Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world

Chapter 76 The Power of the Max-Level Spell

Vaughn was so excited that he couldn't sleep anymore.

He turned over and got out of bed, and the drowsy Guo Guocha yawned and jumped to his feet.

Looking at his double-digit fame points, Vaughn was overwhelmed for a while before he could barely control his excitement.

Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself down.

Vaughn looked at the large number of spells he knew on the system panel and began to think about adding points.

The spell has been chosen before.

He is a person who pays great attention to planning, and he will not be easily shaken by a plan he has decided on. Although the "Dark Magic Cloak" gives him hope of mastering black magic, it itself still needs to be verified for the time being, so he will not consider it.

Still following the original plan, prioritize your current main means of defense and attack.

Armor spell and disarming spell!
Since entering level 4, it has become increasingly difficult to improve these two spells. In the first month of school, he relied on diligent practice and was able to improve 1 or 2 points each week.

By December, there was no improvement for the entire month.

Vaughn could feel that the current level of these two spells seemed to have reached the limit of his spell talent 7. If he wanted to push them to LV5, he would have to invest fame points!

In the system's grading system, a spell reaching LV5 not only represents the maximum level of the spell, but also represents that the mastery of the spell has reached a superb level.

Although he currently only has the maximum level of brain occlumency, and this magic is limited by his attainments in memory, it does not show any magical effects.

But Vaughn felt that a maximum-level spell should do more than just increase power.

He no longer hesitated, invested 15 reputation points, and directly maxed out the Armor Spell and Disarming Spell.

Then he picked up his wand and called out, "Guo Guocha, come on, let's try the spell."

Guoguocha immediately perked up and followed him eagerly.

A man and a cat swaggered around, ignoring the curfew, and found the Room of Requirement, where they met Mrs. Norris and Peeves who followed her.

Seeing Vaughn, Peeves cursed and ran away. Vaughn was too lazy to pay attention to it. He fed Mrs. Norris some supplements and sent it away to cause trouble for other little wizards who wandered around at night.

Across from the tapestry of the troll clubbing Barnabas, Vaughn released his Occlumency, thinking he needed a room to practice his spells.

Soon, the door to the Room of Requirement opened.

The Room of Requirement has several different spell practice rooms, some large and some small.

I was lucky this time and was randomly assigned to a large practice room.

It is almost as big as two classrooms. Scattered in the spacious space are more than a dozen practice puppets with wheeled chassis and holding swords, bows and crossbows and other weapons in their hands.

The large practice room was enchanted so that the puppets would awaken from their dormancy if anyone entered.

Watching the puppets' eyes gradually glow red as they slid rapidly around the field on their wheels, Vaughn, who had been here several times, knew that they were waiting for him to cast a spell.

He didn't use his wand, but instead stretched out his hand and gently passed it in front of him.

A piece of iron armor suddenly appeared around him, and Vaughn immediately noticed the change in the appearance of the iron armor spell.

Its original appearance was an illusory bubble or armor, but now with the maximum level of the Iron Armor Spell, its appearance has completely changed.

Its overall form is now somewhere between a bubble and armor, but in terms of specific details, layers of fine scales appear on the surface.

It was as if a translucent giant beast was enveloping Vaughn, using its powerful scales and skin to protect him from harm.

call out--

In the distance, a puppet shot a crossbow arrow.

This place was probably a training ground built in the Middle Ages, and it still retains the barbaric style of that era. Even when practicing, real weapons are used, and the arrows are sharp and ferocious.

But the lightning-like arrow, the moment it hit the iron armor spell, bounced away with a ding sound.

Vaughn didn't move, and ordered, "Keep going!"

Several melee puppets slid forward, wielding swords and slashing, and the metal weapons collided with the seemingly empty armor spell, sending out bursts of sparks.

The remote puppets in the distance also kept winding up their weapons and shooting.

But these attacks could not shake the spell in the slightest.

It still hung steadily around Vaughn, showing no signs of being consumed.

While being beaten, Vaughn connected with himself through the spell and felt its changes.

After a while, he opened his eyes, flipped his fingers, and as his mind moved, the Iron Armor Curse, which had been uncontrollable after being summoned before, slowly began to rotate.

In a flash, it started to spin faster and faster, and its nature and function began to change. Several flying arrows had just hit it when they were immediately "captured" by the magic spell that looked like a rotating hemisphere, and then reflected back.

In the distance, several remote puppets that were stationary were suddenly pierced by an arrow, and only one that was sliding survived.

"This is the maximum level spell..."

Feeling the armor spell enveloping him, Vaughn secretly sighed that he had blocked so many attacks without consuming almost any strength.

Then he raised his right hand and cast a disarming spell silently and without a wand.

In an instant, a red light as thick as an adult's arm surged out and slammed into a melee puppet, knocking it flying.

At the same time, Vaughn, who already had experience in controlling the Armor Spell, quickly established a connection with the Disarming Spell.

The power of the spell, which would have dissipated after hitting the target, did not dissipate under his will. Instead, it suddenly split into more than a dozen pieces, like swimming snakes, slithering and ricocheting on the ground and in the air.

The whole scene was like a blooming firework display.

Almost every one of them hit a puppet, which trembled and the weapons in their hands flew up uncontrollably and fell to the ground with a clang.

The puppets' eyes flashed red as they stood still.

Vaughn looked at his hands, his expression surprised. "Is this what it feels like to understand a spell to its fullest, to be able to cast it with complete freedom... It's like controlling your own hands!"

He suddenly felt a little bloated now.

I really want to run to the eighth floor, wake up Dumbledore, and fight him!
Reason made Vaughn immediately forget this crazy idea. He was confident that he might have surpassed Dumbledore in the Shield Charm and Disarming Charm, but his magic power was not as strong as that of the old man.

After some testing, although it was not comprehensive, for example, whether the effect of the Iron Armor Charm against spells was as strong as that against swords, and whether the Disarming Charm could still control the splitting in a more intense and complex battlefield environment.

But Vaughan was still happy.

It wasn't until he noticed that his fame points, which had reached double digits, had returned to 7 points that he calmed down again.

Still not rich enough!

After thinking about it, he took out 7 points from the remaining 5 points and invested them in Legilimency, raising it to LV2, as a preparation for the subsequent verification of the "Dark Magic Cloak".

"Well, let's go find Harry tomorrow and try out the Level 2 Legilimency effect!"

So happily decided!
Harry must be very happy.

"Ah!"

Harry had been sneezing non-stop since the morning of the first day of January.

He went to the hospital wing early in the morning, but Madam Pomfrey said he didn't have a cold.

This made Harry anxious, and Ron told him: "In the wizarding world, sneezing is not a good thing. It means someone is talking about you."

Then they looked at each other, and simultaneously thought of their socially unsuccessful experience last night. They quickly turned their heads away to avoid embarrassingly digging holes in the floor.

Today is the last day of the Christmas holiday.

In the morning, Harry and Ron used all their concentration and strength to finally finish writing (copying) their homework. They decided to cherish their last free time and have some fun.

Unfortunately, the weather was against them and a blizzard started blowing outside the castle again.

In the end, they could only huddle in the common room and waste the last half day of vacation.

Ron took out the wizard chess, but he didn't play himself. He had been playing against Harry for more than ten days during the holidays, and he was almost sick of playing chess - playing chess with a novice was a very painful experience.

Until Hermione came back.

It turns out that no one is omnipotent. Even someone as smart as Hermione has areas that she is completely weak at.

Sitting around the fireplace, Harry and Hermione, two terrible chess players, were playing chess to a standstill, sweating profusely.

Harry's queen had her hair disheveled and was beating the king violently. The two bishops were riding on the chariot and rampaging across their own chessboard. They didn't care at all even though Harry was shouting at the top of his lungs.

The two knights on Hermione's side completely ignored the enemy pawns right in front of them and drew their swords to hack at each other, cutting off arms and legs. Then they suddenly reconciled and prepared to crawl back to cause trouble for the chess players, because the excited Hermione cursed them as cowards.

Ron was watching with such a jolt that he almost had a heart attack: "Merlin - why haven't you made any progress? If you had made the right move just now, all your key pieces wouldn't have betrayed you!"

"Ron, shut up!" x2
In the end, the game ended in a draw between the two - it was impossible to go any further, Harry's queen killed the king, and the two disabled knights on Hermione's side suddenly changed their minds halfway up the game, and staggered to kill both the king and the queen. They decided to revolt.

After ending this torturous game, Hermione pushed the chessboard away and decided to ban this entertainment activity from then on.

Harry was unconvinced and wanted to continue.

Hermione quickly changed the subject. She looked around quietly and asked, "Has there been no news from the black-robed man during the Christmas holidays?"

Harry and Ron shook their heads: "No!"

"I wonder if Dumbledore has any suspicions about anyone..."

Hermione frowned worriedly. She was not as carefree as Harry and Ron. The thought that there was a malicious dark wizard hiding among the professors' team made her feel uncomfortable.

But she had considered all the professors during her vacation, and most of them were ordinary wizards who had worked at Hogwarts for a long time.

She had even asked Professor McGonagall about it, mainly asking people who seemed to her to be mysterious and suspicious, such as Shelby Trelawney, the Divination professor.

Hermione still remembered Professor McGonagall's expression at the time. She frowned deeply, as if trying to hold back something as she said, "Miss Granger, you know, I'm not one to speak ill of others, but Shelby...she's really not the candidate I'd expect for the Divination professor."

"You mean she can't predict the future and is a liar?"

"No, she can predict the future, but she's also a... well, I wouldn't say a liar. She just likes some more dramatic performances..."

Professor McGonagall's defense was halting.

Hermione didn't quite understand.

But at least she found out that Professor Trelawney did not seem to have the powerful magical ability of the "black robe man".

Although she was reluctant to admit it, after thinking it over, Hermione realized that...

The only person who best fits the characteristics of a man in black robes is Snape!
She asked Harry, "Has Professor Snape been giving you any trouble lately?"

"Hermione, we're on holiday, how can he still bother me?"

Ron continued, "He seemed very busy recently. At least, we rarely saw him before Christmas... Come to think of it, Vaughn was acting very secretive during that time. Could they be working together on the Wolfsbane Potion?"

Hermione thought for a moment and said to Harry, "Harry, you're still learning Occlumency with Vaughn, right? I think you should find a chance to ask Vaughn if he's noticed anything unusual about Professor Snape... Why do you look like that?" Actually, if she hadn't brought it up, Harry had planned to forget about it today...

He really didn't know how to face Vaughn.

Harry and Ron exchanged a look, Ron's expression sympathetic.

Hermione looked at them suspiciously: "Are you hiding something from me?"

The two shook their heads repeatedly: "No, absolutely not!"

Ron pinched Harry's arm: "Harry, you're going to find Vaughn, right?"

"You..." Harry's eyes widened after being betrayed by his best friend. However, facing Ron's pleading and threatening gaze, Harry, fearing that Ron would explode and drag him down with him, had no choice but to swallow his anger and nodded: "Okay, I'll ask him tonight."

Hermione temporarily put aside her suspicions about the two men's strange behavior and said, "You ask first. If there is no result, I will find a chance to talk to Vaughan."

That's how it was decided.

At night, although Harry tried his best to delay, Ron was afraid that if he continued to delay, Hermione would find the boys' dormitory, so he pushed him out of the Gryffindor common room.

"Ronald! You're such a good friend!"

Harry kicked the door angrily a few times, which made the Fat Lady scold him so much that Harry had to run away quickly to avoid being besieged by the portraits.

I jogged all the way to the Room of Requirement and found that Vaughn had already arrived.

It was still the same cozy little house suitable for reading. Vaughn was holding a large book, "A Journey Through the Past and Present of Memory Magic", which Harry remembered.

He greeted awkwardly, "Hi, good evening, Vaughn..."

To his relief, Vaughn didn't laugh at him. Instead, he casually pointed to the sofa across from him and said, "Good evening, Harry. Sit down."

Harry sat down, determined to quickly ask the questions Hermione had asked him to, to distract Vaughn from bringing up yesterday's events.

"Vaughn, you and Snape have been together all the time. Have you noticed that he..."

To his surprise, before he could finish his words, Vaughn, who was flipping through a book, replied, "Are you still guessing he's the man in black?"

Harry scratched his head. "Well, we thought about it for a long time, and we still think Snape is the most suspicious."

Vaughn shook his head, but this time he didn't defend the professor. Instead, he said, "I can help you investigate, but how are you going to repay me?"

"Repay?"

Vaughan smiled brightly. "I've made some progress in my mastery of Legilimency. Now I can try to modify memories. Harry, would you mind giving me a trial?"

Harry: "..."

He wants to say that he really cares about it, but is that okay?

The vacation is over, the crazy and free time is gone, and the little wizard is facing another hellish study life.

The professors, who had been idle for half a month, seemed to be fed up. On the first day after the holiday, they assigned a large amount of homework, using this method to force the little wizards to break away from the casual atmosphere.

The results can be said to be very significant.

The little wizards who were often seen playing and fighting in the courtyard a few days ago are becoming fewer and fewer. Now almost all of them are holding textbooks, muttering spells with stupid looks on their faces.

Or hide in the library and sweat over the paper.

In such a tense atmosphere, a rumor quietly spread - the famous Harry Potter was crazy!
It is said that many people have seen that sometimes when he was writing a paper, he would suddenly raise his index finger and touch his hair in a very charming way.

Some people also saw that when he was eating in the restaurant, he would occasionally make frog-like sounds while eating.

Neville swore that he had seen Harry imitating frog jumps in the bathroom.

At first it was just some unfounded rumors, until the Potions class on Friday of the first week of the new year.

Professor Snape, as usual, floated around Harry, spewing venom and sarcasm.

However, Harry, the poor student who usually endured his anger, was like a madman that day, or rather, like a different person. He answered Professor Snape's deliberately difficult questions fluently, and even imitated Snape's tone of mockery at the end -

"Severus Snape! The famous Potions Professor, that's all he asked? Tsk tsk, I really feel sorry for these students. Meeting a mediocre and incompetent teacher at the beginning of their student career is the greatest misfortune of their lives!"

Everyone in the classroom at that time, except Vaughn Weasley who was absent from class, both Gryffindor and Slytherin were stunned.

They watched Snape's face turn from white to blue, and then from blue to black.

No one expected that Snape, who had facial paralysis, could have such wonderful expressions.

The final result can be imagined. Although Harry was quickly frightened and apologized to Snape in panic as if he woke up from a dream, Snape was still furious and deducted 30 points from Gryffindor.

Of course, no one in Gryffindor blamed Harry. Hermione would earn back the mere 30 points.

They just felt sorry for the poor guy.

"He must have been driven crazy by the heavy workload," Hufflepuff student Justin Finch-Fletchley swore. "I've seen students like that in Muggle schools. You know, before I received my acceptance letter to Hogwarts, I was preparing for Eton College."

This was the umpteenth time he had spoken of Eton College, and he would bring up any subject.

Even if no one knows what it is.

"Potter might be cursed!" During a meal, Malfoy and his followers ran to the Gryffindor table and said maliciously, "A cruel dark wizard has cast a curse on him, and his madness has only just begun. Potter, you'd better be careful, because one day he might really turn into a frog, or a raving lunatic!"

Only Hermione and Ron knew what Harry had been through.

On Friday night, Harry, exhausted, came to the Room of Requirement again.

He looked so weak that he seemed to have been played with.

He looked at Vaughn with lifeless eyes: "Women, frogs, an arrogant potion genius... I'm really tired, Vaughn, what kind of false memories do you want to make up for me? I don't care!"

He was indeed tired. No one could get away with angering Snape.

Harry was left in the Potions office all afternoon, cleaning up the mountains of potions materials for Snape and having to endure his incessant venomous chatter.

He now felt like his head was about to explode, and at the same time he regretted very much why he did not firmly resist Vaughn's proposal a few days ago.

Vaughan said nothing, but placed his wand against Harry's forehead.

Harry didn't move, letting him pull out a strand of silver thread from his head.

After looking at the silver thread for a moment, Vaughn threw it away and shook his head. "Harry, your willpower is too weak. Normally, after practicing for so long, these false memories shouldn't bother you anymore."

"Blanking your mind, or focusing on heavy schoolwork, or useless thoughts, these are all techniques of Occlumency. They can ensure that you are not affected by false memories. Why can't you persist?"

"I……"

Harry opened his mouth, a little embarrassed, "I'm sorry, I accidentally got distracted again today..."

Although he intended to use Harry as a guinea pig, Vaughn did not forget what he wanted to teach him.

Quirrell was active in the school all day long. Even from his appearance, it seemed that Voldemort, who was parasitic on him, was no longer absorbing his vitality and seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.

But no one knows when the Dark Lord will wake up and when he will discover his connection with Harry.

Both Vaughan and Dumbledore hoped that Harry would preserve his brain well, rather than being discovered by a master of memory magic like Voldemort and being resurrected.

After thinking for a moment, Vaughan said, "Harry, it seems you lack some sense of urgency."

"……What's the meaning?"

Harry looked at Vaughn who was sitting opposite him and suddenly had a bad feeling.

Vaughn ignored his pale face and said, "You know I won't harm you, so you haven't been very resistant to my intrusions or memory modifications. Your trust and sense of security in me have made your learning of Occlumency very inefficient."

In Harry's impression, Vaughan has never been a very serious person. He has a bit of a bad sense and is smiling most of the time, although when he smiles, it is usually not a good thing.

But overall, he rarely saw Vaughn serious.

Like now...

goodong...

Harry swallowed and asked nervously and cautiously, "So?"

Vaughan answered by raising his wand.

"Legilimency!"

Harry felt dizzy and leaned back subconsciously. After learning Occlumency from Vaughan for more than two months and being a target of Legilimency for more than two months, he had already experienced the wonderful world of the mind.

However, today he did not enter the wonderful scene suspended in the air. He and Vaughn were still sitting on the sofa with the fireplace burning beside them.

Harry was wondering when he saw Vaughn raise his hand and snap his fingers.

The surrounding scenery blurred, the cozy study, the fireplace, the sofa, Harry felt as if he was sitting on a speeding train, and everything around him was left behind.

When his vision cleared again, he saw that he was in a familiar abandoned classroom.

There was also a mirror covered with a black cloth, located in the middle of the classroom.

"Vaughn, why did you bring me here...wait, this is my memory?"

Harry suddenly realized.

"That's right, Harry, this is your memory. You saw your parents here..." Vaughn said slowly, looking at the mirror. Then he turned to look at Harry with a calm expression that chilled his heart.
"This memory must be very important to you, right?"

Harry was horrified. He had guessed what Vaughn was going to do and quickly stopped him, saying, "Wait, Vaughn—"

Vaughan sighed: "Harry, you'd better resist me with all your might..."

As he spoke, the black cloth of the Mirror of Erised in Harry's memory was lifted, and Harry saw the figures of his parents emerge in the magic mirror.

And Vaughn was reaching out to press them.

As the palm passed through the space, all the colors faded!
"Do not--"

Harry woke up with a scream, gasping for breath. Panic, shock, and despair at having the most important thing taken away from him, these emotions gripped his heart tightly!

It made it difficult for him to breathe.

Then, a hand stretched out in front of him: "Have a piece of chocolate!"

Hearing the familiar voice, Harry suddenly grabbed the hand and yelled like crazy: "Vaughn, give it back to me! Give me my mom and dad..."

He suddenly stopped and looked up.

Vaughn also looked at him and smiled. "Did you react? How's your fake memory this time?"

"You...I..." Harry stammered, "Just now, was it fake? When?"

"During Legilimency."

(End of this chapter)