Neville’s entire body seemed to bounce off the ground like a rubber ball.
After landing once, he bounced back into the air again, though each bounce was lower than the one before.
In the end, Neville finally came to rest steadily on the ground.
His bottom hurt a little from the falls, but compared to what had happened before, he was already much better off.
Seeing this, how could Ternas not realize that Neville had awakened his wizarding talent?
As his older brother, Ternas was naturally overjoyed.
Ternas immediately jumped from the balcony of the room he was in into the garden outside and hurried over to Neville.
Neville looked rather disheveled at this point, with bits of weeds and dirt clinging to his clothes and body.
But compared to awakening his talent, those were nothing but trivial matters.
“Neville, stop spacing out.
Get up quickly.
We have to go tell Grandma the good news and make her happy too.” As he spoke, Ternas reached out, grabbed Neville’s hand, and pulled him up from the ground.
Neville still looked dazed, clearly unable to recover from the fright he had just experienced.
Ternas paid no attention to that.
He simply grabbed Neville’s hand and ran toward the manor.
It happened to be working hours, so only the three of them, Ternas, Neville, and their grandmother Augusta, were left in the entire manor, along with his tutor, Slin, and their two house-elves, Nibo and Kali.
Slin had also witnessed Neville’s performance just now, so he did not bother pursuing Ternas for “skipping class.” Ternas dragged Neville into the main hall of the manor.
Augusta was currently knitting a scarf, something she did every year around this time.
When winter arrived, every member of their family would receive one of these scarves.
When Augusta saw Ternas dragging a disheveled Neville inside, she became somewhat angry, assuming that Ternas had secretly taken Neville out to play again.
Ternas saw his grandmother’s expression and, before she could scold him, immediately said, “Grandma, I just saw Neville awaken his wizarding talent!
When he fell from the sky, he instinctively awakened his talent and bounced several times on the ground without getting hurt.
This should be the effect of magic, right?” Seeing Ternas’s flushed little face and obvious excitement, along with Neville’s lingering look of fright, Augusta believed what he said.
She knew that although Ternas could be somewhat mischievous at times, he would never lie when it came to something important.
Augusta quickly put down her knitting needles and thread and hurried over.
She stretched out both hands and tremblingly touched Neville’s chubby little face.
She gently wiped the blades of grass from Neville’s face.
At the same time, a trace of magic slowly probed into Neville’s body from her hands.
When she sensed a slight resistance, she stopped, because that alone was enough to prove that Neville now possessed magic within his body.
That was all that mattered.
Whether his talent was good or bad was no longer important.
What mattered was that two descendants of the Longbottom family were now wizards.
“Good, good, good!
Neville, you’ve done wonderfully.
You are the pride of our Longbottom family.
Tell me, what would you like to eat tonight?
I’ll have Kali make it for you.
And if there’s any gift you want, tell Grandma.
I’ll buy it for you as a reward.” Seeing how excited her grandmother was, Ternas was extremely happy as well.
This was perhaps the happiest thing that had happened to Grandma in all these years.
Although the Longbottom family already had a remarkably talented descendant in this generation, Ternas, the fact that the other child had never awakened his wizarding talent had always been a source of worry for Grandma.
Now that Neville had awakened his wizarding talent, that long-standing concern had disappeared without a trace.
Neville was still somewhat frightened.
Facing the grandmother he had been a little afraid of since childhood, he still found it hard to believe that this was real.
Although Grandma and the rest of the family had always treated him very well, Neville did not know why, but he had always been somewhat afraid of his grandmother.
Now, the grandmother he had always regarded as rather strict was actually being so kind and gentle.
For a while, Neville simply did not know how to react.
Watching these two people, whose relationship seemed somewhat contradictory, interact with each other, Ternas could not help feeling that there was something inexplicably amusing about the scene.
Just then, the white Persian cat that had been accompanying Grandma came over to join the excitement.
With a light leap, she landed on Ternas’s shoulder and tilted her head, curiously watching Neville and Augusta.
This white Persian cat was the gift Ternas had received from his father, Algie, when he had awakened his wizarding talent earlier.
She was an extremely beautiful cat, with looks that stood out even among her own kind.
She was worth quite a lot of money.
She was also very intelligent and seemed to possess an unusual spiritual awareness.
The magic within her body was pure as well, making her a rather excellent pet.
When they bought her, they had spent quite a bit of money!
Ternas had named the white cat Snow, meaning snow, to represent her snow-white fur.
Ternas lifted Snow down from his shoulder and held her in his arms, beginning to pet her.
This was what he had loved doing most ever since he got Snow.
“Snow, are you happy that Neville awakened his wizarding talent too?” Snow’s response to Ternas was a long, melodious meow, sounding rather lazy.
By the time Algie and his wife, Aini, returned from the Ministry of Magic, they had also learned that Neville had awakened his wizarding talent, and they were naturally delighted.
In fact, to celebrate, they had already agreed that on the weekend, they would take the two boys to Diagon Alley to have some fun and buy them some toys and such.
This made both Neville and Ternas extremely happy.
Neville was excited because he would be able to go to Diagon Alley again and buy some food, while Ternas was happy because he would get another chance to go treasure hunting.
As for this business of treasure hunting, it had to start with the Longbottom family’s industries.
Diagon Alley had a great many shops, covering all sorts of businesses and industries.
Among those shops were two stores owned by the Longbottom family.
One of them was a shop called Slug & Jiggers Apothecary, which was considered a very well-known medicinal ingredients store.