Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 319 Harry: Draco, you're so pitiful!

As he spoke, he turned his head and looked in the direction the two had come from.

Harry followed his gaze and saw the entrance to the corridor. There was no one there, only the faint sound of Pansy Parkinson's loud voice.

Harry exclaimed, "Parkinson's?"

"—Yes." For some reason, Draco was in a very low mood. "The Parkinson family is similar to my family. We both hate Mud—we hate Muggle, but we're not as extreme as Carlo. And, I can influence the Parkinson family."

Well----

As Draco struggled to finish his sentence, scenes from aristocratic dramas Harry had watched flooded his mind.

Such as family alliances or political marriages.

Recalling Pansy Parkinson's lion-like nose and wide mouth, Harry naturally felt a pang of sympathy for Draco Malfoy.

So he stopped pressing the issue and smoothly changed the subject: "What about your father? I think if you can't persuade him, you probably won't be able to solve the problem. After all, he's the head of the Malfoy family, and your words might not be as effective as his."

Upon hearing this, Draco remained silent for a moment before saying, "I came to see you today because I hope you will spend more time observing the Board of Trustees over the next few days, especially my father. We need to know why he is acting so ambiguously."

Harry blurted out, "Didn't you say he hates Dumbledore and Vaughn? What else could it be?"

9

"No." Draco shook his head. "You don't know my father. He—he's not a stubborn person. He's very considerate of the big picture and doesn't sweat the small stuff. Now that Vaughn is gradually gaining recognition from the pure-blood families, normally he should—"

Draco didn't say anything more.

But Harry understood his subtext—that being non-stubborn, prioritizing the big picture, and not bothered by trifles were all euphemisms; Lucius Malfoy was probably a nimble and shameless fellow.

Based on the previous conversation, Harry guessed that the Malfoys might be preparing to change their strategy towards Vaughn.

For example, the board of trustees extended a goodwill gesture to Vaughn.

But for some reason, Lucius Malfoy didn't do that, but he didn't strongly oppose it either; his attitude was ambiguous.

This was so strange that Draco Malfoy's mother wrote a letter to Harry, who guessed that Malfoy's visit today might have been at the behest of his parents.

This is obvious.

Without parental support, what gave Malfoy the confidence to claim he could influence Greengrass and Parkinson?

Aside from Vaughn, Harry has never seen any other second-year wizard who is taken seriously by adults!

Countless thoughts raced through his mind. Seeing Draco Malfoy's hesitant and embarrassed expression, Harry felt a pang of sympathy. He stopped waiting to see him make a fool of himself and instead nodded in response, "Okay, I'll be careful."

Draco breathed a sigh of relief, glanced to the side, hesitated for a moment, and then said softly, "Thank you, Potter."

Ugh, that's really awkward.

Harry smirked. "This is all for Vaughn and the club, just temporarily putting us on the same side—it doesn't mean I like you!"

Upon hearing this, the smile that had just appeared on Draco's pale face vanished instantly, and he snorted, "Very well, me too!"

The sudden conflict made the atmosphere instantly awkward.

After a moment of silence, Draco said, "That's all for today. Contact me if anything happens."

"Um!"

Harry gave a mumbled reply, and the two, unable to bear the awkward atmosphere any longer, hurriedly returned to the corner of the stairs.

Upon seeing Draco return, Pansy Parkinson, who was loudly talking to Goyle and Crabbe, immediately shouted impatiently, "Draco, are you done yet? I can't stand here for another second! The air is awful, I can't breathe!"

She didn't say why the air was bad.

But judging from the ugly expressions on Dean and Simon's faces as they stood opposite her, and the laughing and joking manner of Goyle and Crabbe, it was clear that it was the same old story of purebloods looking down on mixed-race people.

Draco said nothing, quickly walked over, nodded to Neville and Ron again, and then left with Pansy, Goyle, and Crabbe.

The group quickly went downstairs, and from a distance, they could still hear Pansy complaining: "I really don't understand why you came to see these guys, Draco. You even greeted Longbottom and Weasley. That's terrible."

"They're purebloods too, Pansy."

"But they're poor bastards, the lowest of the purebloods. I dare say my servants are richer than theirs—oh, except for Vaughn Weasley, who was unfortunate to be born into the Weasley family—"

The sound gradually faded into the distance.

Ron exhaled a breath of stale air and shook off Neville's hand that was gripping his arm. "You shouldn't have stopped me, Neville. You should have helped me teach that foul-mouthed Parkinson's a lesson!"

Neville stammered, "Coco...but casting spells on classmates violates school rules—"

Ron was so angry at Malfoy's cowardly behavior that his nose almost twisted in anger. He didn't want to talk to him anymore and turned to Harry, who had returned: "What does Malfoy want with you?"

Harry made up a reason: "Nothing much, he just asked me about the board's voting results. He's concerned about whether the club will be shut down."

He wasn't going to tell his friends about his "agreement" with Malfoy; the rift between them was too deep, and he was afraid they wouldn't be able to accept it.

Ron scoffed. "Doesn't he always brag about how influential his dad is on the school board? If he's worried, why doesn't he try to convince his dad?"

"You said it yourself, he's just bragging."

"Yesterday, after the voting ended, that Alecto Caro pointed his finger at Lucius Malfoy and yelled, 'What a coward!'"

Dean and Seymour both laughed.

The others didn't doubt Harry's reasoning; they all knew that the Slytherin snakes had been defeated by Vaughn last term.

Normally, Harry would have said something in protest, but today he seemed distracted.

He himself couldn't explain why.

But the brief, unusually non-confrontational and non-hostile conversation he had with Malfoy in the corridor kept replaying in his mind: "I should have taken that opportunity to ask him about the notebook."

When Harry returned to his dorm room, preoccupied with his thoughts, he suddenly felt a slight sense of regret.

In the morning, Kettleburn walked out of the dormitory and into the courtyard.

The heavy snow that had been falling for several days finally stopped today. The thick, dark clouds dissipated, and the sun, which had not been seen for many days, rose from behind the mountains in the east, its rays painting the sky red and casting the majestic shadows of the mountains that covered half the sky.

Looking at the sky, half of its color erased by the mountain shadows, as if the world had malfunctioned, Kettleburn took a deep breath of the cold air, and his spirits lifted.

The rare good weather meant his broken arms and legs no longer ached from the gloomy, snowy day, which made him feel very relaxed today.

Even the little ones who popped up in the courtyard again, asking him all sorts of questions, started to look at him with a newfound appreciation.

"Hey professor, will dueling clubs be banned?"

"You've asked me this question so many times, honey. My answer is still: I don't know. That's not my problem, it's not my responsibility as an old man who's about to retire."

"Professor, I heard you're doing experiments with Vaughn. What did he say?"

"I answered this question the day before yesterday. We only conducted experiments and did not discuss any other topics."

"What kind of experiment are you doing, professor?"

"Keep it a secret~"

Having cleverly fooled another group of curious students, Kettleburn leisurely went to the Great Hall for breakfast, then packed another meal to take with him as he left the Great Hall and ventured deeper into the castle.

Just like the previous days, some little guys followed him furtively, hoping to find Vaughn through him.

But they seriously underestimated the familiarity of a seasoned wizard, an old fellow who had taught at Hogwarts for decades, with the castle.

Following the intricate staircases and corridors, wandering around for a while and leaving the little tails behind lost, Kettleburn arrived at the fourth floor of the secondary tower with a smile. Then, through a secret passage on the fourth floor, he arrived at the door of an abandoned classroom.

He gently turned the doorknob and opened the door. A faint yet incredibly strong light "intruded" into his eyes.

Forgive him for using the word "闯" (chuǎng, meaning to venture or break through).

Because in his perception, even if he closes his eyes, those lights will still be eager to rush into his eyes one after another.

The purpose is to transmit the information they carry into his mind.

If this had happened a few days earlier, Kettleburn would have panicked and might even have suffered a mental breakdown.

But over the past few days, he has gradually gotten used to the proactive and eerie light, and has developed ways to deal with it.

He drew his wand and whispered a spell.

A hazy, misty light enveloped his eyes. When he opened them again, the world before him had instantly changed.

What you see is no longer endless, chaotic, and violent, making you feel as if your head is stuffed with many things just by standing there, causing a splitting headache and confusion.

The outline of a spacious classroom came into view, and in the very center of the classroom, a strange polyhedron floated in mid-air.

Waves of light, like endless ripples, emanated from the polyhedron. With the adjustment and filtering of the multispectral vision spell applied to his eyes, static and dynamic images were bombarded into them.

After adjustment and filtering, the images were no longer chaotic, distorted, or disordered.

Instead, it forms a complete and orderly structure, presenting the macroscopic and microscopic life movements in his eyes and memory.

Of course, even after filtering, the information density is still very high.

In an instant, Kettleburn saw a dark cloud flashing with lightning, which, under infrared vision, was the waste heat released by the "cold and dark" cell body and the organelles inside it carrying out chemical processes.

The dark clouds are cell sap and chromatin.

Lightning is the energy-supplying tissue that runs throughout it; Vaughn calls them mitochondria.

But the next instant, the colorless dark cloud burst into a bright fluorescent light—

Kettleburn squinted slightly as he "saw" beams of high energy piercing through them. Then, stimulated by the high-energy beams, the dark clouds became colorful, with purple, green, and blue fluorescent lights outlining the strange organelles and illuminating the entire image projected into his mind.

The cell, which was originally cold and desolate like a dark cloud, suddenly became hot. It was no longer a gentle picture of heat radiation, but a moving, precise factory.

Kettleburn saw the dyed material, which had been like a translucent gray veil, stretch out like parchment scorched by fire in the high-energy ultraviolet light.

Purple, like orbiting mitochondria, meander and stretch out, constantly bombarding out energy pulses from P hydrolysis.

Amidst the tides of energy, giant double-helix pythons emerged from the shimmering ocean of energy. Struck by the invisible hammers formed by the surging energy, they gradually curled up, transforming into beaded nuclei, like countless free-floating filaments, floating and sinking in the endless sea of ​​light.

These filaments, under the "blows" of energy, continue to spiral, fold, and contract, forming short rod-shaped, bright substances that resemble bar nebulae.

Kettleburn understands what all this "before his eyes" reveals.

That is mitosis, the most basic activity of life.

In fact, he had lost count of how many times he had seen such a scene over the past few days, but every time he was exposed to similar images and saw such precise and complex activities inside tiny cells, he couldn't help but be deeply moved once again.

Because this is the most fundamental and vibrant mystery of life.

It was an unknown amount of time before Kettleburn finally broke free from his intense obsession and came to his senses.

It was only at this moment that he had the energy to temporarily escape the influence of "light" and the mysteries revealed by "light" and observe a figure in the same classroom, standing next to the polyhedron, surrounded by endless "light" but completely undisturbed.

The figure was not tall and looked quite young.

But Kettleburn's gaze was filled with solemnity and awe. The longer he stayed in this room, beside that polyhedron, the more he realized how terrifying the child who created everything around him was.

"cough!"

He cleared his dry throat and picked up the lunchbox he had brought: "Vaughn, do you want to rest for a bit? I brought you breakfast."

Beside the polyhedron, Vaughn's figure shifted slightly. The next instant, the light that had surged forth so wildly, eager to illuminate the entire world and "infect" all intelligent life, began to retreat "unwillingly."

In a short while, the light that filled the entire classroom retreated back into the polyhedron, revealing the twisting and writhing flesh inside.

"Wonderful magic—"

A sense of astonishment, unbecoming of a wizard, welled up within Kettleburn.

Beside the polyhedron, Vaughn slowly turned around. At first, his movements were a little awkward, but in just one breath, Kettleburn saw his expression become lively.

"You've entered the world of consciousness again?"

Kettleburn was no stranger to Vaughn's change in demeanor, from slow to lively; Vaughn had frequently exhibited this behavior during their experiments over the past few days.

According to Vaughn, the life information of Araclew within the polyhedron, filtered through the spectrum and forcibly received through direct, full-dimensional unfolding, represent two completely different approaches to understanding.

Spectral filtering is more organized and conforms to human perception and thinking patterns. However, its drawback is that actively interfering with light inevitably leads to the limitations of low-dimensional optics.

In contrast, full-dimensional expansion provides richer details of information, and dimensional reduction can ignore some physical limitations, but the chaos and distortion inherent in its high-dimensional nature cause the difficulty of understanding to skyrocket.

However, Vaughn is trying to combine the two approaches.

We are currently in the initial adaptation phase and the stage of accumulating databases through spectral filtering.

To be honest, Kettleburn didn't quite understand what a "database" was; he only heard Vaughn say that it was some kind of concept in Muggle computer science.

Computer science is a relatively new field, even among Muggles, and Kettleburn's understanding of it is rather superficial; he can't even imagine it.

Upon hearing this, Vaughn, whose main consciousness had returned to reality, nodded without saying a word.

Kettleburn was already used to it and knew that he was temporarily out of sorts due to the long-term information overload on a mental level. So he used magic to summon a table and chairs, and while setting out food and tableware, he said, "You can't always immerse yourself in the information tide that unfolds in all dimensions. Those are things that humans shouldn't understand at all. My dear, the spectral filtering of the Multispectral Vision Charm is already very good. You don't need to put too much pressure on yourself."

Upon hearing this, Vaughn, who had just sat down at the dining table, simply smiled.

Having gradually come to know his personality, Kettleburn sighed and stopped trying to persuade him, instead talking about what had recently happened in the castle.

"The board meeting yesterday still didn't reach a conclusion. I saw Minerva last night, and she didn't look well. She looked like a volcano about to erupt. Severus's demeanor is getting colder and colder. It seems that some people's stubbornness has worn down their patience."

"The young wizards also know about the meeting. I don't know who leaked it, but everyone has been talking about it these past two days. Many people have even asked me for my opinion. Don't worry, I didn't say anything. In fact, I really don't know what you think."

Vaughn took a sip of pumpkin porridge, and after a while, said in a hoarse voice, "What thoughts could I possibly have? They don't even allow me to attend meetings, and I haven't left here for the past few days."

Kettleburn rolled his eyes, his ugly scars twitching.

"I don't believe you'll just sit around waiting. Although we haven't known each other for long, I know you're not someone who passively waits for others to decide your fate."

"Ha, should I thank you for having so much faith in me, Silvanus?" Vaughn laughed, the slight hesitation in his expression gone.

Noticing the change in his demeanor, Kettleburn breathed a sigh of relief and shrugged: "If you were truly a passive person, you wouldn't be able to handle Cornelius Fudge; he's the most quintessential political animal I've ever met."

As he spoke, recalling the rumors circulating in the castle, he tentatively asked, "I've heard that some pure-blood families have changed their opinion of you. These past few days, many of the Slytherin kids have been actively inquiring about your intentions, and it seems they're preparing to unite and help you—"

But when faced with his probing, Vaughn remained calm and simply ate his breakfast slowly.

Kettleburn was discouraged.

The longer I spent with Vaughn, the less I understood the boy. It was as if a thick fog shrouded him. I was old and considered myself knowledgeable, but all that experience seemed to have no effect on him.