Chapter 127: Mystery
In Lockhart's previous life, there was a classic saying: "Oranges grown south of the River are oranges, but grown north, they are citrons."
If young Crabbe's talents could be properly applied, his future would be entirely different. By mastering beneficial magic and staying away from malicious spells, his primitive mind, naturally attuned to magic, wouldn't be corroded by Dark Arts.
How wonderful that would be.
To avoid contact with chaotic things like Fiendfyre.
A promising future awaits!
Ahem, Lockhart began to research Fiendfyre.
It wasn't that he initially had such an idea, but rather that centuries of the Crabbe family's research on this magic were laid out before him. It would be an absolute waste not to take a look.
And then he discovered that the Crabbe family's magic books were simply fantastic.
Perhaps the Crabbe family genuinely prioritized the increasing number of mentally deficient children appearing in each generation. Occasionally, a few gifted Crabbes would try their best to organize the family's Fiendfyre material, explaining it in extremely simplistic terms suitable for young children.
An ancient family continuously delving deep into a single branch of magic, influenced by different magical currents across ancient, modern, and contemporary periods, advancing it to an incredibly profound degree, and then reverse-engineering it to its simplest form—Lockhart might not find such precious magical information anywhere else.
Lockhart had already begun to manually transcribe these books.
In the future, whether these books were returned to young Crabbe or sent to his family branch in Italy after his death, Lockhart himself would still retain a valuable wealth of knowledge.
Of course, he hadn't abandoned his ongoing research into Weather Charms. Dumbledore and Grindelwald's "Controlling Lightning" magical notebook was equally precious. When he tired of one, he'd switch to the other, as if giving his mind a change of scenery.
But as he repeatedly read through them, he suddenly noticed something strange.
That evening, having just finished teaching a N.E.W.T. enhancement class, Lockhart placed his voluminous notes, "The Crabbe Family's Fiendfyre" and "Controlling Lightning," side by side. As he pondered which knowledge to delve into, he suddenly felt a peculiar connection between the two books.
However, he couldn't quite grasp what the specific connection was, no matter how much he thought about it.
Fire and lightning, when placed together, would naturally have some unique interpretations, but from the academic perspective of Fiendfyre and Weather Charms, they truly didn't seem related.
He sat there, until the clamor outside the window slowly quieted, until the evening glow on the horizon was completely swallowed by darkness, and moonlight spilled onto the earth, yet he still couldn't come up with anything.
"Let's go for a walk."
He raised the teacup in his hand, found it contained no more blood, and looked at the Vengeance Fairy beside him, who offered this suggestion.
The Vengeance Fairy gently massaged his temples from behind, her voice very tender. "Becoming a wizard isn't easy, is it?"
Lockhart sighed comfortably. "Stepping into a fairy tale, waiting for magic to bloom—I always have to do it this way. I see others learning magic with such ease; they just need to know the incantation and the wand movement, and they can perform it perfectly."
"Perhaps—"
She lowered her head, her long golden hair falling, and looked into Lockhart's eyes. "You are the one walking on the right path?"
That might be true.
Lockhart smiled. "I can't speak for others, but this is certainly the right path for me."
Walking this path, the magic that had truly integrated into his life was different from the other spells he had gained from assimilating the memories of the Forest Witch, his original self Lockhart, and Tom Riddle. Not to mention the other spells he had self-taught but only briefly touched upon.
Alright then, let's go for a walk.
He took the advice.
He patted the Little Glodie sleeping on his lap. The little fellow, clutching a half-eaten peach, was sleeping soundly. Feeling the movement, it quickly clutched the peach even tighter, its fluffy tail thumping against Lockhart's leg, and only after a while did it finally open its eyes.
The Boggart flew out of the peach tree hollow as a puff of black smoke, landing on the ground and transforming into the burly, blood-stained, burlap-hooded Hanged God. It walked over, picked up the Little Glodie, and placed it on its shoulder, allowing it to continue sleeping.
The Winged Demon flew over, also wanting to rest on its other shoulder, but was swatted away by a single slap. It let out a few whimpers of protest, finally landing on the edge of Lockhart's wizarding robes pocket, curling up like a luminous azure ornament.
The red cloak appeared above them in mid-air, swirling rapidly around the office, growing large enough to obscure all their figures, and then vanished again.
Lockhart summoned his Patronus, a horse, and mounted it, taking his companions out for a walk.
Unconsciously, he found himself at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Feeling his magic leaping with joy in the forest, his slightly furrowed brow relaxed.
The Forbidden Forest at night was quite noisy. It was a time exclusively for nocturnal animals, and the clamor brought by this unique ecosystem, for humans, seemed to become a part of the quietude.
Birdsong in the morning, insect chirps at night—humans always seemed to prefer this kind of not-quite-silent tranquility.
Or rather, a lively serenity, rather than the dead silence of a dark room.
But tonight was special.
The breeze through the trees carried different information to him: human cheers.
Were the Weasley twins out for a late-night stroll in the Forbidden Forest?
He wondered what interesting thing they had discovered.
Lockhart curiously urged his horse forward, and soon arrived at Hagrid's Hippogriff enclosure. Looking through the fence, he saw several people there, looking very excited.
Hagrid, Professor Kettleburn, and the Weasley twins, George and Fred.
He thought for a moment, then dispelled the red cloak's invisibility charm on himself, and walked into the enclosure.
"Professor Lockhart, you've come at just the right time! Come and see!" Professor Kettleburn, sharp-eyed, spotted him and waved his prosthetic arm, beckoning him to come quickly.
Lockhart greeted everyone and moved closer, finding them gathered around a pile of straw, within which lay a massive egg.
At that moment, the eggshell had already cracked, and a small, pointed beak was forcefully pecking at the shell. Clearly, it was the most crucial moment of hatching.
"An animal breaking out of its shell is the most important moment of its life," Professor Kettleburn excitedly watched the scene, muttering, "This is the critical moment when a living being becomes completely independent and whole. Whether their future body will be strong, whether their spirit will be resilient, it all manifests so vividly at this very moment."
"Oh! Look!" he exclaimed. "The little fellow is adapting to the world outside the shell."
Lockhart also found it quite magical; he had never known that Hippogriffs were egg-laying, which seemed to lean more towards their avian lineage.
He only knew that this magical creature was supposedly a cross between a Griffin (lion's body, eagle's head) and a horse. There were thousands of ways to breed magical creatures, but it wasn't easy to ultimately form a new, complete species rather than isolated cases born by chance.
This monster, with the front half of an eagle and the back half of a horse, looked exceptionally powerful. Imagine eagle legs as thick as a horse's forelegs, extending into enormous talons—those things were no less powerful than a dragon's claws.
Soon, the little creature crawled out of its eggshell. Professor Kettleburn quickly pulled Lockhart and the Weasley twins back a few steps, allowing the little creature to bond with Hagrid.
After all, Hagrid was to raise this little fellow. They were allowed to observe, but they shouldn't usurp his right. Experienced old wizards still held such matters in high regard.
From a distance, the baby creature was simply adorable, tiny, smaller than Hagrid's big nose as he gently looked down at it.
It sneezed, letting out its first cry, tender yet already revealing the robust power of this flying beast.
"Ohh~" Hagrid's heart melted.
As someone with giant blood, his aesthetic sense was completely different from that of ordinary humans.
Humans liked fragile small animals, the cuter and dumber, the more they liked them. Giants, however, preferred healthy, strong ones, because that represented their ability to thrive in the cruel natural environment and the shrinking living space increasingly squeezed by wizards and Muggles.
In this era, wildness also meant an extremely high mortality rate. Beasts that didn't want to become like cats and dogs, entirely dependent on humans for survival, and yearned for some freedom in life, had to be wilder, stronger, and more aggressive; otherwise, they simply wouldn't grow up.
The talkative Professor Kettleburn discussed the relationship between natural beings and the natural environment with Lockhart, lamenting that the good and evil of beasts might be completely opposite concepts to the good and evil of humans.
George and Fred, on the other hand, excitedly whispered their wild ideas.
"Say, if a Hippogriff and a horse mate, will it still lay an egg?" George suddenly mused.
Fred's expression was a bit odd. "A horse laying an egg? Oh, Merlin's beard, that would probably be quite horrifying."
"But the very first Hippogriff in the world probably hatched from an egg laid by a mare," George explained his analysis.
"That actually sounds right," Fred's eyes lit up.
"Hey, children." Professor Kettleburn turned his wary gaze on the two restless students. "The Ministry of Magic banned the Experimentation on Breeding Act back in the last century. I don't think you should be having such dangerous thoughts."
But quite obviously, his words weren't very persuasive.
The twins' father was a classic example of someone who knowingly broke the law, conducting research on Muggle artifacts in his shed. Not to mention, Hagrid nearby was doing similar things, engaging in various strictly forbidden animal breeding.
Excellent wizards generally harbored a unique arrogance towards organizations like the Ministry of Magic. This was due to historical reasons, and also an inherent nature of wizards, who, as magical beings, should not be easily bound.
Just like now, young wizards violating school rules and the Headmaster's repeated warnings not to enter the Forbidden Forest, appearing here in the middle of the night.
"Perhaps in modern society, wizards find a sense of mystery more easily when operating outside the rules?" Lockhart mused, looking thoughtful. "You know, mystery is always the source of magic."
Professor Kettleburn was stunned for a moment. "Is that so?"
"You always have some strange theories that make sense," he grumbled. "Anyway, I've warned the students."
Professor Kettleburn felt he had fulfilled his duty as a professor, and then cheerfully joined the twins' conversation about "Hippogriffs interbreeding again."
He spoke with even more excitement than the twins, his face alight.
See, he was actually the same.
.....
For 90 advanced chapters:
👉 Join now: patreon.com/Chaos_God
Thank you so much for your support and for reading