Hogwarts: Becoming the White Lord from Breathing

Chapter 99 He mastered it too quickly

"Well then, I'll be leaving now. Thank you for your guidance."

Damon left Professor Flitwick's office, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

The Guardian Spell was actually much simpler than he had imagined—he had already successfully summoned the Guardian on his very first cast.

But Damon had a vague premonition—if he couldn't summon a physical Guardian with his current level of magic and such abundant emotional energy, then something crucial must be missing.

Finding it might not be easy.

He seemed to be deep in thought, recalling Professor Flitwick's words.

"Is there a lack of unwavering commitment to protecting what is right?"

Harry and a series of other Hogwarts students learned the Patronus Charm under Voldemort's pressure, but Voldemort couldn't put too much pressure on him, and he had no intention of protecting anything from Voldemort.

However, one link is missing. But that's not necessarily true. Does a guardian spell have to be a power to protect others?
Guardians, in the end, are there to protect themselves.

Fundamentally, he lacks a single, strong will.

He found the world too joyful and free, to the point that he became somewhat lax.

"Forget it, let's wait until the right time comes. For now, it's enough."

Let's see if it has any effect after Professor Flitwick brings the Dementors next week.

Towards the end of the first week of school, Professor McGonagall's message arrived—Wood had agreed to let him join Quidditch as a substitute, and he wouldn't need to participate in training.

Everything seems to be going smoothly, but next week Harry will secretly complain to Damon:
"Wood and everyone announced that you would be a substitute, but he told us to pretend you didn't exist - he said that if the game had progressed to the point where a substitute who didn't train was going to play, they were bound to lose."

Damon smiled and didn't take it seriously.

Although he didn't spend much time practicing Quidditch, he understood magic and the rules.

These young wizards, including Professor McGonagall, had no idea how terrifying a master of spells and transfiguration could be on the Quidditch circuit.

During the summer, the Weasley twins, who were repeatedly knocked away by Damon's ball, knew this all too well—they were the only three, along with Harry, who were not angry about Damon's absence from training, but rather delighted.

"With such a strong backup as our substitute, I feel like we can leave the field without any regrets at any time!"

“You’re right, Fred. If we can’t win one day, maybe we can consider intentionally fouling to get off the court.”

Harry stopped their dangerous idea, but was equally relieved that Damon had joined the Quidditch team.

Just in time, at the start of the new semester, Malfoy, through his father, a school board member, bought new Nimbus 2001s for everyone on the Slytherin team. These were the latest flying brooms, far superior to the Gryffindor team's Seven Stars No. 5.

The hardware gap put considerable pressure on them all, and now that Damon has joined, it's like a shot in the arm—although others don't see it that way.

Wood seemed unhappy about this, and even feared that the other team members would slack off in training as a result, so he doubled down on training them.

Harry was happy with it. His only headache was that the heavy training dragged down his spell practice. Ron had almost two or three times more spell practice time than him, which made Harry feel a lot of pressure.

But he couldn't give up on either side, so he had to put in even more effort to deal with them, often falling asleep the moment his head hit the bed. The others noticed this but didn't say anything.

In fact, who isn't putting in their best effort?
Hermione was always bothered by her spells not working properly. She couldn't understand why, even though she cast the same spells more accurately than Harry and Ron, their power was never as good.

Neville had never experienced such a positive atmosphere before, and he cherished it all the more. He would practice with Ron until almost nine o'clock every night, and only leave when the restrictions on night tours were lifted.

As for Damon, everything is proceeding smoothly.

On Friday night, he went to Snape's office again to further refine his Occlumency technique.

There seemed to be a greater understanding between the two, and less of the teasing.

"You came?"

"I am coming."

The two exchanged a brief greeting and then began practicing in perfect unison without saying a word.

Snape pulled out the Emotion Amplifier and handed it to Damon, without mentioning how precious the potion was—he had already begun refining the second batch, but the refining process was extremely long and it was not yet ready for production.

But he wouldn't tell Damon about these things.

Damon drank the water-tasting potion and felt his body begin to heat up again, his emotions rising. But this time, something seemed different.

The misty fog seemed to have reappeared—it existed subtly within Damon's body, not outwardly visible.

After only the second use, Damon felt that his body had already developed some resistance to the drug.
His soul seemed to have split into two, or perhaps it had detached from his body—as if he had changed his perspective—to look at himself from the viewpoint of an observer, feeling the intensity of his emotions and the explosion of joy—and whenever he wanted, he could switch back to experience it all more fully.

What he had initially thought would be a very difficult problem that would take up a lot of his time suddenly became simple.

Now he can change his emotions at any time, so he did just that.

Following Snape's previous instructions, the overall original appearance of the memories was not changed, but some modifications and concealments were made—the memories of Hogwarts remained the same, but everything became filled with anger.

Dumbledore's endless provocations, Harry and Ron's laziness, Hermione's misunderstandings, Malfoy's wickedness and eccentricity—anger welled up in his chest and spread throughout his second soul; joy and rage coexisted in the same brain.

Just then, Damon felt a mental, tentacle-like tug—Snape was using Legilimency.

He channeled all his anger into Snape, hiding all his joy.

So Snape turned red.

With a painful, muffled groan, the two opened their eyes simultaneously.

Snape looked at Damon with surprise in his eyes. He tried to suppress the anger in his mind, and quickly erased his surprise as well, adjusting his emotions in a second, and said to Damon calmly:
"You mastered it much faster than I expected."

He was practically telling Damon, "You're ready to graduate, you can't do this anymore. You only got two of Lily's photos. You need to find another reason to keep this kid here."

(End of this chapter)