Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Chapter 913: The Mimbulus Mimbletonia

Chapter 913: The Mimbulus Mimbletonia

While Evan was using Ginny’s modified Bat-Bogey Hex, Ginny and Harry were dragging heavy trunks, struggling off down the corridor, while peering through the glass-paneled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full.

“Neville said that he would come up first to save us places,” said Ginny. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.” Harry also hoped to get into any compartment, instead of going on like this.

He could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at him with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbors and pointed him out.

This was the case for five consecutive carriages.

This phenomenon had started since Dumbledore announced Voldemort’s return last term. Hermione said that they would gradually accept the fact, but after returning from the summer vacation, everyone’s interest in him did not diminish at all, but instead became even stronger.

The expressions on their faces seemed like Harry was some kind of treasured animal.

Then, he remembered that the readers had been told all summer what lying show-offs he and Evan were, and that they had not to believe them about Voldemort’s return.

If only Evan were here, he could help him share the pressure.

He wondered bleakly whether the people now staring at him and whispering believed the lies of the Ministry of Magic.

Finally, in the very last carriage, they met Neville Longbottom.

When they were waiting for their luggage on the platform, he’d gotten on the train early and said that he wanted to save them places.

“Hey … Harry, Ginny … over here!” He waved his hand and said, his round face was full of sweat. “I’ve searched everywhere, but here is the only place left, thank goodness, Luna is inside…”

Obviously, no one else wanted to sit with the crazy girl Luna.

Because of Evan, Luna was very familiar with them now, which didn’t help to reverse her reputation in school. After Voldemort’s return, she was even more alienated by others because of this relationship.

They opened the door of the compartment and walked in. Luna, who was sitting beside the window, looked up.

As before, she had straggly, waist-length, dirty-blond hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look, and she gave off an aura of distinct dottiness..

She had stuck her wand behind her left ear, was wearing a necklace of butterbeer caps, and she was holding a magazine upside down.

Harry had to admit that no one except Evan knew how to contact Luna.

At the very least, he didn’t know what to say to her.

“Hello, Harry, Neville, Ginny!” Luna looked at them over her upside-down magazine.

Of course, the magazine she was holding was, as everyone knew, printed by her father.

At the beginning, they often cooperated with them, and even the sales increased for a time. It would have been better if Mr. Lovegood’s style could be higher.

“Hello, Luna,” said Ginny, stowing her trunk in the luggage rack. “How was your summer vacation?”

“I had a good time,” said Luna dreamily. “Where’s Evan? Why isn’t he with you?”

“Oh, he’s become the Head Boy, and he has to give instructions to the prefects.”

To Harry’s surprise, Luna was not surprised at all when she learned the news, as though she had already known it. Or, she might not even know what the Head Boy meant.

It was Neville’s inability to close his mouth that made Harry somehow regain his confidence. That was the expression that a normal person should have.

“Evan has become the Head Boy?” he said incredulously, “You didn’t say that on the platform.”

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” said Luna in a singsong voice. “I knew that Evan would become the Head Boy. What’s so strange about that?”

“It’s like… not really.” Neville opened his mouth and didn’t know what to say.

Evan did have the qualifications to be the Head Boy, but it was only a matter of time…

Ginny came close to Luna, and Harry and Neville talked about their summer vacation. The disturbance regarding the incident of his being attacked by the Dementors had not yet completely subsided.

The train rattled onward, speeding them out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously gray clouds.

“By the way, guess what I got for my birthday?” said Neville excitedly.

“Another Remembrall?” said Harry, remembering the marblelike device Neville’s grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.

“No,” said Neville, “I could do with one, though, I lost the old one ages ago… Look at this!”

He dug the hand that was not keeping a firm grip on Trevor into his schoolbag and after a little bit of rummaging pulled out what appeared to be a small gray cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.

“Mimbulus mimbletonia,” he said proudly.

Harry stared at the thing. It was pulsating slightly, giving it the rather sinister look of some diseased internal organ.

“It’s really, really rare,” said Neville, beaming. “I don’t know if there’s one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. I can’t wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My great-uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I’m going to see if I can breed from it.”

Assyria was a slavery country that emerged in Mesopotamia and was considered the first military empire in world history. Nowadays, it was also known as the two river basins, which was a general term for the countries of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

But this was a very old term, and only wizards still used it. Assyrian immigrants had a special wizarding civilization system, and had guarded the secrets of the past since ancient times.

Harry stared at the Mimbulus mimbletonia, and he didn’t like it at all. He knew that Neville’s favorite subject was Herbology, but for the life of him he could not see what he would want with this stunted little plant.

“I’ll show it to Evan and Hermione later. They’ll love it. Maybe I can write an article about how to cultivate the Mimbulus mimbletonia in the newspaper,” said Neville excitedly, “articles of this kind are rarely seen on the market.”

“Well … does it do anything?” Harry couldn’t help asking.

“Loads of stuff!” said Neville proudly. “It’s got an amazing defensive mechanism … look, hold Trevor for me…”

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