The dawn of Christmas arrived.

The weather was cold, and everything was covered in white.

The three "Reserve Grand Arcana" had all slept in the Hyperion overnight, and they were awakened early in the morning by Ellena.

She looked particularly excited, having already changed out of her heavy, cumbersome wizard robes for a tight-fitting, gold and red Hyperion "Valkyrie" combat suit. She held the others' new clothes in her arms, as well as Christmas gifts for the little wings.

"Wake up, sleepyheads." Ellena admired the sleeping postures of the little wings in the beds, while opening the curtains.

Outside was a deep blue silence.

The winter sunlight streamed down from a great height, reflecting some faint light outside the window.

Occasionally, one could see a few large blue fish, or some other creature, swimming past.

"Ellena—are we under the Black Lake at school?" Hannah yawned, rubbing her eyes, and looked around.

"Yeah, didn't we talk about it last night? The Hyperion entered stealth mode at midnight as planned..."

Ellena nodded, explaining as she tossed Hannah's clothes and gifts to her.

"Merry Christmas, our lovely silly friend. The Ministry officials should have arrived in the school's Great Hall. After the final round of inspections and task assignments, today's hunt will begin. Hurry up and change your clothes, and get ready for this afternoon's holiday celebration."

Hermione sat up, immediately fully awake.

"Wait, do we have to wear this?"

"You have to wear it."

Ellena said, casually pulling back Hermione's blanket, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at her.

"If we were to encounter the Basilisk head-on, I'd want you to at least have armor for protection—and Valkyria can prevent you from directly looking at the Basilisk. But even so, it's best not to make indirect eye contact. Of course, that's just an insurance measure."

Unlike conventional magical armor, the faceplate of the Valkyria "Valkyrie" armor uses magical imaging techniques.

It was as if it were a holographic image that could automatically switch the viewing angle in a spiral. The Valkyrie inside the "magic mecha" could freely choose the viewing angle image presented to her: such as a bird's-eye view, first-person perspective, third-person perspective, horizontally stretched wide-angle, etc.

Just then, Luna also groggily climbed up from her pillow.

"Good morning, Ellena," her gaze didn't seem to have fully focused, her voice floating, "Did you receive my gift?"

Unlike Hermione's alertness and vigilance, Luna had no resistance to the Hyperion's one-piece bodysuit.

She actually quite liked the design of the "Valkyrie" combat suit, at least it didn't have as many scattered components as other clothes.

"Uh, your gifts... probably can't be received for the time being—"

Ellena shrugged, glanced at the lake bottom scenery outside the window, and said with a smile.

"Not to mention that the Hyperion will block true name coordinates, even if the owls could find our location, they can't swim."

"Come and see your gifts. I made sure to prepare your respective Christmas gifts in advance this year!"

This… year?

Hermione raised her eyebrows, thoughtfully glancing at Ellena.

So that’s how it was, so last year this white-haired dumpling was indeed a heartless little thing?!

As for those expensive and generous gifts, they were mostly prepared by Grindelwald and Dumbledore, right?

She had previously felt that those proper gifts didn't seem like Ellena's handiwork. Moreover, Luna had some doubts after returning to school, which further confirmed Hermione's guesses. However, no matter how they interrogated her, Ellena was quite cautious in this regard.

Compared to those expensive and formal gifts from last year that seemed like something elders would choose, this year's looked obviously stranger.

Or rather, this is Ellena's "normal" Christmas gift?

Hermione received a small and exquisite magical music box.

With just a few turns, the music box would play a piano piece performed by Ellena.

The name of the piano piece was "Hedwig's Theme Variations". Hermione decided to start learning the piano after this Christmas, starting with this piece;

Hannah received a handwritten booklet called "Caslana's Cooking Notes".

It was filled with recipes and flow charts for various delicious dishes, all of which were Hannah's favorite foods.

This way, even when returning to the Leaky Cauldron, or when she occasionally craved something, Hannah could follow the steps above to make dishes that suited her taste. It even contained many "Caslana" exclusive private dishes that were not available in the Hogwarts kitchen;

Luna received a slightly more special gift, which at first glance looked like an illustrated book.

However, most of the content was mostly gray outlines and blank pages.

According to Ellena, its official name was "Fantastic Beasts Compendium 0.98". When Luna discovers a new fantastic beast, or an unrecognized fantastic beast, she only needs to use it to record it, and she can illuminate the corresponding illustration in it.

If you encounter a fantastic beast that has not yet been registered in the "Fantastic Beasts Compendium", a prompt and a new page will appear.

And on the low table in the nearby captain's lounge, four bowls of steaming eggnog oatmeal were still emitting an alluring fragrance.

The rich eggnog aroma mixed with the unique fragrance of oatmeal gradually awakened the hunger that Hermione, Luna, and Hannah had slept through all night.

Bacon and egg mousse were served on a pure white plate, next to golden and crispy potato wedges. Ketchup, blueberry jam, strawberry jam, and butter were arranged in a small dish, and several pieces of raisin cake and chocolate cake were placed on the top layer of the dessert rack, looking particularly tempting.

"Sorry, we can't temporarily appear in Hogwarts Castle today, because there are many outsiders."

Ellena scratched her cheeks, looked at the wings still changing clothes, and explained somewhat embarrassedly.

"If nothing goes wrong, the Christmas dinner may only be spent around the castle or on the Hyperion, and the Hogwarts kitchen can't deliver the dishes to the ship either. Anyway, bear with it for now. If you feel bored, you can stroll around the ship..."

Hermione and the others noticed that at the other end of the Hyperion's captain's cabin, there was a small room that was slightly ajar.

Through the crack in the door, it could be vaguely seen that it seemed to be a super small, simple kitchen.

At this time, a white apron was hanging on the doorknob.

"So today's breakfast is..."

Hermione raised her eyebrows, moving her gaze from the apron to the low table not far away.

Since the Hogwarts house-elves became skilled, Ellena, as the head chef, rarely cooked in person.

If Hermione remembered correctly, the last time she ate breakfast made by Ellena herself was during the first semester of last year.

She looked down at the magical music box jingling in her hand, and then looked at the cookbook in Hannah's hand and the illustrated book by Luna's pillow. A warm feeling suddenly surged in her heart. Even though Ellena had become the Goblin Queen of Gringotts and Miss Fool of the Grand Arcana, the distance between this white-haired dumpling and them had not become distant because of this. Instead, they had become closer and more sincere.

"That's right, it's all made by me—don't waste it!"

Ellena nodded triumphantly, the little tuft of hair on her head swayed arrogantly, and said fiercely.

"In short, you are all under house arrest on the Hyperion now. Before the end of today, your range of activities is limited to the Hyperion's hull. Your main task today is to study hard and observe the coordinated operations of Destiny Group, Hogwarts, and Gringotts."

"...Well, don't worry, Ellena. We know the importance of this operation."

Luna closed the strange "Fantastic Beasts Compendium" in her hand, suddenly turned her head, and looked at Ellena with a serious expression.

"However, you have to answer me one question first—"

"Hmm? What question?"

"In the Hyperion's combat plan, there is a 'top-level' mobile combat unit..."

Luna stood up, laboriously pulling up the zipper of her tight-fitting combat suit, her silver-gray eyes fixed on Ellena's face.

"When the Basilisk loses control and the defense network has loopholes, the Hyperion will first carry out a round of patching strikes. Doesn't that mobile combat unit mentioned happen to be... you? Sister Ellena? Did you communicate this with the other Grand Arcana members in advance?"

"It's just an emergency plan outside of the plan, just improvise as needed—"

Ellena shrugged, cupped Luna's small face in her hands, and squeezed it towards the middle in annoyance.

"I know what I'm doing. It's okay to act expediently in this kind of thing, understand?! Okay, don't be so surprised, breakfast is getting cold!"

…………

At the same time, Hogwarts School's Great Hall.

The lavish breakfast put everyone in a pretty good mood, including those Ministry of Magic wizards who were about to go hunt the Basilisk.

Admittedly, in the wizarding world, the legends about the Basilisk may sound quite scary.

But considering the luxurious lineup of this "Basilisk Hunt", on the whole, most Ministry of Magic employees were still very relaxed.

After all, Albus Dumbledore and Newt Scamander, these two top wizards, were leading the way up front; Nicholas Flamel and Otto Apocalypse, two monster-level alchemists, were sitting in the castle area, and even if it was a Sphinx's nest below, it would be wiped out.

In the eyes of the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts Board of Governors members, this operation was more like a large-scale political gilding.

In fact, Cornelius Fudge had even contacted several media outlets in advance, but he didn't tell them the specific reason.

When the good news from Hogwarts reached them, he would set off with the reporters on standby to arrive at the school as soon as possible and launch a series of publicity campaigns—in times of peace, such weighty political capital was something every politician dreamed of.

Saving the wizarding world from the black magic conspiracy, resolutely solving the werewolf problem, sweeping away the monsters of Hogwarts...

With so many political achievements, even without Dumbledore's support in the future, Cornelius Fudge was confident that he could secure the Minister's position.

If he was lucky, he might even have a chance to challenge the record for the longest-serving Minister of Magic.

When Dumbledore passed away, he was not completely without hope for even the position of Chief Warlock of the International Confederation of Wizards.

After all, in the eyes of many people, he was also considered a "direct line" successor supported by Dumbledore. Even though his relationship with Hogwarts was slightly strained due to the Umbridge incident some time ago, as long as he could successfully plant a nail in the school, that would be considered a success.

However, compared to the relaxed and casual attitude of the Ministry of Magic officials, Dumbledore and Newt both had somewhat serious expressions.

If it weren't for the "vision" gifted Ellena's "prophecy", they would have been completely unaware of the specific location of the Chamber of Secrets and the types of monsters that might exist within it. But even so, the specific information about the Chamber of Secrets was still quite limited.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading!

You should know that Hogwarts Castle was originally the territory of the Slytherin family.

As Salazar Slytherin's last resort left in the castle, no one knew how many traps and magical traps were in the Chamber of Secrets.

More importantly, if the two of them failed to leave the big snake in the Chamber of Secrets, once it had the opportunity to escape outside Hogwarts, the possible problems that could be caused would be too many—just the wizarding squads on the Hyperion were a big trouble.

Of course, fortunately, their preparations and personnel configuration were quite luxurious.

Even if the Basilisk could escape from the Chamber of Secrets by chance, it would not be able to leave the Hogwarts range alive.

When the last portion of pudding disappeared from the plates on the Great Hall tables, Dumbledore stood up, led everyone out of the Great Hall, and headed to the Chamber of Secrets entrance that they had explored beforehand, officially starting this "winter hunt" operation that had been planned and discussed for months.

…………

Hogwarts Castle, second floor, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

This was originally an ordinary girls' bathroom. Many girls would go to the toilet here after leaving the Great Hall.

But since Myrtle Elizabeth Warren was killed here when the Chamber of Secrets was opened decades ago, and turned into a ghost who has lingered and roamed here for a long time, it has been in a semi-abandoned state. And from this semester, it has been directly listed as one of the new forbidden areas.

However, today was obviously a very special day.

Dozens of officials from the Ministry of Magic, Professor Dumbledore, and Newt Scamander all appeared in this bathroom.

The usually noisy and sensitive Myrtle hid in the toilet cubicle in fear, nervously watching the adult wizards outside—she faintly seemed to have seen this scene somewhere once, when her body suddenly became light decades ago, it was equally lively here.

As for the reason why these big figures had gathered here again, she naturally knew it very well.

The Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets had finally been discovered, and the beast that had taken her life could finally get the punishment it deserved.

————

————

Yay!