kate had no choice but to switch them over to forks.
Well, at least they could manage with those.
"I didn't expect you'd actually know how to use chopsticks." As one of only two people eating with chopsticks, Cho Chang couldn't help being a bit pleasantly surprised.
Among those around her, very few had ever been able to use chopsticks skillfully and freely; of all the people she knew, only East Asians could easily master the skill.
"I guess I'm just naturally gifted." Kate calmly slurped up a mouthful of noodles, and when she raised her head she saw the indescribable looks on Hermione's and Luna's faces.
She gave a dry cough and had to admit, "Fine—the truth is that I used to secretly put Grandpa Rand's wand together with a wooden stick and play at picking things up with them all over the place."
"Pfft!" Hermione burst out laughing. "Playing with someone's wand—weren't you afraid of breaking it!"
A wand was a Wizard's second life; who would dare casually hand one over to a child to play with?
Kate shrugged innocently. "You can't blame me for that—Grandpa Rand gave it to me of his own accord, and even told me to play with it however I liked!"
Back then she'd never imagined she would enter the magical world, so with a chance to get her hands on a wand, why would she pass it up?
"All right, I thought you must have some Asian relatives in your family or something." Cho Chang shook her head helplessly.
Asian relatives?
Kate stroked her chin thoughtfully. On the Shafiq family side there had been no intermarriage with Asians, but on her mother's side it was hard to say.
The thought occurred to her because, upon hearing Cho Chang say this, some fragmented snippets flashed through her mind.
In those broken, scattered memories, herself as a child had once been picked up by a man with somewhat Asian features.
But such a memory fragment was something she'd never recalled before.
Probably it wasn't important, so even she herself had forgotten it.
"Who knows," Kate shrugged. "Maybe one of my ancestors really did live with an Asian person."
As she spoke she reached out with her chopsticks, which happened to collide right with Cho Chang's.
Kate paused for a moment, then with a twist of her wrist curved around them, picked up the noodles and set them in her own bowl, and even grinned at her smugly. "Looks like I'm a bit more nimble than you."
"You..." Cho Chang shook her head with a helpless laugh. "Forget it—tomorrow's your birthday anyway, so whatever you say goes."
"Heh heh!"
As the two of them teased each other as if no one else were there, Luna silently swallowed a mouthful of noodles, then glanced up at the expression on the face of Hermione, who was seated directly across from her.
Oh my, it was already about as dark as the burnt bottom of Senior Cho Chang's pot.
She quickly coughed and said softly, "It's almost twelve o'clock, you know."
Kate looked up at the clock on the wall, and sure enough, there were less than ten minutes left before the next day.
Actually, the time she was born fell right at the boundary between the 26th and the 27th, so it didn't matter which day she celebrated her birthday; for convenience's sake, she simply marked it down as December 26th.
"Then let's hurry and clean up." Cho Chang quickly used a spell to clean out the cauldron, which had been eaten right down to the bottom, then gathered the other bowls and chopsticks together and carried them off to the balcony.
Hermione also said with some regret, "It's a shame we couldn't order a cake here, otherwise we could at least have blown out candles."
"What does it matter whether there's a cake or not?" Kate said with a cheerful laugh. "I've already eaten longevity noodles, and now I have all of you keeping me company—isn't that wonderful?"
Luna's eyes flickered slightly. She pulled her wand out of her pocket and said softly, "Lumos."
The tip of the wand instantly lit up.
"That's right, we can use the wands as candles." Hermione immediately understood her meaning, and delightedly pulled out her own wand. "After Kate makes her wish, we'll all extinguish the Lumos at the same time!"
Two wands lit up, brilliantly illuminating the spot where they sat.
Soon Cho Chang came back from cleaning up the pots and dishes, and seeing that everyone was waiting for her, she hurriedly sat down and pulled out her wand too.
Three wands lit up. Kate didn't know whether to laugh or be touched. "This is a bit too bright, isn't it."
"Not bright enough, not bright enough!" Hermione held up her wand, the Lumos reflected in her eyes. "Kate, hurry and light your wand—it's less than a minute to twelve!"
The second hand on the clock face was still diligently turning, and the three hands about to overlap signaled the imminent arrival of the next day.
Kate looked at the three little faces before her, lit up by the Lumos, gave a soft laugh, and raised her own wand as well.
The fourth wand lit up, and the time reached midnight of the next day.
She closed her eyes, silently reciting her wish in her heart, then opened them again and blew hard across all the wands.
All the light in the room went out at once, leaving only the four girls in the darkness.
After a moment, Luna's little moon night-light automatically rose up, floating above her head and illuminating her position.
When they could see each other's faces clearly again, the four of them instantly broke into a fit of laughter.
"Kate, happy birthday!" Hermione was the first to stand up, hugging her tightly.
"Hey... don't you think it's a bit tight?" Kate spread her arms helplessly, reminding her in a low voice.
But Hermione couldn't care less, stubbornly clinging to her and refusing to let go.
Seeing this, the smile on Cho Chang's face visibly faded quite a bit, but she still said sincerely, "Kate, happy fourteenth birthday."
"Senior Kate, happy birthday." Luna also rose onto her tiptoes, trying hard to make her presence felt.
"Thank you." Held by Hermione, Kate could only awkwardly reach out, patting one on the shoulder and stroking the other's head.
Then, with some effort, she finally pried Hermione off. "All right, it's getting late—off to bed, quick!"
"I'm going to take a shower!"
"Me too!"
Hermione and Luna went into the bathroom one after another. Cho Chang rubbed her nose a bit awkwardly, made an excuse that she still had something not yet washed clean, and went off to the balcony.
Whew... fourteen years old now.
Kate rubbed her once-again-stuffed little belly and was just about to climb into bed when she heard a knocking at the door.
She walked over and opened it, only to find no one there anymore.
There was only a plastic box, filled with five-pointed stars made out of candy wrappers.
And a note, on which "Happy birthday" was written in elegant handwriting.
Candy wrappers, huh...
She could pretty much guess who had sent it.
...
Having spent her birthday simply, the next morning it was time to take the train back to school.
On that last morning, however, the moment Kate got out of bed she saw several things piled at the head of her bed, with a little note tucked among them.
"We've gone to the second floor to bring back breakfast for you. If you're awake, you can open the presents and have a look first."
This whole pile of things was all presents.
Kate's interest was immediately piqued. She opened the biggest one first, which turned out to be a Slytherin snake-head hat sewn by Luna.
Worn on her head the size was just right, and the design was quite imposing too—it was only that the bright green color always gave her a not-so-pleasant association.
But then again, she wasn't yet at the age for dating anyway; Great Britain has its own national conditions, so why fuss over the color?
Happily accepting it, she then opened two more at once.
Very nice—a pair of rhinoceros-horn chopsticks and a magical quill, both very characteristic of the gift-givers.
The chopsticks especially—the texture felt almost on par with her wand; she could try them out next time she cooked noodles in the dormitory.
Deftly putting away the gifts, Kate finished washing up and came out to find that Hermione and the others had already brought up some breakfast.
Soon breakfast was finished, and after another half hour of packing their luggage, they finally carried their bags large and small downstairs.
By that time a crowd of students was already waiting below. The Prefects struggled to keep order, but the whole hotel lobby was still noisy and clamorous.
"It looks like everyone's pretty satisfied with this study tour." Kate listened to the various impressions of the activity floating through the crowd as she squeezed her way inside.
It was just that next time they'd still have to limit the numbers a little and raise the threshold for taking part in the activity.
For instance, only students above third year and below sixth year would be allowed to join the Christmas study tour; that would also greatly ease the pressure on all parties.
This time the various Shafiq family shops had all made a fortune, but correspondingly, the daily foot-traffic pressure the shops bore was also enormous.
Even the Aurors who normally stayed behind at the hotel looked considerably more aged.
Not to mention the Professors in charge of leading the groups—apart from Snape, who looked as imposing as ever, the others were all as worn out as frost-bitten eggplants.
Even a vigorous narcissist like Lockhart had, for once, gone several days in a row without boasting about himself.
Of course, this was mainly because the incompetence he'd exposed during this study tour had been absurdly extensive—even the little witches who'd once been charmed by him had been struck back to their senses by reality.
Kate thought that even if he didn't end up utterly disgraced, he probably wouldn't be able to last at Hogwarts next year.
With great effort the group took the subway to the station, then passed one by one through the wall, and by the time they boarded the train it was already nearly noon.
The four of them sat together, eating the lunch they'd prepared in advance, and after discussing their homework for a while, they wearily drifted off to sleep.
No matter how happy a trip was, the journey back was always utterly exhausting.
By dusk the train arrived at the school. Sitting in a carriage pulled by Thestrals, Kate gazed from afar at the brightly lit Hogwarts castle that had been awaiting them for some time, and faintly felt that something about the castle seemed a little different.
Old Man Dumbledore hadn't really renovated the whole castle, had he?
Holding on to a few such doubts, they finally entered the Great Hall, only to see that the Christmas decorations that had been on the ceiling before they left had all been cleared away, leaving only a bright, serene night sky.
During the study tour the different Academies could get along harmoniously, but the moment they returned here, everyone consciously went back to sit at their own Academy's long table.
"Everyone." Dumbledore walked to the front of the platform and gently tapped his goblet, instantly quieting the entire Great Hall. "First, welcome back from your holiday.
As you can see, during Christmas Hogwarts underwent some simple repair and refurbishment work; I ask all of you students to take good care of our school."
As Dumbledore spoke, his deep blue eyes swept gratifiedly over the little ones below, his gaze lingering on Kate for a while.
"After dinner, please have all Prefects lead the students of their Academy back to their respective Common Rooms. Tomorrow is the last day of the Christmas holiday, so please get plenty of rest, students, and prepare yourselves for classes after the break."
With that, he tapped his goblet, and a dazzling array of food appeared on each Academy's long table.
The students gave a cheer, then began to feast heartily amid talk and laughter.
Kate glanced at Dumbledore up on the platform and narrowed her eyes, as if sensing something.
After dinner, returning to the Common Room along with the little snakes, Kate still made a beeline straight back to her dormitory, where she searched around and finally discovered Fluffball fast asleep in a corner of the room.
The little fellow had gotten a whole size fatter—obviously Hagrid had fed it too much birdseed.
"Honestly, if this keeps up, I'm going to have to put you on a diet." Carefully placing it back into its birdcage, Kate muttered helplessly to herself.
A Dodo couldn't fly to begin with, relying entirely on its own teleportation ability to flee danger; raising it too fat would only hurt its escape speed down the line.
Next time she got up for her morning run, she might as well just bring it along.
The soundly sleeping Fluffball had no idea at all that its owner had just made such a cruel decision for it, an underage little bird.
Having settled Fluffball, Kate took out her wand again and gently tapped the wall twice.
After a moment, a golden thread passed through the wall and lightly wound itself around her fingertip.
Oh my, Dumbledore had actually not removed the golden thread she'd placed inside the wall—how curious.
To be honest, Kate felt Old Man Dumbledore was being a bit too good to her. Even if he'd never suspected her because of her background, there was still no need to accommodate her in so many matters, was there?
Even with the Harry of the original works, Dumbledore had faced him in the image of a guide, rather than as the collaborator he became when facing her.
And rather than calling it collaboration, it was more that he was cooperating with her—whether dealing with the diary, or facing the Basilisk.
Even with the old butler backing her, the dignified White Dark Lord wouldn't go to such lengths for an underage little brat like her, would he?
Not because of the old butler, not because of the Shafiq family—then it could only be because of her, the person herself.
Could it be that Old Man Dumbledore had taken a fancy to her abilities and was planning to make her Harry's right-hand assistant, and so had been evaluating her all along?
It sounded perfectly reasonable, but as for what was actually going on, only Dumbledore himself knew for sure.
In any case, the feeling of being trusted was always nice; as long as Old Man Dumbledore wasn't planning to send her off to die the way he did with Harry, nothing else mattered.
Yawning, she casually released the golden thread, shook her head wearily a few times, and glanced at the clock on the wall.
Better to sleep early; starting tomorrow, she would be returning to her state as a relentless overachiever once more.
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