The night was as cold as water, and there was no one on the deck of the Durmstrang ship, and on such a cold day, the students were eager to stay in the quilt in their cabins, who would run outside for no reason to be blown by the cold wind.

"What do you think?"

Daphne walked softly to Ning An's side, and saw that he was leaning against the railing, as if looking at Hogwarts Castle in the distance, so she asked softly, she brushed her windswept hair, and looked at the figure tenderly.

"Ha, nothing, Charlotte is happy?"

Ning An heard the familiar voice, so she turned around and smiled at Daphne, the girl immediately smiled back, and then covered her mouth and snickered:

"Of course, I'm playing a game of Fudge vs. the Fire Dragon."

Fudge was the new name of the Ragdoll bear that had been given life, and Ning An wanted to laugh when he heard it, and couldn't help but spit out a few light tones of 'haha', turning into white gas and floating in the night sky.

Then the two fell silent, and in the forbidden forest near the meadow, the cry of the night owl was faintly heard.

"You've changed a lot."

Daphne sighed softly, and leaned her elbow on the side of the ship, looking out into the vast world beyond the big ship.

Ning An recited a spell, cut off the sounds around the two, turned his head, looked at the bright crescent moon in the sky, and muttered to himself:

"Yes, I have to change......"

"Can you tell me about your experience after you left Hogwarts?"

Daphne's eyes flashed wide, revealing an extremely curious expression, although Ning An had simply said some things, he had never explained everything in detail.

She was very curious, very curious, for the first time in her life, she wanted to know what a person had experienced, this person was not only her former best friend, Daphne thought in her heart, but she suppressed her emotions so deeply that she couldn't see anything on the surface.

"Okay."

Ning An didn't resist, just readily agreed

"I went through a terrible door......

The voice went up and down, and Daphne's mood also rose and fell, listening to Ning An's narration, she seemed to be in the scene of the day, listening to him talk about Sandak, talking about the reunion with Pani, talking about finding Nick? Lemay, Daphne also worried, happy, nervous, and scared.

It seems that his mood is all affected by one person, although the appearance of standing in front of him is still 'Victor? Krum', but Daphne felt that she was extremely close to that person's heart, and there was nothing in her eyes, it was clear that Ning An was standing in front of her clearly.

He's been through so much and I've never been there, and it's really ...... that I'm staying in Durmstrang with those stupid students and the snow and ice It's too inferior......

Daphne kicked the side of the boat angrily, not knowing whether she was angry with herself or Ning'an, perhaps because she was dissatisfied that he didn't come to her in the first place.

"I've also fought with a sea monster, it's called Kraken, in the North Sea, you don't know, it's probably so-big."

He made an exaggerated gesture as he spoke, making Daphne laugh again.

"Thank you, Daphne, for listening to me." Ning An's tone calmed down, and his voice was like the night wind, like a layer of frost.

"Of course I do." The girl turned her head, looked at him steadily, and said without hesitation.

"Thank you......"

With a chuckle, Ning An looked at the moon, closed his eyes slightly, and let the moonlight fall.

"I'm going to let things go back to square one, I'm going to let everything go back to square one, find a place where we can accept us and the snake letter, create a home of our own, rest assured I've thought it all through, I've thought it all through......"

He muttered in a voice that Daphne could hear, and the witch listened quietly, and she almost couldn't help but blurt out, "Of course, of course you will, whether you do it or not, I will accompany you, don't try to throw me away again this time." ”

But a few figures flickered in her mind, and she shook her head and suppressed it.

Daphne, you have to calm down, it's not the time, it's not the time......

What would happen to them if they said something that amounted to a confession here, and if they were rejected, would they be able to continue to be friends? Daphne couldn't imagine that life.

"Well, I'm sure you'll do it."

Only the first half of the sentence was spoken, and the girl in the back silently recited it countless times in her heart, and a cold wind blew through the towers of Hogwarts Castle, making a "whine" sound, like a castle whimpering.

"It's Christmas in two days......" Daphne muttered.

*******************************************************

On the day of Christmas, the students were greeted with snowflakes that fell silently in the middle of the night, and when they woke up in the morning, they found that the entire castle and grounds were covered in snow, and the snow did not stop.

Beauxbatons' light blue carriage looked like a big pumpkin in the winter with frost, and the gingerbread house next to it was Hagrid's Hut.

The Durmstrang ship also had a layer of ice, which became smooth and translucent, and Fabian, who had drunk the polyjuice decoction in the morning and turned into Krum, almost slipped as soon as he went out, causing Charlotte to "giggle" and laugh, and even Daphne laughed with him.

There was also a layer of hoarfrost on the sails, and Karkaroff used a snow removal charm to remove a lot of snow, but he couldn't clear the clumps of ice, but the students didn't really want the snow to be cleared, as they all looked at the Hogwarts students on the field with envy, excitedly having a snowball fight.

"It's still early, you don't have to go out so early, Fabian."

Ning An sat in her room, and early in the morning, Daphne came over and brought Christmas gifts, and Ning An opened it in front of her, and found that it was a set of potion vials made of gold, silver, lead, tin, and various metals, packed in a quaint brown suitcase.

"It's amazing, Daphne—"

Ning An also returned the salute, giving the quill pen that would tell the story to Daphne, and the girl's eyes were full of stars, and she vowed to let her write stories for herself every day until she was two hundred years old.

Ning An shook his head and smiled and handed the book "The Man Who Dote on Dragons" to Fabian, Fabian looked embarrassed, he didn't expect Ning An to give him a Christmas gift, although Ning An has never had a shelf, but after working in the Ministry of Magic for so long, he knows very well that he is a subordinate.

But this time, the other party seemed to really regard himself as a family member and friend, which made Fabian very moved, Ning An saw the half-blood giant's eyes red for the first time, and he also followed Daphne to swear that he would give Ning An a unique gift next Christmas, more than everyone else.

Ning An chuckled and agreed.

"Don't you need to prepare?" Ning An was packing various gifts and asked Daphne, who was watching her work idly.

"Don't worry, you won't go anyway, just dress up."

Daphne didn't look forward to the Christmas ball without Ning'an, just lazily leaning back on the couch to see Ning's gifts, and watching Charlotte talk to herself and play with her two 'new friends', Fabian couldn't wait to open the book and look at it with relish.

If this continues, he will probably return to Germany and soon get a dragon to raise.

"These are all gifts for people?"

Daphne asked curiously, he saw a lot of things, magic tools, books, candy, and even a few oddly styled socks, which Ning An said had bought from Hogsmeade's Elegance Wizard Costume Store.

Daphne couldn't help but wonder who received these socks, but she didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

"yes, by the way - you can help me bring this to Eric and Astoria, they should all have a way to go to the ball, I'll invite them like Malfoy."

Daphne nodded, looking at the big bag full of gifts, she couldn't help but laugh, if she carried this bag, she had better go to Hogwarts Castle early, otherwise she would have to be laughed at the banquet.

"The rest will be troublesome 'princess', it's quite a long way from here to Germany, but fortunately I deliberately chose a light gift."

The princess is Daphne's owl, and she is of course happy to lend it to Ning'an.

It's just that the corners of Daphne's mouth twitched, it turned out that those weird style socks were given to the snake letter members that Ning An collected in Germany, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, if it was given to Astoria, she might be ridiculed by her sister for about a year.

Pani, who is dressed as Cedric, may not have any Christmas gifts this year, but he can receive gifts from Hufflepuff classmates in the name of Cedric, which can be regarded as compensation, Ning An thought secretly.

After spending the whole morning busy with presents, Daphne and Fabian went to Hogwarts Castle for lunch, where they brought back a large turkey and Christmas pudding, and it was said that there were at least a hundred of them in the Great Hall.

Charlotte was already hungry, so she couldn't wait to sweep away the turkey and pudding, Ning An hastily nibbled a few bites of turkey legs, and the gifts were almost delivered, so she leaned back on the sofa to rest.

"There's a lot of Hogwarts students out there having snowball fights." Daphne blinked at Ning An, full of anticipation.

"Uh-" But before Ning An could speak, he aroused the huge interest of Charlotte next to him

"Snowball fight——? I want to play——! ”

So at the strong request of the little banshee, Ning An had to cast a phantom spell on her, originally he didn't plan to go, but he couldn't stand Daphne's repeated nagging, so he had to hide himself too, and the four of them went to the field to play with the snow.

Of course, there weren't many people on the field, or the field was too big, and the four of them occupied a small corner and had a happy time, but to outsiders, maybe it was just Daphne and Krum playing in the snow.

Ning An made Daphne regret it deeply, he relied on his stealth to frequently pinch the snow into small snow balls and throw them into the back of Daphne's neck, making the girl ashamed and angry, the snow-white neck turned red, but he couldn't find Ning An, so he had to vent and throw it everywhere.

Charlotte's whisper would come at this time, like a missing elf.

At about five o'clock, the group returned to the cabin, Ning An didn't care, he was surprised why Daphne didn't go back to prepare, the dinner party was about to start at eight o'clock, Daphne just said that she was not in a hurry, she stayed in Ning An's cabin, and played with Charlotte and Chinese Fireball and Fudge, and Fabian went to study the book again.

Even borrowed the model of the Chinese fireball from time to time, ba/an, with a look of affection, but the little banshee was very vigilant, for fear of being snatched by him.

It wasn't until six o'clock or seven o'clock that Daphne went back to her cabin, and after a while she packed up and came back again, this time Ning An understood why she was not in a hurry to dress up.

Because just dressing up casually is amazing enough.

She wore a black glossy evening dress dress, revealing a small piece of white flawless, lotus-like little arms, with white gloves, and her hair bun was pulled up high, this was the first time Ning An saw Daphne dressed up, her temperament was completely different from her usual cunning, slightly lazy temperament, she was so solemn and noble at the moment, and even looked cold from a distance, and the black dress was worn on her body, making people not even dare to talk closely, and it was easy to be ashamed of herself.

Looking at Ning An, who was a little stunned, Daphne raised her chin proudly.

How about it, let you not go to the prom, I regret it now-

In fact, because she didn't have Ning An's participation, she didn't want to dress up, she just changed her hairstyle casually, put on a dress and was done, but maybe it was the contrast caused by the sudden change of style that made Ning An breathtaking.

Anyway, it was close to seven o'clock, Daphne and Fabian rushed to Hogwarts Castle, and Ning An finally got Fabian to put down the book "The Doting Dragon Man", he seemed to be addicted to it, and even wanted to bring it to the dinner party to read.

After the two left, Ning An sighed, instructed Charlotte, who was still playing with Fudge and the fireball, to stay here, and cast a spell on the cabin so that people could not easily enter and exit, so he recited a hallucination spell to himself, and left the Durmstrang ship lightly.

He jumped lightly from the bow of the boat, and under the influence of the levitation charm, he landed gently like a feather on the snow on the shore, and he couldn't help but think that maybe Voldemort's flying magic and the levitation charm were similar?

But now was not the time to experiment with magic, he walked along the snow, towards Hogwarts Castle, it was already dark, the moon hung high in the sky, the blizzard had long since stopped, only occasionally a fine snow would fall, and it would disappear on people's faces, leaving a little cold water stain.

He could see the schoolgirls disembarking from the Beauxbatons carriage in the distance, most of them had been invited by the Hogwarts boys, and were now stepping through the snow, and the sincere boys were waiting for their dance partners outside the carriage in the cold wind, while some of the "shrewd" ones were standing politely in the doorway, looking out from afar, wondering why their dance partners hadn't come tonight.

Ning An quietly bypassed the main entrance, and then near the outer wall of the Gryffindor Tower, transformed into a blackened raven, and flew down the towering tower towards the owl shed on the top floor, where he had the best access to Hogwarts.