A Bite of Hogwarts - chapter 49

“Whew, so it was really just chocolate?”

After listening to Ron’s explanation, Hermione finally went back to normal. She dubiously glanced at the five-sided box on which the words ‘Chocolate Frog’ was written, still unable to work up the courage to open it.

“I’m Hermione Granger. Happy to meet all of you, but I think I should continue to search for Neville’s toad.”

Hermione’s tone had clearly weakened after the fright she had received. After taking one last glance and seeing the leg of a Chocolate Frog disappearing into Alina’s mouth, she nodded her head and prepared to leave.

Want to run? Absolutely not.

Alina squinted her eyes, licking the chocolate off her fingers as she sweetly chuckled and called out to Hermione.

“Wait a moment, fellow student, please hold on.”

The silver-haired girl spoke in a very strange tone, with all the stiffness of a foreign student who didn’t understand English very well. Alina stood up and quickly walked over to the door.

??

Hermione stopped in confusion and curiously looked at the silver-haired girl.

“This method of yours is too slow and not very effective. When you encounter a problem, don’t be in such a rush. Come, come, sit down for a while so we can talk about how to help you.”

Swoosh.

Alina smiled as she extended a foot and closed the door. She then pulled Hermione’s hand, half-pulling and half-dragging her to the seat beside her.

The normally obedient Hermione didn’t have the strength to overcome Alina, who had once trained with the father. After a weak struggle, she was pushed into the seat.

Looking up at the exquisite face of the silver-haired girl, a smear of chocolate still on the corner of her lips, Hermione panicked and began to weakly struggle again.

“No, wait, I still need to…”

“Quiet. Eat some candy and listen to me.”

Alina shook her head, snatched the half-full box of Ferrero chocolates from Ron’s hand, and took one out to force into Hermione’s mouth, preventing her from finishing her sentence.

“First, do you know what this toad looks like? Second, have you estimated its position by taking into account its movement speed? Finally, as a first-year student, can you guarantee that the higher-year students would be willing to help you?”

Alina listed off a series of problems, and the stubborn Hermione’s face instantly softened as she shook her head blankly. In truth, she had been powered entirely by passion, the desire to help that pitiful round-faced boy, and she really hadn’t thought about the problem too much.

“So, what do you think I should do?” Hermione quickly finished crunching through the Ferrero chocolate and swallowing. Looking up, she spoke in an unconvinced tone, “I can’t just give up on looking just because it’s too hard.”

“Of course not.”

Alina raised an eyebrow and smugly chuckled. She turned to Harry and asked, “Harry, can you lend me a few Sickles? I’ll return them once we get to school.”

“Huh? Oh, oh, okay.”

Harry, who had been earnestly listening to the conversation, hastily nodded and placed a few silver coins in Alina’s palm. He curiously looked at her, wondering what she was going to do with them.

“Please wait a moment…”

Alina put away the coins, went out the compartment, looked to her left and right, and then ran off.

Around three minutes later, the gasping girl reappeared at the entrance to the compartment, smiling as she clapped her hands. “Alright, it’s settled. Granger, you can just sit here and wait. I think it won’t be long until Neville’s toad is delivered.”

“Eh? Why?” Hermione asked.

“It’s very simple. Have you ever heard about offering a reward?”

Alina squinted her eyes and wagged her index finger.

“I just asked the trolley lady that whenever she goes to a compartment, she should announce that anyone who returns a lost toad to this compartment can take up to two Sickles worth of snacks from the trolley, and they can also learn a secret passage that most students of Hogwarts don’t know.”

“A secret passage? I remember those being mentioned in ‘Hogwarts: A History,’ but it didn’t record their exact location. You know where one of them is?”

Hermione was the first to react, looking at Alina with a gaze brimming with curiosity.

“Of course. This is a secret Dumbledore told me himself. On the eighth floor of the castle, behind two ugly stone statues, is a secret place that requires a password to enter. The passwords change frequently, but the majority of the passwords are foods.”

Alina mysteriously smiled as she looked around at her three bright-eyed friends. She was anticipating their faces when they followed her directions and ended up finding the Headmaster’s office.

“Mm, well anyway, thank you. If there’s nothing else, I’ll go back?”

Hermione nodded and remembered Alina’s words. Standing up, she tidied the wrinkles on her robe and prepared to leave.

She was here already, but she wanted to leave? Little Hermione was quite disobedient…

Alina rolled her eyes, her expression suddenly darkening. She licked her lips and added a sinister comment.

“Of course, you can leave, but I can’t promise you that I might not accidentally end up taking a cute toad for a Chocolate Frog and eating it up. Thus, I advise you to remain and wait with us.”

QAQ!!!X3

It wasn’t just Hermione, but also Ron and Harry that grimaced this time, staring in fear at the silver-haired girl like she was some vicious monster.

Pft~

Alina couldn’t help but laugh at her fearful little friends. Her frightening visage melting away like snow under the sun. Bending her finger, she softly rapped the three of them on their heads.

“It’s just a joke. I would never do such a thing.”

“Whew…I have to say, Alina, that face of yours really scared me. Harry, what do you think.”

Hermione sighed in relief. Rolling her eyes as she slapped Alina’s hand.

Harry and Ron nodded in agreement, but it was primarily because of the shadow that had been cast over their hearts by Alina’s previous and skillful hunt from before: the strike, the capture, and the biting of the head.

“Right, right, I almost thought it was real.”

“That’s right. It was really scary.”

Alina blinked her eyes. It seemed that while she was gone, the three had introduced themselves to each other and had already begun to form their own little group?

Without the damage done by those two magic contests, it seemed that their first impressions of each other weren’t as bad as in the original work.

But…little Hermione had slapped her hand. This was no good. It was necessary that the boundaries in this family (Crossout) were clearly established. After some thought, Alina began to speak in a gentle tone.

“Putting aside toads that are poisonous, even frogs that aren’t poisonous, have many parasites, so it’s best not to eat them.”

As the silver-haired girl spoke, she extended her pink tongue and licked her upper lips. As fear crept into the frozen faces of the young wizards, she began her lecture.

“However, frogs not only have a high nutritional value, but their meat is also usually exceptionally tasty and healthy. The right method to cook them is to seize them, remove their heads, peel their skin, remove their organs, and then boil or roast them. In any case, they need to be cooked before being eaten…”

Tap, tap, tap.

Whoosh.

Before Alina could finish speaking, there was a knocking on the compartment door, and then someone slid the door open.

Three boys walked in, their leader a pale-faced boy with slick golden hair. To his left and right were two chubby boys who seemed more like bodyguards. The chubby boy on the left was holding a yellow-green toad.

“I heard that if we delivered this, we could find out about…”

Draco Malfoy said in anticipation as he opened the door.

The boy happened to hear the last part of Alina’s lecture as he opened the door, and after carefully examining the silver-haired girl’s back, he panicked and hastily shut the door.

“Apologies, wrong room.”

Pa.

Someone had seized the door, preventing it from closing.

Alina had turned around, her lake-blue eyes glancing at the toad being held by the plump boy before turning back to the golden-haired young wizard. To think that little Malfoy and crew would find Neville’s toad…

“Oh, Draco, we meet again. Don’t be in such a rush to leave! The world is truly odd, don’t you think?”