Chapter 94: Boring Levels And Rearrangement
Two fireballs floated above their heads, passing through a corridor filled with Devil’s Snare and arriving at the third trial.
The area was filled with winged keys, and a flying broomstick was placed nearby. It was obvious that after Harry displayed his Quidditch talent, the trial was set up to utilize his flying skills.
Vaughn didn’t even feel like evaluating this trial, only letting out a monosyllabic sound:
“Tsk!”
By the time they reached the chess board trial, he didn’t even have a monosyllabic sound left.
Dumbledore was very curious about the “user’s” feedback: “Vaughn, what do you think of these two trials? I spent a long time thinking about how to incorporate Harry’s and the others’ respective strengths with the inherent power of the trials.”
“For the flying keys trial, I invited Professor Flitwick to cast the ‘Volley of Arrows’ charm on those keys. If they didn’t follow the rules and use the flying broomstick to catch the correct key, they would be attacked by them.”
“This giant chessboard formation originates from an ancient magic called ‘Stone Golems Awaken.’ It’s Minerva’s favorite, temporarily giving these giant stone statues life. I invited Minerva to set up a endgame, it will surely satisfy Ron greatly.”
“There are two more trials. One is a troll, to test Harry and Miss Granger’s combat abilities, and one is potions, to test their logical thinking skills and courage.”
Having said that, Dumbledore smiled at Vaughn, as if awaiting his praise.
But what he received was Vaughn’s expressionless face. Vaughn looked at his soft-hat-covered skull, seemingly pondering what was inside.
He “tactfully” commented, “Honestly, Albus, these trials are all boring!”
Dumbledore’s smile stiffened slightly, and he couldn’t help but explain, “You mean the difficulty isn’t enough? Vaughn, you must understand, these are not meant to guard against anyone, they are merely tests for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They are only twelve and thirteen-year-old young wizards, making it too difficult…”
“No!” Vaughn interrupted him, “It has nothing to do with difficulty; it’s not interesting enough, not vivid enough. Take the flying keys from before, what are you testing? Harry’s flying skills? Hasn’t he performed enough in Quidditch matches?”
“And the Devil’s Snare from even earlier, besides Hermione, what do you expect Harry and Ron to learn? To remember forever that Devil’s Snare fears fire? How many times in their lives will they encounter Devil’s Snare?”
“The chessboard formation is the same. Harry and Hermione are terrible at chess; they can’t help at all. This trial basically only has Ron being useful. Are you trying to urge Harry and Hermione to study Wizard Chess properly in the future? Or are you trying to use the final stalemate to stage a sentimental trick?”
“The troll trial is even more speechless. I suspect Quirrell set it up, it basically has no value.”
Vaughn looked at Dumbledore and said mercilessly, “Albus, haven’t you noticed? Although you have indeed paid attention to each of their three individuals’ characteristics, your design for each trial focuses too much on one person while neglecting the other two…”
“You’re not testing Harry, Ron, or Hermione individually; you’re testing them as a team. What use are these so-called trials, other than letting them show off their well-known strengths? When testing, you should verify not only what they are good at, but also their weaknesses, the problems that exist between them, and let them learn to grow.”
These words rendered Dumbledore speechless.
He had initially been very proud of his design, but after Vaughn’s string of rhetorical questions, he re-examined it and indeed felt it was uninteresting.
Old Dumbledore fell into thought. After a moment, he didn’t say much more, but led Vaughn through the “worthless” troll trial and the potion trial surrounded by magical fire.
It wasn’t until the potion trial that Vaughn grudgingly offered a small positive comment: “It’s somewhat interesting, a logic puzzle, but I dare say only Hermione can figure out the correct answer. However, the potion leading to the next trial, with only enough for two sips, is quite testing.”
“Did the professor use magic to ensure it’s always only enough for two people?”
Finally hearing a positive comment, Old Dumbledore cheerfully replied, “It wasn’t Severus; I set the rules here, allowing only two people to pass through the fire wall by finding and drinking the correct potion. No other methods are allowed, and the potion is only enough for two.
“This is to ensure Harry faces Quirrell alone, and also to prevent Quirrell from damaging the potion if he passes through. Under the rules, even if he damages it, the potion will restore itself, waiting for the last person.”
This kind of magic, similar to setting rules, was something Vaughn had some impression of.
Of course, not in this lifetime; he couldn’t yet access such profound magic.
It was a memory from the original work in his past life.
The magic Voldemort used in the cave he visited as a child to hide the Slytherin locket was similar.
He placed the locket in a glass container filled with a potion that made life unbearable. Anyone who wanted to get the locket had to drink all the potion; pouring it out or taking it directly was useless.
Vaughn felt this was the most interesting part of all the trials he had seen that night.
Moreover, it was this type of magic, cast by Dumbledore, that was also applied to their target for the night.
The two drank the potion and passed through the purple fire wall into the last room. The empty room had no furnishings, only a mirror standing in the center.
Vaughn looked around, “This is the abandoned classroom where the Mirror of Erised was previously placed… I remember it was on the fifth floor. Did you move the entire classroom here?”
Dumbledore smiled mischievously, “That’s right. It’s a small privilege of being headmaster. Remember what I said? Hogwarts doesn’t refuse a headmaster’s trivial requests. Its stairs can move, so rooms certainly can too.”
Damn it!
Old Dumbledore got to show off.
Vaughn admitted he was a little envious. This castle, which had existed for a thousand years, was the greatest treasure and secret of Hogwarts, and the privileges of the Hogwarts headmaster were even more numerous and important than he had imagined.
Dumbledore paid no attention to Vaughn’s sour expression and walked to the Mirror of Erised, gazing into it.
After a moment, Vaughn saw with his own eyes a stone, scarlet as blood and semi-transparent like crystal, land in Dumbledore’s slightly parted palm.
With a complicated gaze, he looked at the Mirror of Erised again. Before it completed the binding of the rule magic and resumed its function, Dumbledore pulled down a dust cloth to cover it.
He turned around and handed the blood-red stone in his hand to Vaughn.
“It can be lent to you for a week. So, Vaughn, it’s time for you to fulfill your part of the deal.”
Taking the miraculous alchemical marvel, Vaughn ignored the system panel popping up before his eyes and replied with a pout, “You’ve made a huge profit, Albus. I’m going to redesign all the trials!”
Dumbledore’s eyes brightened slightly, “Oh, may I hear your ideas?”
“Don’t rush, we can discuss it slowly. I believe you’ll be very satisfied with my ideas. Of course, given that my magical abilities are far inferior to yours, you’ll have to help me.”
“No problem,” Dumbledore replied decisively.
But looking at Vaughn’s smile, he suddenly had a bad premonition.
Harry and Ron felt like they were going crazy.
Ever since Vaughn returned and started extra tutoring, Hermione had exploded with an extreme passion for revision. The blank pages of her notebook, which recorded her revision plan, were rapidly thinning, while the written parts were visibly thickening.
Even more terrifyingly, as time entered mid-March, one day Hermione suddenly exclaimed in panic, “There are only 10 weeks left until the exam!”
Not only did she push herself more frantically, but she also started creating revision plans for Harry and Ron!
It wasn’t that the two hadn’t protested, but facing Hermione’s unassailable logic: “You don’t want to fail the exam and have to repeat the year, do you?”
At their age, even a poor student had pride. No young boy wanted to be so embarrassed.
Thus, night after night, they could only bury their heads in heavy homework and terrifying revision plans.
Fortunately, Hermione didn’t always have time to supervise them; she spent two hours with Vaughn every day.
That was the only chance Harry and Ron had to breathe a sigh of relief and let their constantly taut brains rest.
As for Vaughn, he once again became mysterious.
No one knew what he was doing. Every day, everyone could only see him in class; as soon as class ended, he would disappear.
Harry thought Vaughn might be developing a new potion.
Because his current state was exactly the same as when he developed Wolfsbane Potion last year.
Ron, however, didn’t think so: “Don’t be silly, Harry. That guy wouldn’t be that diligent. He only took two months to develop the Vaughn’s Beauty series, and then he played for a whole six months!”
Then, that afternoon, Peeves, who had been absent for a long time, targeted Ron again.
“Poor, stupid Weasley, why do you always speak ill of the great demon king behind his back? Of course, Peeves likes it. Speak more, Peeves the great still has many pranks he hasn’t used yet, hee hee hee hee!”
Peeves grinned widely, throwing some kind of paint at Ron, making him run around covering his head, while doing somersaults in the air of the classroom.
He now loved working for Vaughn because when Vaughn instructed him, other ghosts wouldn’t stop him. Even the Bloody Baron, whom he feared most, turned a blind eye to his pranks.
Peeves the great could fully display his prankster talent.
For two consecutive days, Ron was tormented to the point of being neurotic. He twice fell for speaking ill of Vaughn behind his back, to the point that after that, he looked at everyone in the common room like an informant traitor.
The only ones he didn’t suspect were Harry and Hermione – they were his friends; how could they betray him?
Ron thought, naively and foolishly.
Besides the heavy homework and revision every day, the trio hadn’t forgotten to keep an eye on Fluffy.
Every day they would spend a little time passing by the door guarded by Fluffy, and press their ears to the door to hear the thunderous snores of the giant three-headed dog inside.
Once, they even encountered Dumbledore there. The old headmaster had just come out from behind the door. He had done something that left him drenched in sweat, and his usually clear and bright eyes looked somewhat listless.
He looked neurotic too, constantly mumbling complaints to someone who wasn’t there:
“I’m over a hundred years old, how can you order me around like this? All the heavy work is given to me, and what did you do?”
“Yes, I invited you, but I only asked you to participate back then, I didn’t know your redesign would be so extensive…”
“Oh—yes, a brilliant idea, wonderful, but the problem is, I’m the one doing such a massive amount of work, right?”
Hiding around the corner of the corridor, the trio exchanged glances, watching the headmaster, who seemed to be having a fit, arguing with the empty space as he stumbled away.
They certainly didn’t think Dumbledore had gone mad.
“Maybe someone using a Disillusionment Charm is with him,” Harry thought of his invisibility cloak.
Ron’s focus was different: “What do you think Dumbledore is doing? It sounds like he’s discussing some project with that invisible person.”
“They might be redesigning the mechanisms to protect the Philosopher’s Stone!” Hermione suddenly said.
Upon hearing this, Harry and Ron’s eyes lit up.
Yes, it was highly likely. Fluffy guarded the entrance to the mechanism, and Dumbledore had just come out from there.
What else could the so-called “project” Dumbledore mentioned be, other than the mechanisms to protect the Philosopher’s Stone?
This made the two of them slightly relieved.
Regardless of whether Snape was the dark-robed figure, at least the dark-robed figure himself actually existed.
And he was likely a professor who participated in the design of the Philosopher’s Stone mechanism.
These days, they had been paying attention to Fluffy, fearing that the identity of the dark-robed figure, which was still unclear, might suddenly break through the mechanism and steal the Philosopher’s Stone.
Now, seeing Dumbledore redesigning the mechanism, they finally felt a bit relieved.
Unfortunately, things never go as smoothly as one wishes.
Within two days, when they arrived at that corridor again, the trio was astonished to see…
Dumbledore had brought several professors with him.
Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout, Snape, and Professor Quirrell and Hagrid.
The trio, afraid of being discovered, dared not approach. They couldn’t hear what Dumbledore said to them, and then he led them into the room guarded by Fluffy.
It seemed they were preparing to let the professors continue participating in the design of the mechanism.
The three returned to the Gryffindor Common Room with heavy hearts.
There were other people in the common room. Ron could only lower his voice and say irritably, “Has Old Dumbledore lost his mind? Didn’t he realize that the dark-robed figure is one of these professors? Since he’s redesigning the mechanism, why is he letting them participate again… I’m not targeting Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick, but, but Snape…”
He was running around in a frenzy. These adults were truly not making anyone worry-free.
Harry and Hermione didn’t know what to say either.
After discussing for a while, they decided to find an opportunity to remind Hagrid again.
And that opportunity soon arrived. The next day, Harry received a message from Hagrid:
“It’s about to hatch!”
The message sent by owl was received during breakfast.
Thus, for the next period, Harry and Ron were restless. They even wanted to skip morning classes and rush to Hagrid’s hut.
However, Hermione strongly disagreed.
“You’re happy to leave by yourselves, but have you thought about who will make up the points deducted for your absence and truancy?”
Ron was very unhappy with her attitude. He glared at the Slytherin Academy sitting opposite them:
“Vaughn isn’t here today either. Oh, in fact, he wasn’t in class yesterday either. Why aren’t you saying anything about him?”
Harry, anxious beside him, nodded subconsciously, then was stomped on by Hermione.
Harry winced but dared not speak.
Hermione lowered her voice and said angrily, “If you can add 30 points to Gryffindor every day, I won’t bother you anymore!”
Harry and Ron deflated. Deducting 30 points a day for the two of them was easy, but gaining points would likely require the sun to rise from the west.
In the end, the two were still too thin-skinned to comfortably shift the blame to others. However, for the entire class, they shamelessly tried to reason with Hermione.
“How many people in the wizarding world have seen a fire dragon hatch? I bet we’ll never have this chance again in our lives. Remember my brother Charlie? He’s never seen a dragon hatch in Romania; the mother dragon simply won’t allow it unless you kill it.”
“Yes, Hermione, it’s such a rare opportunity. We… we can even treat this as practical experience. You could even write a thesis.”
To persuade Hermione, Harry spoke nonsense that he himself didn’t believe.
Hermione rolled her eyes at him, “Do you want the professors to arrest us all? Also, keep your voice down, look over there…”
She looked across at them, and Harry and Ron finally noticed that Malfoy on the opposite side had been eavesdropping. Now that he was discovered by the trio, instead of feeling ashamed, he gave them a sly and meaningful cold smile.
This made Harry and Ron uneasy. Even after Hermione agreed that they could go to Hagrid’s hut for a while after class, they weren’t as happy as they had imagined.
After class, the three hurried to Hagrid’s hut, discussing how much Malfoy had overheard.
But they weren’t Malfoy’s stomach, so they naturally couldn’t come to any conclusion. Finally, Hermione said, “No matter what, we need to persuade Hagrid later that the dragon can’t stay there with him, otherwise, if it’s discovered, he’s finished.”
Harry agreed wholeheartedly. Only Ron was a little unhappy, but he knew Hermione was right.
The three ran to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid was waiting by the door and greeted them warmly. He also glanced behind them:
“Where’s Vaughn? Didn’t he come with you?”
“Uh, we didn’t see him, Hagrid.”
“What a shame. I specifically sent him a letter too. He loves dragons so much!” Thinking of Vaughn staring intently at the dragon egg before, Hagrid felt sad that Vaughn couldn’t witness the dragon egg hatching firsthand.
But in a moment, he became happy again and quickly ushered the three into the hut, “You’re here just in time; it’s about to come out.”
The dragon egg had been taken out of the fire by Hagrid and placed on the table. The dark shell had cracked, and the cracked shell was held together by a membrane, seemingly pulsating as if breathing. Something could be seen moving inside.
The few of them moved chairs and eagerly leaned in to watch.
Suddenly, with a crisp crack, the dragon egg split open, and thin mucus flowed out. What appeared before them was a thin and small “lizard.”
It looked ugly – that was Harry and Hermione’s first impression – its slender, less than a foot long body was almost just skin over bones, looking wrinkled. However, its wings were strong, making it appear particularly large and deformed against its slender body.
Perhaps because it had just been born, it hadn’t adapted to being surrounded by air. The little dragon struggled on the table, lifted its head, which had no horns yet, only two small bumps on its skull, and sneezed.
A stream of sparks then shot out of its long nostrils!
“Oh—”
The two boys and one older boy shouted in surprise. Hermione, who had been reluctantly present, had now forgotten her persistence. She took out her notebook, and her quill moved rapidly, recording the little dragon’s physical characteristics, its cries, and the fact that it could breathe fire at birth.
She even drew a sketch of it. She actually missed her camera at home and wished she had brought it to Hogwarts!
As they watched, the little dragon opened its bulging eyes, which were orange-red, looking like magma.
Hagrid couldn’t help but gently extend a finger and stroke the little dragon’s head.
However, the newborn creature bit down on it, gnawing with its sharp teeth.
Hagrid didn’t feel any pain at all. He shouted joyfully, “Merlin, did you see that? It recognizes its mother! Oh—my little baby, this is Mama’s finger, not food… Look, what a strong little fellow, breathing fire right after birth, and biting its prey!”
“…Little fellow…”
Hermione, who was recording, paused her pen at the gender section and decided to leave it blank for now, as, to her knowledge, Hagrid didn’t know how to distinguish the gender of dragons.
Every day he read books about how to raise dragons to be big and strong, fierce and ferocious!
In this regard, the Greek who sold Hagrid the dragon egg had truly catered to Hagrid’s tastes. The Norwegian Ridgeback’s temperament was even more ferocious than described in books.
Hermione was not like Hagrid; she knew that this newborn creature did not consider Hagrid a fellow creature, but food!
She recorded the little dragon’s temperament in her notebook, then kicked Harry, signaling him not to forget what they had discussed before coming.
Harry suddenly remembered, hesitated, and felt a little embarrassed to speak.
Hermione glared at him and said to Hagrid, “Hagrid, do you know how fast Norwegian Ridgebacks grow? We’ve all read books; it will become a giant within two months, and this hut won’t be able to hide it…”
Before she finished speaking, she heard Hagrid suddenly shout, “Who’s out there!”
Hagrid hurried to the window to look outside.
Hermione and Harry initially thought Hagrid was trying to distract them, but looking out the window at Hagrid’s suddenly pale face, Harry sensed something was wrong and quickly leaned over.
A white-haired figure was sprinting towards the castle from the hut, along the slate path stretching to the mountaintop.
Even though he was quite far away, Harry recognized him at a glance.
Draco Malfoy!
In all of Hogwarts, he was second on Harry’s list of most hated people; he would never forget him even if he turned to ash.
Harry’s face also turned pale.
It’s over, Malfoy saw the dragon!
