Chapter 193: Trouble With The Goblet
At one-thirty in the afternoon, lunchtime had already passed.
Melvin didn’t go to the Great Hall for lunch; at the Fat Friar’s invitation, he stayed in the Hufflepuff Lounge and had lunch with little wizards Hannah, Rolf, Ernie, and Justin.
No need for house-elves to deliver meals. Turn right out of the Common Room, tickle the pear in the fruit painting, push open the door to the Kitchen, take whatever you want to eat—it’s all freshly cooked dishes. The cream of mushroom soup is steaming and bubbling, and the fat on the steak is still sizzling.
If the roast meat and cream soup feel too rich and sweet, the greenhouse orchard is right outside the window, about the size of the Third Greenhouse. You can always find ripe seasonal fruit, freshly picked, green and pesticide-free, refreshing and grease-cutting, with dew on it that’s drinkable.
To deeply experience Hufflepuff’s characteristics, it’s best to wait until Cedric and the others win a Quidditch match or final examinations end, when the prefect will lead people outside to organize a bonfire party.
Classmates with good cooking skills handle the roast meat, getting ingredients from the nearby kitchen. If you don’t want to do it yourself, just call a house-elf.
Unfortunately, Hufflepuff students generally don’t compete or grab. Whether it’s Quidditch trophies or the House Cup, they rarely get one for years, so they can only look forward to the final examinations each year. From a certain perspective, they love studying even more than Ravenclaws.
Led by the Fat Friar and the students, Melvin almost toured the entire lounge, just missing the girls’ dormitory.
Leaving the Common Room and entering the underground greenhouse, walking along the lawn path deeper in, about half a mile, you’ll see a small canal only knee-deep, diverted from the Black Lake, mainly for irrigating this greenhouse area. Occasionally students play in it, and there’s a wood carving bust of Lady Hufflepuff by the canal.
Melvin stopped here.
Unlike the wizard statues in the castle, this statue is especially rough, with almost no visible facial details—eyebrows, eyes, nose, and mouth all blurred. Only the outline vaguely shows it’s a short, plump witch, and the base has no mottos or maxims.
If the Fat Friar hadn’t introduced it as Professor Sprout, Melvin wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong.
Perhaps because it was Hufflepuff territory, as Melvin muttered to himself in his mind, the house dean sensed it. The second he had the offending thought, Professor Sprout appeared behind him the next second.
“Melvin!” Professor Sprout, dressed in brown-green gardener’s clothes and carrying a wicker basket, happily waved to him. “Are you visiting our lounge?”
“It’s my first time here. The Fat Friar is my guide.” Melvin looked at the basket she was carrying, which held a plant specimen with lance-shaped leaves and a root with a vague human shape. “Is this a mandrake specimen?”
“Exactly, I brought it to decorate the lounge.” Professor Sprout enthusiastically explained, “It’s not fully prepared yet. Once it’s dried in the sun and absorbs the sun’s magic power, it can come back to life, singing and dancing. But the weather’s been bad lately, always raining, so I can only dry it here.”
She pointed to the dome of the underground greenhouse. Like the Great Hall’s magical dome, the ceiling here could mimic the weather, but it was always sunny.
Melvin felt Hufflepuff was very different from the other houses. The deans of other houses always avoided appearing in their lounges, generally considering them student space, but Hufflepuff had no such barrier.
“The school’s mandrakes are about to mature. You still have some left from the last procurement. I transplanted them to the Third Greenhouse, and they seem to be showing signs of combining…”
Listening to Professor Sprout chatter on about interesting anecdotes with the greenhouse plants, Melvin smiled and listened quietly beside her.
The little girl named Hannah by the canal held freshly picked strawberries, still pale green-white. Not shy even seeing the dean, she greeted the two professors, squatted to rinse the unripe strawberries, then bounced away.
“Friar, Professor, do you know about Lady Hufflepuff’s deeds in life?”
“We only know what’s recorded in school history.”
“Do you know anything about the golden goblet?”
“You mean the founder’s relic.”
“Yes, the sword and diadem have incredible magic power. Aren’t you curious what unique magic Hufflepuff’s golden goblet has?”
Professor Sprout fiddled with the specimen, not surprised why Melvin wanted to know these things, and casually said with a smile: “The golden goblet was originally for house-elves to serve dishes in. Maybe it makes food more delicious?”
The Fat Friar nodded slightly thoughtfully, seemingly agreeing with the guess.
Compared to the creations of the other three founders, the golden goblet was like Hufflepuff House—accepting students other houses wouldn’t take. It had no standout traits, but when you focused on it, its mild and resilient power was hard to ignore.
Melvin stood by the canal, sunlight spreading flat through the clouds, the water surface reflecting shifting light and shadows. He turned to look at the blurry statue, as if seeing a friendly and powerful witch from a thousand years ago smiling at them across the river of time.
His heart stirred slightly. Perhaps the Hufflepuff statue gave a hint, or maybe he had found the right direction himself.
……
In the evening.
Hufflepuff’s Goblet sat on the young professor’s desk, its polished smooth walls reflecting flecks of candlelight.
The goblet held clear water, which reflected the young snake sticking out its tongue and the young professor at the desk. Melvin stood steadily, hands braced on the desk, gazing at the snake shadow in the goblet.
Yurm turned back to look at him and let out a soft, dog-like bark: “Woof?”
“When I visited the Hufflepuff Lounge, I suddenly remembered something. Normally, the sword and diadem wouldn’t show strange magic power either. I’m not sure about the diadem, but it’s probably related to wisdom. Godric Gryffindor’s sword only recognizes true warriors.”
Melvin explained softly, “So I thought, to unleash the goblet’s true magic power, it also needs to recognize you.”
Unlike Gryffindor, Hufflepuff couldn’t be summed up with a single adjective—diligence, loyalty, fairness, and inclusiveness, closely tied to earth and food…
Melvin didn’t consider himself a wizard like Professor Sprout, but he recalled an animal with similar traits, and he happened to have that animal’s blessing within him.
Breathing steadily, he placed his hands on the goblet’s base, channeling the unique magic power from the unicorn and slowly infusing it into the goblet.
The golden goblet overflowed with multicolored light, hazy and brilliant yet not blinding. The light merged into the clear water, turning it a milky white. The clear water transformed into a liquid similar to milk, silky and fine, but not as thick, with little change in texture.
Melvin could smell something like Skele-Gro. He guessed it was some kind of healing liquid. But before he could observe closely, thin black threads emerged from the bottom of the goblet, stirring along the walls like fine snakes.
As the black spread, the milky white liquid began to bubble, gradually turning into a cup of gray-tin-colored unknown liquid, like fermented cheese, emitting a faint fishy stench.
Yurm disgustedly moved its head away from the golden goblet.
“Voldemort…” Melvin frowned and murmured.
