Chapter 482 - 33

Chapter 482: Chapter 33

"Tragic news. Rita Skeeter, the outstanding reporter familiar to all our readers, has now been confirmed missing. Rita Skeeter has worked in journalism for more than twenty years, and in her daily pursuit of bringing the public the truest possible news, she has never feared danger..."

Professor McGonagall read the article and sighed. "I saw her at Hogwarts just last week. To be honest, I’ve always thought she was a rather unpleasant woman, but I still wish her luck."

Inside the jar resting on Xiaobai’s head, the ladybug stretched its wings and bounced energetically around. It looked remarkably healthy.

In fact, Yimi had simply handed Rita over to Kreacher to look after. The aphids and scraps of leaves covering the bottom of the jar were what the ladybug had been eating over the past two days.

Rita did not dare transform back into human form. The jar Yimi had put her in was genuine glass, not plastic that merely happened to look transparent. Rita had even tried to destroy it without the aid of her wand, but it was quite clear that she could not.

"I finished it." Yimi showed McGonagall her empty plate.

This was the last of her vegetable-only punishment meals. Back home, she had eaten vegetables whenever Mama put them in her little bowl, but after getting used to tastier food, she had become less and less fond of them.

Hogwarts vegetarian food was not actually that bad. Things like chips were popular enough. But since this was supposed to be a punishment, naturally the meals had not been tailored to the kitty’s preferences.

"Pocket money, pocket money, pocket money." Yimi stood up and marched in place in front of McGonagall, urging her to hurry.

"If only you could put this kind of persistence into memorizing vocabulary." McGonagall took out a silver Sickle and placed it in Yimi’s palm.

"Ooh!" The little kitty held the Sickle in both hands and brought it close to her face for careful inspection.

One silver Sickle was worth twenty-nine bronze Knuts, and seventeen Sickles made one gold Galleon. For a child this small, that was probably a reasonable amount of pocket money. It was enough to buy roughly six copies of the Daily Prophet.

McGonagall took out a napkin and wiped Yimi’s mouth. "If there are any little snacks you want to buy, you can use one of the owls in the Owlery to send a letter. They’ll help you find a shop."

"Little snacks? I can only buy little snacks?" For once, Yimi caught on immediately. She looked as though someone had poured a bucket of cold water over her.

"What else?" Professor McGonagall gave her a stern look and began instructing her. "Did you think I was giving you enough money to buy a wand, dear? You should learn to save your pocket money if there’s something you want."

"Mmm."

Clutching the Sickle, Yimi began to miss her days in SAO. That had been the richest she had ever been.

She left in distress, counting on her fingers as she walked.

"Little cat!" Hermione called out to her.

Yimi puffed out her cheeks, ignored her, and hurried past.

Ron shrugged at Hermione. "Well, now she’s not speaking to us."

"All we learned was the Patronus Charm. Let’s hope whoever comes to teach next term isn’t Lockhart Number Two," Harry muttered.

Harry’s happy memory was obvious enough: the moment Sirius invited him to live with him as family.

"She’s just a child who’s upset. Buying her something should cheer her up." Hermione lowered her head as she answered.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom had been sealed. Dumbledore had said that once the year was over, the school would hire a new teacher and reopen the course. Yimi was rather unhappy about it and had not spoken to the group for the past two days.

But after hurrying away today, she suddenly walked backward just as quickly and stared straight at them.

"Do you have money?" Yimi asked bluntly.

"Money? We’re all just students, little cat." Hermione shook her head.

"Aren’t you supposed to have thirty silver Sickles?" Harry said quietly.

The joke did not land very well. Hermione glared at him, while Ron had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

"Can I ask what you need money for first?" Hermione asked. She had genuinely felt rather guilty toward the little girl these past few days, even though she still believed she had done the right thing.

"Tomorrow is Christmas. I want to buy the old man a birthday present." Yimi held up her Sickle and said dejectedly, "I only have this one."

Snacks were things the kitty could already eat fairly often, so they did not feel special. And she did not have time to save up any more pocket money.

"By ’old man,’ you don’t mean Jesus from before, do you?" Hermione asked. "Does he really need a birthday present? And Christmas only commemorates the day of his birth, it isn’t actually his birth— I mean, how are you planning to give it to him? Is he really your guardian?"

Of the three, Harry was actually the wealthiest. His parents had left him a large fortune in Gringotts, but he naturally did not go around boasting about it. On the surface, that made Hermione—the Muggle-born student Malfoy was always looking down on—seem to come from the best-off family.

Being Muggle-born did not mean she was poor. Both her parents were dentists, and Gringotts offered currency exchange for Muggle money.

Yimi knew none of that. She only heard that Hermione had thirty Sickles, so she tucked her hands together and asked, "Can you lend them to me? I’ll pay you back when I save enough. I can leave my game console with you as collateral."

"If I may say so, little cat, no matter who this old man is, adults never judge a child’s present by how much it costs," Hermione said seriously.

"Adults are obviously richer than you, aren’t they? But if you can make your feelings clear, I’m sure he’ll be happier than if you gave him something expensive."

Ron chimed in, "If I bought my mum something worth a whole Galleon for her birthday, she’d be happy for a second and then call me a wasteful idiot."

Yimi only half understood, but she nodded. Since Hermione’s voice was so gentle, Yimi provisionally removed her from the list of suspected "betrayers."

After briefly saying goodbye to them, Yimi wandered along the corridor in thought.

How was she supposed to convey her feelings? She really had no idea what Jesus liked. Thinking about it now, the two of them had barely interacted at all.

"Hey, cat girl, look!" Colin ran into her in the corridor and pulled a silver crucifix pendant out from around his neck. A tiny human figure was carved vividly upon it.

He excitedly told Yimi, "I bought this specially. Can you bless me so I pass Potions?"

Yimi ignored the person who had said Xiaobai was dead and walked straight past him. Colin looked disappointed for only a moment before quickly recovering. Apparently, in his mind, the colder Yimi acted, the more effective her blessing must be.

At the top of a moving staircase, Yimi simply sat down and let it carry her while she thought hard.

In cartoons, when children gave adults birthday presents, there were often things like "one free obedience coupon." Maybe she could give him one of those? But the kitty was already very obedient.

The staircase stopped facing a particular direction. Yimi stepped off and immediately caught Voldemort’s scent. Her luck was always good, but unfortunately it did not seem inclined to guide her toward what kind of present she should prepare for Jesus.

The scent came from the headmaster’s office. Yimi did not bother wondering whether Dumbledore had changed the password. She simply had The World move the stone gargoyle aside and walked through the cracked opening in the wall.

After climbing the spiral staircase, she immediately saw Dumbledore sitting there in a daze, as though he had just experienced a tremendous emotional upheaval.

The evil scent in the office was much stronger than usual. That was why Yimi could smell it from so far away even in human form.

"I think you truly have gone senile. You already suspected what it was, and you still dared put it on?" Headmaster Phineas said from one of the portraits.

Dumbledore did not answer. After roughly two seconds, he finally raised his head and looked at Yimi.

"I seem to remember changing the password after Gilderoy was shown the door." Dumbledore deliberately spoke in a light tone.

Yimi padded over. She saw Fawkes staring at Dumbledore with an almost human expression. The phoenix currently looked like a young bird that had only just grown its feathers, utterly unlike its former appearance.

The little kitty grabbed Dumbledore’s right hand. It was pitch-black and looked as though it had just been attacked by Dark magic.

Dumbledore carefully withdrew it and winked at Yimi. "You should say hello first. Then I could prepare some snacks for you in advance."

"What happened to your hand?" Yimi grabbed the hand he had withdrawn and pulled it back again.

"The truth is, I went out looking for something Riddle might have used as a Horcrux, and eventually found it in the old Gaunt house," Dumbledore said helplessly.

"I should have known he would put a curse on it, yet I still lost my head. It was something I wanted more than anything. After all these years, it seems I haven’t improved at all."

Voldemort probably had no idea what sort of object he had chosen for a Horcrux. The ring was a Gaunt family heirloom—an heirloom from Voldemort’s mother’s side—but at the same time, the stone set into it was the Resurrection Stone, one of the legendary Deathly Hallows.

When Dumbledore was young, he had done many impulsive things. He wanted to see his parents and sister again and tell them how deeply he regretted everything.

It was called the Resurrection Stone, but in truth it could not bring the dead back to life.

Dumbledore looked at his hand, knowing in his heart that he probably had no more than a year left. He would have to lay all the necessary groundwork within that time.

Then the small white hand gripping his finger suddenly burst with pale light. The blackness on Dumbledore’s hand seemed to turn into some solid or liquid substance and flow away.

At the same moment, Barty Crouch Jr.—the son of Barty Crouch, the current Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement—suddenly clutched his right hand and collapsed to the ground in pain.

Dumbledore looked down at his completely restored hand and pushed up his half-moon spectacles in astonishment.

"There are many things in this world that I do not understand, but you are the one who surprises me most."

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Aaaaaaa I’m so tired (T_T)

Ngl, I think things are getting a little out of hand. I might’ve been a bit too ambitious trying to translate Chapters, upload everything, and work on the website all at the same time. There’s just way too much stuff to do (T_T)

Anyway, I finally finished fixing the posting system on my website, and things seem to be working a lot better now.

Of course, I still had to make sure everything was working properly, especially since I’m switching Webnovel to pull Chapters from my website instead of Patreon.

I was actually supposed to upload the Chapters yesterday, but well... Webnovel changed its API, so I couldn’t get the switch working or upload anything. I only just managed to sort it out now.

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I think everything should be fine now, though. Man, I’m exhausted. I’ve been staying up way too late for days trying to get all this stuff working lol.

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