Before leaving, a flash of worry crossed Grey Lady's silver eyes: "Please be sure to keep the diadem safe. Don't let it fall into the hands of those with ill intentions."

"I promise." Adrian nodded solemnly in agreement.

On his way back to his office, Adrian encountered Harry and Ron in the corridor. Ron's robes had some water stains on them.

Because of the previous battle on the Quidditch pitch, almost all students from both Gryffindor and Slytherin who had participated received punishment—half a month of detention.

Of course, though Harry and Ron got detention, they didn't feel sad about it.

After all, they had come out on top.

Malfoy had also learned his lesson—he hadn't written home about this incident, probably because he was afraid of losing face. Besides, he wasn't in the right anyway.

When Snape learned that Malfoy had called someone a "mudblood," he personally arranged the content of his detention.

These past few days, Harry had been delighted to discover that Malfoy looked much more haggard—he must have suffered quite a bit during Snape's detention.

Hogwarts detention included many activities, including but not limited to helping professors with work and various physical labor.

It could be predicted that during these days, Hogwarts' toilets would be much cleaner.

At this moment, Harry and Ron had just finished cleaning the boys' bathroom and were heading to the Gryffindor common room.

"I still have to polish the trophy room tonight... how terrible." Ron complained with a bitter face.

Harry glanced at him: "You could trade with me."

"No way."

Ron quickly waved his hands in refusal, because Harry's evening task was to help Lockhart write letters, replying to his fanatical fans.

He had been doing this for three consecutive days, yet those letters were still piled up like a small mountain, with no sign of decreasing.

Perhaps even by the time his detention ended, he still wouldn't be able to process them all.

Thinking of this, Harry sighed.

He would rather sweep the toilets a hundred more times than do this task. The nauseating content in those letters made him feel somewhat physically uncomfortable.

"You could find a way to get Professor Westeros to take charge of your detention," Ron reminded him: "He definitely wouldn't torture you like Lockhart does—at least he wouldn't make you reply to letters."

"I don't want to trouble Pro—" Harry's words were cut short when he suddenly spotted Adrian walking toward them.

"Good morning, Professor!" He waved at Adrian.

"It's you, Harry," Adrian nodded, "Good morning."

At this moment, Ron quickly stepped forward and vividly described to Adrian the miserable torment he and Harry were experiencing in detention. He also mentioned that Harry needed to help Lockhart reply to letters tonight, hoping Adrian could help him.

"Ah, I just remembered," Adrian said after listening, playfully winking at Harry: "I have a large group of nifflers that need someone to groom their fur. What should I do... this is quite troublesome... if only someone could help!"

Under Ron's expectant gaze, Adrian continued with a smile: "I'll speak with Professor McGonagall about transferring you both to work with me—I really do need two assistants."

Adrian was willing to help with this matter.

Helping Lockhart reply to letters served no purpose for Harry—it would be better to have him help care for the nifflers, where he could actually learn something about them.

After Adrian left:

Ron excitedly nudged Harry with his elbow: "See? Professor Westeros agreed. He's always been fond of you. Having a professor's backing feels pretty good, doesn't it?"

"Nonsense," Harry sighed, "I didn't want to trouble Professor Westeros in the first place."

"Come on," Ron curled his lip: "If you'd rather help Lockhart reply to letters, you could ask Professor Westeros to transfer you back."

"That's completely unnecessary."

When Adrian mentioned to Professor McGonagall that he wanted to borrow Harry and Ron, McGonagall readily agreed.

In fact, though fighting was a serious violation of school discipline, she didn't think Ron had made any fundamental error. After all, compared to fighting, calling someone a "mudblood" was far more serious in her eyes.

Therefore, her punishment for these students wasn't severe—even the point deductions were just going through the motions.

As for Malfoy... hopefully Snape's detention would teach him a lesson.

That evening, Harry and Ron came to Adrian's office.

Honestly, grooming the nifflers' fur was tedious work, but no matter what, it was much more interesting than cleaning toilets or replying to Lockhart's letters.

Moreover, these nifflers were all quite well-behaved.

Though one of the nifflers stole a silver Sickle from Harry's pocket, he didn't mind at all.

As for Ron—he didn't have a single copper Knut in his pocket, so the nifflers naturally couldn't do anything about him.

He even found a gold Galleon in one niffler's pouch, though it was quickly snatched back by the niffler.

When the work was halfway done, Ron looked around and noticed that Adrian was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Professor Westeros?" he asked Harry.

"I don't know. He probably has other matters to attend to," Harry said, brushing a niffler's paw pads with a brush. "But he said that when time's up, we just need to put the nifflers back in their cages and then we can leave."

Ron shrugged thinking. 'If only all detention work could be like today's.'

Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, Adrian was in greenhouse number two.

The small apple sapling with the "purification" property that had previously been planted in greenhouse three had already been transplanted here.

What he hadn't expected was that this sapling, which wasn't even as tall as a person, had actually borne fruit!

Such a small sapling being able to bear fruit clearly defied common sense.

However, this was the magical world.

Thinking of this, Adrian immediately felt relieved—anything could happen in the magical world.

Adrian guessed that the reason it bore fruit might be because he had given it too much growth potion, causing some changes to occur.

What surprised him even more was that the fruit had actually gone through the entire process from flowering to fruiting in just one short hour.

That was remarkably fast indeed.

Of course, everything came with a price—this rapidly ripened fruit was much smaller than normal apples.

Adrian held the apple, which was only half the size of his fist, in his hand and observed it carefully.

"Eldra."

[Name: Apple]

[Property: Purification]

[Status: Mature]

Since the information given by the Tree of Wisdom was no different from before, the effect should be the same as well.

Adrian immediately went to the storage room and found the remaining materials from his previous golden apple creation.

The ritual proceeded smoothly, and an hour later, Adrian had a small golden apple in his hand.

Everything seemed to go well.

Now he just needed to make this apple into a purification potion.

________________

You can read more chapters on:

/IamLuis