Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts.

Chapter 89 My use of necromancy ≠ I am a dark wizard

Listening to Bane's words, Rice felt his blood pressure rising: What does it mean to be busy with internal strife? What does it mean to send people to their deaths? Slytherin's reputation is being ruined by people like you!

What angered him most was the look on Hagrid's and the others' faces; they seemed to think that centaur's words made sense! This centaur is slandering me! Rhys was quite dissatisfied.

As for the truth of this matter...

Adrian had actually gone off to hunt the black dragon on his own. By the time Rhys found out, he had already returned to the castle with the dragon's heart. He paid a heavy price for it; Rhys imprisoned him for a month, but he posted the reason for his imprisonment on the castle bulletin board.

"It's not surprising that Adrian's descendants could do this." The centaurs reached a consensus, then looked at Daphne with strange eyes: This little witch has the courage to fight such evil creatures, and the strength to fight them unharmed; her future is limitless.

The centaurs chatted with Hagrid for a few more minutes, and the conversation inevitably turned to the major events that had occurred that evening.

"The injured unicorn is dead," Ferenze said with a sorrowful tone.

Upon hearing this news, Hagrid and everyone else present fell silent.

"Have you found it, or do you know what did it?" After a long silence, Hagrid finally broke the silence.

The three centaurs were led by Ronan, who had red hair. Instead of answering Hagrid's question directly, Ronan looked up and pointed to the sky above them.

"Mars is very bright tonight."

Hagrid: ?

He didn't understand Ronan's meaning, and after repeatedly asking, Ronan only replied with the simple statement, "Mars is very bright." Ronan was unwilling to express his thoughts directly, and Ferenczer and Bain also remained silent.

"Fine, fine!" Hagrid waved his hand impatiently and complained, "You guys are always like this, knowing so much but always keeping it to yourselves."

The centaurs were very familiar with Hagrid, so they didn't take his words to heart.

"If we had just blurted out everything we knew, we would have been gone long ago," Bane explained to Hagrid in a muffled voice.

Seeing that Bane had made his point so clear, Hagrid couldn't help but sigh heavily. He knew that he wouldn't be able to get any clues from the centaurs tonight.

While Hagrid and Harry were completely confused, Rice, who was listening to the conversation from the sidelines, suddenly had a bright idea.

Rice knew that centaurs had a strong ability to predict the future, and since they made their predictions by interpreting the stars, in other words, their predictive abilities came from the stars, so their predictions were very accurate. Therefore, Ronan's words were worth pondering.

He wouldn't believe, like Hagrid, that Ronan was really talking about the stars.

"Mars? Is it referring to war?" Generally speaking, mentioning Mars inevitably leads to a connection with war. The thought that the centaur's prophecy was related to war piqued his interest. After further studying Ronan's words, Rice came to a terrifying conclusion: a bright Mars means war is coming.

War...

Rice couldn't help but narrow his eyes. He was never afraid of war, but if possible, the magical world should avoid war now, after all, this was no longer the world a thousand years ago.

However, this is just his speculation. Only Ronan knows the specific content of the prophecy. Perhaps there is even a one in ten thousand chance that he really wants to show his half-giant friend the shiny Mars?

"Alright, we have to go back now. Tonight's detention is over." The unicorn was dead, so there was no point in continuing the detention. Besides, it was already late at night, so Hagrid decided to take Harry and the others back.

The centaurs had a slight disagreement: Ferenze wanted to escort Hagrid and his group out of the Forbidden Forest, while Ronan and Bane insisted on disposing of the unicorn's carcass first.

So the centaurs split into two groups. Frenzer, Hagrid, and Harry left together, while Bane and Ronan stayed behind to prepare firewood to burn the unicorn's corpse—because of that evil presence, the centaurs were unwilling to bury the unicorn, fearing that it would not find peace even in death.

Hagrid and his group left, while Bane and Ronan began collecting branches.

The two spells, one on the left and one on the right, struck the two centaurs precisely. Their eyes rolled back, and without uttering a sound, they fell straight down with two muffled thuds.

After casually knocking out the centaurs who were staying there, Rice's figure emerged from the shadows.

Looking at the unicorn carcass lying on the ground, he narrowed his eyes: This is excellent biological material!

Unicorns are powerful magical creatures that are extremely rare. Even thousands of years ago, they were animals of legend and stories, and many wizards never saw a unicorn in their entire lives.

Rice was convinced that Mr. Ollivander must have a close connection with Hogwarts, or rather, with Hagrid, otherwise he wouldn't have used so much unicorn tail feathers for his staff core—and the same goes for phoenix feathers. Rice had heard that Dumbledore owned a phoenix, and he guessed that was the source of all of Ollivander's phoenix tail feather staff cores.

However, the focus tonight is not on wand making, but on necromancy, which Rice once dabbled in.

He had done some research in this area, but his findings have most likely faded with time. While the results are gone, the knowledge remains, and given the right materials, Rice can naturally recreate his necromancy.

"If Gryffindor and the others saw me like this, they'd probably call me a dark wizard again." As he drew his wand, Rice couldn't help but mutter to himself.

His disagreements with his friends, besides the student's family background, also stemmed from his research into magic. The Gryffindors were strongly against his research, for a simple reason: they believed that dark magic corrupted the soul, subtly altering one's personality, and that it was best for Rice to avoid such things.

But Rice disagreed, arguing that black magic doesn't exist. Magic is merely a tool of wizards, and tools themselves aren't inherently evil; it all depends on the user. A Muggle can use a fruit knife to cut fruit, and also to kill someone—do we need to categorize fruit knives? Magic is the same.

Does my use of necromancy mean I'm a dark wizard? Rice doesn't think so.

All magic and spells can be used, but some spells require extra caution before learning and using them. Just like some alchemical materials, one must take precautions before using them—isn't it ridiculous to get injured because of a lack of protection, and then blame the raw materials for being "evil" instead of reflecting on one's own actions?

Without any psychological burden, Rice began preparing the ritual for the unicorn's corpse.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Here's the second update, goodnight everyone~

(End of this chapter)