The mastermind behind Hogwarts

Chapter 167 A Toad Wants to Eat Swan Meat (Please Subscribe to the Official Version)

Moriarty waved his wand, and the four rows of chairs disappeared, giving them a spacious area.

Professor Flitwick nodded: "Alright, children, what are you waiting for? Let's begin practicing!"

Suddenly, shouts of freezing spells filled the classroom. Spells flew everywhere, some missing and hitting the chandelier, casting its shadow on the wall.

Penelope looked around, pursed her lips and smiled, "Luckily it's morning, otherwise there would be dozens more ghostly figures."

Moriarty remained noncommittal and asked her, "Do you want to start training with frozen inanimate objects, or with living ones?"

"Of course, we'll start with inanimate objects." Penelope raised her wand. "I'm ready. Release the target."

"The first one is our chair."

Moriarty flicked his wand with his finger, and the chair that he had previously conjured reappeared, placed on the ground two meters away from Penelope.

Penelope kept glancing at Moriarty out of the corner of her eye. It was her first time teaming up with Moriarty and her first time casting magic in front of him. She was both nervous and excited.

"Penelope?" Moriarty prompted softly when he saw that she was not moving.

"Oh, oh, sorry, I'll start right away." Penelope nodded hurriedly, pointing the tip of her wand at the chair. "Immobuius!"

A beam of blue light shot out from the tip of the staff, struck the chair, and made a "crack" sound, blasting a hole in the chair.

Clearly, this wasn't the effect of the Freeze spell; Penelope had failed.

"Oh no, I didn't mean to..." Penelope looked at the broken chair, tears welling up in her eyes. She had damaged school property, and her upbringing had taught her that this was wrong.

Most importantly, she ruined their partnership. How will Moriarty view her?

Moriarty pointed his wand at the broken chair and restored it instantly.

"Again, Penelope." Moriarty nodded to her. "Your pronunciation is off; it's Immobulus. Emphasize the last 'l.' One more time."

"Okay," Penelope said, holding back her tears and gently biting her lower lip.

She gripped her wand tightly, avoiding looking at Moriarty as much as possible, and shouted with all her might, "Immobulus!"

"Whoosh!"

A small ice arrow flew out and hit the chair, instantly freezing most of it solid.

"Significant progress." Moriarty put the chair back in its original position.

Penelope finally smiled, her enthusiasm growing even stronger: "I'll try again. Immobulus!"

"Very good, if you focus, you'll find it's not difficult, right?" Moriarty transformed the completely frozen chair into a single sofa. "Try this big guy."

Penelope practiced for a while until she was proficient in freezing inanimate objects and began to try freezing living things.

The repeated spellcasting had left her somewhat tired, so Moriarty pulled Penelope down to sit on the newly conjured sofa.

She sat next to Moriarty, her bottom barely touching the edge, her hands on her lap, looking like a docile little wife.

They're just a little too obedient.

"Can you rest like that?" Moriarty looked at Penelope with amusement. "Get on top of me."

Penelope obediently sat up, inevitably touching parts of Moriarty's body. Like a startled rabbit, she would always dodge first before slowly approaching.

Moriarty stared at Penelope with a meaningful look. Penelope's face quickly turned red, and she stammered as she changed the subject: "It's October, it's getting cold."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Penelope regretted them.

Merlin, what am I doing?

I was talking about the weather! How lame!

Penelope didn't know what Moriarty had answered; she was preoccupied with a profound magical question and then asked Moriarty about it.

She hoped Moriarty would think highly of her, and ideally, she would be able to discuss some profound issue with him.

Instead of what we're doing now—making small talk about the weather!

Finally, Penelope remembered a question.

"Moriarty, do you remember that Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw incident on the pitch? Why wasn't I swayed by Dracula?"

Moriarty gazed into her blue eyes and explained in a deep voice, "Dracula's virus magic cannot control everyone's mind, such as those wizards with strong minds, wizards with mental pillars, wizards with great pride and strong self-esteem... Dracula cannot control them."

"Oh, I see." Penelope looked at Moriarty expectantly: "At the time, I was so focused on joining the team that I probably didn't give the virus magic a chance to take hold."

"That's right." Moriarty nodded slightly. "I noticed that Wood wasn't under control at the time. He was completely focused on Quidditch, and Dracula had a hard time breaking through his psychological defenses."

"So playing Quidditch has these benefits." Penelope smiled. In fact, only she knew that the reason she wasn't controlled by Dracula wasn't because of Quidditch, but because she had a pillar of support in her heart, a strong desire to keep up with someone's footsteps.

However, she was still prepared to talk about Quidditch. Moriarty was "forever shining," and talking about things on the pitch with him would surely open up a topic of conversation.

"In mid-October, the team will start selecting new players, and I don't know if I can pass the selection." Penelope sighed. Ravenclaw Academy is never short of academic geniuses, and she has many competitors.

"Mid-October..." Moriarty thought for a moment, the new broom wouldn't be available until November at the earliest, "It's too late, I'll just have to wait until you join the team and then I'll give you the new broom."

"I don't want to," Penelope refused decisively.

"Why?" Moriarty asked. "If you keep working to earn money to buy brooms, you'll collapse from exhaustion."

Unlike the wand set, Moriarty didn't intend to popularize the new broom throughout the wizarding world; on the contrary, he wanted to make a fortune from it.

How could Penelope, who came from humble beginnings, possibly afford it?

The money she earns from working probably won't even cover a fraction of the cost of a new broom! She'll probably have to work for another ten years to buy one!

However, Moriarty knew that Penelope was a strong-willed girl, so he didn't say it outright.

Penelope probably sensed something. She lowered her head and said softly, "I don't want to spend your money. Who am I to you? I have no right to spend your money."

In the end, her voice was so soft it was almost imperceptible; Moriarty didn't hear a word she said.

"Don't want to spend my money? Fine," Moriarty shrugged, "but you should know, this isn't spending my money, because if I wanted a flying broomstick that I personally developed, would I need to buy it? Would I need to spend money on it?"

"Pfft," Penelope couldn't help but laugh, and said coquettishly, "Look at how smug you are."

After saying that, Penelope was taken aback again; it seemed too intimate for their relationship to say such a thing.

Moriarty didn't feel anything special. Just then, Professor Flitwick waved his wand and conjured a firework that went off with a "bang." The students stopped shouting "Immobulus," and the last few beams of light fell to the ground.

"Very good, I bet none of you paid attention to the time," Flitwick said with a smile. "get out of class is almost over. You were so engrossed in your practice that you didn't notice. Pack up, get out of class is over."

The students stirred and moved about, waving their wands to make inanimate objects disappear, and Moriarty brought the vanished chair back to life.

Upon seeing this, Professor Flitwick exclaimed in admiration, "Although I'm not a professor of Transfiguration, I still want to give you extra points."

"Professor, we can now freeze living things," Penelope exclaimed, giving Professor Flitwick a reason to score points.

"Very good, then—add ten points to each of the two colleges."

"Professor, we... our group can freeze living things too. Oh, ouch, it's so cold..." a shivering male voice shouted from the other end of the classroom.

Professor Flitwick located the source of the voice and screamed, "What's going on? How could you practice on yourselves! Oh, your feet?"

Everyone looked over, and Moriarty saw the Ravenclaw boy and Lilith sitting behind him standing frozen to the ground, with frost spreading all the way up to his calves!

“He did it voluntarily,” Lilith explained in a cold voice. “He said he could withstand my freezing spell, and that I don’t have much magic power, so it wouldn’t harm him.”

"Yes, that's right," the boy shivered from the cold, but still managed a smile for Lilith. "Pilivik is right! That's exactly what I said."

"Look, I can break free anytime, no problem at all!"

He tried to stand on tiptoe, and with a "crack," the ice crystals shattered, tearing off the soles of his shoes and freezing his trousers to shreds at the calves.

"Hahaha..." The students burst into laughter.

"Restored to its original state!" Professor Flitwick waved his wand and restored his pants and shoes. The boy shamelessly asked if he could get extra points, but Lilith simply left.

"Poor Carl Rocco," Penelope shook her head regretfully. "He thought he could pick a rose to play with, but he didn't expect that the rose was not only thorny but also a black rose."

"Ah, I'm glad you noticed too. It seems I need to change my mind; the girls at Hogwarts are smarter than the boys."

The unusually lively voice was clearly coming from Jericho. Moriarty glanced behind him and, sure enough, saw Jericho walking over with a smile.

"If you ask me, that boy—Karls what was it again? Who cares what his last name is—I'd say he's a toad trying to eat swan meat! How could the young lady let him succeed?"

Moriarty didn't want to talk about Lilith with him, so he raised an eyebrow at Jericho: "Where's your companion, that Ravenclaw girl? I saw you two getting along very well."

"Yes," Jericho turned and waved to the Ravenclaw girls waiting for him. The girl tilted her head at him. He then said to Moriarty and Penelope, "We're going to the library together. Do you want to come?"

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(End of this chapter)