Hogwarts: Starting with full Unforgivable Curses

What's even more remarkable is that Draco, unlike the other members of the Malfoy family, didn't despise this basic magic as "not advanced enough." Instead, he put in the effort to research it and endowed this simple spell with such a unique and powerful effect.

“How wonderful…” Dumbledore murmured, his eyes filled with warmth. “These children have unknowingly become better versions of themselves. They have proven through their actions that the value of magic lies not in its profundity, but in whether the user has enough wisdom and courage to explore its potential.”

……

At the bottom of the lake, after the bright light dissipated, Draco quickly put away his wand and whispered to Harry and Cedric beside him, "You can open your eyes now! Don't waste time, let's go!"

Harry and Cedric immediately opened their eyes, the painful screams of the mermaid and Grindelwald still echoing in their ears.

They didn't have time to see the specific situation around them, nor did they care about what had just happened. They quickly followed Draco's footsteps and swam away from the mermaid encirclement.

The three swam nearly two hundred meters in one go until they were sure there were no pursuers behind them. Then they found a dense patch of water plants, lay down there to rest for the time being, and tried to recover their strength in order to prevent them from encountering danger again.

After recovering a bit, Harry finally couldn't contain his curiosity and looked at Draco, asking, "What exactly happened? Before I closed my eyes, I only saw you raise your wand, and when I opened them again, I heard screams. What happened to the mermaids and Grindylows?"

Cedric nodded in agreement, then asked in confusion, "Draco, what kind of magic did you use to break through? I think I heard you chant 'Fluorescence'? Could it really be the most basic illumination spell? But how could it be so powerful?"

“It’s just the Illumination Charm, what? Is that not allowed?” Draco raised his eyebrows, a hint of smugness in his voice, but he quickly followed with a disgruntled snort. “I was originally planning to keep this secret until the third project, to show off in front of all the warriors and let them see the power of basic magic.”

He sighed with some frustration and continued, "Now look what's happened, we've been exposed ahead of time. The warriors from other schools must have seen what happened through the curtain. When the third project starts, they'll definitely be on guard against my magic in advance, and then this trump card won't be as effective."

Cedric took a small bottle of pale green herbal juice from his pocket. This was a special underwater healing potion prepared before the game. He carefully poured out a few drops and applied it to Harry's injured foot.

The moment the medicine came into contact with the skin, a cooling sensation spread, and the intense pain was quickly relieved.

“Alright, the wound is temporarily treated. Although it can’t be fully healed, at least it won’t affect your swimming.” Cedric put away the medicine bottle and looked at Harry and Draco. “Now that we have a short break, why don’t we analyze what just happened to prepare for our next move?”

"That must be why, right?" Harry raised his hand and gently shook the bracelet on his wrist.

After the battle, the orange light in the bracelet deepened, approaching light red. "I guess the bracelet must have collected a few points of light when we repelled Grindylo, which is why the color changed."

"I think so."

Cedric nodded and said with certainty, "According to the alchemical logic that Dylan analyzed earlier, the mermaid will only launch an attack when our light collection is nearing completion, that is, when the bracelet's color is about to turn deep red. This is likely the final test set up by the organizing committee to test our ability to respond when victory is near."

"We need to be even more careful from now on."

Draco frowned and said in a serious tone, "My Illumination spell was exposed just now. The merman learned his lesson and will definitely be more cautious next time. It won't be so easy for him to break through using the same method again."

"That's right, our strategy needs to be adjusted accordingly."

Harry added, "Now that we know the mermaids will launch a concentrated attack at this stage, we must not spread out too much. We must maintain a tight formation so that we can support each other and avoid being picked off one by one."

“That’s right!” Cedric agreed. “Next, we’ll launch an attack on Grindylo together. We don’t need to try to completely eliminate them; we can just repel them one by one and minimize their entanglement with us.”

As long as we continue to collect the light spots, we'll be able to complete the test soon.

Draco looked down at his bracelet and estimated, "Judging from the current brightness, it seems like we're only a dozen or so Grindylows of light, or a small school of Chiracs, away from turning the bracelet completely from orange to deep red. Then we'll be able to be teleported back to shore by the Portkey."

“Then it’s settled!” Cedric took a deep breath, stood up, and said, “We should get going.”

Since the mermaids could detect that we were about to complete the test, they could probably also pinpoint our location in some way. Staying here any longer is too dangerous.

……

Cedric's judgment was quickly proven correct.

The three of them left the water plants and carefully swam along the edge of the rocks on the lakebed, trying to make as little noise as possible.

But after swimming less than fifty meters, they saw a group of mermaids patrolling in the distance—just like the mermaid squad they had encountered before, with two mermaids holding spears in the middle, surrounded by a dozen or so Grindylos. They were moving slowly on the lakebed, scanning their surroundings warily.

At almost the same time, the Mermaid Squad also spotted Harry and his two companions.

The Grindylo immediately became excited, letting out sharp cries, and charged towards the three of them at a speed several times faster than before.

"They're coming!" Cedric warned in a low voice, gripping his wand tightly. "Let's prepare according to the plan we just discussed!"

Draco frowned slightly, his expression becoming extremely focused. He quickly said, "I will first cast two rounds of Evasion Spells in succession. Regardless of whether I hit Grindylow, who is charging at the front, after the second round of spells ends, I will immediately use the Illumination Spell to cover you and try to create an opportunity for us to break through or counterattack."

Harry gripped his wand tightly and nodded vigorously, replying, "Alright! Cedric and I will focus our attacks on Grindylow on the right while you cast the Illumination Charm, trying to create an opening."

Just as the leading Grindylows were about to enter the attack range, Draco had already raised his wand, ready to cast the first spell, when an unexpected event suddenly occurred—not only the Grindylows who were rushing towards them, but even the two mermaids a little further away suddenly stopped moving, their originally hostile gazes instantly turning to another direction at the bottom of the lake, as if their attention had been drawn to something.

Even more strangely, the projection screens in the audience's hands also malfunctioned at this moment—the image that was originally showing the battle scene of Harry, Dylan, and his two companions began to flicker rapidly, and a few seconds later, the image suddenly switched, and Dylan's figure appeared in the center of the screen.

Dylan, still in the same spot behind the curtain, remained with the enormous ice flower that had frozen the school of Heracles still blooming beside him. However, his posture had changed; he was now half-crouching, and a faint magical glow lingered at the tip of his wand in his right hand, clearly indicating that he had just cast a spell.

……

In the stands, Gabrielgrim stared at the suddenly switched screen, his face full of confusion. "How could this happen? Did the screen malfunction? It was fine just now, how did it suddenly switch to Dylan's side?"

He tried swiping the screen with his finger, trying to switch back to the Harry scene.

Unexpectedly, as soon as my finger touched the screen, the image started moving again, and a few seconds later it actually returned to the scene where Harry and his two friends were.

"Strange...how did it suddenly get better again? Did I accidentally press a button?"

Lupin shifted his gaze from Sirius's screen beside him, his brow furrowing slightly—he realized that both his and Sirius's screens had experienced the same issue with the image transitioning.

"The same thing happened to the screens of Sirius and me just now, switching to Dylan's image at the same time, and it wasn't done manually."

“It’s not just us!” Sirius added. “I just quickly glanced at the curtains of the other audience members around me, and at least half of them had the same anomaly. This is definitely not a coincidence.”

Lupin pondered for a moment, a hint of speculation flashing in his eyes: "I think... this should be related to Dylan, right? He was casting a spell when the curtain was changing just now, maybe his spell affected the image transmission function of the curtain."

"That shouldn't be a big problem."

Gabrielgrim waved his hand and said in a relaxed tone, "I believe in Mr. Dylan's abilities. He wouldn't interfere with the match footage for no reason. It's probably just an accident during a magical experiment, and things will return to normal soon."

"Understood!" Lu Ping let out a soft breath, nodded, and said, "We will closely monitor the situation of the screen and try our best to control the stability of the equipment so that similar anomalies do not affect the audience's viewing of the game."

“I’m waiting for your good news!” Gabrielgrim nodded, his tone filled with trust. “I have always trusted your magical products and I believe you can handle this matter well.”

……

The Triwizard Tournament was undoubtedly a magical event, but for Dylan, the tournament was even more significant because it provided him with a rare opportunity to conduct research, allowing him to truly step into the realm of consensus magic, a field he had previously only encountered in theory.

The magic of consensus is a special kind of existence. It is silent and subtle, as gentle as a breeze or a stream. Its presence is almost imperceptible in daily life, yet it is always around everyone. But when it truly comes into operation, it can unleash unimaginable power, as powerful as a hurricane sweeping across the land or a tsunami that devours everything. As people feel its power, they cannot help but feel awe.

Prior to this, most of the types of magic that Dylan had encountered followed a common rule: the more skillful a wizard was in controlling magic and the higher their proficiency in casting it, the better the final effect of the magic would often be.

In other words, this type of magic places more emphasis on the wizard's understanding of the principles of magic and their ability to control magical energy. The wizard needs to actively guide magical energy, just like controlling a hurricane or riding a tsunami, in order to maximize the effect of the magic.

But consensus magic is completely different.

After this period of research, Dylan discovered that the core of this magic lies in going with the flow, rather than actively controlling it.

If a wizard, like when casting a regular spell, insists on his own understanding and control, and tries to forcefully dominate the operation of magic with his personal will, the final result will only be like a solitary boulder in the desert, gradually weathered and disintegrated in the face of a powerful collective will, and eventually reduced to an insignificant grain of sand.

Therefore, in Dylan's view, the first thing to do when casting consensus magic is to clarify what kind of collective will constitutes the current perception, whether it is the audience's desire for the progress of the competition, or the wizarding community's acceptance of a certain rule.

Only by identifying this core element can we lay the foundation for subsequent operations.

Next, what the wizard needs to do is to actively weaken his control over magic, stop emphasizing his personal understanding and control of magic, and instead let his own will take effect.

This is somewhat similar to the state when casting mental magic. Instead of using a wand to guide a large amount of magical energy, it allows the will to become a fulcrum, through which the vast collective will contained in the magic is leveraged to achieve the desired effect.

At least at this stage of research, Dylan believes that the logic of magic can be understood by referring to the way obliteration spells are cast.

These two types of magic are similar in essence. The Oblivion Charm uses the wizard's will as a fulcrum to pry open another person's memory and change their perception of something. This magic, on the other hand, uses the same fulcrum to pry open the memory of a giant formed by the convergence of the wills of a large number of individuals—that is, the common perception formed in the collective will.

In addition to going with the flow, Dylan also deduced a new technique in his research, incorporating the concepts of the reasonable and the unexpected into the process of casting magic.

He felt that this technique might make the magic's effects more pronounced and harder to detect.

……

"Within reason, yet unexpected..."

Dylan raised his hand, slowly raising his wand, his gaze falling on the faint light at the tip of the wand.

“Right, since human wizards can watch the games through a screen…” Thinking of this, a new research direction suddenly flashed through Dylan’s mind, and he couldn’t help but say softly, “Could we think about it the other way around? For example, could we allow magical creatures living in water to also ‘see’ certain things? If we could do that, perhaps we could further strengthen or change the existing consensus through their will, that is, cognitive magic, which would definitely be considered an application that is ‘logical yet unexpected’.”

After saying this, Dylan gripped his wand tightly, his eyes filled with a thirst for exploration.

He knew that the idea needed more experiments to verify, but it undoubtedly opened a new door for his research.

Having clarified his next steps and found a suitable spell to work with his willpower as a fulcrum to activate the magic, Dylan began to sift through his mind for the appropriate incantation. (End of Chapter)