Chapter 26 Maca's Gift Delivery

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Unlike the cozy Christmas party at the Lovegood house, the Christmas feast at Hogwarts can only be described with one word—magnificent!

There were exactly one hundred shiny roasted turkeys, piles of charcoal-grilled beef and salt-boiled potatoes that formed small mountains, large plates of delicious sausages, bowls of buttered peas, and plates of thick and fragrant meat stew and cranberry sauce. The sumptuous dishes made everyone's mouth water.

As you walked along the table, there were piles of wizarding crackers waiting for you. These marvelous crackers were nothing like the plain and meager ones Muggle families usually buy—they contained small plastic toys and flimsy paper hats.

Harry and Fred pulled a cracker together, but instead of a small pop, it made a booming sound like a cannon blast, engulfing them in a blue smoke and revealing a naval admiral's hat and a few lively white mice.

Dumbledore, sitting at the head table, had exchanged his usual hat for a lace women's hat adorned with a cluster of brightly colored flowers. He was immersed in Professor Flitwick's jokes, laughing heartily.

After the main course came the flaming red Christmas pudding, occasionally with slivers of silver in the shape of crescent moons. Percy won—nearly breaking his perfectly aligned teeth.

"Albus, look at those Christmas trees. They are a little gift McClain left us before he left," Professor McGonagall lightly tapped Dumbledore's elbow, giggling and completely devoid of her usual sternness.

"Oh, very nice, a really good child," Dumbledore looked at the festive Christmas trees and nodded happily in praise.

Professor Flitwick also echoed Professor McGonagall's words and pointed out each of the decorations made by Maca to Dumbledore, evidently quite satisfied with Maca's excellent work.

Severus Snape, sitting at the very end, remained cold and aloof amidst the celebrations. He gazed at the mist-covered Christmas trees, lost in thought.

Just as everyone was enjoying themselves, owls flew into the Great Hall carrying various packages, scattering in different directions.

"What's happening?"

Even the professors couldn't understand why owls were flying in at that moment. Only Dumbledore smiled as he watched the scene, his face filled with contentment.

It didn't take long for the recipients of the packages to understand that they were Christmas gifts from Maca McClain.

"When did he learn this trick from the Weasley twins?" Severus Snape said coldly, but a small package happened to land right in front of him.

Severus Snape frowned and casually tore open the tightly wrapped package, but what he saw inside made him lose himself for a moment—it was a bottle of Felix Felicis.

Typically, each successful preparation of Felix Felicis produces only a few drops, about the size of a little finger. The process is extremely complex, and on average, it takes half a year to prepare.

Maca, inspired by his discussions with Severus Snape, managed to shorten the preparation time to two months, but at the cost of significantly reduced effectiveness.

For this Christmas, Maca spent a considerable amount of Galleons to buy a fully effective bottle of Felix Felicis from a collaborator as a Christmas gift for Severus Snape. It was Maca's sincere gratitude towards Severus Snape and his tireless guidance.

The gift Maca prepared for Luna took the longest time; Severus Snape's gift, on the other hand, was undoubtedly the most expensive among them.

Severus Snape removed the stopper, sniffed it, and silently put the stopper back.

"Severus, I was right, wasn't I?" Dumbledore smiled and said to Severus Snape.

Severus Snape twitched his mouth and replied expressionlessly, "It's just money."

Not to mention the situation at the head table, the students below also received gifts from Maca.

For example, Hermione was currently smiling while hugging a cartoon lion plush toy, reading a small note left by Maca—it contained sleeping flower seeds that improve sleep quality, reminding her to rest amidst her diligent studies.

Ron received the latest edition of Wizarding Battle Chess—a transfiguration exercise by Maca. Unlike regular wizard chess, this set of Wizarding Battle Chess was a tabletop game where powerful magical creatures and wizards fought together. It looked quite impressive.

As for Harry, he discovered that his gift was perhaps the most peculiar among the three of them!

"What is this? Occlumency?" Harry looked at the journal he unpacked from the package, reading each word on the cover.

"Occlumency?" Hermione curiously asked, "What is that?"

Harry casually flipped through the contents, but found that it was actually a notebook written by Maca, and the theories recorded inside were quite complex, making his head spin.

"Let me see," Hermione snatched it away and carefully flipped through it.

While Hermione was studying the notebook, Ron and Harry were guessing back and forth.

"Maca wants you to learn this...brain...secretion thing?" Ron said, "What's it for?"

Harry shook his head. How would he know what it was for? He had never even heard of it before.

"Well, are you going to learn it or not?" Ron asked again. "If Maca wants you to learn it, then it must be important."

It seemed that Maca's previous guess was correct; Ron wasn't angry at him for more than three days.

"Well, let's figure out what it is first," Harry said, looking back at Hermione.

After a while, Hermione looked up with some confusion and spoke.

"According to what Maca wrote in the first few pages, this magic called the 'Brain Sealing Technique' is a defensive magic used to resist foreign mental infiltration and prevent others from reading the user's thoughts," Hermione said. "It has particularly strong resistance against a spell called 'Mind Reading'."

"But what use is it? Who would want to read my thoughts?" Harry asked, confused.

"Who knows? Perhaps we should ask Maca himself," Hermione said, also puzzled.

Only Ron didn't pay too much attention to it. He laughed and said, "If Maca wants you to learn it, then just learn it. He's never wrong."

While the three of them in Gryffindor were discussing this, a student at the Slytherin table not far away also received a gift from Maca.

"Even little fool Blois also got one? What's going on?" The Slytherins were discussing, but no one wanted to bother with her.

The one who received the gift was the mysterious and low-profile girl in the school—Willy Blois..

Willy expressionlessly unpacked the package and placed the gift on the table. She also received a notebook, which seemed thicker, larger, and sturdier.

She opened the notebook and inside, in a neat and concise style, recorded the botanical history, ecological distribution, cultivation methods and application value of various plants. Obviously, Maca had put some thought into this gift - he had rewritten his own notes and sent them to Willy.

Behind this notebook, there was still a lot of blank space, apparently for Willy, who was not good at summarizing, to continue recording in this format.

Willy carefully touched the cover of the notebook, although there was still no emotion on her face, it was enough to make people understand that she really liked this thoughtful gift.

"Thank you." Willy's voice was so low that even she probably couldn't hear it, but this was the first time she had spoken words of thanks, unfortunately Maca was unable to know.

There are too many puzzling things about this mysterious girl. Emotionally deprived to the point of fear, speechless to the point of confusion, and so beautiful as to create an illusion of being non-human. All signs indicate that she is hiding too many secrets, but no one knows the truth.

And this is probably the reason why Maca is interested in her.

Now, this mysterious girl has shown a gap in emotional expression for the first time, but Maca is still far away in Lovegood House.

This must be said to be a pity.

When everyone's attention returned to the dining table, everything just now gradually faded away and melted into the once again hot Christmas atmosphere.

It wasn't until after everyone had played wildly for an afternoon after dinner that the seemingly calm but turbulent night came.

This was the most exciting Christmas Harry had ever had in his life. But the one thing that lingered in his mind, the thing that wouldn't go away, was the mysterious Christmas present - the invisibility cloak, and the unknown person who gave it to him.

Sending out Christmas gifts at the banquet, like Maca, was just an exception. Generally, you would wake up on Christmas Day and find them from the fireplace or bedside.

This morning, Harry hadn't expected to receive any gifts, but when he woke up, he found that he had received a lot of Christmas gifts. And the most surprising of them all was an invisibility cloak sent to him by an unnamed person.

There was a note inside that read: "Your father left this for me before he died, and now it should be returned to you. Use it well and have a Merry Christmas."

The beautiful script looked pleasing to the eye, but its content made Harry almost agonize all day.

At this time, Ron had stuffed himself with turkey and cake, and there was nothing strange bothering him, so he almost fell asleep as soon as he put down the bed curtain. The speed at which he fell asleep was so fast that Harry was a little jealous.

Harry tossed and turned in bed, but eventually reached out and pulled out the invisibility cloak from under the bed.

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