My Hogwarts has a serious problem.

"My first question is, if you knew beforehand that I could use a spell to control you, how confident were you that you could dodge it?"

The spherical Pippi seemed to be trembling. Lynn's gaze had terrified him. In all his years, not even the Blood Man Barrow had ever frightened him like this.

"Yes! Peeves can dodge it! As long as it's not a spell like Transfiguration, I can dodge it if I'm prepared!"

"Pikachu screamed."

Lynn touched his chin. He could have guessed it. For spirits like ghosts, spells with projectile trajectories and delays are very easy to dodge.

In other words, the method of casting the spell is a major aspect of the next improvement to the Soul Sealing Spell.

"My second question is, to your knowledge, can ghosts teleport?"

"It shouldn't be...it shouldn't be. Anyway, Pipi has never seen a ghost that can teleport."

"What about using magic? Can you still use magic if you become a ghost?"

"Absolutely not. Ghosts have no magic power left; they can't use magic."

Lynn took a quill and wrote down Pippi's answers to the questions on the parchment.

Of course, one cannot completely believe what Pipi Ghost says, nor can one take it as the sole basis for judgment. However, it can serve as a good reference and is very helpful for improving the Soul Sealing Curse later.

He asked Pipi Ghost a few more questions, and inquired whether he could voluntarily cut off something resembling "flesh" from his own body.

Pipi Ghost kept turning its body in a terrified manner, as if to make a shaking motion.

This wicked man in front of me is still lusting after his body!

Lynn looked disappointed. He really wanted to find some spiritual material for his research. He couldn't easily deal with the ghosts in Hogwarts. The only ghost he could catch and scare was Peeves, whom he hated like the plague.

Unfortunately, nothing was left behind in the end.

Lynn let Pikachu go.

He didn't specifically tell him not to tell anyone about what happened today. Putting aside the fact that he had connections at Hogwarts, who could he tell about this? Even if word got out, Lynn wasn't afraid.

It's just a trivial matter; it won't raise any alarm in that person.

As for the other person in the castle, Lynn never intended to hide it from him.

Or rather, everything he did was deliberately revealed to him, otherwise he wouldn't have taken the initiative to find those portraits to ask about Pippi's whereabouts.

Lynn rearranged the parchment in the room, took out a few that would help improve the spells he was about to cast, and then left the Room of Requirement.

At the same time.

In Dumbledore's headmaster's office, the old bee was signing his name on a piece of parchment.

He summoned Phoenix Fox and pinned the letter to its claw.

"Send it to the External Liaison Department of the Soviet Magic Committee. Someone there will write back. Wait for him, and then bring the reply back."

Fox nodded human-like, let out a soft chirp, and then transformed into a streak of fiery red light, disappearing from the principal's office.

Dumbledore relaxed and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands together in front of him.

He looked extremely tired.

Before the mess within the British magical community could be resolved, a major upheaval also erupted in the Soviet Union.

The once powerful Soviet Magic Council, comparable to the Magical Congress of the United States, is now teetering on the brink of collapse.

He is using his reputation to try his best to mediate, hoping that the worst-case scenario will not occur and the relationship will not develop into war.

Suddenly, an old man with a red nose and messy hair appeared in a blank photo frame.

"Albus, the student you specifically asked those portraits to keep an eye on did something strange. He just caught Peeves."

Dumbledore blinked, a faint light reflecting off his half-moon spectacles.

Which student was it?

"That guy named Belloc."

Upon hearing this surname, Dumbledore couldn't help but smile.

"It's Lynn. Did he reveal why he wanted to capture Peeves?"

"No, but there are portraits that show he controlled Peeves with just one spell."

Dumbledore gently patted the back of his other hand with his palm, closed his eyes as if he were thinking about something.

He spoke again not long after.

"There's no need to keep a close eye on him anymore. He's very intelligent, so intelligent that I don't even think he's a child. But he's a sentimental person. He won't become like Tom or Gellert. He has his own ideas, and those ideas won't change because of anything. So let him be. Tell those portraits to stop focusing on him. Looking at Harry, he's more like a child. His thinking can be guided, and he's worth our effort to nurture."

……

Time passed little by little.

Hogwarts was unusually quiet during this period.

No one was attacked, and there was no Defense Against the Dark Arts professor with a criminal record to rally everyone against a common enemy. Even Peeves was surprisingly well-behaved.

The only conflict that has occurred in the castle recently is probably just a bickering between Malfoy and Harry, but that's just childish squabbles between first-year students, and not many people would pay any special attention to it.

Lynn thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful campus life, but he knew that this was just the calm before the storm.

Once this peaceful life is disrupted, a whole host of messy things will follow.

With Halloween still a week away, the thunderstorm that Lynn had been hoping for hadn't arrived in the past month, which meant that the completion time of his Animagus transformation potion would be delayed even further.

As for how long we have to wait, that depends on fate.

However, on the afternoon of the weekend, he finally received a reply from Professor Fox, who was far away in Asia.

Lynn's owl was very upset because its little cap was torn by a branch during flight.

The satchel containing the dry rations was also gone.

It gestured to Lynn for a long time before Lynn could roughly understand what it meant.

My handbag was snatched by an eagle on the street.

Lynn kept comforting it and promised to mend its hat and then buy it a new shoulder bag.

The owl then flew back to its owlhouse, looking rather dejected.

Professor Fox's reply this time was brief, but it was all very important.

After all, he was the inventor of the Soul Sealing Curse, and he could easily judge which of Lynn's ingenious ideas were wild fantasies and which were feasible.

So, in the three days following Professor Fox's reply, Lynn improved the Soul-Sealing Spell based on the suggestions in the letter.

Then, he found Pikachu.