Huh? There's a magic school here.

That evening, Andres took Duo to the Owl Tower to visit the Thunder, and they left after staying for a short while.

Just after they left, the owls in the tower opened their eyes all at once and flew into the tent together. A dozen or so owls flew in a flurry to the tree inside the tent, then landed on the branches and stared intently at the fledgling.

Snowflake quickly used her wings to shield Thunder in her arms, glaring at the other owls. The message was clear: What are you trying to do? Don't get any bad ideas! The other owls, however, wore innocent expressions. "Little sister, we just wanted to see the baby, we meant no harm!"

Snowflakes ignored the birds with ill intentions, nestled close to Thunder, and fell asleep. Thunder, feeling the warmth of the embrace, also drifted off to sleep.

Time passed slowly with the changing of the sun and moon, and soon it was Halloween Eve. That was October 31, 2006.

During this time, our principal, Andres Morrie, through his hard work, reached level four in Spellcasting. However, since upgrading only one subject was not enough to raise his character level to level four, he spent some system points to buy five character upgrade cards, successfully raising him from level three to level four.

In other words, just the Charms class alone saved him 300 system points. Right now, Andres is probably at the level of an average adult wizard in the Harry Potter world.

During this time, besides diligently studying magic, Andres also had an important daily task: checking on his magical pet, Thunder.

Thunder opened its eyes in the first week after its birth. It saw its mother, Snowflake, who raised it, for the first time, and Andres, who came to play with it every day.

Despite its small size, Thunder's innate talent for lightning is already evident. Once, while burping, Thunder unleashed a bolt of lightning that struck Andres precisely. Andres didn't dodge; he simply savored the sensation of being electrocuted.

It felt tingly, but surprisingly, it was quite comfortable. From then on, Andres enjoyed teasing Thunder from time to time, until one day many years later, he was struck by lightning and collapsed, unable to get up. (That's a story for another time.)

During this time, in addition to Hogwarts' normal daily operations, Catherine's financial investment company also progressed very smoothly. She first bought a building near the London Stock Exchange and established the magical financial investment company.

The name sounds outrageous, but its debut was even more outrageous.

Catherine recruited some people from her classmates and her alma mater, Imperial College London, to leverage their investments and establish long positions in crude oil futures. The entry point was around $65, and then, two weeks later, at $73, they closed all their positions and went short.

It's worth noting that while everyone supported her long positions, there was opposition when she sold around $73. This was because most people were optimistic about the market and believed the price was far from its peak. However, at that moment, Catherine insisted on closing all her positions and even started shorting.

However, because Catherine was the CEO, everyone had to suppress their objections and obey. Then, just a few days later, something shocking happened: the United States suddenly reached a cooperation agreement with Middle Eastern oil-producing countries. At the same time, it announced a significant increase in oil production capacity and the dumping of inventory to stabilize the excessively high oil prices in the market, paving the way for economic development.

The crude oil futures market was subsequently plunged into despair, but Magic Financial Investment Company made a name for itself. It shorted the oil at its peak of $73, driving the price down to $53. Each barrel of crude oil earned Andres a staggering $20, propelling his assets from several hundred million pounds to nearly two billion pounds.

Andres was overjoyed for several days because of this. Although he didn't need much money now, no one complained about having too much. In his excitement, Andres generously distributed nearly 50 million pounds in dividends. Catherine received 60% of it, and the remaining 40% was divided equally among the rest of the team. This made almost everyone in the company, except for Catherine, a millionaire.

This move made Magical Finance Investment Company famous throughout London, especially among young people who learned that the team had been established for less than a month and that its members were almost all recent graduates or even current university students. Beyond the shock, it also greatly enhanced the reputation of Imperial College London's finance department, with many students and parents already inquiring about next year's admission requirements at the start of the semester. As a result, Catherine received the honor of being named an honorary alumna—but that's another story.

Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Andres checked his happiness level on the system. In the past month, besides increasing his happiness while teaching flying lessons, he had also organized a wizard chess club, holding weekly matches and exchanges among its members.

These two factors combined brought the happiness level to 60/100, but to achieve perfection, they needed to do something special. So Andres set his sights on the Halloween party at the end of the month.

Today, October 31st, the entire castle is filled with the sweet aroma of pumpkins. The little wizards' menu has also been changed to all sorts of pumpkin dishes, such as pumpkin porridge, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, pumpkin stew with beef, and so on.

To create a surprise effect, the dinner party was specially scheduled to start at 7 PM. Andres also had the house-elves prepare hundreds of jack-o'-lanterns throughout the campus, just waiting for the principal's command to make them fly.

To achieve the best results, Andreas specifically consulted the system. At castle level three, the entire castle space will expand again, and the ghosts who originally lived in the castle will also appear. When the castle reaches level four, in addition to the castle and the Quidditch pitch, the woods outside the school will become a forbidden forest under the system's control. Crucially, if the castle successfully reaches level four, a magical dome will open above the Great Hall.

These items combined should create a huge surprise for the young wizards, though Andres paid a heavy price for it: 1200 system points and twelve Hogwarts Castle cards. However, the castle would need to be upgraded sooner or later, so Andres wasn't worried about the cost. Plus, completing the task would bring a reward, so why not?

Now all that's left is for the party to begin. Andres rubs his hands together eagerly and sits down at the faculty table with several other professors, waiting for the children to arrive.

Meanwhile, the young wizards were unaware of the huge surprise the headmaster had prepared for them. Because it was a special banquet, they lined up under the guidance of their prefects and arrived at the Great Hall on time.