Chapter 019 Hogwarts Express

"Need help?" Snape asked Catherine, who was standing in the middle of the room thinking.

"Professor!" As soon as she saw Snape standing at the door, Catherine immediately showed a surprised expression, "You're back, do you want to have supper?" ”

"No!" Snape spat and glanced around the room, reminding Catherine of the question she had just asked.

"I can clean it up myself, but—" said Catherine, after a moment of spun around in place, "I'm not sure what to bring?" ”

"If-you-can, you-can-take-all! ）”

"All?" Catherine remembered what Snape had said on the first day she had been here, "Including furniture? ”

"Uh-huh!" Snape raised an eyebrow.

Catherine spun around again, then reached out to her pet.

"Tracy, I need your help."

The cyan bird landed on the girl's shoulder, and a spell cried out from her mouth: "Shrink quickly!" ”

As the wand moved, the objects in the girl's fingers shrank rapidly, until everything that should be cleaned up became smaller than a slap, and Catherine stopped to breathe.

"Not bad!" The corners of Snape's mouth lifted slightly.

Hearing his compliment, Catherine couldn't help but smile and shouted a spell again: "Pack!"

At the same time, the wand swept across the ground with a wide range, and the things that had just been shrunk floated into the air, flew into the open trunk, and were neatly positioned.

"Good!" Snape's appreciation changed halfway through the words, "If you don't need your pet to help you!" ”

Hearing this, Catherine lowered her wand in discouragement.

"If there's nothing else to do, it's best to go to bed early." With that, Snape turned to leave.

"There's a problem!" Catherine raised her wand to indicate that she was really in trouble, "How is Hogwarts sorted?" ”

"According to your character." There was a rare glimmer of genuine appreciation in Snape's eyes.

"And what if I want to go to Slytherin?"

Snape examined Catherine in surprise for a few moments before drawing his wand and conjuring up a large pile of silver text.

"Then you'd better memorize the Slytherin Sayings and do it all!"

"May I ask," Catherine asked, looking at the words that were larger than her hand, but still filling the room huddled together, "has anyone ever done it?" ”

"Me!" Snape said lightly.

Catherine looked at Snape in shock, then at the room full of Slytherin Sayings, and then said categorically:

"I'll do it too!"

At 8 a.m. on September 1, as soon as Platform Nine and Three-Quarters of King's Cross Station opened, Snape apparition took Catherine here, and when the girl stepped on the Hogwarts Express, he dropped a word and left.

"Don't get out of the car until you get to Hogwarts!" Looking at the place where the black figure disappeared, Catherine complained dissatisfiedly, "Is there such a person who came to deliver the car?" We'll see you again in the evening, but you don't have to save yourself to just say that! ”

"Twitter!" Tracy let out a few rare squeals, expressing to her master that she was in the same hatred as her.

"I wonder if he would be as impatient as he is now if he had children?" Catherine pouted and thought about it for a moment, then decided to abandon the unsolvable problem and instead focus on the crimson steam locomotive she was currently in.

The girl who found herself wandering alone in the corridor of the train like a discarded cat, and the locomotive staff, who was still very idle for the time being, took her on a tour of the locomotive with great love in Catherine's curious eyes and pitiful requests, and explained to her "The History of the Changing Admission to Hogwarts".

When Hogwarts was first founded, it was attacked by dark wizards many times, and even some students were killed, and under the help of a patriarch, the four sages enlisted the help of the Ministry of Magic to ban apparitions in Hogwarts, and even made the school disappear.

After the establishment of the infamous Inquisition by the Catholic Church in 1220, wizards began to be severely cracked down, and Hogwarts became a refuge for children. In order to prevent the location of Hogwarts from being exposed and the future of the wizarding world from being hit, anyone can only use a portkey to enter and exit.

When the war ended, the limited mode of transportation of the portkey was quickly replaced by the quicker and more convenient apparition apparitions, which took the apparitions of their children to the main entrance of the school, and then went to the dormitory together, until the opening dinner was about to begin, and then reluctantly left.

But as the shadow of war faded away, more and more wizards would not apparition, and Floo appeared. Due to the safety of the students and the possibility of future wars, Hogwarts did not reject the establishment of an internal Floo network, but did not agree to connect with the public Floo network, so the Ministry of Magic set up a public fireplace in Hogsmeade Village to make it easier for students, especially new students from the Muggle world, to travel to Hogwarts.

Later, there were more and more new students from the Muggle world, and there were more and more conflicts between them and the children who grew up in the wizarding world, and in order to alleviate this conflict, several departments in the wizarding world decided to send special buses to pick up students collectively by Hogwarts after negotiation.

In the beginning, it was the flying carriage that picked up and dropped off the students, but the space of the carriage was limited after all, and even if the Traceless Stretching Charm was used, it could not fit all the students of the whole school into one carriage, so it could only be divided into several large areas for pick-up, but in this way, there was a regional confrontation.

Many improvements have been made to this in the wizarding world, and even a super large carriage that can hold all the students has been made, but the first time it was used, it almost caused the first air crash in the wizarding world. It was not until the early 19th century, when Muggles invented the train, that wizards found a solution to the root cause, but the introduction of the train was hindered by many obstacles.

Due to magic, many Muggle items are unusable in the wizarding world, which over time has led to rejection of Muggle items by some wizards, especially pure-bloods. The other part of the wizards, especially those born in the Muggle world, hope that there will be more communication between the two different worlds, so that they will not be forced to abandon the other because they choose one world, and the introduction of the train is an attempt to start the exchange.

The debate lasted for almost a century because of the long life of wizards, until the famous alchemist Nick Leme created a magic drive that made the steam locomotive less resistant to entering the wizarding world.

Despite unwavering opposition, the Ministry of Magic was able to convert the steam locomotive, which had been purchased since the mid-19th century, into a Hogwarts express train because of the emergence of two Dark Lords in quick succession this century, which had caused a large number of wizards to wither away.

"So the car is an antique at all." After listening to the staff's explanation, Catherine couldn't help but sigh.

"It's not an antique!" The driver patted the engine, which was taller than him, and said, "Although it has been almost 200 years since I bought it, it has only been used for less than 100 years, and it is still very young." ”

Catherine didn't know what to say, knowing that the trains of the same period as the steam locomotive were basically in the museum, and even if they could still get on the road, they wouldn't be able to go far, let alone speed. And this Hogwarts Express train can not only run from London to Hogwarts, which is located in the northernmost part of the United Kingdom, but also the whole journey takes less than seven hours, which is completely in time for dinner, which shows that it has indeed been completely transformed by magic.

"So is the drive of the 'Knight Bus' any different from it?" Catherine asked, pointing to the engine.

"There is no difference, the structure of the two is exactly the same," the driver said, shaking his finger, "just considering that the knight bus does not have so many places to put it, a constant shrinking charm is used." ”

Magic is a good way to be lazy, and it took Muggles a century and a half to transition from steam engines to internal combustion engines, and almost a century to develop from trains to automobiles, but wizards can solve the whole process with a single shrinking charm, and the nearly a century spent on arguing.

This made Catherine decide to give up studying the history of wizards for a while, and spend her time on this rare magic drive: "Can I take a tour?" ”

"Of course!" The driver enthusiastically explained the structure to the girl, and it was not until the flight attendant came to tell them that the passengers began to enter the station in large numbers, and the driver reluctantly sent Catherine away, apparently not many people in the wizarding world were interested in his work.

Like regular trains, the compartments of the Hogwarts Express are also divided into grades, and the closer to the front of the train, the higher the grade, especially the ones with the "Prefect" and "VIP" signs.

And Catherine, who knows the rules, knows very well that she is completely unqualified to sit there with her current identity, and naturally she will not covet it like those ignorant children.

She walked slowly down the hallway, surveying the cubicles and the crowd outside the car, until it was around 10 o'clock, when she reached the back of the car.

Seeing that the door at the back of the car was magically locked, and the way back to the front of the car was crowded with students and parents, Catherine opened the door to the last compartment, and inside stood a girl with thick brown hair, who looked as if she had just put on her school robe.

"Can I sit here? There are too many people in front. Catherine asked with a polite smile.

"Of course!" The girl shouted cheerfully as she walked towards Catherine, "I'll help you get your luggage up." As he spoke, he reached out and prepared to help Catherine carry the suitcase.

"No, I'll do it myself." Catherine leaned slightly sideways, dodging the girl's enthusiastic move, and at the same time raised her hand, and threw the box in her hand onto the shelf, the weight of the suitcase shook the rack for a while.

"Wow! You've got a lot of strength! The girl exclaimed.

"There's a levitation charm on the box, otherwise I wouldn't be able to lift it." Catherine took out her wand and undid the Transfiguration Charm on her coat, "Know that all my belongings are in there." ”

"You're a freshman?" The brown-haired girl asked in surprise when she saw Catherine's Hogwarts robes in their original shape without the department logo.