BXBX NOVEL Chapter 213 - 213 Tell me a joke
Chapter 213: Chapter 213 Tell me a joke
Harry almost collapsed under Hagrid\'s weight.
Luckily, his struggling movements still caught Hagrid\'s attention, leaving him fortunate not to be the savior who hadn\'t been killed by Sirius Black, or by a Dementor, but instead had been crushed by his larger friend.
Hagrid allowed Harry to take him by the arm and get him back into the hut, taking a seat in a chair before flinging himself over the edge of the table and sobbing uncontrollably.
His face was covered in tears from crying and teardrops fell onto his tangled beard.
"Hagrid, what\'s wrong with you?" Harry asked in surprise.
He was completely stunned; Hagrid had clearly been fine when he saw him a few days ago.
Hagrid huffed and pushed an official looking letter that had been opened in front of Harry.
"What\'s that, Hagrid?"
Harry froze, picked up the letter and read it:
"Dear Mr. Hagrid: We have further investigated the incident in your classroom where a hawk-headed, horse-bodied, winged beast attacked a student, and we have accepted Professor Dumbledore\'s assurances that you are not responsible for this regrettable incident."
"Isn\'t that great, Hagrid?" Harry asked, tapping Hagrid on the shoulder as he read.
Hagrid was lying on the table, so Harry was able to take the opportunity to tap him on the shoulder.
And Hagrid, who was lying on the table, continued to sob, shaking his huge hands as he did so, signaling Harry to continue reading.
"However, we must show our concern for the hawk-headed, horse-bodied winged beast in question. We have decided to uphold Mr. Lucius Malfoy\'s formal complaint, so the matter will be referred to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. A hearing will be held at the Commission\'s London offices in January next year, and we would ask that you and your winged beast be present on that date. In the meantime, the hawk-headed horse-bodied winged beast shall be tethered and quarantined."
"Hmm, like that wasn\'t too bad?" Reading the letter, Harry muttered, "Hagrid, you said that all the Hawk-headed Equestrian Winged Beasts were noble and disdainful of evil, ah, and Buckbeak is even one of the gentler ones. It\'s only a hearing, it\'ll be fine ..."
"You don\'t know those weirdos on the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures!" Hagrid interrupted Harry with a choked sob, wiping tears from his eyes with a dirty sleeve as hard as he could, "They\'re like enemies with these funny magical creatures, they can\'t see the slightest bit of good in them!"
A noise suddenly came from the corner of Hagrid\'s hut, and Harry turned around quickly to see that Buckbeak, the hawk-headed, winged beast, was lying in the corner of the house, chewing on some animal raw, causing blood to run everywhere on the floor.
"They told me to keep Buckbeak on a leash, but I can\'t tie him outside with a rope!" Hagrid choked out, "Hawk-headed, horse-bodied winged beasts are free and high-minded and shouldn\'t be tied down! I\'ll just have to let him rest in my house for a while first."
"But there\'s still over two months to go until next January ...," Harry said worriedly, "surely Buckbeak wouldn\'t want to stay indoors for two months."
"Yes, I know ..." Hagrid reached over and pulled a large tub of wine out of a side cabinet and took a hard swig, "That\'s why I\'m looking for help from others, I\'m hoping that someone out there can help the poor little guy out. "
Harry twisted his head to look at the hawk-headed winged beast, who was also a head taller than himself on the ground, and didn\'t quite recognize the adjective \'little guy\' in Hagrid\'s mouth, but when he looked back at Hagrid\'s larger size, he could only nod silently.
"You could ask Dumbledore for help, he\'s so powerful, surely he can do something?" Harry asked.
"No, I\'ve bothered Dumbledore enough." Hagrid shook his head sadly, "If it wasn\'t for Dumbledore\'s face, I probably wouldn\'t even be a professor, and I might even be imprisoned in Azkaban because of my previous eucalyptus bottom ..."
"But those officials from the Ministry of Magic will spare me because of Dumbledore\'s vouching, but they won\'t spare an animal that they simply despise. The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures loves to do this sort of thing to make their presence felt, or they don\'t have much to do all year long!"
Hagrid poured another large gulp of wine into his mouth and continued, "I\'ve also heard that Professor Dracula is very prestigious within the school board, I met him once before in the faculty lounge but didn\'t bother to open my mouth ..."
Hearing Hagrid\'s remark, Harry brightened up.
"Yeah, Professor Dracula is so powerful, he must have a solution!" He shouted, "I\'ll go to Professor Dracula\'s office and ask him for you!"
With that, he bid farewell to the weeping Hagrid with gusto and hurriedly ran towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor\'s office on the third floor of Hogwarts Castle.
In fact, Harry had just been to Professor Dracula\'s office a few days ago, wanting him to teach him to tutor him in the Patronus spell.
After being refused, he had been wanting to go back again to plead or side-step to learn something more, but hadn\'t come up with a plausible excuse to go to Professor Dracula\'s place one more time.
In this case of Buckbeak\'s indictment, Harry, on the one hand, genuinely wanted to help Hagrid save the hawk-headed, horse-bodied, winged beast that had once carried him around Hogwarts, and on the other hand, he had found a reason to make another run to Professor Dracula\'s office.
So he felt a little exhilarated.
...
"Oh? Dumbledore hasn\'t helped Hagrid with that one yet?" Dracula looked over at Harry with a raised eyebrow in the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor\'s office.
"You can\'t say that, at least Hagrid he doesn\'t have any problems per se." Harry said anxiously, "But Buckbeak ... Buckbeak has been complained about, and there\'s a hearing coming up after the Christmas break, and now that committee of whatever it is has to make Hagrid keep it on a leash."
"Like that?" Dracula frowned.
He remembered that he had asked Dumbledore if he needed any help earlier, but the old Headmaster had declined his help by stating that he could handle it himself.
Now it seemed that Dumbledore didn\'t want to seek Dracula\'s help at that time because he wanted to be accountable for Dracula\'s sneaky use of the time converter.
Dumbledore, as the most prestigious arch wizard in the magic world, could indeed easily deal with matters concerning Hagrid himself, yet there was precisely no suitable way to completely solve the problem of that hawk-headed, horse-bodied, winged beast.
Dracula fully understood how those in the Ministry of Magic and the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures felt:
We give the strongest and most prestigious wizard a face, and just let the professor you vouched for go, even a beast you have to vouch for, then where do we put our face?
So like Dumbledore this kind of reputation, in everyone\'s attention in the middle of the great wizard, if you want to deal with this kind of thing is a little trouble. After all, he could only act within the rules and was unwilling to tear his face off with those on the official side.
However this kind of thing was not troublesome for Dracula, there were many ways he could easily get Buckbeak back.
"Well, I see, this kind of small matter is indeed easy for me to solve." Dracula said casually with a light smile.
Then, his words suddenly changed, "But why should I help Hagrid unconditionally? I don\'t seem to know him very well."
"But aren\'t you all professors at Hogwarts? Shouldn\'t colleagues help each other?" Harry\'s eyes widened in bewilderment.
"You\'re a bit naive, Potter." Dracula ticked the corner of his mouth, "If we go by your method, do you think Professor Snape would be willing to help you and Hagrid if he could help in this matter?"
Harry\'s expression faltered at the thought of Snape\'s ugly face.
He could well imagine that if Snape heard about this, it would be a great kindness on his part not to fall on his sword and help the Malfoys against Hagrid and Buckbeak, let alone rescue Buckbeak.
It was strange to say that Snape was willing to go to great lengths to save Harry from a life-threatening situation in his first year, but in fact had a look of disgust and cynicism on his face.
Harry could sense that the disgust in Snape\'s eyes for him was genuine, but so was the reluctance to put his life in danger.
How incomprehensible, Harry thought.
"Figured out what the relationship between coworkers is, didn\'t you, Potter." Dracula saw the look on Harry\'s face and could see that he had figured it out, "Of course, it\'s not a favor I can\'t do ..."
"I\'ve always done things by preference, and if I\'m still in a good mood, I\'d have no problem helping you out with this along the way."
A hopeful look came back to Harry\'s face.
"So ... Professor, what\'s your mood right now?" He asked blearily.
"Not too good." Dracula gave a playful smile, then instantly put it back and scowled.
Harry: "..."
You\'re clearly in an okay mood ...
"Having a student come over to me all day and try to get me to work overtime without pay, you think that\'s going to put me in a good mood?" Dracula said with a stern face as if he had read Harry\'s thoughts.
"Classes are boring enough day in and day out, if it wasn\'t for the fact that interesting things happen in this castle from time to time, why would I stay here ..."
"So Professor, what would put you in a better mood?" Harry asked again.
Harry had figured out at this point that Professor Dracula was completely too lazy to help Hagrid. Even though it was just a matter of moving his hands for him, he didn\'t even want to move his hands ...
Unless someone could give Professor Dracula something to do that would give him the idea to move his hands.
"I think I might be in a slightly better mood if you left my office right now and didn\'t continue to harass me here." Dracula said.
Harry\'s face was filled with helplessness.
If he left now, not to mention that he wasn\'t sure if it really made Professor Dracula\'s mood better ... Maybe according to this professor\'s nature, it was only normal that he would forget about this kind of small matter in his eyes within a few minutes.
"Professor, Hagrid he\'s really helpless ..."
Harry was going to try to dawn on him, but seeing the smirking expression on Professor Dracula\'s face, he silently changed his tone and said, "So can you tell me a way to do that? I really want to make you feel better."
Dracula casually peeled off a blood-flavored lollipop and stuffed it into his mouth, glancing casually at Harry.
"Why don\'t you tell me a joke to listen to?" He said casually, "If the joke\'s funny enough, it wouldn\'t be impossible for me to just straighten things out for you."
Harry froze for a moment.
"Uh ... Professor, are you sure you want to hear a joke?" He glanced cautiously at Dracula and asked weakly, "I heard that there used to be Black Magic Defense Arts professors at Hogwarts who listened to their students tell jokes and lived to laugh ..."
Dracula: "..."
"Bang," Harry was slammed hard against the office door.
"You better come up with a funny joke or all your homework after Halloween will be doubled!"
Dracula\'s voice came out of the office through the closed door.
...
Before he knew it, the day had passed and it was time for the Halloween dinner.
Harry arrived at the long Gryffindor table with his head hanging down, still mentally berating himself.
He shouldn\'t have spat that last line, it had ended up upsetting Professor Dracula, seeking the Professor\'s help with Buckbeak was out of the question, and he even had to double his own homework ...
Ron and Hermione approached him shortly after he first arrived in the auditorium as well.
Their faces had been turned pink by the cold wind outside, and they looked as if they\'d had a painful time, and the conflict the two had had over the two cat and mouse pets, Crookshanks and Spotty, seemed to have eased up a bit.
"Harry, you don\'t look very well." Hermione asked worriedly as she removed the scarf from around her neck and placed it on the table, "Are you upset because you didn\'t go on the Hogsmeade tour? It\'s okay, Ron and I brought you lots of snacks from over there ..."
No sooner had her words left her mouth than a large handful of sweets fell into Harry\'s lap like a torrential downpour.
"Look," Ron said cheerfully, "we brought you so much candy, we couldn\'t bring any more."
"Thanks," Harry whispered, picking up a compact bag of peppery little urchins, "How was Hogsmeade? What places did you all go?"
As it turned out, they went everywhere.
The Honeyduke, the Magical Supplies grocery store, the Zorko joke store, and to the Three Broomsticks, which served butterbeer, as well as many other places.
"That post office, Harry! There\'s about two hundred owls, all sitting on shelves, all color-coded, depending on how fast your mail needs to go!"
"Honeyduke\'s got a new kind of milk fudge, and they\'re handing out free samples, and here\'s a bit of it, you see-"
"Wish I\'d brought you some butterbeer, it really warms you up-"
The two seemed to have an endless supply of things to say to Harry at the mention of the day\'s journey.
Harry\'s face became even more rigid as he listened to the heated words of the two.
"Harry, you ... still don\'t seem too happy?"
Ron was still talking vigorously, but Hermione could see Harry\'s disoriented look and gave Ron a strong pat to make him stop.
Harry shook his head and then turned to the two.
"Uh, have you two ... ever heard any good jokes?" He asked with a tangled expression.