Hogwarts: Voldemort, don't stop me from studying!

Wade sighed.

If Fiona hadn't been looking forward to his return home for a month, Wade would have loved to stay at school too.

Of course, it feels good to be home.

After being away from home for almost half a year, his parents' pent-up longing and love erupted almost instantly upon seeing him. Fiona hugged him at least ten times a day and would occasionally kiss his forehead with affection. Ferdinand was slightly more reserved, but he would still touch his hair and pat his shoulder from time to time.

During his months at school, Wade grew three centimeters taller. Because he spent all day climbing stairs and sitting for long periods, he would also exercise for ten to half an hour at a time. After a while, his body became stronger, and he could even see more defined abdominal muscles.

But all these positive changes only brought two words to Fiona's eyes—"She's lost weight."

His mother stroked Wade's face and said with concern, "Didn't you eat enough at school? Just wait, I'm going to prepare a big feast for you today!"

She eagerly got to work.

Wade looked in the mirror—the eleven-year-old boy in the mirror still had a bit of baby fat on his face, looking a little round, fair and rosy, with a very good complexion.

Ferdinand sat down next to Wade and asked very seriously, "Wade, you've only ever reported good news in your letters, now tell me the truth—is anyone at school giving you a hard time?"

Wade replied just as seriously, “No—it’s true. Ravenclaw is a peaceful house where most students only care about ability and not bloodline. I’m first in my class in several subjects. Professor Flitwick, the head of our house, likes me a lot, as does Professor Morrie. He dedicates two hours a week to teaching me alchemy and even invited me to his private party before the holidays.”

“That’s good. It sounds like you’ve got some good teachers.” Ferdinand smiled. “Are you happy at school?”

“Of course,” Wade smiled, “I’m very happy.”

……

Before Christmas, Wade sent out all the gifts. When he woke up the next morning, he went downstairs and saw that the Christmas tree was piled high with gift boxes.

Fiona walked over to him, hugged his head, kissed his forehead hard, and said happily, "Thank you, darling. I love the gift you gave me."

Wade gave her a bottle of beauty potion he had brewed himself, a finished product that had been approved by Professor Snape.

Ferdinand nodded. "A wonderful magic razor. But is there any special purpose to the parchment you put in the gift box?"

"This is an alchemical work I completed independently—the Book of Friends," Vader said with a hint of pride.

He took out a self-bound notebook from his pocket. The cover was titled "The Book of Friends" in both Chinese and English. When he opened it, the first page had "Family" written at the top of the horizontal line. On the right side, "Name" was written in smaller font, followed by a horizontal line.

Wade took out a quill pen and gave one to each of his parents, then wrote his name on the right side of the pen.

“These three Books of Friends are linked together. I write down my name like this, and then I write down what I want to say here—”

He wrote a line in the blank space below the line: "Merry Christmas".

Fiona let out a small gasp, and saw that a line of words had appeared on the parchment in her hand:

[Wade: Merry Christmas.]

"Oh, I get it."

Fiona quickly wrote her name in the upper right corner, then added below: "Merry Christmas, baby."

The same words also appeared on the parchment of the father and son.

Ferdinand understood: "Like a forum?"

Home computers have been around for many years and cost only a few hundred pounds, so the Gray family naturally bought one long ago; they were quite familiar with computers.

“Yes, it’s like an internet forum.” Wade shrugged. “It’s a bit magical because the medium is just a piece of paper. It can’t transmit video and sound, so it’s not as good as the internet, but it’s not affected by magical magnetic fields, so even if I’m at school, you can contact me anytime.”

More accurately, *The Book of Friends* is a magical version of WeChat. However, since similar services like MSN Messenger, WhatsApp, QQ, and WeChat haven't been developed yet, Wade's *The Book of Friends* seems incredibly ahead of its time.

“I must say, this is the best Christmas present I’ve received all year, Wade.” Ferdinand’s eyes sparkled. “But even better is that you’ve truly learned a lot at Hogwarts—I’m so proud of you, son.”

Fiona quickly became addicted to "online chatting," much like most people who are new to messaging apps. Even when Wade and Ferdinand were less than two meters away from her, she communicated entirely through her friends list.

Soon, text began to appear on other pages of Vader's Book of Friends.

The second page is associated with SSC members.

Michael: Hello?

[Padma: Merlin, I really saw the words you wrote.]

[Hermione: You guys can see what I wrote too? Oh my god, it really happened! How did that happen? I didn't see a similar spell in the book!]

[Padma: Let's not talk about books, Hermione. It's Christmas today, we should be happy.]

[Michael: Wade, I thought you were just starting out with alchemy! You should have told me sooner that you'd created something this amazing!]

[Theo: I just figured out how to use it after reading the instructions—it's amazing! This is the best magical item I've ever seen!]

Ryan: ...I'm so shocked, I don't know what to say. I'll just write something to prove I saw it.

[Navie: I accidentally fell off the sofa, and my grandma thought I had received some kind of dark magic item and almost confiscated it.]

[Wade: Merry Christmas, everyone.]

His words seemed to ignite a firestorm, with messages pouring in from everyone. They quickly realized that each line of text could only occupy a limited amount of space, and each sentence would disappear after about one or two seconds. At any given time, the page could only display a maximum of fifteen lines of text. The "online chat" was being forcibly slowed down, preventing a situation like "999+" unread messages from appearing in just a few minutes.

Within minutes, they had quickly and effortlessly learned how to send emoticons, and it seemed they weren't going to stop anytime soon.

Wade flipped to the next page, the third page being the page for house-elves. Each of his closer house-elves had received a copy. They cautiously and tentatively wrote messages on the parchment, and wrote words of gratitude to Wade many times.

Following him were Professor Murray, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape. Aside from Snape giving him a "barely usable" assessment and Professor Murray reaffirming the invitation for a couple of days later, everyone else praised his ingenious idea and offered to tutor him during the holidays.

Chapter 48 Everyone Else Has It

After a while, the chat room gradually quieted down again, and Wade guessed that they were probably busy creating other chat groups.

Among the Christmas gifts he gave were not only the Book of Friends related to himself, but also blank parchment sheets for two, three, four, and five people. The professors also added an extra stack of ten sheets, making a thick booklet, which is why it can be called a "BOOK".

In Wade's vision, every student at Hogwarts will have a Book of Friends, exchanging parchment with friends and family to create various chat groups. Perhaps it won't be long before Hogwarts adds a rule—the Book of Friends is forbidden during class, and violators will have it confiscated! Or perhaps students will compete to see how thick and valuable their Books of Friends are, with some buying blank parchment to insert inside, pretending they've joined many chat groups as well.

However, Professor Morrie advised him not to sell the Book of Friends for the time being.

With a promising path to wealth seemingly blocked, Wade sighed in frustration. He put away his friends' book and began unwrapping his gifts for the year.

Among the many gift boxes under the Christmas tree, most came from Ferdinand's employees. Wied had grown up in the toy factory with his father; he was clever, sensible, and adorable, and many long-time employees liked him very much. Even though they hadn't seen him for over half a year, they still sent him gifts. They sent all sorts of popular toys, exquisite pens and notebooks, children's books, and so on.

A few of the gifts were from Wade's Muggle classmates during his elementary school years. These were relatively simple, mostly consisting of candy, greeting cards, and small toys.

These are gifts he receives every year, and Wade always sends them in advance as gifts of roughly the same value.

Then came the gifts from the wizarding world.

Unlike Wade, who received the same gifts from everyone, he was given all sorts of books.

Professor Morrie gave him a handwritten alchemy notebook, which Wade carefully put away, planning to read it after dinner.

Professor Flitwick gave him a copy of "The Complete Book of Spells"—a book that requires a professor's approval to borrow from the Hogwarts library, and Wade plans to take some time during the holidays to finish reading it.

Michael gave her a copy of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"; Hermione gave her "The Alchemist"; Padma's gift was Gilderoy Lockhart's "Wandering with the Werewolf"; Theo gave her "The World's Oldest Magical Plant"; Ryan gave her "The Beauty of the Stars"; and Neville gave her "The Mystery of Transfiguration".

His image as a book lover was so deeply ingrained in everyone's mind that everyone unanimously chose to give him books.

It looks like he'll be quite busy this holiday.

………………

Hogwarts.

When Dumbledore woke up in the morning, even the shoes he had placed by his bedside were buried under a mountain of gifts.

He has been a professor at Hogwarts for almost a century, and has taught countless students. About 80% of the wizards in the British Isles are his students.

Moreover, he was the president of the International Confederation of Wizards, the chief wizard of Wizengamo, and was widely regarded as the greatest wizard of his time and the greatest headmaster in Hogwarts history. Although Dumbledore himself did not care much about these titles and accolades, it was clear that most people did, and wizards all over the world wanted to be on good terms with him.

So every Christmas, Dumbledore would receive so many gifts that they could almost drown the Headmaster's Tower.

Fortunately, he used the Unseen Stretching Spell very well.

So Dumbledore usually spends the entire week after Christmas unwrapping presents.

This was an activity he really enjoyed.

Of course, Dumbledore didn't choose the gifts because of their intrinsic value, but because he could see in them the growth of some people, their desires, and occasionally a little surprise—perhaps a curse, or perhaps a harmless prank.

Most people who don't know him will give him books out of respect for this wizard—Muggle books, wizard books, many of which Dumbledore has already read, but he still happily accepts them.

Those who know him well know that this old man is an incurable, serious sweet tooth. His gifts are often sweets such as cakes, chocolates, swarms of cockroaches, and honeydew candy. Some of these gifts contain deadly magic potions, and identifying them is a rather interesting game for Dumbledore.

There are also some people... who, even though they never keep in touch, will still give gifts on this special day. Even if it's just a piece of paper, a leaf, or a pair of not-so-good-looking wool socks that smell of sheep, Dumbledore will treasure them dearly.

Just as Dumbledore was opening a gift box that was half his height, an owl suddenly flew in through the window and dropped a small package on Dumbledore's lap.

Did someone wake up in the morning and then remember him, and then send him a belated gift?

With that thought in mind, Dumbledore put down the gift box and instead opened the small package first.

Inside was only a parchment and a thin strip of paper—

[Dear Albus: This is the work of my student, Wade Gray! I am incredibly proud to share my joy with you!]

I wish you well.

Mori

Even the all-knowing Dumbledore was bewildered by this incomplete letter. He unfolded the parchment and read it from both sides, confirming that apart from Morrie's own name, there was nothing written on it.

Just as Dumbledore was about to use a spell to check, someone else came to visit him.

Dumbledore walked into the foyer, where Felix Flitwick stood in the doorway, holding a similar parchment. He exclaimed excitedly, "Oh, Professor Dumbledore, this is mine! I must say, I knew he would achieve great things, but I didn't expect it to be so soon! He's only been studying magic for three and a half months!"

"—Wade Grey?" Dumbledore asked tentatively.