Chapter 74 — Men, Huh!

Chapter 74: Chapter 74 — Men, Huh!

Chapter 74 — Men, Huh!

After saying goodbye to Hagrid, they hurried to the library.

Since most of the students were going home that day, the library was practically empty, giving them plenty of space to search for the information they wanted.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy.

The Hogwarts library was enormous and contained countless books. And that was without even mentioning the books in the Restricted Section.

Vesey knew exactly where they might find the information they needed, but she didn’t want to say anything.

After all, she hadn’t even seen Dumbledore’s Chocolate Frog card since the beginning of term. It would be far too suspicious if she suddenly told Hermione that they should look through books about famous historical figures.

So she could only pretend to search seriously.

In reality, while everyone else was looking through books, Vesey was secretly using Energy to back up all the storybooks she could find into the system.

That way, she wouldn’t need to borrow books every night. She could simply return to her dormitory and read them directly.

She didn’t want everyone to discover that every time she borrowed a storybook, it was basically destroying her carefully maintained image.

Besides, there were some classes where the professor simply stood at the front and read from the textbook.

Unlike the other students, Vesey couldn’t openly fall asleep, play Wizard’s Chess, or ignore the professor.

So these stored novels were what made going to school bearable for her.

Sometimes, she even wanted to go to the Muggle world and watch movies and television shows.

It wasn’t impossible to create them directly with Energy.

The problem was that it cost far too much.

Vesey couldn’t bear to waste her Energy like that.

Backing up a book for an hour only required a tiny amount of Energy. But if she wanted the system to create an entire Muggle movie or novel from scratch, even a single book or video would consume a significant amount.

Far too expensive.

Although Vesey had gained another thousand Energy from the fifth diary entry and could afford to be a little more extravagant, she had no intention of wasting it like that.

By the end of the afternoon, Hermione and the others had searched through dozens of books.

Vesey had also flipped through plenty of them while secretly copying hundreds of storybooks into the system.

By evening, Hermione was preparing to leave.

She said regretfully,

"I still haven’t found it. I really don’t know when we’ll finally figure this out!"

Vesey immediately clenched her fist determinedly.

"I’ll work hard! I won’t even sleep these next few days if that’s what it takes to find this name. Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape saved me, so I’ll do everything I can to help them protect Hogwarts’ property!"

Her determined expression was especially adorable.

At least, Hermione thought so.

She leaned over and kissed Vesey on the cheek.

Afterward, Hermione blushed slightly when she saw Vesey staring at her in confusion.

Vesey probably didn’t understand what the kiss meant yet.

But Hermione knew what the future held, so she couldn’t help taking advantage of her a little.

She felt slightly guilty about it.

But she quickly convinced herself otherwise.

We’ll obviously be together in the future. What’s wrong with giving Vesey a little kiss in advance?

She then hugged Vesey tightly.

"Oh, dear, you’ve already worked hard enough. You’re finding more books every day than the rest of us combined. You should get some rest!"

Then she turned toward Harry and Ron.

"You’re not going to make Vesey do all the work during the holiday, are you?"

Harry nodded.

He had already thought Vesey was working too hard and wanted her to rest more.

Still, something about Hermione’s words bothered him.

Why did she seem to think that he would force Vesey to keep working?

And there was also something strange about Hermione kissing and hugging Vesey.

Harry couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong.

After all, some girls did behave this way with their friends.

Hermione was simply being kind to Vesey, so Harry supposed he should be happy that his sister had such a good friend.

Putting aside the strange feeling, Harry and Ron said goodbye to Hermione.

After they escorted Hermione to the station, Hermione kissed Vesey one more time.

Vesey was so happy that she almost floated away.

Sure enough...

Girls really are wonderful!

---

After the holidays started , Harry and Ron quickly forgot all about Nicolas Flamel.

Vesey faithfully followed Hermione’s advice and rested.

She slept in the dormitory until she naturally woke up every morning.

However, to maintain her usual image, she still went to the library every night, borrowed a few books, and brought them back to her dormitory.

That way, nobody questioned why she slept so late in the morning.

Everyone simply assumed:

She must have stayed up all night researching.

Who would have guessed that Vesey was basically just moving books around?

At night, she read novels.

During the day, she went to Gryffindor Tower.

Whether it was Wizard’s Chess or Thunderbolt Explosive Beads, she was no worse at them than Ron.

Sometimes she even played so well that Ron’s pieces seemed to refuse to obey his commands.

On Christmas Eve, when Harry and the others reluctantly escorted Vesey back to the Slytherin common room, she was still somewhat reluctant to leave.

After all, there were no mobile phones in this era.

These were practically the only forms of entertainment she had.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay any longer.

If she returned too late, Snape would personally come looking for her.

And once Snape arrived, he would inevitably find an opportunity to criticize Harry.

Given Vesey’s personality, there was no way she could simply ignore Harry while that happened.

So she had to leave when the time came.

She didn’t want to make Harry’s life any more difficult than it already was.

That night, Vesey continued reading novels until midnight.

Then she fell into a deep sleep and dreamed all night.

In the dream, she became a turtle, crawling forward with a heavy shell on her back.

Then she suddenly transformed into a giant monkey, while people around her kept throwing bananas at her.

She repeatedly told them that she didn’t like bananas.

No one listened.

Suddenly, the sound of something falling to the floor woke her.

Only then did Vesey realize that she was completely buried beneath a mountain of packages.

There were so many that even moving slightly would cause some of them to tumble to the ground.

She struggled to sit up and finally crawled out of the pile of gifts.

Then she wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"This is too cruel. If you put any more packages here, I might actually be crushed to death."

Vesey didn’t think she was exaggerating.

There really were far too many gifts.

She felt like she could open an entire post office with all of them.

After getting out of bed and going to the bathroom, Vesey returned and looked at the mountain of packages with growing curiosity.

After sorting through them, she realized that most of the teachers and students at Hogwarts had given her gifts.

There were small packages.

There were large ones.

And finally, Vesey dug out the largest package of all.

It was almost as tall as she was.

She looked at the name written on it.

Snape.

Vesey opened it.

Inside were six sets of robes, several toys that little witches might like, and even a beautiful fairy wand.

Vesey picked up the wand and read the instructions.

Apparently, waving it would cause flower-fairy wings to appear on the user’s back, along with a matching flower-fairy outfit.

Vesey immediately threw the thing into the far corner of the room.

I’ll give this to Hermione next year.

Maybe she’ll enjoy showing me how to wear it!