Chapter 271 Chimera and Owl
Perhaps because he brought back white wine, the ginger cat jumped down from the cat climbing frame, followed him into the bedroom, and sat down next to the cat food bowl.
Anthony pretended not to see it, walked around the cat bed on the ground, sat down by the bed, and looked through the books he had placed in the bedside table. The cat waited for a while, jumped onto the bedside table, and looked at him with its tail wagging.
Anthony tried to bargain with it: "Wait until the evening before drinking, okay? I can turn you back into a skeleton."
The cat stared at him for a while, not knowing whether it understood, and proudly jumped off the bedside table and walked towards the door.
"Cat?" Anthony said, "Have we reached an agreement?"
The ginger cat left without looking back, its tail wagging irritably. Anthony heard a very loud cracking sound coming from outside the door, probably because his teacup or teapot was knocked to the ground. In his mind, the anger of the ghost chicken was already burning.
The ghost mouse rushed into the bedroom from the office. Anthony took the book, sighed, stood up from the bed, and looked into the office. As expected, the chicken and the cat were hugging each other and fighting.
...
At night, Anthony almost forgot that he had agreed to let the cat drink. He thought the cat's behavior was to refuse the proposal, but it quietly walked into the bedroom before Anthony went into the bathroom, and when Anthony came out, he saw a ginger cat sitting in front of the food bowl.
"Okay, okay." Anthony said, opened a bottle of wine for it, poured it into the food bowl, and at the same time made the ginger cat hair and long, white whiskers disappear.
The skeleton cat couldn't wait to bury its head in the wine, and the soul fire in its eye sockets burned on the surface of the liquid.
The ghost chicken stood aside, tilted its head and looked at it curiously for a while, tentatively lowered its head to peck at the wine, and was angrily driven away by the skeleton cat.
Anthony turned off the light. The light came through the gap between the curtains that were not closed tightly, leaving a long bright block on the ground. Anthony walked over and pulled the curtains. The snow had stopped, and the white snow on the ground reflected the moonlight in the dark night.
The ghost mouse poked its head out of his pocket and looked up at the scene outside.
Anthony rubbed its head with his fingers and closed the curtains. The only light in the room was the dying fire in the fireplace and the steady light of the skeleton cat burning white wine.
The ghost chicken walked around Anthony's office happily. When Anthony lay on the bed, he could hear the sound of its claws on the floor. The ghost mouse rustled into the cat's nest. Anthony closed his eyes and remembered that he needed to remind Hagrid to send those chimeras away as soon as possible.
In the middle of the night, he woke up from a nightmare and suddenly felt something hard against him. He moved his arm slightly and felt that he was sticking to a pile of cold bones.
Anthony thought about it for a while in confusion before realizing that it was the skeleton cat that got into his quilt. The skeleton cat bit him impatiently.
Anthony let out a sigh, hugged the skeleton cat lightly, and fell asleep again.
…
The next day, Anthony went to Hagrid's cabin after breakfast. Hagrid was sweeping the road at the door and piling snow on both sides of the road. Fang was putting his nose to the ground, sniffing with interest. When Anthony came over, he suddenly raised his head and turned around, barking excitedly in his direction, stood up and lay on him, licking Anthony's face.
"Good morning, Fang." Anthony said, tilting his face back to avoid a warm greeting, "Oh, it seems you are in a good mood today."
"Henry!" Hagrid said happily, "Stay back, Fang, stay back!"
Hagrid switched the snow shovel to his other hand, grabbed Fang's collar, and easily lifted the huge hound away.
"I was still wondering when you would come to see me, Henry," Hagrid said.
"Ya really needs to brush her teeth," Anthony said, wiping his face. "Good morning, Hagrid. I brought you some brandy from the Leaky Cauldron... and some news. Do you mind if I go to the room and talk?"
His hand was already on the wooden door.
"Wait a minute..." Hagrid said.
Anthony turned his head and asked, "What's wrong?"
It was too late, the door was already open. He heard panicked shouts from the room, followed by a roar. Anthony turned his head and saw a young Chimaera with a lion's head, a sheep's body, and a dragon's tail rushing towards the door... and then being caught by Hagrid.
Anthony gave up the shock spell he almost used subconsciously. Yaa whimpered and ran away, turning his head to watch from a distance.
"That's why I asked you to wait, Henry," Hagrid said, letting the Chimaera attack him hard, easily pinching the back of the neck to lift it up and throw it into the box.
With a sharp sound, the snow shovel leaning against the snow pile slowly slipped. Hagrid locked the box with a bang. The chimera violently hit the slats, and the nails and boards of the crate made a terrible creaking sound.
Anthony followed Hagrid into the hut and closed the door with his backhand.
"That's why I came to you, Hagrid." Anthony said, "You should contact the merchant as soon as possible and send these cute and biting kittens away. Christmas is coming, don't forget that we still have to visit Norbert." He opened Hagrid's cabinet with ease and found two cups inside.
Anthony rinsed the cup with water, turned around and put it on the table, and suddenly noticed that there was another person in the whole room.
Ron Weasley, wearing a very rough lion hood on his head and dragon skin gloves on his hands, was holding a bloody piece of meat and was looking at him in shock. He was draped in one of Hagrid's patchwork sheets and standing in the corner, looking like an oddly crude clothes rack in the room.
Anthony almost subconsciously hid the brandy back in Hagrid's cabinet and pulled out a box of tea.
"Mr. Weasley?" Anthony then remembered the shout he had just heard.
"Ron and the others sometimes come over to help me feed the Chimaira beasts," Hagrid happily introduced.
"Wait, Hagrid." Anthony confirmed, "Only Mr. Weasley and no one else? I remember that you and Fang were outside the house when I came."
Hagrid said: "Harry has Quidditch practice again this morning, otherwise he usually comes too. Sometimes Hermione, too, but..." He glanced at Ron, and Ron's face turned red. , Hagrid leaned closer to Anthony and whispered as softly as he could, "They had a fight."
Ron's face turned redder, but he looked like he was angry: "It's not a quarrel, Hagrid, it's just that Hermione refused to accept that she was wrong - she is simply unreasonable! She has been trying to persuade Sirius to give him that House elves are free, saying that only rotten, stubborn Slytherins would retain the practice of enslaving house elves. I told her that house elves need masters and jobs, but she scolded me!"
"Gee," said Hagrid, "there's no need for you to argue over something like this. You're friends anyway."
Ron said angrily: "She also said that I am stubborn, lazy, and lack compassion, so I want a house elf to help me take care of everything, which is no better than those Slytherins."
Hagrid said tolerantly: "I know, Hermione also told me about this when she came to feed them last time."
"Did Miss Granger feed the Chimeras alone?" Anthony said in disbelief. "Hagrid, you can't let students stay alone in a room full of Chimeras! Of course, before that, , and you shouldn’t let students come into contact with Chimaira beasts, or raise Chimaira beasts illegally—but this time it’s really too dangerous!”
Hagrid muttered: "They haven't grown up yet... Besides, they will only attack humans..."
Anthony glanced at Ron's clumsy costume that tried to disguise him as a lion - wait, it couldn't be a Chimera disguised as a lion - and said firmly: "No, Hagrid, this That's too much. You have to give them all away. I don't care who you give them to: the peddler, Professor Kettleburn, or some Chimera expert... but you have to give them away before they cause more trouble. They leave here."
He did know that Hagrid would sometimes let Harry, Ron, and Hermione feed the Chimeras - in fact, he had helped Hagrid feed them a few times himself - but the few times he bumped into them, these The students had Hagrid by their side, and given that Hagrid could easily hold down any crazed chimera, feeding a XXXXX-level magical creature really wasn't "that" dangerous in Hagrid's company. But leaving students to face Chimairamon alone is another matter.
Hagrid was about to say something else, but Anthony interrupted: "Ms. Umbridge will be coming to Hogwarts soon as a senior inquisitor. Hagrid, I guarantee you that you will not be happy to deal with her." "I especially don't want her to discover the... vitality and vitality here. I'm sorry, Hagrid, but I don't want to see you in Azkaban."
Hagrid said dejectedly: "Oh, well... they are quite interesting..."
Anthony comforted: "But after you return them to the merchant, you can get the horned animal skin and make a Christmas gift for Norbert."
"Okay, you're right, Henry." Hagrid took a breath and said determinedly, "I will contact him this afternoon."
From the corner of his eye, Anthony could see the lion's head in the corner sinking suddenly, and Ron was obviously relieved.
"This morning," said Anthony, "we can go to the owl loft together later."
…
The owl loft was in a mess, with feathers flying everywhere, and the floor was covered with owl food and long and short feathers. Owls are constantly flying in from the square stone window high up, landing on the crossbar, lowering their heads to preen their feathers, or fluttering their wings to take a sip of water.
As soon as Anthony and Hagrid entered the owl loft, all the owls turned to look at them.
"I have a letter to deliver," Hagrid said loudly, waving the letter in his hand and taking out several dead rats from his pocket.
Several owls immediately flew down and landed on Hagrid's outstretched arm. They leaned over the letter in his hand and looked at the names on the envelope.
"Yeah, I don't know where he lives," Hagrid said to the owls, who were still studying the name. After a while, one of them called softly, and the others flew away and fell back on the crossbar.
Hagrid handed the dead mouse to the owl still on his arm and said happily, "That's great, thank you." He watched indifferently as the barn owl tried to remove the first one from his arm. The mouse swallowed it whole, including its fur. The mouse's long tail flashed against the owl's beak and then disappeared.
Anthony leaned against the door frame, watching Hagrid hand the second mouse to the owl, wondering if he should also prepare some dead mice for the owl, or if the owl would appreciate the cat's ball fish.
Just then, he saw an owl come in through the window, land on the shelf next to him, drink a sip of water, and peck a few bites of owl food, as if it had just delivered a long-distance letter. The owl stared at the envelope and the mouse in Hagrid's hand for a while, then turned around and suddenly saw Anthony.
Anthony watched the owl jump away.
"What's wrong?" he whispered, "You're the owl who helped me deliver the letter to Charlie, right? I thought we made peace because of bacon?"
The owl screamed in condemnation, looked at him a little annoyed, and turned to look at Hagrid. Hagrid was handing the third dead mouse to the very greedy barn owl.
"I'll bring you a mouse next time," Anthony promised.
The owl continued to stare at him with its round eyes.
"Three," Anthony said.
The owl tapped its beak, making a clicking sound.
"Four?" Anthony asked, "Five?"
The sound stopped.
"No problem, as long as you can stuff five mice into your stomach." Anthony said a little worriedly.
The owl seemed to be satisfied at last, and closed his eyes slightly to rest. Hagrid also tied his letter to the leg of the barn owl and sent it out the window.
"I sent it, Henry," Hagrid said, leaning against the window to watch the owl fly away, "Let's go."
"Okay," Anthony said, straightening up, and then he suddenly remembered something and turned to the owl beside him, "Do you want to try the dried ball fish?"
He guessed that if the owl flew silently to the highest point of the opposite shelf, it would mean a negative answer. Anthony decided to bring six mice next time.