Hogwarts: This professor is too Muggle.

Chapter 139 Crispy and chicken-flavored

Late at night, in the Muggle Studies office.

"Da da... da da..."

In an upside-down glass bottle on the shelf, a tiny beetle stretched out its short legs and kept knocking on the wall of the glass bottle. The bright blue shell of its elytra was shiny and glossy. Judging from its plump body, it had been well-fed during this period.

Compared to the empty bottle a month ago, there are now some more decorations inside, including wood chips that can keep warm, a bottle cap of water, vegetable leaves freshly picked from the greenhouse, and bread crumbs baked in the school kitchen.

Despite living a comfortable life in the glass jar, Rita Skeeter did not want to spend her old age there. She took advantage of the young professor's late return to try to break through the blockade.

Two tentacles probed for a crack at the bottom. The rim of the bottle sat upside down on the shelf. The wood grain allowed for just enough air to circulate, but there wasn't enough space for her to escape. Her front paws repeatedly struck the bottle's wall. It was smooth and thick, with no chance of breaking.

Skeeter was busy for most of the day and was so tired that he kept panting. He flapped his wings and flew to the bottle cap. He ignored the clear water and used his delicate mouthparts to absorb the moisture from the leaves.

The antennae tremble slightly, which is the beetle's instinctive expression of pleasure after eating.

After eating, Skeeter began to think of other possibilities for escape, but the results he got were hopeless.

She is not married and lives alone away from her parents. She rarely writes to relatives and friends. It is normal for her not to contact the outside world for several months in order to gather intelligence and news, and the editors of the publishing house would not find it strange.

The worst thing was that this foreign professor captured me and kept me as a pet. He had no intention of forcing me to talk. I couldn't figure out his thoughts and intentions, and even negotiation was impossible.

"..."

The pair of translucent thin wings trembled slightly, with an anxiety and urgency that was difficult to conceal.

Just as the beetle was hesitating restlessly in the bottle, the office door was pushed open. The beetle immediately shrank into the sawdust, stuck out half of its head, and peeked at the professor returning to the office.

He first sat behind the desk, staring at the drawer on the right, deep in thought. There was an old diary in that drawer.

The beetle's antennae kept twitching, and Skeeter thought he was reviewing his experiences of the day and preparing to write them down in his diary. This surprised her a little. The professor used to have the habit of writing a diary, but he hadn't opened that old diary for a long time.

Melvin didn't open his diary tonight. He just kept thinking while running his fingertips across the table, vaguely outlining the shapes of a skull and a poisonous snake.

Tom Riddle explained the Dark Mark with great care, with two goals in mind: first, to determine the state of Voldemort's soul by the Dark Mark's condition; second, to pave the way for himself, so that when Voldemort returns, he can seize control of the Mark with just a flick of his finger.

Ultimately, the Dark Lord is the master of the Dark Mark.

Melvin wanted to create a brand new mark, a mark that belonged only to him, replacing the core with his own logo, but this magic was more profound and obscure than he expected, involving the combined application of soul and magic power, and he could never find the right path.

How did Tom Riddle do it?
How does a 16-year-old student touch the mysteries of the soul?
Melvin glanced at the right-hand drawer, pondered for a moment, and instead of taking out the diary, pressed his coat pocket, pushed the door open and left the office.

The beetle in the glass bottle slowly poked its head out, the markings around its antennae looking like glasses.

……

The passage from the bathroom to the secret room opened again.

In a closed room deep underground, in front of the statue of the old wizard.

Melvin mixed the silver potion with his memories, releasing a misty vapor from which came the rhythmic hissing of a snake.

The Slytherin stone sculpture gradually opened its mouth, spitting out a poisonous snake with dark green and black scales. The snake swam down along the statue's robe and cane. The thick scales rubbed against the stone sculpture, making a low friction sound.

"rustle……"

The basilisk fell to the ground and wandered closer. Two round golden eyeballs were embedded on both sides, and the pupils were as thin as slits. The scarlet and black forked tongue occasionally stretched out, spitting out a pungent stench.

This was not the first time Melvin had faced a basilisk, but every time he saw one, he was shocked.

The basilisk had a cold look in its eyes and lowered its head slightly, revealing the long-horned water snake eggs guarded by scales on top.

Only slightly larger than a goose egg, the dull gray on the case has completely disappeared, leaving only a frosty white like moonlight, and a faint but clear alien magic power is pulsing inside.

The unhatched little fellow seemed to sense Melvin's gaze, and the whole egg trembled slightly, becoming extremely excited.

Sensing movement above its head, the basilisk immediately closed its scales to cover the eggs, while raising its head and hissing and sticking out its tongue at Melvin.

Melvin said he didn't understand and couldn't communicate at all, but he had another way to win over the snake: "I went to the Forbidden Forest with some students tonight and ran into a group of giant acromantula spiders. I happened to pick up some roasted spiders and brought them to you for dinner."

Not caring whether the basilisk could understand him or not, Melvin talked to himself, opened his coat pocket, grabbed the corner of his clothes and shook it a few times, shaking out a dozen black things.

When it was poured out of the pocket, it was only slightly larger than a fist, but when it fell to the ground, it turned into the size of a carriage. More than a dozen giant eight-eyed spiders were piled together, their limbs curled up and their shells charred.

The basilisk's bright yellow eyes moved, emitting a bright light.

The burnt black-grey bristles had a distinct burnt smell, and the crispy shell shattered during the collision, revealing the cheesy spider meat inside, which was somewhat similar to crab leg meat and lobster meat, still hot and fragrant.

Mucus-like saliva flowed out of the basilisk's mouth, dripping onto the ground, and then being sucked back in with a hissing sound.

Just couldn't see it.

Melvin waved his hand dismissively, making room for it to eat. "Take your time eating. I'll go check on the statue to see if Slytherin has any relics left for the younger generation."

The basilisk has opened its bloody mouth and started to enjoy its dinner.

Unlike other animals, snakes generally do not chew when eating. No matter how big the prey is, they swallow it whole and force it down. Then they lie there and groan in discomfort for a long time.

The eight-eyed giant spider's body size was just right, a size larger than the basilisk's head, with plenty of foldable space, as if it were born to be food for the basilisk. It was stuffed whole into the basilisk's mouth, pressed down hard, and wriggled into its digestive tract.

The shell made a crackling sound when it broke. Although Melvin had never tasted it, he had heard from others that this kind of food with high protein content basically tasted like chicken.

"Click..."

The basilisk swallowed another giant acromantula and looked lazily in the direction of the statue, narrowing its eyes slightly, its bright yellow gaze locked on the young wizard.

It wasn't actually certain whether the wizard was the heir of Slytherin.

In the past, wizards who opened the Chamber of Secrets would communicate in Parseltongue, essentially giving it direct commands to leave the chamber and act according to their wishes. In reality, Slytherin kept it in the chamber simply to guard it. He didn't instruct it to follow the heir's orders, nor did he instruct it to kill any students. It simply agreed to cooperate because of its Parseltongue.

The wizard didn't speak Parseltongue, but the branch he brought had the owner's magic, and it was willing to cooperate.

Melvin had already circled the statue, lightly touched his robe, and rode the whirlwind he summoned out of thin air to the head of the statue and floated into the dark mouth.

As the basilisk's lair, the inner stone walls have been worn smooth by scales over the past thousand years. Stone chips and unknown dust are mixed together, and there is a strong and lingering smell.

But that's about it.

Melvin wandered around the lair twice, finding nothing else. He wasn't sure if Slytherin hadn't left any belongings, or if Voldemort had taken them all. "After all, he wasn't the rightful heir..."

Melvin shook his head, turned around and floated out of the statue's mouth, glancing at the basilisk below that had just had its full meal.

With more than a dozen giant spiders stuffed in, the snake's abdomen swelled up and became more than half as thick as the surrounding trunk. It turned from a strong snake into a fat snake, lying lazily on the ground, and it was difficult to move.

The basilisk sensed his contempt, turned over, and ignored it.

……

Hermione slowly opened her eyes, and saw a blurry, pure white in front of her. Her head was still a little dizzy, as if she had stayed up too late on Christmas Eve and slept too long the next day, and her body and consciousness did not match after waking up.

Feeling light and airy, with slow thinking and lazy body.

She used to not believe in heaven or the afterlife, but after coming to Hogwarts and coming into contact with ghosts, she changed her mind.

"Is this what a ghost feels like?"

The little witch was a little dazed. Thinking of Nick who was almost headless, she subconsciously wanted to touch her neck.

I touched it, it was intact and still had body temperature.

"I'm alive?"

Hermione's consciousness gradually regained, and her vision became clear. She was lying in the ward of the school infirmary. The dim morning light shone through the glass window, and the smell of herbs lingered in her mouth and nose.

She propped herself up and leaned against the headboard, looking at her limbs and torso. Apart from muscle soreness and minor abrasions, she had no other injuries.

"Do you feel fear now?"

Just as Hermione was stunned, Madam Pomfrey pushed the door open with a stern face and a stern tone.

"Aren't we surrounded by giant acromantula?" Hermione recalled the situation before she fell into a coma and asked the school doctor in panic, "Where is Professor Lewinter? He and we——"

"Melvin should be punished too! He's a professor, and yet he's fooling around with his students..."

Madam Pomfrey interrupted her questioning, twisted her arm to examine it, opened her eyes and pinched her fingers, leaving Hermione no room to resist. "I really don't understand what young people are thinking these days. Doing such a ridiculous thing with students. What do you mean by teaching you a lesson? If it were me, I should have caught you and put you in detention from the beginning. You Gryffindors..."

"Teach us a lesson..." Hermione said softly.

In fact, she had this guess in her mind. The professor was captured to teach them a lesson. Later, the battle became more and more intense, until the eight-eyed giant spider surrounded them and the professor did not appear, so she gave up this idea.

Now that I think about it, it's exactly what Professor Lewinter would do.

Hermione pursed her lips, twitched the corners of her mouth, and smiled silently.

"Open your mouth!"

Just as she was rejoicing that she had survived, Madam Pomfrey pinched her cheeks, pried open her mouth, and drank a bottle of blue potion.

There was a strong mint smell, and even a hint of slug, something she'd smelled before in Potions class! It was bitter and cold, and the little witch shuddered, her face wrinkled tightly.

"Keep quiet. I'll come back to check in half an hour. If there's nothing wrong, you can be discharged."

"Ok."

Hermione nodded obediently and watched Madam Pomfrey leave. Seeing her two friends lying beside her, she suddenly remembered whether there was a Quidditch match today.

……

Hogwarts Library.

Melvin searched for books related to black magic in the restricted section and found a lot.

Tom Riddle's teaching tends to be practical, mainly talking about how to practice and use black magic. The magic book focuses on the principles of magic and soul resonance, exploring the cruel thoughts when practicing black magic, and the impact of long-term casting on personality. Combined with the understanding of psychological knowledge, the understanding of black magic is deepened a lot.

Melvin can now easily cast magic like the Unforgivable Curse.

However, there was still no progress in the Dark Mark. This magic involved the cognition of one's own soul and the souls of others, which was more complicated than expected. He tried to adjust and modify the functional areas of the outer shell, but even drastic additions and deletions could not affect the core.

Holding a large book analyzing Helbo's black magic, I sat down by the window and heard cheers coming from the direction of the stadium in the distance. It seemed that the game had reached a critical moment.

In order to avoid Professor McGonagall's disdain, Melvin chose to miss the game.

I wonder if Harry has been discharged from the hospital?
He vaguely remembered that this game was rigged by a house-elf, and with the help of a certain incompetent professor, if Harry participated in the competition, he would still spend the night in the school infirmary.

Melvin shook his head and chuckled, turning the pages of the book and immersing himself in the world of dark magic.

After an unknown amount of time, Melvin noticed someone sitting down next to him. He looked up, a little surprised: "Hermione? Why are you here? Is the game over?"

Hermione had a complicated expression. "The Bludger was tampered with and lost control, hitting Harry. Professor Lockhart rushed to help, but he miscast the spell and ripped out Harry's hand bones."

"Is that so? Do you want to talk to me about something?"

Melvin answered as he turned another page.

Hermione unconsciously glanced at the page and saw that it was a record about a dark wizard. The last sentence read: After the despicable Herpo hatched the basilisk, he was exposed to dark magic for many years. His mental state was very unstable and his soul might have been torn apart.

Hermione didn't care and asked in a low voice: "Professor, you deliberately made us face the Acromantula, right?"

Melvin hummed, "Let you put into practice what you learned in the remedial class."

"Did you know from the beginning that asking Aragog would be fruitless?" Hermione looked up and stared at the professor's expression. In fact, she wanted to ask the professor if he knew the truth about Myrtle's death.

Is their investigation also an adventure arranged by the professor?
"I guessed a little."

Melvin nodded. "After all, the Acromantula is a beast. Unlike centaurs and unicorns, it's difficult for beasts to become friends with wizards. Even when Hagrid was wrongly expelled, the spider didn't stand up and point out the real murderer, let alone you little wizards."

"Yeah……"

Hermione was still a little unwilling to give up, so she asked a few more questions to test the waters. However, as a second-year student, she was still too immature in front of the professor, and in the end she didn't get the answer she wanted, so she had no choice but to leave.

Melvin watched the little witch go away, then looked down at the records in the book and fell into deep thought.

Is there any connection between the soul contained in the Horcrux and the soul imprinted in the mark?
(End of this chapter)