Chapter 36: Hagrid’s Message
The last heavy rain before winter in the Scottish Highlands fell on Hogwarts in early October.
It was the night of Slytherin’s practice match.
Wood sat alone on the empty Quidditch Pitch, letting the rain drench him, as if he wanted to drown himself.
Everyone knew that Wood considered Slytherin a formidable rival, the biggest obstacle to his wish of winning the Quidditch Cup before graduation. He thought Gryffindor was sure to win with Harry, but after seeing Vaughn’s performance, Wood fell into despair again.
Harry wished he wasn’t in despair…
From that day on, the Quidditch training arranged by Wood became even more frantic.
If it weren’t for a shred of his sanity, he would have wished everyone would skip all their classes and focus solely on Quidditch training every day!
The result of this frenzy was that Harry was completely miserable.
Not only did he have to deal with increasingly heavy schoolwork, but he also had to participate in Quidditch training four nights a week.
One day in mid-October, a gaunt and thin Harry finally encountered Vaughn again. He seemed to have returned to his busy state from before, disappearing as soon as classes ended.
Vaughn was startled by Harry’s dark circles and asked, “Where have you been?”
Harry gave him a mournful look and said listlessly, “Doing homework, training… Don’t Slytherin have training?”
“Three nights a week. Any more than that wouldn’t be appropriate and would affect performance.”
“That’s great. Flint looks fierce, but he’s also dumb and foolish, yet he still understands this logic.”
Vaughn didn’t say anything. This training plan was his idea. Flint naturally disagreed, so Vaughn taught him a lesson with a Disarming Charm. Then Vaughn realized… having a fool as captain actually had its advantages.
Flint couldn’t beat him, so he listened to Vaughn obediently. He wasn’t particularly persistent about the training plan, and at critical moments, he could be used as a scapegoat, for example, when others cursed Slytherin’s tactics as venomous.
“Harry, what do you need me for? If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going. I’m very busy lately.”
Vaughn said.
This was no excuse; he had been spending his time in Professor Snape’s office, using the Magic Power Extraction Method to familiarize himself with various materials.
That was no easy task.
Despite being processed, the materials taken from magical plants and animals still had residual magic. His magic couldn’t destroy them, so progress wasn’t fast.
Harry quickly grabbed him: “Nicolas Flamel!”
“…” Vaughn was speechless, looking at Harry’s face that practically screamed “premature aging.” “You’re this exhausted, and you’re still thinking about it?”
Harry gave a sheepish laugh.
Vaughn took out a Chocolate Frog: “Remember when you and Ron were discussing Chocolate Frog Cards when we first met? It was written on there!”
Harry immediately jumped up, hastily bid Vaughn farewell, and raced towards the Gryffindor Common Room.
Vaughn shook his head, ate a quick meal, and then hurried back to Snape’s office.
Professor Snape’s mood had been improving lately.
Perhaps it was because he saw Harry suffering, or perhaps it was because someone could discuss Potions with him?
Regardless, at least when he corrected homework recently, he didn’t act like he used to, wishing he could rip the parchment or call the young wizards who made mistakes in their theses and make them cry with vicious words.
After greeting Snape, who was lightly waving his quill, Vaughn went to his seat and took out a piece of wolfsbane.
He lightly tapped his wand with one hand, injecting magic carefully into the wolfsbane, while holding his quill in the other, writing and drawing.
He was recording the internal structure of the wolfsbane reflected in his thoughts and his conjectures about its properties.
He would classify them first to facilitate subsequent experiments.
Time flew by in such concentration.
When Vaughn put it down, it was already 6 PM.
It was getting late, so Vaughn bowed to Snape: “Goodbye, Professor.”
Snape called out to him: “Weasley…”
“Call me Vaughn, Professor.”
“Vaughn…” Snape shook his hair uncomfortably. “The Quidditch season starts next month, and the first match is against Gryffindor. How is your training going?”
“It’s going okay,” Vaughn thought for a moment and said, “Flint is planning to assign two people specifically to target Harry. It’s very malicious and cruel.”
Cruel was good. Snape was in a good mood and didn’t pay further attention, instead asking:
“I see you’ve been focusing on wolfsbane recently. Are you planning to use it as the main ingredient for your potion?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Hmph… It’s highly poisonous!” Snape appeared annoyed, seemingly displeased with his overestimation of his abilities. “After you finish your analysis, write a thesis and submit it to me!”
He was actually afraid Vaughn would be reckless and wanted to check on him.
Vaughn agreed with a smile.
He was very curious to see Snape’s expression when he eventually discovered his research goals.
Vaughn left the Potions Office and went to the Great Hall. Today, he chose to grace the Ravenclaw long table again.
The young ladies were gentle and considerate, perfect for relaxing.
Unfortunately, after chatting with Cho Chang for just a few sentences, Harry, Ron, and Hermione found them.
“Vaughn, you…” Harry had just greeted Vaughn when he saw Cho beside him, and then, for some reason, he started to stammer.
“You, hello, I’m ha-ha-Harry…”
“Harry Potter. There’s no one who doesn’t know your name.”
Cho smiled gently, then waved goodbye to Vaughn: “You go ahead and be busy. Let’s talk again when you have time.”
Harry stared blankly at her retreating figure.
It wasn’t until Ron bumped into him: “What’s wrong, spacing out?”
Harry finally came to his senses and saw the half-smile on Vaughn’s lips and Hermione’s suspicious gaze.
For the first time, he felt Ron was so endearing.
He blushed and coughed twice: “Vaughn, thank you for the reminder. We know what Dumbledore is hiding in the Castle now.”
He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s the Philosopher’s Stone…”
Seeing that Vaughn’s expression didn’t change at all after he finished speaking, Ron found it unbelievable: “Aren’t you surprised at all? The Philosopher’s Stone! They told us stories about it when we were little!”
“I know what it is,” Vaughn waved his hand. “The moment you mentioned Nicolas Flamel, I knew it had to be the Philosopher’s Stone. It was his greatest achievement.”
“That’s it? It can turn lead into gold!”
In Ron’s eyes, that was the most magical function of the Philosopher’s Stone.
Vaughn looked Ron up and down a few times and said with a smile, “Ronald Weasley, my dear brother, what do you think is the difference between me selling potions and turning lead into gold?”
“…”
Ron’s entire being seemed to turn ashen. He didn’t want to speak anymore.
Harry quickly pushed Ron aside, lest he be further demoralized and have a breakdown. “Vaughn, Hagrid wants to see you.”
Hermione beside them also said, “Sorry, Hagrid asked us who else knew about Nicolas Flamel, and we had to tell him.”
Vaughn blinked: “Okay, when should I go?”
He had just realized that in all the time he had been at Hogwarts, he had never actually visited the Forbidden Forest.
He had been negligent!
