Almost a month had passed. During this time, Victor had given up on his plan to catch Peeves. He knew that unless he dealt with the piece of Voldemort's soul inside the Ravenclaw diadem, Peeves would not give him the clues to Rowena Ravenclaw's legacy.
So, to quickly resolve the issue with Voldemort's soul, Victor had his Thought Projection take his classes while he spent his days shuttling between the Restricted Section of the library and the top of the Astronomy Tower, constantly using Origin to research a spell that could destroy the soul fragment.
Thought Projection: A very difficult splitting magic from Earth Land where a non-corporeal copy that looks exactly like the original is created. A wizard with an overabundance of magic can create multiple, and the original and the Thought Projections share all experiences.
Atop the Hogwarts Astronomy Tower, the mysterious purplish-red glow in Victor's eyes gradually faded. He rubbed his eyes and massaged his temples to relieve the strain on his eyes and mind.
Over the past few weeks, he had found a way to purify and destroy Voldemort's soul without damaging the Ravenclaw diadem. However, since he lacked any magical knowledge of souls from his time in Earth Land, Victor had to use Origin to develop a new spell based on a Great Magic he knew and combine it with existing spells from the Harry Potter world.
As soon as he began his research, Victor immediately thought of a very famous spell from the Harry Potter universe: the Avada Kedavra curse. It was one of the three Unforgivable Curses and Voldemort's signature and most frequently used spell.
Its most notable feature was the green flash of light it emitted, which could instantly kill a target without leaving a single mark on their body. Based on his research into this spell, Victor concluded that the reason for these characteristics was that the spell never targeted a living being's physical body, but rather their soul.
He slightly raised his right hand, and a small, moss-green magic circle appeared on his finger, slowly rotating and emitting countless tiny green sparks. The runes on the magic circle depicted a faceless grim reaper holding a long scythe, wrapped in a tattered cloak, surrounded by countless contorted souls screaming in agony.
This was the magic circle for Avada Kedavra. In the vision of his Origin magic, it had an incredibly chaotic magical structure with nearly ten thousand magic lines. The foundational Great Magic had a similarly chaotic yet ordered magical structure with tens of thousands of magic lines.
What Victor needed to do was extract all the magic lines that could cause damage to a soul from the Avada Kedavra magical structure and then seamlessly integrate them into the Great Magic's structure.
The difficulty of this process was astronomical. It was like a three-dimensional network woven from countless spiderwebs, and Victor had to select thousands of specific threads, extract them completely, and then restore them into a new, independent three-dimensional network. Then, he had to perfectly embed this new network into the magical structure of the Great Magic.
To be honest, Victor had spent an immeasurable amount of effort just on extracting those threads. Each thread represented a magic line, a complete whole. If even a tiny bit was incomplete, the entire reconstructed network would fail or collapse.
It was now noon, and today was the annual Halloween feast at Hogwarts. Victor figured he should take a break since it was a special day. He decided to end his research on the new spell for the day. This was not something that could be done in one go, and he needed to rest.
So, after a quick stretch, Victor jumped off the tower, free-falling. Just as he was about to hit the lawn, an invisible force lifted him and gently set him down.
Before lunch, Victor recalled his sullen-looking Thought Projections and leisurely made his way to the Great Hall. To his surprise, the Great Hall had been completely transformed for the Halloween feast.
The house-elves had replaced the thousands of floating candles with grimacing pumpkin heads. The cloudy ceiling was constantly flashing with green and red lightning, looking even more eerie than usual. The school's ghosts were also flying around happily; after all, today was their holiday. The whole Great Hall felt like a giant haunted house.
Victor looked at the pumpkin heads above him, which occasionally cackled with a laugh that could only scare a baby. He didn't understand why Aliya liked these things so much.
A few days ago, she had even written to him specifically, asking him to send her some of the talking pumpkin heads. In Victor's opinion, these spooky elements were nothing compared to the ghosts from his homeland.
Once a ghost got its hands on your karma, no matter how far away you were, it would only find you. You would be mentally and physically tortured before you were scared to death.
Victor had planned to just grab a quick lunch and head back to his dorm to rest, but before he could even find a seat, a house-elf suddenly rushed up to him with incredible speed. "M-mister Dreyar, is there anything I can get for you?" The elf said shyly, wringing his hands and looking up at Victor.
"Oh? Kururu, are you here to help decorate for the feast, too?" Victor looked down at the house-elf and said with a smile.
The house-elf in front of him was named Kururu, and he was the elf Victor had personally assigned to make him special meals.
A little over two weeks ago, Victor had felt hungry while reading in the Restricted Section and decided to go to the Hogwarts kitchens for a snack. He had asked the Weasley twins, who often snuck out at night to get food, so he knew where the kitchens were.
They were on the ground floor, behind a still-life painting of fruit. All you had to do was tickle the pear in the fruit bowl, and it would turn into a green doorknob. You could then open the door to the kitchens.
Victor remembered that when he first appeared in the kitchens, he was instantly surrounded by hundreds of house-elves. They all stared at him with their large, pitiful eyes and shouted, "Oh, my! It's a Hogwarts wizard!"
"Sir, what can I help you with?"
"Sir, what would you like to eat? I can make anything for you…"
They chattered on, pulling at Victor's trousers and begging him to make a request, which completely overwhelmed him. So, to prevent chaos, Victor had simply pointed at one elf and asked him to cook for him. He also taught the elf many dishes from his homeland, which made the elf so emotional that he cried puddles of tears. That elf was Kururu.
"Oh! Mister Dreyar spoke to Kururu! It is Kururu's honor!" The house-elf happily muttered to himself before answering Victor's question. "Yes, sir, I am here to help decorate for the feast."
"Could you get me some roast lamb and roast pork feet? I'm hungry."
"Yes, Kururu will go at once, at once!" Hearing Victor's order, Kururu happily shouted and snapped his fingers, disappearing from the Great Hall to prepare Victor's lunch.
Victor found a random seat and stared boredly at the floating pumpkin heads above. But then, for some reason, a sudden spark of inspiration hit him, and a very interesting and mischievous idea popped into his head.
He looked around and saw that there was hardly anyone in the Great Hall. His eyes turned into an upside-down crescent moon, and a smile more sinister than the pumpkin heads spread across his face.
"Hehehehe…"
It was nearing evening, less than two hours before the Halloween feast. Many students were beginning to emerge from their dorms, wanting to get to the Great Hall early to soak up the Halloween atmosphere.
"Ron, I think you should go and apologize to Hermione," Harry said to Ron as they walked from the Gryffindor common room to the Great Hall.
Harry said this because in yesterday's Charms class, Hermione had condescendingly corrected Ron on his pronunciation of a spell. After class, Ron, who was still fuming, had muttered some unflattering things about Hermione to his friends. Unluckily, Hermione had overheard them, which made the situation between them very awkward.
"I… I didn't say anything wrong, she really is…" Ron was about to argue, but Harry cut him off with a frown.
"Ron!"
"…Alright, I'll go apologize later." Ron saw the serious look on Harry's face and knew he was in the wrong. What he said yesterday was a little too harsh. Hearing Ron's admission, Harry's smile returned, and the two of them quickened their pace toward the Great Hall.
But before they even reached the door, they saw a large crowd of people standing outside the Great Hall. As they got closer, they saw that the Great Hall's main doors had been replaced with a sneering pumpkin head. Not far away, a few people were lying on the ground, their eyes spinning and foam coming out of their mouths. The Hufflepuff Healing Volunteer Squad was attempting to revive them with the Rennervate charm.
"Wha… what happened?" Harry asked, dumbfounded. Everything had been fine during lunch!
"Neville, what's going on?" Ron asked Neville, who had arrived earlier, pointing at the pumpkin head and the unconscious students.
"See for yourselves," Neville said, pointing to a sign next to the pumpkin head. Harry and Ron walked over and saw the sign, which read:
To all my dear classmates at Hogwarts:
Hello! Today is the annual Halloween, so to add a little fun to this special day, I have prepared a "very interesting" game for all of you. The first person to complete it will receive 100 Galleons, the second 90, the third 80, and so on. Multiple people can play at once, and the game will end when the feast officially begins. Have fun!
Signed, Victor Dreyar (smiley face + peace sign)
"Dreyar did this? What kind of game? I'm going to try it!" Ron was suddenly excited when he saw the generous prize of Galleons.
"Ron, I suggest you reconsider before you decide to play. The first person who discovered this game is still lying over there and hasn't woken up yet," Neville said with a shiver, pointing to the lawn in the distance. It turned out that in addition to the few people lying nearby, there were more than twenty people lying on the lawn, all looking as if they were about to pass out.
"…" Ron swallowed when he saw the spectacular sight. He had thought the Galleons would be easy to get, but even one of the Weasley twins, who were famous for their pranks at Hogwarts, had been affected.
A few more minutes passed. Just as everyone was hesitating whether or not to go into the pumpkin head and try the challenge, a normal-looking human hand suddenly reached out from inside. It seemed someone had successfully completed the game.
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