Chapter 8 The Thunderous Resonance of the Whomping Willow
Hogwarts' October was overcast with leaden clouds, pressing down on the eaves. Leonard Norton stood beneath the Whomping Willow's twisted branches, his palm pressed against the pulsating electric patterns on its bark.
This was his third time challenging the ferocious plant during a thunderstorm.
The lightning pattern in the center of his amulet for the first time showed an unstable purplish-black, like crumbled lightning flowing within a septagram.
"Frequency 182Hz, exceeding the safety threshold by 7%!"
Hermione Granger, hidden behind a Stone Shield ten meters away, watched as the copper needle of her "Lightning Frequency Scanner" nearly pierced the dial.
"Leonard, remember our Potion Class experiment—the essence of the lightning element is 'the rhythm of destruction,' but you can shackle it with the Geo God's contract will!"
Her parchment was already covered with comparison curves, red dashed lines marking the "elemental out-of-control critical value" from the Ministry of Magic's Dangerous magic Records.
Ron Weasley squatted beside her, loading Chocolate Frog wrappers soaked in "Lightning Mitigation Agent" into his Slingshot.
"If this Willow whips your butt, I'll use the 'Farting Cushion Charm' George gave me to make it laugh until it's exhausted—Merlin's beard, its branches are three times thicker than our Basilisk!"
He suddenly caught sight of the lightning pattern appearing on Leonard's hand, his ear tips reddening as he mumbled, "Hey, your hand is glowing, like a walking glow stick!"
The moment the first Willow branch struck, Leonard instinctively summoned his Wings of Wind.
Azure-purple light condensed into a translucent armor on his body, but it was shattered directly by the electrified branch.
The purple light from his amulet, following the splashing sparks, shot up his sleeve, branding a temporary lightning pattern on the back of his hand.
The violent current made him stumble half a step, but then he heard Hermione shout from a distance, "Encase the lightning element with a Stone Shield! Like putting a stone helmet on lightning!"
He closed his eyes, recalling the steady sensation when the Geo Archon's spear materialized in the Chamber of Secrets.
The amulet's septagram suddenly split into a golden-gray light band, forming a diamond-shaped chain around the lightning pattern, binding the out-of-control current into an arrowhead shape.
When the second lightning arrow condensed, its surface even showed the same diamond-shaped patterns as a Gargoyle's armor—that was the Geo God's contract's first taming of the lightning God's destructive desire.
"Hit the third main branch!"
Harry Potter, who had somehow circled behind the tree, held a dagger soaked in Basilisk venom (modified by Hermione to temporarily paralyze the lightning core).
"I hear the Willow screaming, its lightning core is repelling your amulet!"
His Parseltongue suddenly echoed, and the soil at the base of the trunk subtly churned, causing the Whomping Willow's attack rhythm to pause for 0.3 seconds.
The moment the lightning arrow precisely hit its target, the Whomping Willow's branches emitted a metallic snapping shriek.
Leonard clearly "saw" inside the trunk: the thirty-centimeter diameter lightning core was violently trembling, countless tiny electrical arcs flowed like living things along the annual rings, and his amulet's pattern was resonating with these arcs at a frequency of 175Hz—that was the "ley line harmony frequency" Hermione had deciphered from the Gargoyle's Synaptic Theory.
"Resonance successful!"
Hermione's scanner buzzed, its needle stable in the safe zone.
"The lightning arrow's paralyzing effect has increased to 1.2 seconds, and the voltage fluctuation has decreased by 40%!"
She quickly recorded in her notebook: "Geo-Lightning Resonance Formula: ΔV = ρ · (C_Geo - C_Lightning) · f², where C_Geo is the Gargoyle contract coefficient, and C_Lightning is the lightning core frequency."
Ron's Slingshot fired in response, and a pink balloon wrapped in lightning element precisely stuck to the surface of the lightning core.
The Whomping Willow's branches suddenly swelled into a marshmallow-like shape, the frantic electrical patterns becoming docile within the pink halo, even actively making a gap for the three of them to the center of the trunk.
Harry seized the opportunity to insert the dagger into the tree root, and the Basilisk venom reacted strangely with the lightning core, causing the same septagram pattern as the amulet to appear on the trunk's surface.
"Its annual rings are embedded with starsilver particles!"
Hermione pressed the microscope against the bark, her voice trembling.
"It's completely consistent with the Geo Archon statue in the Chamber of Secrets and the material of your amulet.
The 'lightning core' recorded in the Magical Botany: Willow Scroll is essentially an ancient lightning God's contract anchor point left in the human world!"
Leonard reached out to touch the core, and the purple light of his amulet resonated with the starsilver particles, a fragmented memory suddenly flooding his mind: in front of Narukami Shrine on Teyvat, a purple-haired Miko was inserting a lightning wedge into a giant tree, and the patterns on the tree trunk were identical to the Whomping Willow before him.
"This is a fragment of the lightning God's authority," he murmured, "Every magical plant at Hogwarts is a concretization of the Seven Gods' contracts."
When the thunder was loudest, Leonard suddenly had an epiphany.
He mobilized the azure glow of his Wings of Wind to envelop the lightning arrow, and the two elements formed a spiral light band on the amulet's surface.
The moment the arrow sliced through the rain, it even outlined a three-dimensional star map of Hogwarts in the clouds.
The Whomping Willow's branches then stretched out, pointing towards the depths of the Forbidden Forest—where the tree canopy gently swayed in the faint light, as if responding to the lightning God's call.
"The resonance frequency between the amulet and the lightning Willow has reached 100%!"
Ink bled on Hermione's notebook.
"Now you can perceive the lightning distribution within a 50-meter radius through the Willow's root system, just as a Gargoyle can see ley line flow.
But remember," she suddenly stared at him seriously, "the destructive power of the lightning element will accelerate the amulet's erosion; the previous attack caused a 0.2 millimeter crack in the septagram pattern."
Ron suddenly pointed at the trunk and exclaimed, "Look! The electrical patterns on the bark are spelling something—it's 'GRANGER'!"
Everyone leaned closer, only to see the lightning spell out the Granger Family surname on the bark, each letter carrying the same golden glow as the star-shaped mark behind Hermione's ear.
"This is the lightning God's response to its contractor," Harry said in a low voice, his gaze sweeping over Hermione's reddening ear tips, "Just as the Gargoyle in the Chamber of Secrets recognized Leonard, the Whomping Willow is recognizing you, Hermione."
Hermione's pen tip paused on her notebook for half a second, then she suddenly wrote: "Granger Family gene and lightning Willow resonance frequency: 178Hz, with a deviation from Leonard's amulet of less than 0.5%. Hypothesis: Our ancestors jointly participated in the establishment of the Seven Gods' contracts."
As they left, Leonard looked back at the gradually calming Whomping Willow, and found that the septagram on its bark was slowly rotating, with the silhouette of Hogwarts Castle at its center.
The amulet vibrated gently on his chest, this time the frequency was no longer the restless thunder, but carried the steadiness of rock and the lightness of wind—that was the first chapter of dual-element resonance, and another piece of the Seven Gods' contracts falling into place.
Meanwhile, deep within the Forbidden Forest, an ancient Unicorn tree suddenly glowed, and the starsilver particles floating in its sap were resonating with the lightning God's pattern on Leonard's amulet.
This was the initial reaction of the Dendro Archon's Touch of Life, but it was silently noted by a silver-haired figure hiding in the shadows—that was the Slytherin prefect, Draco Malfoy, whose black gemstone in his hand reflected the amulet's fragmented pattern.