Hogwarts: Starting with a Max-level Blackflame
Chapter 10: Quirrell's Main Soul Almost Burned Away!
Arthur stopped at the end of the corridor.
Before him was a heavy oak door.
The door panel was covered with dark water stains, and the iron nails at the edges had rusted and turned black.
He raised his hand, pressing his palm against the rough wood grain.
It wasn't locked.
Arthur pushed forward with a slight flick of his wrist, and the door hinges immediately emitted a harsh, grating metallic screech.
The door opened a crack.
The previously silent air in the corridor was disturbed, and a thick, pungent beastly stench directly hit Arthur's face.
The smell was overpowering.
Mixed with the sour stench of animal excrement and fermented saliva, it smelled like it had been stewing in a confined space for several months.
Arthur frowned in disgust.
The tip of his black boot pressed against the lower edge of the door panel, and he kicked it hard.
With a bang, the oak door slammed against the inner stone wall, swinging completely open.
The room was unlit and dim.
Utilizing the faint light filtering in from the corridor, a behemoth could be seen lying right in the center.
The huge Cerberus blocked the trapdoor like a mountain of flesh.
Its three huge heads rested crossed on the floor, snoring heavily.
With every breath, warm, foul air spewed from its nostrils, blowing the dust on the ground into a swirl.
Next to the Cerberus, a person was crouching.
Quirrell was sticking his butt out, carefully placing a shabby wooden harp on the ground.
The huge purple turban on his head looked comical and abrupt in the dark.
Hearing the loud crash of the door hitting the wall, Quirrell's body stiffened as if electrocuted.
He whipped his head around.
Against the light, Quirrell made out the silhouette standing at the doorway.
Blonde hair, heterochromatic eyes.
It was a first-year student wearing Slytherin robes.
Quirrell's usual timid and cowardly expression vanished instantly.
Replaced by a dead-cold murderous intent.
Beneath the turban on the back of his head, a slight wriggling came through.
That was Lord Voldemort's will awakening.
Their secret had been discovered, and by a mere eleven-year-old brat.
Lord Voldemort's command was simple and direct.
Obliterate.
Quirrell slowly stood straight up.
He lacked his usual stutter and trembling, his right hand steadily sliding a wand out from his wide cuff.
The wand tip lifted, directly locking onto Arthur's chest.
Without any nonsense, nor chanting any spell.
Non-verbal spellcasting.
A pale green eerie light burst at the wand tip, tearing apart the darkness in the room.
This light carried a heavy aura of death, heading straight for Arthur.
This was a simplified variant of the Killing Curse, specially used to deal with troublesome witnesses, leaving no trace behind after killing.
The pale green radiance illuminated Arthur's face.
There was not a trace of panic in those heterochromatic eyes.
The cold wind of death blew up the blonde hair at his temples, and he didn't even make a dodging movement.
Arthur watched the approaching green light, emitting a light sneer from his throat.
"Fool."
He didn't even take out a wand.
He slightly raised his right hand, his index finger casually swiping through the air in front of him.
A drop of pure black spark peeled away from his fingertips.
The moment the spark touched the air, it surged directly against the wind.
Only a muffled whoosh sound was heard.
A black fire snake as thick as a bucket formed out of thin air.
It opened its abyss-like giant mouth and swallowed that fatal pale green beam in one gulp.
There was no explosion of magical collision, nor dazzling waves of light.
Fiendfyre chewed it cleanly away just like eating a blade of grass.
Immediately after, the temperature in the room ushered in a cliff-like surge.
The moisture in the originally damp and cold air was instantly sucked dry.
The wind breathed into the lungs turned into scalding hot knives.
Quirrell didn't even have time to lower his wand before that black fire snake darted forward fiercely along the magical trajectory of his spellcasting.
The speed was too fast.
So fast that Quirrell only saw a distorted black line flash through the air.
"Hiss——"
The fire snake bit down on the tip of Quirrell's ash wood wand in one bite.
This wand that had accompanied him for more than a decade didn't put up even a second of resistance.
The tip of the wand carbonized and turned black on the spot.
Under the erosion of the black fire, the hard wood fibers turned into delicate white ash.
The ashes fell in rustles, and the wand shortened at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Fiendfyre had no intention of stopping at all.
It traced along the wooden shaft and directly licked the back of Quirrell's right hand holding the wand.
"Ah——!"
An inhuman scream erupted from Quirrell's throat.
The skin on the back of his hand curled and shriveled like roasted paper.
Flesh and blood were instantly vaporized by the terrifying high temperature, revealing the blackened finger bones underneath.
A sickening burnt smell of roasted meat filled the air.
But this was only physical torture.
The most domineering aspect of Fiendfyre was burning the soul.
That pitch-black flame traveled up Quirrell's arm, burrowed into his magic loops, and surged wildly all the way up.
Aiming straight at the soul core deep within his brain.
The purple turban on Quirrell's head suddenly emitted pungent blue smoke.
Scorched black holes were burned out along the edges of the fabric.
"Ah!!!"
Another scream erupted.
But this time, the sound didn't come from Quirrell's mouth.
It came from the back of his head.
The voice was hoarse and sharp, carrying the desperate pain of a soul being torn apart alive.
Lord Voldemort's main soul was parasitized right there.
He was originally just a remnant soul lingering on by leeching off Quirrell's vitality.
Now, the laws of Fiendfyre directly enveloped this weak spiritual body.
The Dark Arts accomplishments that the second Dark Lordwas proud of were as fragile as a piece of waste paper in front of this brutal Fiendfyre stemming from the first Dark Lord's bloodline.
The mutilated face beneath the turban twisted violently, its facial features almost squeezing together.
Lord Voldemort rolled and crashed wildly inside Quirrell's brain from the pain.
He felt his soul being crushed inch by inch and burned into nothingness.
Arthur lowered his right hand and smoothed out the hem of his robe.
He watched coldly as Quirrell rolled all over the dirty stone slabs.
Watching that person hit the wall bricks with his head in pain.
There was no pity in Arthur's eyes.
"A mere parasite dares to bare its claws at me."
His voice, within the scalding hot room, sounded colder than the night wind outside.
The Cerberus nearby was finally awakened by these shrill screams.
Originally angry because someone had intruded into its territory, it wanted to stand up and crush these little bugs.
But as soon as its three huge dog heads lifted halfway, it smelled that pure scent of death in the air.
The humanized ferocity in the dog's eyes faded completely in an instant.
Replaced by pure biological instinctual fear.
"Wu..."
A whimpering sound with its tail tucked came from the Cerberus's throat.
Its huge body, like a deflated ball, pressed tightly against the floor.
Its three heads desperately hid under its two front paws, its huge body shivering like a sieve, not even daring to glance at Arthur's side.
Even a ferocious beast of massive size could only act like a dog in front of the Dark Lord's aura.
The main soul in Quirrell's brain was on the verge of collapse.
Lord Voldemort was afraid of death.
He was more afraid of death than anyone else in the world.
He had never felt so despairing even when his own curse rebounded back then.
He knew clearly that if this Fiendfyre continued to burn for another ten seconds, not even a trace of his remnant soul would be left.
"Run... run!"
A hoarse voice roared wildly in Quirrell's mind, carrying an extreme sense of panic.
Even carrying a trace of weeping-like wailing.
Quirrell couldn't care less about the rotten flesh on his right hand.
His left hand tightly covered the smoking turban on the back of his head.
Scrambling to prop up half his body from the ground.
The door was blocked tightly by Arthur, and he didn't dare to glance over there more than once.
Quirrell suddenly changed direction and rushed toward the stained-glass window at the end of the room.
Like a stray dog driven to a dead end, his legs burst out with all their potential.
"Crash!"
The heavy glass was smashed into pieces by his shoulder forcefully.
Colorful glass shards scratched his cheeks and neck.
A few drops of blood splashed on the stone windowsill.
Quirrell lost his balance completely and fell straight out of the fourth-floor window.
The night wind from high altitude mixed with rainwater instantly poured back into the room.
Dispersing the pungent burnt-meat smell in the room.
A muffled heavy object hitting the ground came from outside the window.
Followed by a muffled groan of dislocated bones, and stumbling footsteps fleeing into the distance.
Under the cover of the night, Quirrell clutched the smoking back of his head and sprinted all the way to his office.
In the night sky, Lord Voldemort's extremely weak and terrified roar faintly echoed.
Chapter 11 Lord Voldemort in Extreme Panic
"Bang."
The wooden door of the Defense Against the Dark Arts Class office was slammed shut heavily.
Quirrell's back pressed against the door panel, his legs went soft, and his entire body slid down the wood onto the floor.
A long, dark red bloodstain was left on the door panel.
He panted heavily, his lungs making a broken, wheezing sound like an old bellows.
Quirrell clutched his right hand tightly.
That hand had completely lost its original shape.
The flesh and skin were instantly carbonized by the terrifying high temperature, revealing charred finger bones from the split cracks.
The roasted fat and blood mixed together, emitting a sickening burnt smell.
His stomach churned violently, and Quirrell turned his head, dry-heaving a few mouthfuls of sour liquid.
"Ah..."
A shrill, miserable roar echoed in the empty office.
The sound did not come from Quirrell's mouth.
It came from the back of Quirrell's head.
That huge purple turban was now tattered, with several charred large holes burned at the edges, and it was still emitting pungent blue smoke.
Lord Voldemort's main soul was convulsing wildly.
"Mas... Master..."
Quirrell's teeth chattered, and his tongue uncontrollably bit his lip due to extreme fear.
A taste of blood spread in his mouth.
"How... how are you..."
"Shut up!"
Lord Voldemort roared in his mind.
The voice was weak, carrying obvious trembling and exasperation.
The second Dark Lord completely lacked his usual chill and aloofness now.
He felt as if his soul had been thrown into boiling molten iron.
Fiendfyre did not directly burn his physical entity, but the law of destruction that poured back along the magic circuit bit this remnant soul fiercely.
Just a little bit.
If that blond teenager had not actively cut off the magic, Lord Voldemort was certain that his main soul would have been burned alive into nothingness.
He wouldn't even have the chance to return to the forests of Albania to drag out an ignoble existence.
Lord Voldemort's consciousness darted wildly in Quirrell's mind.
Fear.
A pure fear that he had never experienced since creating a Horcrux.
He was not even afraid of death, because he considered himself to have severed the shackles of death.
But that dark fire just now was an abyss specially designed to devour souls.
"That was Fiendfyre... No, it is even more tyrannical than me at my peak..."
Lord Voldemort's hoarse voice echoed in Quirrell's mind, as if speaking to Quirrell, or perhaps unconsciously muttering to himself.
He recalled the aura emanating from that teenager.
That brutal, elegant, absolute sense of oppression that regarded life as mere grass.
Lord Voldemort recognized this scent.
"Grindelwald..."
This surname rolled over Lord Voldemort's tongue, bringing a burst of indescribable trembling.
He had always believed that he had surpassed that old man locked up in Nurmengard.
He was the most terrifying Dark Lord in the history of the wizarding world.
But just a few minutes ago, an eleven-year-old first-year student hadn't even drawn his wand.
With just one finger, he almost made him vanish into ashes.
"Listen, Quirrell."
Lord Voldemort's voice suddenly became hurried, carrying undisguised panic.
"Stop... Stop all activities recently, immediately!"
Quirrell froze for a moment, clutching the charred back of his hand, gasping in pain.
"But... the Philosopher's Stone... the arrangements by the trapdoor..."
"I told you to stop!"
Lord Voldemort erupted into a sharp soul whipping.
Quirrell clutched his head in pain, curling up into a ball in agony on the dirty floor.
"Do not provoke him... Absolutely do not go near him!"
Lord Voldemort panted violently, the burning pain deep in his soul making it impossible for him to concentrate.
"If you see him in the corridor, take a detour for me. If he looks at you, lower your head."
This Dark Lord, always known for his cruelty, issued a strict order of avoidance for the first time in his life.
Because he knew clearly that that teenager could truly completely obliterate him.
Quirrell lay on the ground, snot and tears smudged all over his face, nodding frantically.
The night wind blew in through the cracks in the window, rustling the parchment on the desk.
Deep beneath Hogwarts.
Inside the luxurious single dormitory of Slytherin.
Arthur pushed open the heavy stone door and walked into the room.
The firewood in the fireplace made a slight crackling sound, dispelling the chill at the bottom of the lake.
He walked over to the leather sofa, unbuttoned the silver buttons at his collar, and tossed his robe casually onto the back of the chair.
Deep in his mind, a cold mechanical voice suddenly exploded.
[Ding!]
[Target character 'Lord Voldemort' detected generating extreme panic and soul trembling.]
[Target character's psychological defense line has completely collapsed.]
[Fear value overflows in large quantities!]
[Congratulations host, triggered high-tier plundering reward: Soul Law fragment.]
Arthur picked up the goblet on the table, his movements pausing for a moment.
An irregular black crystal materialized out of thin air in front of him.
It was only the size of a fingernail, and within its translucent material, countless black mists seemed to be rolling.
The moment the crystal appeared, the firelight in the dormitory suddenly dimmed.
This was not a dead object.
This was the visualization of the foundational laws of the world.
Arthur extended his right hand, his slender fingers gently touching the surface of the crystal.
There was no temperature.
The moment the crystal touched his skin, it directly turned into a wisp of black mist and drilled into Arthur's body.
A dull roar came from deep within his brain.
Arthur closed his eyes.
A massive and profound information flow rudely scoured his neurons.
He saw the structure of the soul.
He saw clearly those fragile connecting lines between consciousness and flesh.
To ordinary Wizards, the soul was an illusory and taboo realm.
But now, Arthur could touch it directly.
He could even perceive the weak soul light spots emitted by those sleeping magical creatures at the bottom of the Black Lake outside the window.
"Stupid parasite."
Arthur opened his eyes, and heart-palpitating gray mist circulated in his pale right pupil.
The practice of Lord Voldemort slicing his soul surfaced in his mind.
In pursuit of fake immortality, he tore his core soul to pieces, turning into a madman lacking sanity.
Now with this law fragment.
Arthur didn't need spells; with just a single thought, he could directly extract a person's soul from their shell and crush it.
The wool contributed by Lord Voldemort this time was of very good quality.
Arthur leaned against the sofa and took a sip of the water in his cup.
He decided to let this cowardly second-generation Dark Lord live a little longer.
Fear needs time to ferment.
Only when Lord Voldemort's fear accumulates to its peak can this leek be harvested for maximum value.
The next morning.
Sunlight pierced through the corridor's glass, casting golden light spots on the floor.
Arthur, wearing a neat black Wizard robe, walked into the Hogwarts library.
The air drifted with the scent of old parchment and dust.
Madam Pince was standing at the front desk organizing library cards.
Hearing footsteps, she instinctively raised her head.
After seeing the newcomer's blond hair and different-colored eyes, the feather duster in Madam Pince's hand dropped straight to the ground.
Making a muffled sound.
She didn't dare to bend down to pick it up, freezing behind the counter, even slowing down her breathing.
The events of last night's Sorting Ceremony and Transfiguration Class had long since spread among the faculty.
Arthur didn't even glance at her, walking straight towards the tall oak bookshelves.
A few senior Ravenclaw students were sitting in the first-floor reading area.
They were gathered together discussing spell homework.
When seeing that black figure approaching, the complexions of these few people instantly turned pale.
One of the boys hurriedly packed up the parchment on the table, accidentally knocking over an ink bottle with his elbow.
Black ink flowed all over the table.
But he didn't care about cleaning it up at all, grabbing his books and pulling his companion to run outside the reading area.
The footsteps were chaotic and hurried, as if fleeing for their lives.
Arthur ignored the panic of these ants.
He passed through the corridor and came to a row of bookshelves near the edge of the Restricted Section.
He needed to look up the underlying logic regarding the defensive magic array of Hogwarts Castle.
The wards left behind by the Four Founders were somewhat interesting.
If he could figure out the nodes, he could seize control of this school at any time.
Arthur raised his hand.
Across a distance of three meters, two heavy iron-bound books automatically flew off the top of the bookshelf and landed steadily in his hands.
He found an empty table by the window and sat down.
The chair made a slight friction sound when pulled out.
Arthur opened the heavy cover, and fine dust rose between the pages.
This entire reading area was dead silent.
No one dared to step within a ten-meter radius of him.
A few minutes later.
A somewhat heavy and hurried set of footsteps trod on the wooden floor, breaking the silence.
The footsteps walked straight towards Arthur's table.
"Bang."
A stack of books as thick as bricks was heavily slammed onto the tabletop.
The force was great, shaking the dust at the corner of the table into a little jump.
A girl with a head of fluffy brown curly hair pulled open the chair opposite Arthur.
And sat down heavily.
Chapter 12 Hermione Reduced to a Little Sidekick
A stack of heavy hardcover books slammed onto the wooden table.
The dull thud sounded very abrupt in the dead-silent reading area.
It shook the dust at the corner of the table, making it swirl and dance in the sunlight.
Hermione Granger pulled out the chair opposite Arthurand sat down directly.
Her brown curly hair looked a bit messy because she had walked too hurriedly.
The surrounding Ravenclaw students had long since fled.
Hermione was actually scared too.
Her hands resting on her knees were unconsciously twisting her robes, and her palms were covered in cold sweat.
She had heard the rumors in the basement and corridors last night.
But the pride in her bones and that almost paranoid desire to show off her knowledge forcibly suppressed her fear.
She saw Arthur browsing through an ancient book with a peeling cover.
The parchment was covered with complex ancient Runes and magic arrays.
"You are reading The Origins of Ancient Runes and magicArrays?" Hermione blurted out.
Her voice was a bit dry.
Hermione cleared her throat, trying to make her tone sound full of confidence.
"The theories in that book were proven to have fatal flaws back in the eighteenth century."
"Bathilda Bagshot wrote in History of Magic that the energy nodes of ancient magic arrays are extremely unstable and prone to triggering magic backlash. Modern safe spellcasting must rely on standard spell gestures, and..."
She spoke at an extremely fast pace.
Pouring out all those thoroughly memorized textbook theories in her head like reciting a book.
Arthur was not angry.
He didn't even interrupt her.
He just leisurely turned over a page of yellowed parchment.
The paper made a dry rustling sound.
When Hermione finished reciting in one breath and panted slightly due to oxygen deprivation,
Arthur finally raised his head.
Those eyes, intertwined with pallor and pitch-black, calmly gazed at the girl opposite him.
Swept by this look, Hermione's second half of the sentence, which she was just about to add, got stuck directly in her throat.
She felt the surrounding air grow colder.
"Bathilda Bagshot." Arthur repeated the name.
There was a condescending contempt in his tone.
"A mediocre chronicler who only knows how to sort through the wastepaper baskets of her predecessors."
Hermione's face flushed red.
"You cannot say that! She is a recognized authority in History of Magic! The book clearly states..."
"Authority?"
Arthur leaned his body back against the chair back.
"Books are waste material compiled by the weak to comfort themselves and cover up their own incompetence."
"Bagshot said in the book that the magic collapse of the third defense node was because ancient Wizards lacked precise control over elemental conduction."
Arthur looked at Hermione, his voice not loud, yet it slammed down like a hammer.
"Wrong to an outrageous degree."
"That was because the fools of later generations used silver instead of the Goblins' exquisitely tempered mithril to build the circuits."
"Silver simply cannot withstand the pressure of the Killing Curse."
Hermione opened her mouth.
"But... but Professor Flitwick also said that ancient magicarrays are too violent..." She stammered for a moment.
"Violence is the essence of magic."
Arthur did not reach out to take his wand.
His right hand rested on the table surface, his index finger tapping gently on the glass ink bottle beside it.
"Tap."
A drop of black ink defied gravity and levitated from the mouth of the bottle.
Hermione's gaze involuntarily followed that drop of ink as it moved.
The ink stopped mid-air.
Then it split.
One became two, two became four.
In less than half a second, hundreds of tiny ink droplets suspended themselves in the air between the two.
They automatically arranged and combined.
A three-dimensional, miniature magic array so intricate that it made one's scalp tingle formed directly before Hermione's eyes.
Without wand guidance.
Without incantation assistance.
The air pressure in the air dropped instantly.
Hermione smelled the ozone scent unique to thunderstorm days.
That was the smell produced by high-concentration magicrubbing against the air.
The goosebumps and hairs on her arms stood up one by one due to static electricity.
"Look closely."
Arthur's voice carried an irresistible sense of command.
A circle of weak silver light lit up around the edge of the miniature magic array.
"This is the improved circuit taught in your textbooks."
The magic array began to operate, but after turning only twice, the silver light flickered violently.
The entire three-dimensional structure was tottering on the verge of collapse.
"Now, add what they call the unstable, violent elements."
A flicker danced deep within Arthur's pupils.
A wisp of Fiendfyre's brutal aura, following his will, was precisely injected into the core node of the magic array.
The ink magic array, which was about to collapse, the moment it touched this wisp of Dark Arts...
Dead silence.
Then, with a terrifyingly stable posture, it began to spin at high speed.
The surrounding space even produced a slight distortion because of this rotation.
Hermione even stopped breathing.
Her brain was buzzing.
The common sense, logic, and absolute trust in science and magic books built over eleven years.
In this second, shattered into debris all over the floor.
She found that her proud knowledge was practically like a joke in front of the truth casually pinched out by this boy.
That was not any theoretical error at all.
Rather, modern Wizards are too weak to control this violent power at all, so they tampered it into a safe yet mediocre castrated version.
The truth was right before her eyes.
Violent, dangerous, yet carrying a fatal attraction.
The magic array lost its magic support and turned into a puddle of ordinary ink dropping onto the wooden table.
Hermione stared at that pool of ink stains.
Her chest heaved violently.
Fear still flowed in her veins, and the lingering oppressive feeling of the Dark Arts made her stomach spasm.
But another even stronger emotion broke through the ground.
That was a fanaticism for unknown truth.
It was an instinctive worship of absolute power.
She wanted to understand these, wanted to touch the true essence of magic, instead of holding those tampered fairy tale books and feeling complacent.
"How did you do it..."
Hermione's voice was as low as a sleep-talk.
She leaned her body forward, pressing her hands tightly against the edge of the table.
Her arm accidentally touched her quill.
The quill fell to the ground, and she completely ignored it.
"The threshold of energy conversion... You bypassed Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration? No, this is not transfiguration..."
The guard and pride in her eyes were burned to ashes.
Leaving only a nearly greedy thirst for knowledge.
Arthur looked at the girl opposite him.
The system did not prompt fear points credited, because the fear had been completely transformed into another kind of fanatical submission.
This brain is still somewhat useful.
At least better than that trash Draco who can do nothing except tremble.
"There is too much garbage in your head."
Arthur stood up and casually closed the ancient book.
"Go to the seventh row of bookshelves on the left. Third compartment from top to bottom. Find out A Study on the Common Origin of Bloodline and magic and The Underlying Deconstruction of Dark Curses."
Hermione did not hesitate at all.
She sprang up from the chair immediately.
Because she stood up too fiercely, her knees knocked heavily against the table leg, making a muffled thud.
She only frowned, didn't even rub it, turned around and ran towards the bookshelves.
Her brown curly hair swayed back and forth behind her.
A few minutes later.
Hermione ran back holding three dust-covered heavy tomes.
The heavy books made her arms sore.
The front of her brand-new robe brushed against a large patch of gray dust.
"Found... found them all."
She panted slightly and handed the books over.
"I also took the liberty of taking A Study on the magicDecay of Runes. I think... you might find the comparison table inside useful."
Her tone changed completely.
Even honorifics were used.
Her posture was as humble as a maid presenting treasures.
Arthur glanced at the cover of the top book.
He didn't take it.
"Hold them."
Arthur turned around and walked towards the library door with long strides.
Hermione was stunned for half a second.
She hurriedly re-tightened her grip on the pile of heavy books in her arms and followed with short, hurried steps.
The books were too heavy, making her walk a bit unsteadily.
But she said nothing, gritted her teeth hard, and closely followed less than half a meter behind Arthur's side.
Madam Pince stood behind the circulation desk.
She watched the know-it-all miss of Gryffindor holding books like the most obedient little sidekick, following the Dark Lord of Slytherin out the door.
She didn't even have the courage to speak up and request the registration of borrowing records.
She could only pretend she saw nothing.
The two walked out of the gloomy Castle door.
The afternoon sunlight was a bit dazzling, and the wind carried the fishy smell of weeds from the Black Lake and the scent of earth.
The lawn ahead was extremely vast.
Hermione's arms were aching and trembling, but she still hugged them tightly.
On the lawn, more than twenty first-year students had already arrived.
Two rows of old flying broomsticks were neatly placed on the ground.
Today was the first Flying Class most anticipated by the first-year students.
Chapter 13: Riding a Fiendfyre Dragon into the Sky!
The breeze on the lawn carried the unique moisture of the Black Lake.
Hermione was holding three heavy tomes, her arms trembling with soreness.
The cardboard book covers pressed against her ribs, causing a dull pain.
She stood cautiously less than half a meter behind and to the side of Arthur, not daring to put the books down.
Ahead was the Flying Class venue prepared for the first-years.
More than twenty flying brooms lay haphazardly on the grass.
Their twigs were messy and split, exuding a moldy, rotten-wood smell.
Madam Hooch had short gray hair and sharp eyes.
With a silver whistle hanging around her chest, she shuttled through the queue of first-years like a hawk.
"Extend your right hand, place it above the broom!"
Her voice was loud, making several girls in the front row shrink their necks.
"Say it loudly, Up!"
A flurry of messy shouts immediately rang out on the lawn.
Harry shouted, and the broom immediately jumped into his hand.
He grabbed the scratch-filled wooden handle somewhat at a loss.
Ron shouted at the top of his lungs nearby.
The broom on the ground bounced up violently, and the end of the wooden stick heavily smashed into Ron's bridge of the nose.
"Ouch..."
Ron squatted down holding his nose, the soreness making his tears burst straight out.
Madam Hooch walked forward with a frown.
Her black leather boots stepped on the soft turf, making a muffled creaking sound.
She stopped in front of the Slytherin queue.
Arthur stood straight.
He lowered his head, his gaze falling on the broken broom by his feet.
The broom handle was covered in cracks, and the twigs at the tail were stained with dried mud and a few long hairs left by who knows whom.
It was disgusting enough to make one sick.
Arthur did not reach out his hand.
He did not even move his lips.
Madam Hooch's brow furrowed deeper.
"Mr. Grindelwald, what are you still waiting for?"
She took a step forward, her instinct as a coach making her want to correct this first-year's attitude.
"You have to... you have to give it a command."
Halfway through her words, her tongue suddenly got stuck.
Arthur raised his head.
Eyes intertwined with paleness and pitch-black looked over.
There was no nervousness that a first-year should have, only disgust as if looking at garbage.
"Make me ride this piece of junk covered in wooden splinters?"
Arthur's voice was very calm.
But Madam Hooch felt as if her chest had been heavily struck by a sledgehammer.
Dumbledore's gloomy face from last night's faculty meeting suddenly flashed through her mind.
Madam Hooch took half a step back.
Her heel tripped in a small dirt pit, and her body swayed before barely regaining her balance.
She didn't dare to speak again, holding the silver whistle in her hand tightly.
Arthur withdrew his gaze.
He felt that these teachings at Hogwarts were simply a waste of time.
When did the transportation tools of pure-blood Wizards degenerate into riding such sweeping gadgets?
He raised his right hand, palm facing up.
The moisture in the air was suddenly evaporated.
A strong smell of sulfur directly overpowered the fragrance of the green grass.
Standing beside, the moment Draco smelled this scent, his legs went weak and he almost knelt directly.
He knew what this smell was.
A pure black flame burst out from Arthur's palm.
No incantation was chanted.
The flame surged against the wind.
In less than a second, the surrounding turf withered and turned gray on a large scale.
Without even the process of burning, it directly turned into delicate white ash.
Heat waves rolled.
The air breathed into the lungs turned into scalding blades.
The surrounding first-years screamed and retreated backwards.
Someone tripped over the broom on the ground, scrambling and crawling far away to escape the high temperature.
One of the books in Hermione's arms dropped to the ground.
With a muffled "bang".
She didn't go to pick it up.
She was squinting her eyes from the heat wave hitting her face, but her gaze was firmly glued to that mass of black fire.
Her fervent desire for knowledge completely overwhelmed the burning pain on her skin.
The Fiendfyre distorted violently in mid-air.
This was not out-of-control burning.
Under Arthur's domineering will, the flames were forcibly molded and shaped.
A huge Dragon head condensed from black fire probed out.
Followed by a thick neck and huge wings unfolding to a width of more than ten meters.
The huge Dragon body hovered over the lawn.
It had no physical entity, yet it exuded a destructive coercion even more terrifying than a real Dragon.
The Dragon lowered its head.
Its nostrils, burning with black fire, exhaled a blast of hot air.
Several flying brooms on the ground were directly ignited by the air wave, instantly burning into charcoal.
Arthur took a step forward.
His leather boots stepped on the Dragon's bridge of the nose, walking along the skeleton toward its broad head.
The black fire did not hurt him at all, instead affectionately rubbing against his boots like a pet.
He stood on the Dragon's head.
His black robe with dark silver patterns fluttered loudly in the heat wave.
Arthur stood with one hand behind his back, looking down at the lawn below with a cold gaze.
"This is the rule that belongs to me."
He gently stamped his foot.
The Fiendfyre Dragon let out a deafening roar.
The sound didn't sound like an animal cry, but more like countless souls roaring in despair within a sea of fire.
A violent wind suddenly rose.
The Dragon flapped its black fire wings and soared from the ground.
A terrifying hurricane of flying sand and stones whipped up across the lawn.
Madam Hooch couldn't keep her eyes open from the wind, and sat heavily on the ground with a thud.
Her whistle hit her teeth, forcefully chipping off a small piece of her front tooth.
She tasted the blood in her mouth, but she couldn't care about it at all.
She could only tilt her head up, dazedly watching that black figure rushing into the clouds.
A huge shadow enveloped the lawn in front of the Castle.
The Dragon circled in mid-air.
The black flames dyed the afternoon sky of the Scottish Highlands with a doomsday-like undertone.
The Principal's office on the eighth floor of the Castle.
Dumbledore stood in front of the window.
The cup of black tea with three sugar cubes in his hand had already gone completely cold.
When he saw that Fiendfyre Dragon soaring into the air from outside the window.
The old man's hand shook violently.
He didn't hold the teacup steady.
The brown tea splashed on his half-moon spectacles, dripping down his silver-white beard.
Fawkes fluttered its wings anxiously on its perch, emitting a series of uneasy wails.
This Phoenix felt an aura of death akin to its natural enemy.
In the Charms Class classroom on the fourth floor.
Professor Flitwick was standing on a thick stack of books teaching the class.
The light outside the window suddenly darkened.
He turned his head and happened to see that huge black Dragon head brush past the window.
"Clang."
Professor Flitwick's wand dropped onto the floor.
His foot slipped, and he fell directly from the stack of books, rolling ungracefully under the podium.
The senior students in the classroom crowded to the window like madmen.
The astonishing high temperature coming from the glass scorched them so much that they quickly pulled back their hands.
The sound of drawing in cold breaths rose one after another in the classrooms on every floor.
At this moment on the lawn.
The first-years had completely lost their ability to think.
Wave after wave of heat pressed down from above their heads.
Harry opened his mouth wide, his neck aching from tilting it up.
He felt like an ant crawling on a railroad track, watching a burning train roaring and crushing past right above his head.
That sense of powerlessness from the huge gap made his stomach churn with sour water.
This was simply not magic that a first-year student could cast.
This was a high and mighty deity displaying his wrath.
The black fire Dragon turned half a circle in the air.
It lowered its altitude slightly.
The terrifying heat emitted from the Dragon's belly evaporated the moisture on the lawn into large patches of white mist.
The Dragon's might, mixed with the brutal aura of the Dark Arts, hit the shoulders of the crowd below heavily like solid lead blocks.
In the Gryffindor queue.
Neville Longbottom stood at the very edge.
He was already extremely lacking in confidence due to his grandmother's severity.
Before he could overcome his fear of high-altitude flying, he bumped head-on into this terrifying creation of a demon-king level.
Neville's chubby face was whiter than paper at this moment.
Sweat rolled down his forehead in large drops, stinging painfully as it flowed into his eyes.
He didn't even have the strength to reach out and wipe his sweat.
His heart beat wildly in his chest, so fast as if it was about to burst directly.
His breathing became shallow and rapid.
The surrounding air seemed to have been completely sucked dry by that black fire Dragon, and he couldn't inhale anything.
The Dragon let out another low roar.
A black spark fell from the Dragon's wing, smashing less than two meters away from Neville.
The grass instantly burned out a charred deep hole, emitting a pungent smell of sulfur.
Neville's whole body muscles suddenly stiffened.
He wanted to dodge back, to stay further away from that sky-covering black monster.
But the instructions sent by his brain couldn't reach his legs at all.
His knees made a faint sound of unbearable burden.
His joints completely lost the strength to support his body.
Neville's vision darkened, and his legs went soft.
His body of over two hundred pounds collapsed directly onto the scalding hot grass.
Chapter 14 Neville's Ultimate Fear
Neville collapsed onto the scorching turf.
The moisture in the soil beneath him had been completely baked dry.
The brittle, stiff stalks of dead grass stabbed into his palms, but he couldn't feel the pain at all.
A massive shadow completely enshrouded him.
Neville tilted his head back, staring fixedly at the black monster in the sky.
The heat waves severely distorted the light in mid-air.
That was no magical creation at all.
In Neville's dazed mind, this was a living, breathing curse.
That was the aura of pure Dark Arts.
He was far too familiar with this scent.
Although his grandmother had always kept it from him, the bone-deep shadow from his childhood could simply not be erased.
Those were Death Eaters.
It was the maddening malice that filled the air when Bellatrix tortured his parents.
Screams.
The shrieks of his parents being tortured by Crucio in his memory suddenly pierced Neville's brain like cold awls.
Years of nightmares overlapped with the roar of the giant dragon in mid-air.
Neville's plump body trembled like a rotten leaf in the autumn wind.
He pressed his hands tightly over his ears.
Intermittent sobs came from his throat; he couldn't even shout a complete cry for help.
High above in the sky.
Arthur stepped on the dragon head condensed from Fiendfyre.
The wind blew his black robes backward, snapping sharply.
He looked down apathetically at the lawn below.
The crowd, like a swarm of stirred-up insects, was screaming and fleeing toward the Castle.
Arthur's gaze swept over these scattered prey.
Finally, it locked onto the plump boy collapsed on the ground.
The system panel flickered at the edge of his retina.
The fear value belonging to Neville Longbottom was jumping wildly upward.
The growth was fierce, but it was still just a little short.
Just a tiny bit more, and it could break through the system's rated maximum threshold.
What Arthur wanted was to drain this leek's potential all at once.
The sole heir of the Longbottom family.
Although he was good for nothing who couldn't even use a simple Levitation Charm properly, he possessed an absurd intuition in Herbology.
Arthur gently ground the tip of his boot against the black dragon's scales.
"Go say hello."
His voice was very soft, immediately torn apart by the high-altitude wind.
The dark fire dragon let out a muffled roar.
Its massive wings of fire suddenly pulled back.
Its massive body slammed straight down toward the lawn like a black meteorite.
The target was precisely Neville.
The wind pressure increased instantly.
Harry, who hadn't run far on the ground, was knocked over by the fierce wind.
He rolled several times on the ground, plunging headfirst into a mud puddle.
Harry spat out a mouthful of sandy saliva and looked back in the direction of Neville.
"Ne... Neville! Hurry up and get out of the way!"
Harry screamed until his voice cracked.
But Neville couldn't hear it at all.
Pressing down from above was not wind, but a suffocating high temperature.
The black dragon head rapidly magnified in Neville's vision.
The black flames burning on its fangs even scorched a few loose strands of hair on his forehead.
The sulfur smell in the air was thick enough to sting the eyes.
Neville opened his mouth wide.
The fat on his face was pulled backward by the gale.
He felt that he was already dead.
His soul was forcefully dragged out of his physical shell by a pair of invisible dark hands.
The last string in his brain snapped with a crisp click.
Blankness.
Pure, dead silent blankness without a shred of distracting thoughts.
In the final second before the black dragon opened its huge mouth and was about to swallow Neville in one gulp,
A cold mechanical voice rang wildly in Arthur's mind.
[Ding!]
[Detected that Neville Longbottom is experiencing ultimate fear!]
[The target's psychological defense line has completely collapsed!]
[Congratulations to the host, plundered max-level Herbology affinity talent!]
Arthur's feeling of satisfaction spread in the bottom of his heart.
That was enough.
He applied a little force with his right foot.
The diving Fiendfyre dragon stopped abruptly less than half a meter from Neville's nose.
The violent falling inertia was forcibly leveled out.
Arthur snapped his fingers.
The massive dragon instantly dissipated, turning into black sparks dancing all over the sky.
Before the sparks even landed, they completely extinguished in the air.
Not even a single trace was left behind.
Arthur descended from mid-air.
His leather boots stepped steadily onto the charred grass, making a slight crisp sound.
The hem of his robe swayed gently, without a speck of soot attached to it.
Neville rolled his eyes back.
He even forgot how to breathe, his body falling straight backward.
The back of his head smashed heavily into the mud, and he completely passed out.
Not far away.
Madam Hooch sat limply on the ground, panting heavily.
Her face was livid, and she didn't even have the leg strength to go over and check on Neville's condition.
Hermione, holding those three thick large books, circled out from behind an oak tree nearby.
She had hid just now as well, but her eyes had been fixed tightly on Arthur the whole time.
Seeing Arthur land safely, she immediately trotted over with short steps.
Not even bothering to brush off the tree bark debris smeared on her robes.
Arthur didn't even glance at Neville on the ground.
He felt the new talent taking root and sprouting in his mind.
Passing by a clump of baked wild grass, he could clearly perceive the tiny bit of moisture and vitality remaining deep within the roots of the grass.
Max-level Herbology affinity.
It allowed him to drain the toxicity and characteristics of any magical plant with his bare hands, making it much more handy to brew dark Potions in the future.
"Let's go."
Arthur walked straight toward the Castle.
Hermione kept her head down, closely following behind him.
The giant dragon incident in Flying Class spread throughout Hogwarts within a few hours.
During dinner, the Great Hall was frighteningly quiet.
No one dared to discuss the afternoon's events loudly.
But in everyone's eyes looking toward the Slytherin long table, there was thick dread.
Even Draco ate very little for once, his knife and fork touching the plate with utmost care.
Professor Flitwick sat at the staff table.
This short Charms master spent the entire evening pinching the fork in his hand.
He had witnessed that scene from the Charms Classclassroom window.
That absurd mastery of magic completely exceeded his understanding of magic.
Shaping violent Dark Arts into a lifelike giant dragon and being able to dispel it in an instant.
Flitwick was a dueling champion.
He had a paranoid pursuit of power and charms.
He wanted to see that boy's spellcasting details up close, even if only once.
The weekend arrived quickly.
The long tables of the Great Hall were all removed.
A long gilded stage was set up in the middle.
This was specially applied for by Professor Flitwick to Dumbledore.
A special Charms practical combat demonstration aimed at first-year students.
The embryonic form of the Dueling Club.
The area below the stage was crammed with first-year students from all houses, as well as quite a few upper-year students who had run over to watch the excitement.
Flitwick stood on the stage, clearing his throat.
His gaze swept over the crowd.
Looking directly at Arthur, who was resting his eyes leaning against a wall pillar.
"Mr. Grindelwald..."
Flitwick's hand holding his wand broke out in a bit of sweat, his voice sounding a bit tight.
"I wonder if you would be willing... to come on stage and give us a demonstration?"
Chapter 15: Duel Club, Crushed with a Single Finger
The glass dome of the Great Hall reflected the dark clouds outside.
The light was dim.
After Professor Flitwick's voice fell, the entire space was as dead silent as a graveyard.
More than four hundred students were crammed below the stage.
Usually, such practical demonstrations were always accompanied by whistling and jeering.
But today, no one dared to make a sound.
Flitwick stood on the edge of the gilded stage, tightly gripping his wand.
He waited for half a minute.
The cold sweat oozing from his palms made the wand handle somewhat slippery.
Snape stood on the other side of the stage.
Today, for the first time ever, the Potion master did not emit gloomy taunts.
He hid his injured right hand inside the wide sleeve of his black robe.
A faint smell of antiseptic Potion seeped through the white gauze.
Arthur leaned against the wall pillar of the Great Hall.
He opened his eyes, his heterochromatic pupils sweeping across the stage.
His long legs strode forward.
His leather boots stepped onto the wooden stairs of the stage.
"Clack."
The wooden boards emitted a slight dull thud.
Arthur walked to the center of the stage.
He didn't even make a ceremonial bow, his hands hanging naturally at his sides.
The magic in the air became viscous because of his entrance.
Breathing even began to become difficult.
"Is anyone coming to be his opponent?"
Flitwick swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his voice trembling slightly.
"Keep it brief... limited only to the most basic Expelliarmusand..."
"I'll do it."
A hoarse voice sounded from below the stage.
The crowd scattered like they saw a ghost, isolating the speaker in the middle.
It was Roland.
The Slytherin sixth-year prefect.
He was very tall with broad shoulders.
Roland clenched his teeth tightly, his face turning livid.
He had had enough of the entire school wagging their tails and begging a freshman like dogs these past few days.
He was a pure-blood.
He felt that Arthur's performance over the past few days was entirely due to sneak attacks and out-of-control Dark Arts.
On a formal duel arena, a sixth-year's magic reserves could definitely crush an eleven-year-old brat.
Roland jumped onto the stage.
The wooden boards shook.
He drew his wand from his waist, the tip pointing at the ground.
"Professor, I will give the freshmen a demonstration."
Roland's voice was loud, clearly trying to bolster his courage.
But the tail end of his voice carried a hint of uncontrollable wavering.
Arthur looked at the tall sixth-year student in front of him.
There were no emotional fluctuations in his black pupils.
It was like looking at a piece of firewood about to be thrown into the fireplace.
"According to the rules... you must bow first."
Flitwick reminded him stutteringly.
Roland perfunctorily bent his waist.
He immediately tensed all his muscles, guarding against the opposite side's movements.
Arthur didn't move.
He stood in place, not even the hem of his robe swaying.
"Begin!"
The moment Flitwick shouted those two words, he frantically retreated several steps.
Roland's wrist suddenly lifted.
He didn't use Expelliarmus.
He directly used the most destructive Blasting Curse he had mastered.
"Reduct—"
The spell was only half-chanted.
A visible circle of air waves suddenly burst out on the wooden boards.
Arthur raised his right hand.
He didn't pull out a wand.
He merely extended an index finger and casually pointed it towards Roland's direction.
There was no dazzling magic light.
There was no sound at all.
But the freshmen watching in the front row felt a sharp piercing pain in their eardrums, as if they were stuffed into deep water.
Space was forcibly compressed by a violent, brutal force.
An invisible steel wall of magic slammed directly onto Roland's chest at an unimaginable speed.
"Crack."
The crisp sound of bone fracture was infinitely magnified in the dead silent Great Hall.
Roland didn't even have time to let out a miserable scream.
His solid two-hundred-pound body rose directly from the ground like a tattered sack of rags.
His feet were a full three meters off the ground.
His entire person flew backward upside down.
The speed was so fast that it whipped up a fishy wind.
He flew across the entire student crowd in mid-air.
"Bang!"
His back slammed solidly against the stone wall at the end of the Great Hall.
The plaster on the wall peeled off in large areas from the impact.
An antique oil painting hanging there was directly shaken into Diffindo.
The broken wood of the frame fell down clatteringly.
Roland slid down to the ground against the stone wall.
A large mouthful of fresh blood gushed from his mouth, splashing onto the floor.
The smell of blood drifted into the nasal cavities of the front-row students along with the draft.
"Clatter."
The oak wand that Roland was holding in his hand fell from mid-air.
Under the invisible impact just now, it broke directly into two halves from the middle.
The broken half of the wand fell beside his face, the dragon heartstring core exposed to the air.
Roland's head tilted, and he completely passed out.
The entire audience was utterly silent.
Death-like quiet.
Harry stood below the stage, his hands tightly digging into the flesh of his thighs.
He even forgot to breathe.
That scene kept replaying in his mind.
No chanting.
No wand.
Just a single finger.
A sixth-year elite prefect was thus blasted flying more than a dozen meters away.
Life or death unknown.
Hermione stood in the crowd.
She didn't scream, but her teeth bit her lower lip until it bled.
This was truth.
Absolute power that crushed everything and ignored rules.
The wand in Professor Flitwick's hand dropped onto the stage board with a "pop" sound.
He opened his mouth, his short legs trembling unceasingly.
He was a dueling master.
But he didn't understand at all what kind of magic Arthurhad used.
It looked more like a purely materialized magicsuppression.
Snape leaned against the edge of the stage.
He tightly grasped the edge of his robe with his intact left hand.
His nails dug deeply into the fabric.
His breathing became rough and heavy.
He was glad he hadn't made any overreaction in the underground classroom a few days ago.
Otherwise, the one lying in the corner vomiting blood right now might be himself.
Arthur withdrew his index finger.
He turned around without looking at that pool of blood on the ground.
In his mind, the system's cold prompt sounds were crazily refreshing the screen.
They were all fear values contributed by the students and Professors below the stage.
He walked down the stage.
The crowd panicked and retreated to both sides like a tide.
Fearing that their robes would brush against even a shred of this Demon King's garment.
Arthur crossed the aisle.
The sound of leather boots stepping on the stone slabs became the only movement in the entire Great Hall.
Late that night.
The Slytherin dungeons.
Draco Malfoy lay prone on the wooden desk in the dormitory.
A dim oil lamp was lit on the desk.
He held an expensive peacock feather quill in his hand.
The tip of the feather was trembling.
Several pitch-black ink blots had already dripped onto the parchment.
"Father."
Draco wrote these two words and paused for a long time.
He clenched his teeth and forced himself to recall the scene he saw in the Great Hall during the day.
The nib scraped a rustling sound across the rough paper surface.
"He didn't use a wand."
"A single finger. Roland Travers had three ribs broken and his wand shattered."
Draco wrote very messily, his handwriting completely devoid of its usual elegance.
He got ink all over his hands.
"He is even more terrifying than you said."
"If the House of Malfoy stands on his opposite side, we will die without even ashes left."
He hurriedly finished writing the last line of words.
Rolled up the parchment and sealed it with sealing wax.
Draco walked to the window.
Outside was the cold bottom of the Black Lake.
He stuffed the letter into the claws of his family's strongest horned owl.
When tying the strap, his hand trembled so much that he tied three dead knots before getting it right.
"Hurry away."
Draco's voice was very hoarse, like holding a mouthful of sand.
"Send it back to the manor overnight. Give it to my father."
The horned owl let out a low chirp.
It flapped its wings and flew out through the dedicated passageway of the owlery.
It quickly melted into the pitch-black night outside.
Draco slumped on the carpet.
He covered his face, listening to the howling wind outside, feeling cold all over.
This letter was flying towards Wiltshire.
That was Malfoy Manor.
Chapter 16 Lucius's Secret Apprehension
Wiltshire.
Malfoy Manor.
The rain outside was falling heavily.
The rain, mixed with a cold autumn wind, beat against the huge French windows.
Making a dull, snapping sound.
Lucius Malfoy sat in the leather armchair of his study.
The fire in the fireplace was burning brightly, the wood emitting a slight crackle.
The air drifted with a faint scent of cigars and the tartness of aged red wine.
A completely soaked horned owl crashed against the glass.
Lucius frowned slightly.
He stood up and walked over to pull the window latch.
The cold wind, mixed with drizzles of rain, poured directly into his collar, raising a patch of fine goosebumps.
The horned owl stumbled as it flew in.
Landing on the mahogany desk, it shook the water off its feathers.
Lucius removed the scroll tied to its leg.
The wax seal was the crest of the House of Malfoy, its edges somewhat blurred.
He opened the letter.
The parchment was somewhat damp and felt soft and limp to the touch.
The handwriting on it was messy, with the ink bleeding into several black stains.
This looked nothing like the writing of Draco, whom he had strictly educated since childhood.
By the firelight of the fireplace, Lucius lowered his head to read the letter.
The very first line of words made the fingers holding the parchment freeze.
"He didn't use a wand."
Lucius's brow furrowed even deeper.
He continued reading downwards.
"The black Fiendfyre..."
"With a single finger, Roland Travers broke three ribs..."
"The wand shattered directly."
The paper made a faint, rustling sound in Lucius's hands.
That was the movement caused by his hands trembling.
He had originally just regarded Draco's letter as a child's complaint at school.
But now, he felt as if a piece of ice had been pressed against his back.
Non-verbal and wandless.
Controlling Fiendfyre.
Crushing a sixth-year pure-blood prefect with a single finger.
Is this something an eleven-year-old first-year student could do?
Lucius's breathing grew rapid.
He turned around abruptly, his knees accidentally knocking against the edge of the desk.
A dull, throbbing pain washed over him.
He had no time to rub it at all.
The long-faded Dark Mark on his left arm seemed to produce a sort of phantom pain at this moment.
Back in Lord Voldemort's prime, he could indeed make people fearful to their bones.
But that Dark Lord still needed to draw his wand and cast the Killing Curse when killing people.
This Grindelwald described in the letter.
Treated the Dark Arts as a natural instinct like drinking water.
How was this a Dark Wizard with potential?
This was clearly an ancient monster wearing human skin.
"Mad..."
Lucius's throat felt dry, and he muttered a sentence.
He walked over to the liquor cabinet, wanting to pour himself a glass of wine to calm his nerves.
When pulling out the crystal stopper, his hands were shaking too violently.
The mouth of the bottle knocked against the edge of the glass, making a crisp clinking sound.
The red wine spilled onto the white wool carpet, looking like a pool of blood.
He didn't care about the carpet.
Raising the glass, he gulped down a large mouthful.
The tart liquid flowed down his throat into his stomach, slightly dispelling the chill in his bones.
Lucius was a Death Eater.
He was a typical egoist.
He knew the rules of power succession in the wizarding world too well.
Lord Voldemort had disappeared for ten years, his life or death unknown.
And now, a younger, more brutal new master with an outrageously high starting point had appeared.
If the House of Malfoy still put on the airs of pure-blood nobility in front of this little Dark Lord.
The outcome would definitely be a hundred times more miserable than that unlucky fellow Travers.
"Dobby!"
Lucius put down his wine glass and shouted.
A loud crack sounded in the air.
A House-elf wearing a dirty pillowcase appeared in the center of the study.
It had large, bat-like ears, and its tennis ball-sized eyes were filled with awe.
"Mas… Master called Dobby…"
"Shut up."
Lucius interrupted it crudely.
"Go to the underground vault. Bring over that black velvet box on the third shelf."
Dobby shrank its neck in fright.
With a "crack" sound, it disappeared again.
A few minutes later.
Dobby reappeared, holding a dust-covered black box in its hands.
Lucius waved his hand to tell it to get lost.
He opened the box.
Inside was a parchment contract and an ancient bronze key.
This was the title deed to a secret shop belonging to the House of Malfoy deep in Knockturn Alley.
Along with the key to an anonymous vault in Gringotts.
The vault was filled with rare Dark Arts materials that the Malfoy family had plundered over the past few centuries.
Originally, this was the trump card Lucius kept to save his own life.
But now he decided to give it away.
Matters of surrender must be done ahead of all pure-blood families.
If he couldn't provide timely help in poverty, adding flowers to embroidery had to be the very first.
He took out another clean piece of parchment.
Dipped some ink and began to write a letter.
This time, he wrote with exceptional caution.
Pausing after every single word to weigh his tone.
It was entirely in a humble tone used for treating a monarch.
After finishing, he put the title deed and the key together into a crocodile-skin coin purse cast with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
He fetched the strongest black owl.
Tied the coin purse to its leg.
"Send it to Hogwarts. Give it to Arthur Grindelwald."
Lucius patted the owl's wings.
The black bird flew into the rainy night.
Lucius looked at the pitch-black sky outside the window, letting out a long breath of foul air.
The cold sweat on his palms had not yet dried.
Time passed quietly in the wind and rain.
The leaves of the large trees outside Hogwarts Castleturned yellow and fell off.
Stepping on the lawn produced a crisp crackling sound.
The air grew dry and cold.
In the blink of an eye, Halloween arrived.
The Halloween feast was a major event at Hogwarts.
The Great Hall was decorated to be full of festive atmosphere.
Hundreds of pumpkin lanterns floated in mid-air, replacing the usual lighting candles.
Various funny grimaces were carved into the bellies of the pumpkins, emitting a dim yellow candlelight.
A large swarm of bats fluttered their wings and flew back and forth beneath the ceiling.
Occasionally dropping a few black feathers.
The air was filled with the sweet, cloying scent of roasted pumpkin, chops, and toffee.
The long tables of the four houses were laden with golden plates.
The young Wizards were talking excitedly.
The sound of cutlery clashing and laughter mixed together, making it very noisy.
Only the middle section of the Slytherin long table was eerily quiet.
Arthur sat there.
In front of him lay a sliced medium-rare steak.
He ate very slowly, his movements elegant.
The blade sliced through the blood-streaked meat without making a single scraping noise against the plate.
Draco sat to his rear-side.
Holding a sterling silver pumpkin juice pitcher in his hands.
Seeing that the cup beside Arthur's hand was a third empty, Draco immediately hurried over.
Carefully filling the juice to the brim.
Not a single drop was spilled.
That letter and package from Lucius had been personally handed over to Arthur by Draco.
From that day on, Draco didn't even dare to breathe loudly in front of this blonde boy.
Completely treating himself as a personal manservant.
The other Slytherin students tried their best to squeeze towards both ends of the long table.
Leaving a large area empty around Arthur.
No one wanted to feel that suffocating magical pressure while eating.
Over at Gryffindor.
Harry stuffed a piece of pumpkin pie into his mouth.
He felt that today's pie was a bit burnt and tasted bitter.
He looked to the side.
Ron was grabbing a chicken leg and gnawing on it with his mouth full of oil.
Hermione was not there.
She had disappeared after this afternoon's Charms Class.
Word was that a Slytherin named Arthur had thrown her an extremely thick book of Ancient Runes dictionary.
Telling her to translate the first three chapters within today.
She hadn't even come to eat the Halloween feast, staying soaked in the library all along.
"Leave her be."
Ron swallowed the chicken meat in his mouth and said incoherently.
"She's hanging out with vipers now... her brain is broken."
Harry didn't speak.
He lowered his head to look at his plate, feeling little appetite.
Just at this moment.
The two heavy oak doors of the Great Hall suddenly made a loud crash.
"Bang!"
The door panels slammed heavily against the stone walls on both sides.
Shaking the dust on the doorframe down in a flurry.
The noisy Great Hall instantly quieted down.
Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned uniformly toward the doorway.
Quirrell stumbled rushing in.
The large purple turban on his head was crooked to one side.
His complexion was as pale as a dead man's, covered entirely in sweat.
He ran in a great rush.
His shoe soles rubbed harshly against the slate floor, making a harsh screeching sound.
Halfway through, his left foot tripped over his right, and his whole body pitched forward.
He barely stabilized his balance and scrambled all the way to the exact center of the Great Hall.
Dumbledore stood up from the head seat.
The smile on his face vanished.
Quirrell supported his knees with both hands, panting heavily.
His lungs made the sound of a broken bellows.
He raised his head, his eyes filled with terror.
"Troll..."
Quirrell's voice cracked, carrying a distinct sob.
"In the dungeon..."
There was a dead silence in the Great Hall.
Everyone heard this despairing howl.
"Thought... thought you should know..."
After Quirrell finished saying this last sentence.
The whites of his eyes rolled upwards.
His legs turned soft, and he collapsed stiffly headfirst onto the floor.
Making a dull thud.
With no further movement at all.
Chapter 17: A Troll? Fuel for Fiendfyre!
Quirrell collapsed onto the floor.
His body slammed against the stone with a muffled, dull thud.
The large purple turban on his head completely unraveled, revealing the charred, burnt mark on the back of his head.
The air in the Great Hall seemed to freeze.
The next second.
A girl from an unknown grade let out a distorted scream.
The crowd completely exploded.
Hundreds of students stood up at the same time, benches being knocked over onto the floor.
Silver plates filled with food fell off the dining tables.
Roasted chops and mashed potatoes were trampled all over the floor.
"Quiet!"
Dumbledore's voice exploded over the Great Hall.
He raised the Elder Wand.
A few deafening purple fireworks burst from the tip of his wand.
The sound of the explosions forcibly suppressed all the screams and cries.
"Prefects," Dumbledore said at an extremely fast pace.
"Take the students of your House back to your dormitories right now. Do not linger in the corridors."
The prefects of each House began to shout at the top of their lungs to form lines.
Percy of Gryffindor waved his hands, trying to gather the panicked first-years together.
Draco was pushed forward by the crowd.
He turned his head, wanting to help Arthur get the silver goblet left on the table.
But he found that the seat Arthur had just been sitting in was empty.
There was only half-cut steak left on the table.
Draco shrank his neck.
He didn't dare to ask at all, nor did he dare to look for him.
He could only lower his head, closely following Slytherin's procession toward the dungeons.
Arthur did not follow the procession.
He walked in the completely opposite corridor.
His leather boots stepped on the stone slabs, and the sound produced was very clear in the empty corridor.
The air here was extremely poor.
The further forward he walked, the more pungent the smell became.
It was mixed with the smell of stinky socks, fermented mud, and public restroom garbage piled up for months.
Arthur frowned.
He reached into the inner side of his robe and took out a dark silk handkerchief.
Casually covering his mouth and nose with it.
That fool Quirrell didn't even use his brain when lying.
The smell did not come from the basement at all.
But rather from the direction of the first-floor girls' bathroom.
Several thick cracks appeared on the wall ahead.
Shattered wall bricks and wood chips rolled all over the floor.
A landscape oil painting hanging on the wall had its frame torn apart and was thrown on the ground.
Arthur stepped over a broken wooden beam.
He stopped at the corner outside the girls' bathroom.
The passage ahead was blocked by a behemoth.
That was an adult mountain Troll.
It was about twelve feet tall.
Its skin was that dull granite gray.
Like a huge, lumpy ball of rotting flesh.
The Troll dragged a club in its hand that was as thick as its waist.
The club rubbed against the stone slabs, making an unpleasant squeaking sound.
Its brain was very slow.
It wobbled as it walked, as if it could fall at any time.
Just when Arthur stopped his footsteps.
The Troll's huge nostrils twitched twice.
It smelled the scent of a living person.
The Troll slowly turned its clumsy body around.
Those turbid eyes like beans stared at the blond youth standing at the corner.
A muffled gurgling sound came from its throat.
Saliva dripped onto the ground along its chin.
Arthur put the handkerchief down.
Casually throwing it onto a broken wooden board nearby.
"What a disgusting, ugly thing."
The voice was very plain.
Without a trace of warmth.
The Troll could not understand human language.
But its territorial awareness as a lower creature was angered.
It raised the thick club in its hand.
Thick cyan blood vessels bulged out on its granite-like skin.
Carrying a strong, foul-smelling wind pressure.
The club traced a heavy arc in mid-air.
Smashing fiercely toward the top of Arthur's head.
The wind pressure blew the gravel on the ground to roll to both sides.
Arthur stood in place.
His hands were still tucked in the pockets of his black robe.
Not even half a step was moved under his feet.
Fiendfyre didn't need him to make any redundant casting movements at all.
When that huge club was still one meter away from the top of his head.
"Boom."
A ball of pure black flames burst directly out from the gaps in the stone slabs at Arthur's feet.
This was not an ordinary flame.
This was a black sea of fire that could even swallow light.
A wall of fire rose from the ground instantly.
Directly wrapping the Troll's huge body completely inside.
The moment the thick club made contact with the black fire.
Not even wood chips flew out.
It directly turned into fine white ash, blown away by the heat wave.
The fire was too brutal.
The Troll didn't even have time to open its mouth and make a sound.
That roar in its throat was forcefully cut off in its throat.
Under the high temperature of Fiendfyre, its hard and thick skin melted like ice cubes in summer.
Fat and muscles were vaporized instantly.
Without even having time to emit the burnt smell of roasted meat, it was burned into nothingness.
The bones made an unbearable cracking sound in the high temperature.
The oxygen in the corridor was instantly drained.
The heat wave baked the stone walls on both sides red, making a delicate, dry cracking sound.
In a matter of one or two seconds.
That terrifying behemoth weighing thousands of pounds.
Its flesh and blood were burned completely clean.
Leaving only a huge, charred black skeleton.
That skeleton even maintained the stiff posture of raising the club.
"Crash."
The bones, losing the connection of muscles, could no longer support themselves.
The huge charred bones directly fell apart.
The black bones fell on the scorching stone slabs, smashing into a pile of shattered residue all over the floor.
Arthur's mind moved.
The all-inclusive black sea of fire instantly shrank inward.
Burrowing back into the shadow under his feet.
The corridor returned to dimness.
Only the surrounding walls were still emitting scorching heat.
The pile of charred bone residue on the ground was emitting wisps of blue smoke.
Arthur didn't even look at the ashes on the ground.
Too weak.
This kind of barbaric creature without any magic at all didn't even have the qualification to provide him with fear points.
Purely a pile of stinking good-for-nothings.
He turned around.
The hem of his black robe traced a cold and hard arc in the hot air.
Just at this moment.
A burst of urgent footsteps came from the other end of the corridor.
The soles of shoes stepping on the stone slabs ran in a panic, even somewhat staggering.
"Hurry up... Ron! Hermione is still inside!"
Harry's voice came from around the corner.
Accompanied by heavy panting.
He tightly grasped his wand in his hand, his palms full of cold sweat.
"I... I can't run anymore..."
Ron's out-of-breath voice followed.
These two boys heard in the afternoon that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom.
Hearing about a Troll during the dinner just now, they thought Hermione didn't know yet.
Taking advantage of the crowd's confusion, they secretly broke away from the group and ran over to look for someone.
They had no idea that Hermione had long been sent by Arthur to the library to translate ancient books.
The footsteps were getting closer and closer.
Harry and Ron suddenly rushed past the corridor corner.
They blundered straight into this area.
The soles of their shoes stepped on the still-hot stone slabs.
Scalding Ron so that he drew back his foot.
But they had no time to care about the temperature at the soles of their feet.
The footsteps of the two boys froze instantly in place.
Chapter 18: Ron Wet His Pants on the Spot
Harry and Ron's footsteps were abruptly nailed to the bluestone floor of the corridor.
Due to the sudden halt, the old leather shoes on Ron's feet slipped.
His shoulder slammed heavily against the nearby wall bricks, bruising fiercely.
But he no longer even had the instinctive reaction to reach out and rub it.
The two of them had their mouths wide open, their chests heaving violently.
Yet they couldn't inhale any oxygen no matter what.
The temperature in the corridor was scalding hot.
The stone walls on both sides were baked dark red, their surfaces covered in spiderweb-like cracks.
White heat was still seeping out from the cracks in the stones.
The air was completely devoid of the fermented sour stench that normally came from a Troll.
There was only the nauseatingly heavy smell of ashes, along with a pungent smell of sulfur.
Right on the ground a few meters away.
Piled up like a small mountain was charred black bone debris.
Those bones were abnormally thick, obviously belonging to some kind of giant creature.
The largest skull was still emitting wisps of bluish smoke.
Black sparks occasionally danced within the bone seams, emitting a faint popping sound.
This was the complete trace left in this world by that twelve-foot-tall mountain Troll.
Standing in front of the pile of charred bones was a person.
Arthur Grindelwald.
He had his back turned to the two boys.
His black robes hung down to his ankles.
The fabric didn't have a single extra wrinkle.
Not even a single strand of his hair was out of place.
It was totally incompatible with the charred, hell-like scene around him.
It was so clean that it made one's scalp tingle.
Hearing the commotion coming from behind.
Arthur slowly turned his head.
He didn't turn around completely, only tilting his face slightly.
The dim light in the corridor struck half of his face.
In those heterochromatic pupils, usually interwoven with paleness and pitch-black darkness.
Right now, a brutal red light that hadn't yet dissipated was churning.
That was the residual magical fluctuation of max-level Fiendfyre.
Carrying the thick smell of blood, just like an ancient fierce beast that had finished eating and hadn't wiped its teeth clean yet.
Harry felt as though his heart was tightly clutched by a cold, giant hand covered in barbs.
That holly wand hidden in his sleeve.
Suddenly became as heavy as a piece of red-hot branding iron.
His five fingers went numb, completely unable to muster the strength to grip it.
A tearing, agonizing pain came from the lightning scar on his forehead.
Ten times more painful than when he faced Arthur in the underground corridor last time.
He felt as though his soul was trembling and shaking along with that trace of red light.
"Hermione... Hermione..."
Harry's lips were pale, and he managed to squeeze out two broken syllables from his parched throat.
He wanted to ask where Hermione was.
Whether she had also been burned into a part of that pile of black ash.
But he couldn't emit a complete, prolonged sound.
The blond boy opposite him had no intention of answering at all.
Arthur simply looked at them quietly.
His gaze was as indifferent as if he were looking at two corpses about to be disposed of.
Ron's situation beside him was even more unbearable.
He was originally an ordinary boy with a very timid nature.
Usually, seeing a slightly larger spider in the dorm would scare him into jumping onto the bed and screaming.
But what lay before him now was an unvarnished, unilateral massacre.
Ron's gaze swept past the smoking black bone debris.
He saw the outline of that skull clearly.
Then his gaze slowly moved upward, meeting Arthur's eyes.
That brutal red light pierced directly through Ron's fragile psychological defense line.
A loud buzzing sound rang out in his brain.
All ability to think completely shut down in that instant.
He saw pure death.
That kind of death was not a dry, tedious textual description in History of Magic books.
Nor was it a bedtime story his brothers used to scare him.
But real ashes carrying a burnt smell, smoking right under his nose.
Ron's teeth began to chatter wildly.
The chattering sound was particularly piercing in the quiet corridor.
His legs completely lost sensation.
The cartilage in his knee area seemed to have been sucked out.
"Thud."
Ron knelt stiffly onto the scalding stone slab floor.
Two charred holes were instantly scorched into the knees of his trousers.
His flesh and skin were scorched red, but he couldn't even let out a cry of pain.
A strong urge to urinate suddenly welled up.
His bladder's sphincter completely declared a loss of control amidst extreme terror.
Warm liquid flowed down the base of his thighs.
Damping the hem of his hand-me-down old robe.
Dripping down onto the scorching stone slabs.
The urine came into contact with the high-temperature ground.
And was immediately evaporated into a wisp of white gas smelling of urine odor.
Mixed with the original smell of ashes in the corridor, the stench was extremely foul.
Ron wet his pants on the spot from fear.
He didn't even realize himself that he had been incontinent.
He only used his hands to frantically scratch at the gaps between the stone bricks on the ground.
He felt nothing even when his fingernails broke off.
The whole person shook into a pile of mud.
"Harry... Harry..."
Ron had his mouth wide open, saliva pulling long, transparent threads down his chin.
"Run... quick... run..."
He wanted to make Harry run.
But his own hands and limbs were as limp as noodles, lacking even the strength to crawl on the ground.
Harry did not run.
He bit down hard on his lower lip.
His teeth broke through the flesh, and a rust-tasting fresh blood flowed into his mouth.
Relying on this pain, he forced himself to stay in place, not kneeling down embarrassedly like Ron.
But he also lacked the courage to raise his wand and point it at Arthur.
The so-called bravery of the Savior turned into a comical joke in this corridor full of ashes.
In front of that boy's absolute power, he was merely a slightly larger ant.
Arthur stood two meters away.
He looked at the red-haired boy kneeling in the puddle of urine and the Savior standing frozen in place.
The red light at the bottom of his eyes slowly faded, restoring the abyss-like pitch-blackness.
Deep within his mind.
The system's cold mechanical voice slammed down like dense rainstorms.
[Ding!]
[Target Ron Weasley's mentality has completely collapsed.]
[Extreme physiological trembling produced, fear value soaring significantly!]
[Target Harry Potter's conviction has suffered a setback.]
[The Savior's halo is wavering, high-tier fear value settling in progress!]
The values on the panel jumped upward at a crazy speed.
Arthur slightly raised his chin.
Took a deep breath of the turbid air in the corridor.
This vivid taste of fear was much sweeter than the pumpkin juice at the Halloween banquet.
He didn't make a move to kill these two boys.
Too dirty.
That urine stench on Ron's body made Arthur feel somewhat nauseous.
Trash lacking any resistance capability didn't even qualify to be his Dark Arts fuel.
Only fit to tremble in the corner like maggots.
Arthur pulled that silk handkerchief out of his robe pocket.
He disgustedly wiped his fingertips, which hadn't even been stained with dust just now.
And casually tossed it away.
The handkerchief fluttered down onto the ground in front of Ron.
Just covering that pool of steaming urine.
"Hogwarts' teaching quality is truly disappointing."
Arthur's voice echoed in the corridor, carrying a condescending mockery.
"They can't even teach the basic instinct of controlling excretion."
Hearing these words, Ron's tears finally burst their banks.
He lay on the ground crying bitterly.
His voice was full of despair and breakdown, with no dignity to speak of.
Harry closed his eyes.
Humiliation and fear twisted his heart like two blades; he could only clutched his fists tightly.
The air pressure in the corridor was low to the extreme.
Only Ron's altered cries echoed between the baked dry stone walls.
Arthur turned around, preparing to leave this ruin whose smell was getting worse and worse.
Right at this moment.
From the darkness at the other end of the corridor came a flurry of hurried footsteps.
More than one person.
The sound of leather shoes heavily treading on the stone slabs was urgent and fast.
"Over here! I smell something burning!"
Professor McGonagall's anxious voice came over.
Her voice carried an irrepressible panic.
Immediately followed by a dazzling Lumos.
Albus Dumbledore raised his glowing wand and strode out of the corner.
McGonagall and Snape followed closely behind him.
The three Professors with the highest authority in Hogwarts finally arrived at the scene.