Days wandering around Hogwarts

Chapter 361 Taking You to See the Herbs
There were only two people in the lounge area of ​​Farbottom Castle in the early morning. Charles and Gabrielle were sitting on the sofa in front of the transparent wall. Outside was a snow-covered garden. Ruby was playing snowballs with the children of Hogsmeade village.

"You look tired." Gabrielle looked at Charles with some concern. "Didn't you sleep well last night?"

Charles just smiled and said, "It's okay. I slept well last night."

These days, Charles and his team have been busy discussing various technical issues.

Among the wizards, Charles has the lowest magic level and needs to concentrate and think in order to keep up with the pace.

Thinking consumes a lot of energy, so people naturally become tired.

Charles said to Gabrielle, "I'm sorry I couldn't play with you."

"No!" Gabrielle shook her head. "I heard your meeting was very interesting."

Then she added, "I went to play with Ruby today!"

Gabrielle said as she was about to run away, but Charles said to her seriously, "You can't let Ruby fly with you on her back anymore!"

Gabrielle pretended not to understand French and slipped away.

Charles leaned back on the sofa, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and rested for a while. There would be things to do later.

I don’t know how long it took, but the scent of a young girl wafted around me.

"Not going to play?" Charles asked Fleur.

The Hogwarts holiday ends tomorrow, and the Delacour family will also return to France tomorrow.

Not only did Charles have little time to play with Gabrielle these days, he also had little time to talk to Fleur.

"No." Furong shook her head, "Are you still busy today?"

Charles smiled helplessly and said, "I have an experiment in a greenhouse. I will be working on it later."

They had talked about this in their previous correspondence. During the Christmas holidays, there were only elves working in the greenhouse to water and weed. Charles had to go and check it out before the new semester started.

Furong asked him: "Then...can I go and take a look?"

Charles said, "That's fine with me. I'll ask the principal."

He wrote a note and asked a working elf to deliver it to Dumbledore, who was relaxing in a massage chair and quickly replied in agreement.

It snowed a little yesterday, and the greenhouse was covered with a layer of white. Charles cleared the snow and opened the greenhouse door with Furong.

There was a common canary in a cage behind the door. It started chirping when it saw someone coming. It seemed that the ventilation vent had not been blocked during this period.

As I walked into the greenhouse, I immediately felt a wave of heat and the air smelled unpleasant.

The two hung their coats on the rack. Charles said, "Today we're mainly going to check if there are any bugs on these herbs and if the soil in the pots is dry."

"There is a water tank next to it, which will automatically pump water up from underground. If the soil is dry, you can go there to get some water for irrigation."

Furong looked at the nearby pots of herbs and saw a familiar plant. She said in surprise, "Why is that pot of phoenix feathers so big? Do you have a talent for raising phoenixes and can make them fat?"

The phoenix feathers that Charles bought from Germany are now growing well. The leaves of the normally cultivated phoenix feathers are only two fingers wide at this stage, while the phoenix feathers that have been grown with both Muggle and wizard fertilizers are as wide as a palm.

"Maybe." Charles said, "It's fat now, but I don't know how effective the medicine is."

"I plan to start testing the efficacy of the drug in May, obtain the first batch of complete data and publish a paper. I will test it again around October and write another paper."

Furong and Charles carefully observed other herbs while chatting. After looking at several of them, she couldn't help but sigh, "I didn't realize it when I only heard you say it in the letter. Now that I see it, I realize that it is really much larger than other places."

She pointed to a prickly tree in the distance and asked, "Can I take a thorn and have a look?"

Charles replied: "It was fine at the time, just be careful not to hurt your hands."

Fleur took out her wand and said, "I'm not a daredevil."

The thorn tree originally grew on the European continent, and Beauxbatons had naturally taught her how to do it, so she took out a long thorn with ease. Fleur took the thorn and examined it carefully for a moment, then gently pricked the back of her hand.

"Hey!" Charles didn't expect her to do this. "The thorns are poisonous!"

Furong smiled and said, "It's okay. Its skin can be used to make potions to eliminate some of the bad effects. The same goes for the juice in its thorns."

"If you get bitten by a mosquito, you can try pricking the swollen area, and the itching and swelling will go away immediately."

"It can also...oh, that's a girl thing."

Charles realized that he really didn't understand the medicinal properties of herbs from other places.

In one corner of the greenhouse there is a large three-layer glass cabinet where mandrakes are grown.

Fleur wanted to see it, but Charles refused.

"It's too dangerous." Charles shook his head and said, "We estimate that its roar will be more powerful, so the cabinet is not allowed to be opened."

Furong thought for a moment and said, "I read a paper not long ago. It said that when many mandrakes grow together, they will fight over fertile soil when they leave the soil."

"The fertilizers in your flower pots here are different. Some of the mandrakes grow well, and some don't. I'm worried they'll fight. It's best to separate them."

Charles was stunned. He had never heard of such a thing.

But it makes sense when you think about it. Mandrakes in the wild rarely gather together, and those grown in greenhouses have more even amounts of water and fertilizer, so they don't deliberately create differences like they do now.

Fleur told me which magazine the paper was in, and then said, "The author of the paper is Erica from Durmstrang School of Magic. Is that the one you are talking about?"

When Charles gave the dancing grass to Gabrielle, he mentioned Erica and thought, "It's very likely that it's Erica who planted the dancing grass. She put a lot of effort into growing herbs."

Furong pretended to ask casually: "Is she beautiful?"

Charles pretended to answer casually: "It's quite special."

At first he wanted to say "Not as pretty as you", but thinking of how unhappy Furong was that others only paid attention to her appearance instead of her efforts and achievements, he changed his words to avoid this minefield.

Furong didn't understand at all and asked, "What do you mean by more special?"

Charles replied: "It's the hair and eye color. You'll know when you meet her when you get a chance."

The two continued chatting in the greenhouse while checking the herbs for bugs.

Charles was not the only one who came to the greenhouse early. Professor Sprout also returned to school early to take a look at the greenhouse.

When the professor arrived at the greenhouse, he found someone outside the door.

When Harry saw someone clearing the snow from the greenhouse in the castle from a distance, he knew that Charles was coming, so he came to report the situation caused by the holiday homework ghostwriting.

But when he saw Charles and Fleur together, he behaved well and didn't disturb them.

Harry saw Professor Sprout coming and said to her mysteriously, "Professor, Charles and Miss Delacour are dating in there now."

Professor Sprout smelled gossip as soon as he heard it, and immediately asked, "Are they the only two in there?"

Harry nodded rapidly.

Professor Sprout looked as if he knew it, for he already knew that Charles had saved Miss Delacour's life. After Professor Delacour came, he often asked about Charles in a roundabout way, and the professors all knew it.

"Ahem..." She cleared her throat and said to Harry seriously, "Come on, I'll take you to learn about the herbs you'll be learning in the new semester."

That being said, one can tell from the look in her eyes that herbs are not as pretty as gossip.

Harry thought so too. With the professor guiding him, he would not be afraid of Charles anymore.

(End of this chapter)