"Oh, dear Professor Diggory."

A few days later, on the way to Hogsmeade, Fred winked at Cedric and said, "Please allow me to say hello to you and offer my humble respects."

George also tried to suppress his smile and looked at him seriously, "If possible, Professor, could you exempt us from the homework?"

Cedric rubbed his forehead in annoyance.

Although he had known that these two people would make fun of him, Cedric still felt a headache when he saw them smiling in the hallway this morning.

Because they were afraid that others would hear them and tell Umbridge about it, they were relatively restrained in the castle, but as luck would have it, today was Hogsmeade Week.

After leaving school, the two of them naturally had no scruples and made fun of Cedric all the way as if they were in a stage play.

"Shut up, both of you!" Qiu said unhappily, "You don't have to participate at all."

"Yes, of course we will!" said George.

"Yeah." Fred nodded. "We learn Defense Against the Dark Arts by ourselves... I think this is a great idea. I've had enough of that hag Umbridge!"

"No, that's Hermione's idea," Cedric corrected, "and I don't know if anyone is willing to participate yet."

"You can rest assured about this," said Fred. "We asked for you last night. There are seventeen people from Gryffindor who want to participate..."

"So many?" Cedric paused and stopped where he was.

"A lot? Not at all." Fred shook his head and said, "It's obvious that everyone has been dissatisfied with Umbridge for a long time, just like us. Now there is such an opportunity to learn real skills, of course they won't miss it."

"And this is just the first batch," George said. "We mainly feel that if there are too many people at the first gathering, it will be a bit conspicuous. There will definitely be more people joining in the future."

"Oh." Cedric rubbed his forehead.

He originally thought that ten Hufflepuffs were enough, but he didn't expect Gryffindor to be even more exaggerated.

If we add Ravenclaw to the mix...

He turned to look at Qiu, "Isn't there going to be so many Ravenclaws?"

"Didn't I just say that?" Qiu blinked. "Okay, I forgot, but we are not as active as the Gryffindor students. Only a few of us are interested in learning Defense Against the Dark Arts on our own."

Hearing her say this, Cedric breathed a sigh of relief. Judging from this, the number of people should not exceed thirty, which is still within an acceptable range.

If there were more people, he might not be able to handle it.

They quickly crossed the path and arrived at the entrance of Hogsmeade village.

Hermione was already waiting for them here.

"How about we go over there now?" She trotted over and said, "We'll go to the Hog's Head as we agreed before."

"Hey, don't be so anxious," Fred said. "Isn't the party at ten o'clock? There's still an hour left."

"I know," said Hermione, "but I think we should prepare in advance and see who will be there. If there are any professors, we should change the location in time."

"The professor wouldn't go to that kind of place." George whispered, "They would only go to the Three Broomsticks, which is cleaner and more lively."

"Hermione is right." Cedric walked over, "It's better to be cautious. I'll go with you."

"I'll go too." Qiu said, "I've never been to the Hog's Head before, so I might as well go and take a look."

"I don't think there's much to see there," said Fred. "We went there once before by accident because we took the wrong road."

"The environment is too bad. It's incomparable to the Three Broomsticks. The only advantage is that there are fewer people."

"Perhaps it is precisely because the environment there is so bad that few people are willing to go there."

…

Although Hermione was skeptical about what they called "accidental", she didn't say anything.

"It doesn't matter. I don't have anything to do right now anyway." Cedric said, "Should you guys go to Zuko first?"

"We can't help it. We need some inspiration recently." George said, "There are too many things to prepare for opening a joke shop, especially the products must be attractive enough to people."

"Okay then." Cedric nodded, "See you later."

After saying that, he, Qiu, and Hermione left the main road and walked towards another secluded path.

"See you later." Fred waved his hand and ran with George to Zonko's Joke Shop not far away to find inspiration.

Kyle also did not go to the Hog's Head Inn, but went to the Fengya wizard clothing store with Connor.

He discovered a few days ago that his thick robe was a little small and he had to change into a new one before winter came.

When the two entered the store, there were already students there.

Two Slytherin girls, and Kyle knew them both.

Daphne Greengrass, and her sister Astoria.

As they entered the store, Astoria was looking at the odd brooches, while Daphne was staring with sparkling eyes at an exquisite dress gown on the rack.

“This is new.”

The owner of the clothing store was a witch in her thirties, who was introducing the dress robe to her.

"See those golden lines? They are real gold threads. The silver ones are unicorn tail hairs. The gems dotted on them are from fire crabs. They are all complete and rare goods."

"How much?" Daphne couldn't help but ask.

"Only three hundred Galleons, dear." The shopkeeper said with a smile: "This is my most satisfactory work so far."

Kyle subconsciously looked at the dress robe and suddenly wanted to laugh, but finally held it back.

Daphne frowned.

Three hundred Galleons was a bit expensive even for her, but looking at the gorgeous dress robe, she really liked it.

"You should have quite a bit of pocket money." Daphne looked at her sister and asked.

"Ah?" Astoria came back to her senses, then took out an exquisite purse and said, "Not much, only a hundred Galleons."

"That's enough. Lend it to me first." Daphne took Astoria's purse and said, "I need to try on this dress."

"Of course." The shop owner nodded with a smile, "Please follow me."

Then the two of them walked towards the back of the store together.

"Isn't it enough to carry a hundred Galleons with you?" Kanna whispered, "They are really rich."

Hearing her words, Kyle seemed to have thought of something and suddenly laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" Connor asked.

"Nothing, I just thought of the first time we met on the train at the beginning of the school year." Kyle said, "You were just like them at that time."

"What?" Kanna didn't quite understand.

"Did you forget?" Kyle explained, "on the train you dumped a bunch of Galleons on the table and startled Cedric and me.

"At that time, we felt the same as you do now. We thought that wizards from pure-blood families were really rich."

"That was all so long ago." Seeing her dark history being dug up, Kanna glared at Kyle unhappily.

"Yeah, it's been a while," Kyle said, then changed the subject: "What do you think of that dress robe?"

"It's too fancy." Kanna said with some disdain: "It looks nice, but there are too many embellishments. It looks a bit weird, and it must be very uncomfortable to wear."

"But some people like this style." Connor added: "At last year's Christmas party, many people wore this kind of gorgeous dress robes."

"Really?" Kyle asked. He had no idea what everyone wore at the dance.

"Of course, there are a lot of them," Connor said. "After the dance, Letty talked about it all night long. I couldn't help but listen. And for the next few days, their topic was always those beautiful dresses and robes."

"All right."

Although Kyle and Connor spoke quietly, they still caught the attention of Astoria who was standing next to them.

After all, there were only three people in the store, so it was hard for her not to notice. However, because the distance was a bit far, she didn't hear clearly what the two people said.

And as if she was afraid of being misunderstood as deliberately eavesdropping on other people's conversations, she deliberately walked to a farther place.

Naturally, her action was noticed by Kyle and Kanna.

"She doesn't really look like a Slytherin," Connor said.

"No," said Kyle. "It's just not like the current Slytherin."

…

(End of this chapter)