Days at Hogwarts

Chapter 119 Humanoid Restoration Spell

"【Palmtop Protector】"

Dumbledore drew a circle with his wand, and the wand emitted a silken, silvery light that coalesced into a translucent, silver phoenix.

"Severus, I need your help. Three horns of a two-horned beast and two-eared grass. Come to the headmaster's office," Dumbledore said to the silver Patronus.

Bringing three portions is to leave a margin; a normal potion maker also prepares three portions of ingredients when brewing a potion. If all three portions fail, then you should carefully check the potion recipe or the brewing process.

The Phoenix Guardian flapped its wings and flew out of the window, leaving a magnificent silver trail of light behind it.

"Can guardian spirits also be used to deliver messages?" Loren asked enviously.

He only knew that the Patronus Charm could ward off Dementors, and that everyone else's Patronus was an ordinary animal, while Dumbledore's was a magical creature, a phoenix.

Dumbledore smiled and nodded. "Magic always has endless uses waiting to be discovered, doesn't it?"

"I want to learn."

"Of course, unlike the spells you've learned before, the Patronus Charm is the most positive emotional response..."

Dumbledore gave Loren a brief explanation of some key points about the Patronus Charm, and Dumbledore was able to answer any questions Loren occasionally had.

This ancient and mysterious spell summons a magical guardian spirit, a reflection of all the caster's most positive emotions. Its form is typically that of the animal with which it is most intimately connected.

Since there are currently no other ways to defend against Dementors and Groundbats except through the Patronus Charm, the Patronus Charm is generally recognized as a spell specifically designed to deal with these two creatures.

"...But guardian spirits still have many other uses. In the records of ancient wizards, guardian spirits can even be used in battle."

An old man and a young man sat facing each other, their voices—one old, one clear—as they asked questions and offered answers, their voices both aged and crisp, drifting slowly with the aroma of tea.

About half an hour later.

"【Palmtop Protector】"

Loren's wand emitted wisps of silver light, but they couldn't coalesce into a guardian spirit. He was reminiscing about his days on the high mountain pastures.

Dumbledore praised, "Very good. Few people can summon a non-physical Patronus so quickly. All that's left is to find your most positive and happy memories and practice them continuously."

As he spoke, he seemed to sense something and looked up at the doorway.

Snape pushed open the door and entered, his face expressionless, his eyes as still and lifeless as a dead fish. Even in summer, he was still wearing a long robe.

"Good morning, Professor Snape," Loren greeted politely.

Snape glanced sideways at Loren, then at the hat and the small snake inside on the table. His lips parted slightly, and a string of sentences escaped his mouth: "I need to know what you intend to do with the ingredients for the Compound Potion?"

Dumbledore beckoned to a corner of the office, where a new wooden chair slid out and stopped in front of the desk. "It's a long story. Let's sit down and talk about it."

He also poured Snape a cup of tea.

Snape sat down indifferently, not even glancing at the tea in front of him.

"Because of a prophecy, Loren and I took a long trip during the Christmas holidays..."

Dumbledore recounts the discovery of Nagini and the ritual of Nico's Philosopher's Stone, but omits much detail, only stating that Loren was special and that his participation was necessary for the ritual.

Snape only glanced at Loren when he heard the prophecy; the rest of the time he kept a deadpan expression.

"Great Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, do I look so easy to fool?"

Snape scoffed, "If you don't think so, then perhaps I could ask this fool sitting next to me why he can use the Philosopher's Stone?"

Dumbledore pretended not to hear, glanced at the shelf, and continued drinking his tea.

Snape, expressionless, mechanically turned his neck to look at Loren.

Loren felt the pressure of the gaze, so he followed suit, lowering his head like a quail and sipping his tea in small sips.

"Ha!" Snape chuckled, pulled a cloth bag from his robes, and poured out three sets of materials.

The horns of the two-horned beast are similar to those of a buffalo; the black horns are curved into an arc, with a smooth and hard surface and some circular and dotted patterns.

Two-ear grass is a bright green grass seedling with two leaves on a stem, resembling two ears.

Upon seeing the materials, Loren tentatively asked, "Shall I begin?"

Snape didn't react, but Dumbledore nodded to him.

Loren began processing the materials based on the knowledge in his mind.

Two-ear grass is a perennial herb that grows in warm and humid places. In compound decoctions, it is used to connect two unrelated people.

He tore a two-eared grass in half and placed the leaves on the magic stone. He slowly placed his palms on the magic stone, cupping them in his hands, closed his eyes, felt the surging magic power on the magic stone, and gently activated it.

Two blades of grass were lifted up by a strange force, and like a mimosa, the leaves curled up in circles until they could curl no more.

The temperature above the magic stone continued to rise, causing the air to distort slightly, and the grass leaves melted like ice into two drops of emerald green liquid.

With a slight thought, an invisible, strange force carried the two drops of green liquid toward Dumbledore and Nagini respectively.

Nagini swallowed the two-ear grass liquid in one gulp, and the slender snake body shimmered slightly.

Dumbledore gently touched the drop of liquid with his finger, and the liquid seeped into his fingertip as if absorbed, causing his finger to gleam slightly.

Loren released the Philosopher's Stone, picked up the two horns, placed one into the hat where Nagini was perched, and gestured for Nagini to put it on; he had Dumbledore hold the other.

Two-horned beast horns are usually ground into powder for use, but this ritual is clearly different from ordinary potion brewing, as it uses the whole horn.

His eyes reflected an unknown red light as he murmured, following some mysterious guidance, "(Up is down, down is up)."

The two horns trembled slightly, as if they had formed a strange connection.

Loren nodded to Dumbledore, indicating that he could begin casting the spell.

Dumbledore pointed his wand at the horn in his other hand, and said, "[Avatar]".

A blazing and magnificent red light poured in from the thicker end of the horn, causing the horn in his hand and Nagini's coiled horn to tremble violently.

The wind generated by the magic stirred Dumbledore's beard and hair, and the red light shone on his face, giving the old wizard a touch of heroic spirit.

At the same time, another horn inside the hat emitted a blazing red light, which enveloped Nagini on top of it.

The light from the Restoration Charm continued to shine, and the red light on the other horn grew brighter and brighter, becoming dazzling.

A whirlwind in the office caused the three men's robes to flutter. Loren stared wide-eyed at Nagini, who was enveloped in red light.

The snake, coiled on its horns, gradually took flight, detaching itself from the hat and horns. Its tail clung tightly to the sapphire, as if clenched in a fist.

Nagini floated in the air, transforming back into a gigantic python, larger than the entire table. The net-like patterns on the python's back gradually disappeared, and her scales seemed to melt and gradually merge together, fusing into a single black shell.

The red light gradually turned into the color of blood. The python inside was shaped and changed by some mysterious force. The huge python's head gradually shrank, the protruding and split mouth gradually flattened, and the eyes, nose and mouth moved to move closer to a human face.

The tail transformed into two limbs, and the upper body also differentiated into two limbs, which served as the positions of hands and feet. A hard, black, scale-like shell covered them, revealing only the torso and limbs. The face, except for the eyes, was also covered by the hard shell.

At this point, the python had completely disappeared, and now floating in the air, shrouded in bloody light, was a human figure.

After waiting for a while, it remained the same; the changes seemed to have stopped.

"Why can't it take shape?" Loren asked.

All the steps were performed according to the ritual, and the process went very smoothly. However, Nagini only shed the snake's body and revealed the outline of a human, but never took shape.

Although Dumbledore maintained a powerful output of magic, he didn't seem to be strained at all. His expression was solemn. "Because she has lost her way. For decades she has moved in the body of a snake, and she has long forgotten what it means to be human."

Although Nagini retained her intellect thanks to the Ravenclaw sapphire, the serpent's body still affected her. Over the decades, she adapted to the serpent's body, which also distorted her perception.

Loren immediately recalled Flamel's words: "Only he himself can see himself clearly in the depths of his heart."

What's it like deep inside?

He shouted, "Mirror of Erised!"

The Mirror of Erised can reflect the desires in people's hearts. Whatever Nagini's current desires are, they will certainly involve her in a human body.

"Fox!" Dumbledore called out.

"Screech!" Fox cried out from behind the shelf and then disappeared.

In the blink of an eye, a flame erupted, and Fox landed in the middle of the office, clutching a huge mirror in his claws.

Loren used a levitation spell to send the mirror in front of Nagini, "Take a good look at yourself!"

The Mirror of Eris floated before Nagini, reflecting the desires in the heart of this blood-cursed orc.

Encased in a black, hard shell, with only her eyes visible, Nagini saw her reflection in the mirror. Suddenly, tears welled in her pure black eyes, which quickly evaporated in the light of the spell.

"Credence!" a suppressed female voice cried out.

The black shell encased in the red light cracked open like an eggshell, revealing a snow-white and alluring body.

Before the red light faded, Dumbledore quickly transformed his black shell into a black dress to cover Nagini's body.

The red light faded, and the body fell onto the table. The newly born Nagini's eyelids fluttered, but she did not wake up and fell into a deep sleep.

The three of them sized up the black-haired girl on the table.

Loren was overjoyed. Nagini's success meant that Grandpa Bates could also succeed. After all, the werewolf's illness was far less difficult than that of the blood cursed orc, and Grandpa Bates had not forgotten what he looked like.

He blinked, looking at Dumbledore, wanting to ask him what to do.

"I will ask Professor McGonagall to put her in the staff dormitory."

Dumbledore, who could effortlessly channel magic, seemed to grow weary upon hearing Nagini's name. He waved his hand, "You can go back now."

Although Loren still had some questions to ask, he could tell that Dumbledore was in a bad mood, so he didn't say anything, picked up the Philosopher's Stone, and turned to leave.

Goodbye, Principal.

Snape glanced at Dumbledore, then at the dark-haired girl on the table, and left the office without a word.

Dumbledore's eyes were deep as he unconsciously murmured, "Credence, Credence..."

In the corridor, two figures, one tall and one short, slowed down after leaving the eighth floor.

Snape's face was tense. From the moment he received the notification, brought the materials to the office, and witnessed the process of reversing the blood curse orc, he was filled with doubt the whole time.

But Dumbledore chose to keep it a secret.

For someone who had lived through that era, there were things Dumbledore hadn't told him, and he knew he shouldn't know. So he didn't try to get any inside information from Loren.

He cared more about something else than that.

Snape turned his gaze to Loren. "Did you learn anything from the ceremony just now?"

"Learned what?" Loren turned to Snape, probing, "Learned how to use the Philosopher's Stone to treat Two-Eared Grass?"

Snape glared at him. "Fool! That was just a standard procedure for performing magic."

"As I mentioned before, certain fixed procedures are called rituals. The wizard performs the rituals, and the magic achieves its effect."

Loren remembered this.

Both spells and potions follow the rules of ritual. Spells have specific incantations and casting actions, while potions require specific ingredients and specific brewing methods.

Snape believed that potions were more rigorous and rule-bound than spells, and that such rituals were more in line with the essence of magic.

"The ceremony just now was perfect. From a potion-making perspective, both the horn of the two-horned beast and the two-eared herb are ingredients in compound potions..."

The compound potion can connect two people, transform one person's appearance into another's, and the ritual just performed can transform one person's magic into another's.

That means that the characteristic of the two-horned beast and the two-eared grass is replacement—replacing appearance and replacing the imprint of will in the spell.

If one can master this property, one can use two materials to replicate and seize any property of another person, such as memory, knowledge, or even talent.

Loren was stunned. Just from the concept, he knew how amazing this thing would be if it were actually made.

Especially the last one, stealing other people's talents. A wizard's talents include the ability to disguise himself as a Magus, Parseltongue, and various innate magical abilities.

Even magic itself—if Snape's idea could actually come true, it could even give a Squib a brief period of magical power.

Snape said, "The creation of any potion will have your name recorded in textbooks and passed down for millennia."

"But that's simply not realistic," Loren interrupted mercilessly.

This conceptual idea is truly far-fetched; the success of this ritual was largely due to the role played by the Philosopher's Stone. Currently, there is no record in the magical world of achieving the same effect without using a Philosopher's Stone.

I've never heard of anyone else concocting an elixir of immortality, nor have I heard of anyone successfully turning lead into gold. Moreover, it seems that the effects of both ingredients are time-limited, and both the compound decoction and this ritual have very significant limitations.

In conclusion, Snape is once again promoting his theory of potions as the ultimate power, while also making empty promises to him.

"Understand, the essence of magic," Snape stared at him, as if trying to etch those words into Loren's heart.

The words spoken in the ceremony were indeed in Hebrew.

The incantation for restoring human form is Homorphus, a compound word of the Latin "Homo" and the Greek "morphe-", where "Homo" means "human" and "morphe-" means "form". I couldn't find a standard Chinese translation, so I took the liberty of writing one myself.

(End of this chapter)