Chapter 602

The next few days were very jam-packed for Felix.

“Anything else, Harry?”

“… No.”

Felix scratched his chin and looked at Harry’s back, somehow feeling that he wasn’t in the right state of mind.

“Do you think overusing the Patronus Charm will affect your mood?” He asked Peeves, who had just poked his head through the wall to see what was going on, and was attempting to silently shrink his body back now. When he heard Felix’s question, he stopped awkwardly and replied, “I don’t know, sir.”

“I thought you might have some idea,” Felix shrugged, “I was grading some final papers and saw one of the students carefully analysing the similarities and differences between you and the Patronus body. Professor Flitwick was laughing rather heartily …”

Peeves was so startled that he almost fell from mid-air, and he spun around in the air holding his feet.

“I have nothing in common with a Patronus, sir! Totally different – those darned little brats! They must be thinking of ways to set up Lord Peeves -” He dashed aggressively into the solid stone wall, not looking back, as if he was going to find trouble with the person who wrote that. Felix wasn’t sure if this fit of indignation of his was feigned or not.

“Never mind, we still have many things to do, Valen.”

Felix said walking into the room and closing the door behind him, a chubby Niffler was sprawled out on the couch reading a comic book with a small fiery red bird on her head.

It is an alchemical item that Felix has used for an advanced warning purpose, more flexible than the Caterwauling Charm or Intruder Charm, and can be triggered based on specific conditions – he was notified when Crabbe and Goyle tried to break into his office, but the bird burned itself into a black, chocolate-like puddle of ashes after it completed warning him.

Felix made another one.

Valen unexpectedly took a liking to it and thought the bird was a bit like Fawkes. A birdcage was added in the office for this reason, and then the little fiery red alchemist bird also started to pretend it was really a bird.

“Want to come with me? Valen?” Felix asked after dressing up.

“Kee~”

“Okay, remember to take the bird and the snake for a stroll, you’ve gained some weight again… There are snacks in the cupboard, and remember to call me when we have guests, you know the trick, right? Knock on the doorknob three times with your wand …” Felix said at length, and Valen waved her hand to show she understood.

So Felix pushed open the bedroom door and walked through a shimmering membrane that led to the depth of Classroom Seven.

He was standing at the start of a fork in the path that looked as if a full path had been split in two and then the second path moved toward him, and Felix looked back as if he could still see Valen, who was teasing a small bird on the sofa, and he closed the door, leaving a shadow of a door in its place, and walked forward.

It certainly wasn’t a long path, but all sorts of defensive and vigilance magic had been laid out along the way, and he came to the end of it where a mist loomed before him. Felix reached out and felt up and down in the air as if there was really something there, and then – with a tug – he fished a lock out of the empty space.

Felix took out a streamlined key from his pocket, and inserted it into the lock core, twisting it open as the mist cleared to reveal a small two-storey building.

Inside the building, there is a modern office with white, continuous walls, and a smooth, discernible floor with no visible lighting around, but still, the room is well lit. In the centre of the office, three or four feet above the floor, a huge ouroboros serpent was floating with its head and tail united. It was rotating slowly.

“Let me think about today’s task, and the first step is-”

Felix shook the emerald ring and a piece of parchment appeared out of thin air, with a few categories roughly divided on it, the large extra blank space indicating that more content will be added.

“A glass of fine quality ghost coffee to start.”

A cup floated in the air.

“Very good,” Felix took a sip, “Next – an emotion test.” He raised his head and tapped his index finger on the scales of the ouroboros, the dark green opaque scales immediately turned into a transparent silvery white, revealing what was inside.

Voldemort’s torso floated in the air, his limbs and head hanging down helplessly. A dark green, shimmering serpent’s tail was impaled on his chest, looking as if it had been penetrated. In addition to the serpent’s tail on his chest, there were more than a dozen tiny vines like magical pipelines connected to him, sealing off the layers of magic in his body.

If an outsider had barged in, he would have been convinced this is a den of an evil dark wizard.

Felix’s eyes shone with a strange brilliance as he murmured as if he was talking to himself, “I don’t know if you ever thought you’d have a day like this, Tom, but I’m sure you can understand, can’t you? After all, it’s a perfect embodiment of your philosophy-”

“Magic is power.”

Felix held out his hand and from the corner of the ultra-modern room a wisp of green smoke bubbled up, the smoke gathered in his hand and looked like a green glass ball. Felix took it in his hand and his fingers passed through the silvery, transparent Ouroboros, and with a flick, the small green ball melted into Voldemort’s body.

“There are those who will indulge in beautiful dreams and refuse to wake up, and there are those who are so devastated by their great defeat that they hide away and dare not see anyone, which will you be?”

Right at that moment, there was a knock at the door.

“Professor Hap?” Hermione’s voice whispered as the door opened, “Oh, Professor, I wanted to ask if I needed to mark papers-”

Hermione blinked as she looked down to see a chubby Niffler yawning.

“Valen?”

Hermione asked Valen as she crouched down a little awkwardly, “Is the Professor in?”

“Kee!”

Niffler pointed at the room.

Hermione followed and walked in, the office was empty. She was a little disappointed, “Can I wait here for the Professor?” After receiving an affirmative answer, she walked over and sat on the couch, as she looked around.

It had been a while since she had been here, but nothing had changed in the office, she saw the green plant she had given as a gift on the small square table, growing well, which put her in a good mood, then she noticed a reflection on one of the cabinets by the wall, at first she thought it was glass, but it didn’t seem like that, there was more than one reflection.

Hermione stood up and walked over to the cupboard, she covered her mouth in surprise, there were about a dozen wide mouth jars behind the glass doors, each one containing a silvery mist, like a piece of art. If one looked closely, one would also notice that the mist would occasionally condense into a stag …

Was it Harry’s Patronus?

She looked at it for a moment and sat back on the couch, as she glanced along the green plant, she found a stack of partially marked test papers laying on top of the table.

Hermione’s hand slightly itched, so she sat down on the other side of the table and flipped open the test papers.

It is fourth-year Ancient Rune final test papers, of course, she didn’t come over to correct them, that was just an excuse, she had other things on her mind, but-

She had nothing else to do, so perhaps she might as well help out so that she could try to get a worthwhile chat when the professor returns?

Hermione picked up the test papers and began to mark them carefully. The questions on the papers were easy enough for her to grade, and she deliberately left a few of the more highly subjective questions unattended for Professor Hap to grade, while she looked through the rest. It didn’t take her that long before she couldn’t help but frown, “How can someone make a mistake here? It must be a careless mistake … and another … and another, oh my god, who is this guy, I need to see his name …”

When Valen finished leafing through the comic book, she slipped off the couch and ran over to the bird cage to have a look, she had carried the gluttonous snake in her hand to prevent the little snake from running around. After a long moment of both Valen and the bird staring at each other through the cage, Valen contentedly withdrew her gaze and took a bottle of Tumbleberry Juice out of the cupboard and, after a moment’s thought, she took out one more bottle.

She walked over to Hermione and handed one of the bottles to her, and smoothly squeezed into her arms as the two looked at the test papers together.

“Kee!” She called out.

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked, with her eyes still fixed on the test paper, and Valen pulled her exclusive wand out of her pocket and pointed it at a spot.

“Er, it’s really wrong here.”

Hermione looked down in surprise, watching as a smug Valen sipped her juice through a straw. Time passed a little bit, and Hermione stretched out her hand and stood up, she had finished grading all the papers. She rubbed her neck, which was a little sore, and looked up.

“The Professor still hasn’t come back yet?”

Valen gestured towards the bedroom door again, and Hermione remained somewhat confused, so Valen simply jumped down and trotted to the bedroom door, standing on her tiptoes and trying to reach the doorknob with her exclusive wand.

“You want to go in?”

Hermione walked over to her, she didn’t think the professor was in there, they had been grading papers all morning and no one had come out, unless … unless the Professor is sleeping inside … A slightly blank expression appeared on her face at the thought of that possibility.

No way it could be as she guessed, right?

Valen gave the doorknob three laboured knocks and the door popped open automatically, Hermione was a little flustrated at the prospect of seeing a professor lying in bed, in his pyjamas, with his hair in a mess, but out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of mercury like film.

She stared at the bedroom entrance, a transparent film blocking the way. The view from inside was so blurred that it made it impossible to see, and she reached out her hand-

“Better not touch it.”

A voice chimed in, and Hermione was startled, turning around quickly to stare at the blank portrait hung in the corner. Then a figure flashed in, blinking his light blue eyes and looking at her with a shining gaze.

“Miss Granger? Can I ask you a favour?”

“Uh, yes, Professor-?”

“Call me Felix, I didn’t teach you anything. Can you see the bottom right corner of the canvas, the bowl containing a bunch of grapes … can you see? Good, a prude tainted it with dirty hands, I just can’t stomach it …”

Hermione stared, a little flustered, ” Oh, Fe-Felix? What am I supposed to use to clean it -”

” Don’t use your sleeve! Use your wand, a very simple spell, I’ll tell you how to use it.”

After a few moments, Felix in the portrait frame whistled loudly and stuffed a grape into his mouth with a pleasant expression.

“You can’t imagine how many odd people you’d meet when they hang your portrait in St Mungo’s, there was one with a dagger in his head – God knows how he survived; there was the one whose nose was spewing fire, I guess it was due to an overdose of dragon’s blood – -and I saw an old wizard who spat bubbles like a fish, who happened to have bad breath, and the bubbles exploded in the face of the healer who was attending him, and it made that little girl cry so hard … want one?” He asked, holding up a grape.

“No, thanks.” Hermione suddenly felt a little sick in her stomach.

“Oh, you can’t eat either.” Portrait smoothly followed her words, “Well luckily I met you, I hate the smell of potion materials and potions, my original is sick of me nagging him and always telling me to shut up, he even threatened to have someone draw a muzzle on my mouth, is that for people? I’ve only ever seen them on horses and dogs!”

Hermione sneaked a glance at him, it was a very novel experience talking to a chatty and talkative professor. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Felix? You just reminded me not to touch that thing …”

“Yeah, you didn’t have access to that. If you put your hand on it, snap!” He said with a wince, “and you’ll fall into a trap.”

Felix’s portrait nudged towards the cupboard against the wall, and Hermione immediately flinched as she looked at it, fearing that she too would be put in a wide-mouthed jar. She guessed that the Weasley brothers would have a blast trying it out, but she really didn’t have the courage to try.

Turning back she found Valen poking her head into the transparent magical barrier, Hermione pointed at Valen in surprise and Portrait said with a relaxed look on his face, “Don’t worry, that little guy has access to it, just let her go inside if you need something, but I think he would have already found out though – see, I was right. ” The portrait said.

Hermione saw a blurry figure getting closer, a tall man with short black hair.

A hand picked up the silver film as if lifting a curtain, and Felix looked at Hermione with some surprise, “Miss Granger?” He jumped out nimbly and Hermione could faintly see a curved glowing pathway.

“Is that … classroom seven?” Hermione asked hesitantly.

Felix nodded, not bothering to explain much.

He quickly figured out the reason why Hermione is here, “You wanted to inquire about the outcome of that duel?”

“It’s kind of weird that I didn’t see a follow-up in the newspaper, isn’t that right? I mean, Voldemort’s downfall is certainly a major event, everyone was looking forward to reading about the victory, but there was absolutely nothing …”

“News has to lag sometime, Miss Granger.” Felix shook his head, “The Ministry of Magic is responsible for this, well at least Ms. Bones doesn’t have any ideas of revealing it yet, she is planning to wipe out the remaining Death Eaters, and Dark Wizards first.”

“Oh,” Hermione blinked as she figured it out after a short pause and slowly asked, “And about Harry’s prophecy-”

“Harry told you to ask that?” Felix looked at her calmly.

“No, it’s my own-” Hermione opened her mouth.

“Sirius knows about the prophecy, and it’s best to let him personally tell Harry about it.” Felix said, with a shrug, “That prophecy isn’t complicated, and it points to something very clear, I think the reason Sirius isn’t talking about it, is because he doesn’t want to put too much pressure on Harry – the prophecy doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but it would put an enormous amount of pressure on the person involved.”

Hermione bit her lip and nodded lightly.

Then her expression became very torn as she stammered, “Actually, there’s one more thing … Harry seemed very down, and he, he told us that, um …” she seemed to ponder how to word it, “You know that Professor Snape used to be a Death Eater, right, like in a story about a person who strayed from the right path and later turning back to it again…”

“… Harry knows.”

Felix raised an eyebrow, “Miss Granger, be more specific about it.”

“Here’s the thing,” Hermione said, “On the last History of Magic test, Harry’s scar suddenly hurt, which implied that he had received another piece of information from the You-Know-Who and after that we …” She unfolded the events of that day, “After that Harry looked out of place, Ron and I pressed him for two days before he told us … Voldemort was after Harry’s family because of a prophecy, and the one who revealed it to him was Snape.”

Felix listened with a serious expression and nodded, “And? Anything else? Or Just these?”

“Just these.” Hermione said, wondering in her mind, wasn’t that enough? When Harry told her, she could fully understand the mixed feelings in Harry’s heart. Felix rubbed his chin, at least he had found a reason for Harry’s recent mood swings.

“As a bystander, no matter what we say it will appear like we can’t understand their pain, it is hard to relate to the emotions of the parties involved. So let them vent their emotions, as a friend all you can do is, avoid touching their painful memory for some time and be there as emotional support. Of course, proper guidance is still necessary; Miss Granger, at this point you will probably need some good news; I sneaked a look at the fifth and seventh-grade test papers before the examiners from the Wizardry Examination Authority left.”

“If you want to know your Ancient Rune O.W.L results-”

Hermione nodded her head in a quick motion and Felix grinned, “Outstanding, of course, all three of you.”

In a flash, it was time for the Hogwarts students to leave school.

Felix stood on the balcony of his office, looking out at the students dragging their large luggage and enthusiastically walking out of the castle, ready to spend a pleasant holiday. “Time is flying fast, I have two months to do research next, emotions, soul, memory, what a wonderful connection they have.”

At the castle’s main entrance, Harry looked up at the winged boar at the top of the stone pillars on either side of the main gate and gazed along the stone steps, and gaped at the lofty castle standing high above, as if to carve it into his heart.

Hermione’s words did not provide much comfort, because that is simply not the point.

Harry thought of The Tale of the Three Brothers, and an Invisibility cloak that could hide one even from death … that thing is now lying quietly in his trunk, but could it help him this time?

Probably not, he thought.

Because he is just like that third brother in the fairy tale, already ready to take off his invisibility cloak to welcome his death.

But in any case, he got some extra time, even though Harry hadn’t figured out how to use … it yet, Harry thought, it was really time to think about it himself. He walked to the carriage to welcome his holiday.

…

Meanwhile, In Diagon Alley –

A skinny, sluggish old man stumbled into the Sword Castle with a gait that looked like he lacked exercise, as he would stop to take a break after walking every few steps.

“How can I help you, my good sir?” The young witch with a few freckles on her face asked.

“I learned that you guys seem to be able to solve Squib’s spell casting problem? I happen to be troubled with that.” The old man said in a hoarse voice, with exceptionally bright blue eyes.

“Of course!” The young witch said enthusiastically, “Please register over here, you are very lucky, this technology has already matured very well and will be announced to the public at a later date, by then you will have to pay a lot, and if it became popular there might be a long queue!”

“I’m not too worried about the money,” the old man grinned, his teeth nearly gone, “but I’m really in a rush … I’m going to apply for a job, and if I don’t have some skills, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble. ”

The young witch stole a glance at the old man, she did not expect him to work at such an old age, and he is still a Squib. After thinking about this, she looked at the old man sympathetically and helped him walk inside.

————

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