Chapter 57: Damn, grenade!
Lynn nodded slightly and looked at Irina: "How is your study of wandless spellcasting going?"
Irina raised her left hand, and an ice-blue beam flew out from her palm, turning the snowball in Fred's hand into an ice ball.
"After you, Senior Lynn, taught me the skills of wandless spellcasting that day, I successfully used the wandless versions of the Freezing Charm and the Aguamenti Charm. In addition, I also followed the combination techniques you mentioned and studied the snow-making charm between Aguamenti and Freezing!"
As Irina said this, she waved her left hand again, and a lot of white snow condensed out of thin air and formed an exquisite snowball in her hand.
Irina handed the snowball to Fred, which made up for the loss of his own snowball turning into an ice ball.
But unexpectedly, Fred took the snowball and threw it right in Irina's face, then ran away laughing.
This left Irina standing there in a daze.
When Irina came to her senses, she wiped the snow off her face, revealing a clear "#" on her forehead.
"Fred...made fun of me, Senior Lynn...that, Senior Lynn, I still have some things to attend to, I'll leave first!"
Irina tried to keep her original smile.
Smile, smile, you must keep your composure!
Irina screamed inwardly.
Lynn nodded, indicating she could go on her way.
Irina immediately drew out her wand and chased after Fred.
Damn it, I don't care about composure at all!
Irina waved her wand, and three consecutive Freezing Charms broke through the air, freezing the unsuspecting Fred solid.
Not long after, Fred's ghostly howling could be heard from afar.
Lynn shook his head with a smile and turned back towards the castle. With Fred gone first, Harry returned to the castle too. The day before the Christmas holidays, the Great Hall had been dressed up very beautifully.
The walls were covered with holly and mistletoe vines. Professor Flitwick used his wand to conjure strings of golden bubbles and hung them on the branches of the newly erected Christmas trees, while Professor McGonagall directed the senior students of the Transfiguration Club in decorating the Great Hall.
However, although most members of the Transfiguration Club were sixth and seventh years, Irina noticed the second-year Lynn Rowle was also standing among them.
Lynn gave a light wave of his wand, and small Christmas trees transfigured and levitated into place with his floating charm. With Lynn's current magical strength, the transfiguration of these trees could last until the end of the holidays.
Lynn's transfiguration efficiency was extremely high, one student equaling three or four seniors.
Under Professor McGonagall's direction, they completed the Great Hall's festive arrangement in just over ten minutes.
Good times always go by quickly. Christmas morning.
After waking in his cozy bed, Lynn saw the gifts at the foot of it. To his surprise, there were nine gifts here, two more than last year.
Lynn got out of bed with great interest and unwrapped the first gift.
This one came from his mother, Rowena. It contained an invisibility cloak and a letter about family matters.
Although invisibility cloaks have strong utility in the wizarding world, their limited duration makes sales not that high.
After all, witches and wizards who can afford an invisibility cloak can just use the Disillusionment Charm instead, and those who don't know that charm probably can't afford a cloak anyway.
Therefore, compared to its powerful function, the existence of an invisibility cloak is more of a luxury item.
Of course, this cloak could also be useful alchemical material for Lynn.
After reading his mother's letter, Lynn continued unwrapping gifts.
He opened the gifts from Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Snape. The Christmas gifts given by professors to good students were mostly the same.
For example, Professor McGonagall gave him more advanced Transfiguration notes, Professor Flitwick still gave a wand maintenance kit, and Professor Snape gave a bottle of healing potion.
After the three professors, it was the Weasley twins' Christmas gift.
The twins' gift was a large jar of Canary Creams. With Lynn's help, they had contacted him early about alchemy and invented many prank products in advance, these Canary Creams being one of them.
However, Fred and George seemed to want to prank Lynn, and didn't tell him the special nature of this particular jar of Creams.
If it weren't for Lynn's secret alchemical sight that allowed him to see the array hidden inside the Canary Creams, he might have just eaten them as ordinary biscuits.
"Still need a lesson!"
Lynn smiled and shook his head, opening the next present.
Unwrapping it revealed a hand-knitted black sweater inside, with a big letter 'R' on the chest.
Lynn was very surprised by the sender of this gift - it was Mrs. Weasley!
You know, given the Weasley family's disgust for Death Eaters, even if he is friends with the twins, just his identity as a descendant of Death Eaters meant he was destined to not truly be accepted by them, let alone have Mrs. Weasley personally knit him a sweater.
"Could there be some factor I'm unaware of that made her change her view of me?"
Lynn looked at the sweater in his hand and pondered.
Behind the sweater was the quill gifted by Irina's friend Irwin Foley.
"Is this...a gift from Irina?"
Lynn unwrapped the second-to-last gift. This small, delicate package was from Irina, who he had only met three times so far.
Inside was a crystal ball. Of course, this was not the kind used in Divination class, but the Muggle decorative kind with patterns of snowflakes and little people inside. Along with the crystal ball was a letter from Irina, expressing her gratitude to Lynn for teaching her wandless magic.
Soon, Lynn opened the last package, which was a Christmas gift from his mentor, Wallison Green.
But after unwrapping it, the items inside left Lynn dumbfounded.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!!
Even the usually calm Lynn couldn't keep his temper at this moment.
In the package, three round pineapple-shaped things lay quietly.
Blimey, grenades!
(End of chapter)