💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎
🔥 30→2ch | 60→5ch | 100→8ch | 200→15ch | 400→25ch
⏰ Resets Monday!
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Next day was another overcast one. Outside the castle, wind howled and whipped the Black Lake into surging waves. Dark treetops in the Forbidden Forest rustled. Beside roads, on lawns, scattered flower branches and grass leaves blown askew. Owls swept under pale gray clouds. Dropped newspapers and letters onto each house's table. All exhausted enough. Extended beaks to eat students' porridge.
But regardless of weather, for some Muggle Studies students, today was a day worth celebrating. They finally welcomed their practical activity.
"What's this, Patricia?" The Gryffindor beside Patricia Stinson swallowed the pumpkin pie in her mouth with difficulty. Craned her neck to watch her unwrap a colorful magazine from a parchment bag.
"Oh, finally arrived!" Stinson said. "My cheat sheet." She opened the magazine. Right away faced a lady covered in gold jewelry wearing a black evening gown.
Her friend looked curiously. "You sure?"
"Probably," Stinson said. Cautiously and quickly flipped past a tall model with a cold expression, almost wrapped in denim material. "I specially asked Grandma to buy the latest issue."
Because students who'd already participated in practical activities spent at least a week bragging how interesting their trip was, students knew early they'd match Muggle clothing for themselves.
Students who scored high on clothing matching tests became hot commodities. Some even earned pocket money from it. Others took different routes. Directly asked previous group students for reference answers. Those photos left at Diagon Alley entrance, stained with cat and dog fur, suddenly became precious firsthand materials. Circulated among close students.
But even though the Weasley twins had proven—absolutely truly—explosion hair really belonged to hairstyles Muggles could accept, still not many people wanted to try this combination.
While the Weasley brothers strongly recommended it ("Absolutely no need to worry the professor will forget you," Fred said sincerely), Cedric had already corrected design plans for over half the third-years for free. With his kind heart and good grades disrupted Hogwarts' Muggle clothing design market.
Students like Stinson who prepared to directly copy Muggle clothing weren't few. Besides buying magazines, some asked parents to go look at Muggle streets. Write letters telling them what Muggles were wearing.
"'Everyone dresses differently, can't see any pattern. But I looked carefully for a long time, they generally all have buttons...'" Anthony heard a student read. "'I also saw that kind of clothing cut off at the waist you mentioned. Looks like most Muggles dress this way. Their robes usually only cover the waist. Below they put on all sorts of messy things...'" She rustled the letter paper. Complained, "Not a bit useful."
Students with Muggle-born roommates or good friends had it much easier. They either directly pushed their homework before the other person. Or begged the other to lend them clothes to look at.
When students made such sufficient preparations, as a professor, you should create opportunities to let them properly show off. Otherwise, many people would definitely chatter in your ear. Flaunt those extracurricular knowledge they learned.
On the road to the Muggle town, students constantly held various reasons. Requested Anthony help add or remove clothing details.
Initially he'd agree one by one. Chat with students a few sentences. But after over ten minutes of "I heard Muggles wouldn't really use floral purple bow ties with green belts" or "Can the pant legs be bigger, Professor? I think this is called bell-bottoms, right?", Anthony decisively collected some tree leaves blown down by wind from the roadside. Transformed them into silver like 10-pence pieces. Besides three pounds pocket money, he also gave everyone three leaf pieces.
After students wrote their names on the leaves as he requested, he told students they could give leaves to anyone except themselves according to preference. To express appreciation for others' clothing matching.
"Latest must give out leaves before reaching the town entrance. If by that time, leaves in hand still haven't been given out, not only do leaves become invalid, but also deduct one leaf from leaves others gave you." Anthony smiled. "Yes, just like often appears in Muggle stories, this is time-limited magic. So, ladies and gentlemen, take action."
Students holding silver leaves looked at each other blankly. Then, almost without any communication, a pair of friends standing together coincidentally exchanged leaves in their hands. Immediately completed the task. They looked at each other. Both laughed.
"Wait, let me think how to prevent you from exchanging leaves in circles," Anthony had to quickly interrupt them. He could foresee how this activity would develop into "find a partner" rather than "find clothing matching you like."
A student pressed down a hat nearly blown away by wind. Said loudly, "Try making the last leaf given also invalid!"
"Clever solution. Ravenclaw gets one point. But not quite fair, is it?" Anthony said. "Sorry, I think this is a problem caused by my improvised activity design."
After discussing this plan's principle with classmates—as long as exchange balance breaks, winners and losers must appear on field—another student bit her lower lip. Strode to one person who'd already exchanged leaves. Also stuffed one of her silver leaves into his hand.
"Huh? Why? I have no leaves left," that Gryffindor boy blurted out. At a loss clutched the leaves in his hand. Played with them until wrinkled.
His friend quickly pushed him. "Shut up!"
At this time, cheers had already risen. Several meddlesome students shouted, "Because you're good-looking, you big idiot!"
The girl who stuffed the leaf had red cheeks. Said composedly, "No because. Because I'm doing Professor Anthony a favor. Making this activity more interesting." Her friend desperately squeezed her hand. Force so great Anthony saw whitened fingerprints.
"Thank you. Hufflepuff gets one point," Anthony smiled at her. Clapped hands. "Alright, look at each other!"
To Anthony's satisfaction, finally no one came to ask him to change clothes anymore.
However, inevitably, students' voting was quite subjective. Highest votes went to the student with best popularity present. Compared to first place, the proper, even could-get-lost-beside-Muggle-schools second place was actually the matching answer that most surprised Anthony. Several mischievous students even actively stuffed several leaves into his hood.
"I especially like your clothing matching," they said seriously. "It looks just like a certificate marked with O."
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