Chapter 56: Three Snowballs
Hog’s Head Inn, back door.
Tonight the moonlight is bright and clear, illuminating the snow-covered ground.
The clouds are sparse, the view is open, and tomorrow should be good weather.
If it were an ordinary night, Quirinus Quirrell would think such moonlight was quite nice, but tonight he wants to secretly approach the half-giant to extract information, and this moonlight is somewhat obtrusive, inconvenient for concealing his tracks and identity. He almost got spotted by Severus Snape when he left the school.
Swish…
Leather boots stepping on the soft snow, Quirinus Quirrell paused for a moment, pulled down his hood, put on his mask, lightened his footsteps, and approached the bar bathroom.
The front hall hasn’t been cleaned for years, but the toilet is unexpectedly clean, at least without the pungent, nauseating strong smell that stings the eyes.
The half-giant stood in front of the sink, staring straight at the copper faucet, letting the water flow wash over his palms.
Drunk people’s minds stop turning, and they always do some inexplicable things; there’s nothing strange about that.
His hands were thick and broad, covered with lumpy hard calluses, with rough, bulging muscle and vein lines, looking more like some kind of humanoid beast. The strong smell of alcohol amplified the barbaric quality in the half-giant’s temperament. He turned his head and glared over, and that instant’s gaze made Quirinus Quirrell’s breathing stutter, like being eyed by a wild beast.
He himself is the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Quirinus Quirrell comforted himself inwardly; he had dealt with more vicious magical creatures than this.
But the oppressive feeling brought by this physique was always there. Although Hagrid usually appeared mild, the strong alcohol smell made one involuntarily doubt how much sanity he had left at this moment and whether he would suddenly erupt into an attack.
Quirinus Quirrell hesitated slightly. Originally, the best person to extract information from was Kettleburn. That’s what he had done for the past few months, painstakingly contacting him and talking about some irrelevant magical creatures topics, only casually mentioning the three-headed dog recently. But that crippled old man had an exceptionally keen sense of smell and somehow detected something wrong, starting to distance and guard against him.
After careful thought, Quirinus Quirrell shifted his target to the gamekeeper. He deals with magical creatures in the Forbidden Forest year-round and had revealed knowledge of dangerous animals in conversations. His brain isn’t the sharpest, and most importantly, he found out that the three-headed dog is being raised by Hagrid.
Drunken Rubus Hagrid is the easiest to let his guard down and the easiest to extract information from.
Quirinus Quirrell was thinking this when he suddenly saw Hagrid walking over from not far ahead. His heart tightened, and he pretended to be an ordinary patron greeting him:
“Flame Whiskey is too strong, right?”
“Yes.” Hagrid mumbled, somewhat slurring his words.
The two came to the alley behind the tavern, borrowing the cool night wind to get some fresh air.
“I heard the inspiration for inventing this whiskey came from fire dragons.”
“That’s right! I like the feeling of flames shooting from my nose…” Hagrid immediately perked up, pulling the strange patron he met outside the bathroom and mumbling, “Australian Green, they are the most beautiful fire dragons, covered in pearl-like scales, their dragon fire is a very beautiful, very bright red flame, but I prefer Norwegian Ridgeback, they have cute scales and sharp poisoned fangs…”
“Compared to fire dragons, I prefer hounds.” Quirinus Quirrell began to throw out the real topic.
“Yes, hounds are cute too. I have one, but unfortunately I haven’t raised a fire dragon. If I could hatch and raise a fire dragon, that would be great. My friend’s child raises fire dragons in Romania…”
Quirinus Quirrell tried to pull the topic back: “Let’s talk about hounds. Some dogs are very cute, loyal, close to humans. Some vicious dogs are more annoying, like—”
“Like my Fang! It’s extremely cute! If I had a fire dragon, Fang could definitely take care of it, then it would be a dragonherding dog.” Hagrid smacked his lips, savoring his invented term, leaning against the wall with a silly grin, “Dragonherding dog…”
“…”
Quirinus Quirrell was a bit annoyed.
If he didn’t know the fool had a dim brain, he would suspect Hagrid was deliberately teasing him. Fire dragons, hounds—he wanted to talk about the three-headed dog!
He suppressed his inner emotions and forced himself to continue guiding: “I think ordinary hounds definitely can’t be dragonherding dogs; at least their size doesn’t qualify. Is there any dog with a larger build, almost comparable to a fire dragon?”
The gamekeeper turned his drunken brain to think for a moment and gave a rigorous and sincere answer: “Fang could be a dragonherding dog for Hungarian Horntail; that kind of fire dragon is relatively small, or other young fire dragons.”
“…”
Quirinus Quirrell’s hands behind his back clenched into fists, curbing the impulse in his heart.
Over the next ten minutes, Quirinus Quirrell tried from various angles to steer the topic toward the three-headed dog and extract information, but Hagrid’s focus always stayed on fire dragons and his dragonherding dog.
“Don’t mention fire dragons anymore!”
Quirinus Quirrell finally couldn’t endure it and roared in a low voice.
At that moment, the gamekeeper even turned to look at him, slowly squatting down, and sincerely asked: “Why can’t we mention fire dragons? Don’t you like fire dragons? They’re extremely cute. Let me tell you about Swedish Short-Snout, Welsh Green? Ukrainian Ironbelly?”
“…”
Quirinus Quirrell’s inner impulse could no longer be suppressed. He drew his wand and fired a Confundus Charm at this drunkard.
Hagrid finally quieted down, leaning sillily against the wall with a dazed look in his eyes and a bewildered expression.
“Hoo…”
Quirinus Quirrell’s heart finally felt relieved.
Finally, no need to continue extracting words from this stupid drunkard.
The Dark Lord was just too cautious, saying something about possible giant bloodline, that his spells might fail. This is just a wandless gamekeeper, only a bit better than Filch that Muggle-born. One Confundus Charm and he became obedient.
“Tell me, what is the three-headed dog’s weakness?”
Hagrid stared blankly at the masked wizard in front of him, mouth opening, and belched at him, the exhaled breath mixed with the foul stench of alcohol and stomach acid.
Quirinus Quirrell’s cloak and mask couldn’t block the stench. Inhaling a little, his vision went black, nearly vomiting on the spot, almost suffocating.
An irrepressible malice surged in his heart. He had never had such a strong premonition that this Imperius Curse would definitely work. Quirinus Quirrell raised his wand and shouted in angry humiliation:
【Soul Ejection】
Unmasked malice turned into magic power, condensing at the wand tip, some ominous spell brewing.
Two bright white lights shot out from behind the tavern back door.
The whistling piercing sound was ear-piercing, the air blast kicking up snow. Moonlight illuminated the snow, like waves surging in the narrow alley.
Two snowballs arrived instantly before the half-giant, one after the other.
One snowball knocked the wand askew, one hit the head under the hood, producing a crisp initial tone followed by a dull echo.
Hagrid murmured: “Fire dragon breathed fire.”
Compared to the half-giant who was expelled from school before graduation and had his wand snapped, former Obliviator Wright, who graduated with outstanding grades and worked at the Ministry of Magic for several years, was more knowledgeable. The elective professor beside him, who only hurriedly formed snowballs to attack upon seeing the Imperius Curse, was absolutely a top-tier duelling wizard.
When the Imperius Curse was cast, he propelled the snowballs with silent spellcasting, wandless spellcasting. The moment the Imperius Curse ended, they were launched, arriving first despite being later, not inferior to many senior Aurors at the Ministry of Magic.
The powerful impact sent the masked wizard flying, crashing headfirst into the thick snow.
Fortunately, the wand was still in his hand. Quirinus Quirrell gripped it tightly, pressing his temple, struggling to stand up with a splitting headache. He even hallucinated the Dark Lord crying out in pain in his ear:
“You… you! You must pay the price for this!”
Melvin and Wright turned their gazes over.
Two ropes burst out of the snow like poison snakes lunging at prey after coiling, with terrifying momentum.
Wright retreated into the tavern back door, worried that this foreign wizard wasn’t familiar with native British dark magic, and wanted to call him to hide inside too:
“Melvin, be careful. This is the dark magic version of 「Impedimenta Charm」, a masterpiece of dark wizards three hundred years ago. These thick ropes won’t just bind and impede; once they get close, they’ll entwine, possibly hanging and killing, or strangling like pythons…”
Melvin narrowed his eyes to gauge the paths of the two ropes and murmured: 【Obstacles Abound】
Over a dozen invisible obstacles blocked the two ropes from the masked wizard. Even after piercing through several, they had no strength left, falling into the snow, magic power severed, ropes dissipating.
The hooded dark wizard leaped out of the snow. With the two ropes broken, he knew he couldn’t handle Professor Levent in a short time, so he prepared to retreat. But his painfully splitting head made him unwilling, gripping his wand to communicate with the Dark Lord, wanting to teach him a lesson.
Perhaps one snowball hit the back of the head squarely, the Dark Lord unexpectedly agreed.
Quirinus Quirrell aimed his wand at that figure, hearing a muffled curse from the back of his head, and immediately a brand-new rope shot out vigorously.
The rope whipped and tensed, leaping from the air toward the tavern back door, tracing an arc. The brown hemp rope was twisted into three strands, surface looking like neat dense snake scales, gleaming with dark sheen, slicing through the cold air, sounding on close listen like a viper flicking its tongue.
Quirinus Quirrell sneered darkly twice, turned without hesitation to leave, but his head was still somewhat dizzy, his figure swaying.
Melvin tried to block with obstacles again, but this rope carried a strange magic power that melted the magic-constructed obstacles upon light touch.
He immediately changed strategy, abandoning illusory magic defense for physical interception. He stared straight at the rope, eyes widening, pupils contracting, able to see every fiber on the hemp rope.
“What are you standing there for!”
Wright watched anxiously; this dark magic was clearly more vicious than the previous two. Melvin’s mind was affected by the dark magic. He reached into his inner coat pocket, preparing to act in crisis to save this young professor.
Just as the black hemp rope was about to reach him, the surrounding space seemed to change.
Wright heard a faint splash, his vision blurring for an instant. Looking closely, nothing seemed different.
Under the bright moonlight, a hazy mist of water appeared out of thin air, countless crystalline tiny water droplets, glowing faintly.
Water droplets gradually coalesced into beads, beads adhering to the rope surface, quickly turning to white frost. Frost layered and condensed into ice. The process seemed long but happened in the blink of an eye.
The rope was frozen solid by hard ice, suspended mid-air like a magical ice sculpture. Melvin waved his hand, and the ice sculpture emitted fine crisp cracking sounds, shattering instantly, the rope inside turning to powder.
But Melvin didn’t stop; the ice crystal powder, controlled by Transfiguration, formed an ice ball, carrying whistling wind, shooting toward the masked wizard fleeing far away.
That figure flew backward, falling into a farther snow pile, completely disappearing.
Is this an Ilvermorny dropout student?
The dazed Wright sighed: “Dumbledore shouldn’t have hired you as Professor of Muggle Studies; you should be Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. With such duelling ability, you’d at least win the championship in your age group at the duelling tournament.”
Melvin ignored him, went forward to check Hagrid’s condition, found he was just passed out drunk, and waved to Wright behind him: “I’ll take Hagrid back first. As for the Projection Mirror matter, relay it to Old Tom: meet face-to-face at The Leaky Cauldron tomorrow at seven.”
“Got it.”
…
Melvin left Hogsmeade, strolling slowly toward the school, a layer of transparent bubble film floating on him. Snowflakes drifted down, gently deflecting an inch before touching him, as if pushed away by a soft force.
Because he was carrying the drunken Hagrid, Melvin didn’t Apparate but chose to walk, sorting his thoughts along the way.
The piled snow wove and surged like a silver-white serpent. The half-giant was lifted up, floating above the snow, moonlight spilling on him like a cobra’s hood.
Reviewing the earlier fight, the first two ropes were clearly Quirinus Quirrell’s true level. The dark magic seemed fierce, but technique and magic power needed improvement. Even the inner malice seemed impure due to cowardice—actually, just that.
The later black rope was clearly different, carrying eerie, malevolent magic power, particularly tricky—obviously Voldemort’s handiwork.
Magic power is the product of a wizard’s soul and body together. Voldemort is just a bodiless wraith, like a rootless dead tree, only able to consume Quirinus Quirrell’s life to generate magic power.
Already eroded by death aura to the bone, his situation would only worsen. Previously, Quirinus Quirrell needed to revive Voldemort; now he should consider sustaining his own life.
The Forbidden Forest trees are dense, snow deep; the paths between are buried. That hut has no lights, so he followed the footprints the half-giant left on the road that morning.
“Woof woof…”
Before entering the vegetable garden cleared by the gamekeeper, the hound Fang already came out to greet.
This black ash Neapolitan Mastiff was particularly conspicuous in the snow, wagging its tail excitedly running over. Unable to wake Hagrid, it instead smelled the alcohol stench on him, immediately turning away in disgust, whining and circling Melvin’s feet.
Melvin put Hagrid on the wooden bed in the hut, covered him with the furry blanket of unknown animal, and turned to leave.
Fang crawled over, one claw pawing his shoe, looking up at him with bright black eyes, throat making whining sounds that sounded pitiful, the other claw pointing to the empty dog bowl in the corner.
