A certain broken Hogwarts

Chapter 100 Dark Magic Transformation

The new semester has begun, and the courses have become more difficult, with even more homework. The young wizards, still recovering from holiday blues, are already grumbling as they plunge into the increasingly heavy workload.

The first-year curriculum was relatively easy, but it still left many students sighing in frustration, especially the most difficult Transfiguration, which made many wish they could devour the textbook.

Of course, the school curriculum was no longer a challenge for Owen. He increasingly spent his class time in the Wallfacer Space, greedily absorbing magical theories and conducting experiments time and time again, striving to prevent himself from completely falling into the abyss of darkness.

As a result, he didn't even pay much attention to the study group's meetings. Under such circumstances, the study group stubbornly did not disband, thanks in no small part to Miss Know-It-All's guidance and Harry's mediation.

Spurred on by Owen, Hermione has been studying diligently for the past six months. Thanks to her exceptional memory and outstanding magical talent, she has almost finished the second-year curriculum. This surpasses the knowledge of everyone in the first year except Owen, making her a natural teacher for a group of students. However, she is still not satisfied with her progress, spending all her time glued to her phones, her face buried deep in thick books, and the dark circles under her eyes have never faded.

Although Owen warned her that overworking at such a young age could lead to premature hair loss, bad skin, and stunted growth, the little witch felt that falling behind in her studies was far worse. Well, she'd understand the taste of regret when she grew up.

Daphne was also a clever and quick-witted little witch. She wasn't impatient for quick success in her studies, but rather took a steady and solid approach, demonstrating impeccable skills in both theoretical knowledge and magical practice. However, she was always low-key, like a reserved and beautiful tulip quietly blooming, unassuming yet impossible to ignore.

Draco and Pansy, who joined later, were in a similar situation. They basically played for a while and studied for a while. Getting them to sit still and study during breaks was a nightmare, but they didn't fall behind in their studies. In Owen's words, they were indeed exceptionally talented in spells, especially in certain prank spells, which they seemed to master without a teacher.

Therefore, Harry had to be wary of the two of them picking on Hermione and Neville when they had nothing better to do. As typical Slytherins and Gryffindors, it was common for them to dislike each other, especially since Harry always showed an unusually protective and biased attitude towards Hermione and Neville. This made Draco extremely unhappy, as if something of his had been stolen from him, and by someone he had never really thought much of. Who could tolerate that?

Although Hermione usually chooses to roll her eyes or ignore him, Neville has been infuriated by Draco quite a few times. Fortunately, Draco has gradually learned to maintain a balance, keeping these minor conflicts within the scope of healthy competition, but his sharp tongue is truly infuriating.

Neville has made great progress these days, showing remarkable courage and a never-give-up attitude. Although he's still not good with words, he's learned to occasionally throw in a jab at Draco, and his honest-looking face has become his protective shield.

Besides them, there's Crabbe and Goyle... well, let's just consider them the old gatekeepers.

The two big guys weren't exactly known for their magical talent, and most importantly, they weren't very bright. However, they weren't without their advantages. Owen thought Crabbe's spells were powerful and destructive, but his control was poor. He was good at learning dark magic, but prone to backfiring. As for Goyle, well, he was a real simpleton; Owen thought he was better suited to punching people.

Owen was quite satisfied to see a group of young wizards going off in strange directions under his influence, never to return. He figured the future wouldn't be too boring.

Harry is now a top student. His talent was already outstanding, and after curbing his playful nature, he made rapid progress in Potions and Charms, even surpassing Hermione in his study of Duel Charms. However, he is also unbalanced in his studies. He performs only moderately well in Transfiguration, while he often dozes off in class as for History of Magic.

However, after the Christmas holidays, Harry always seemed anxious and uneasy, especially as the first Saturday of the new term approached. He looked like a wilted eggplant, exuding a melancholy and resentful aura, and his temperament became delicate.

"Harry, what's wrong with you lately?" Owen had just finished an experiment in the Wallfacer and came out to see Harry's listless face, even his beautiful emerald green eyes had become dull.

Harry glanced at him dreamily and said in a dazed tone, "On Saturday, I'm going to Professor Dumbledore's office..."

"Are you worried that you haven't finished reading the pile of books Mr. Dumbledore assigned?"

"No, I've read it." Harry grinned. "I don't know how to say it... At Christmas, Blaise gave me a big bag of cockroach swarms, you know, the kind of candy that looks exactly like cockroaches and crawls around... I couldn't bring myself to eat it, but since Professor Dumbledore really liked it, I gave it to him at the Christmas party."

He groaned, his expression turning utterly resigned: "After returning to school, Blaise told me he'd mixed a few real cockroaches into the cockroach pile..."

Irving's expression froze. After blinking slightly, he pursed his lips tightly, struggling to suppress a laugh, and a faint blush appeared on his slightly pale cheeks.

Harry's eyes were vacant, and he said dejectedly, "I haven't seen Dumbledore for days. What if he's already eaten him? What if he thinks I did this on purpose...?"

"You need to go to Blaise and get an explanation for this." Owen's smile grew wider.

"I'm seriously considering whether or not to kill him," Harry said quietly.

"Hahaha..." Owen finally couldn't help but laugh out loud, waking up Melete who was sleeping on his lap. The little cat angrily bit his fingertip and kicked his palm with its hind paws.

Harry looked at Owen, who was laughing gleefully, with a resentful expression, and suddenly felt that he would never love again.

After adjusting his mindset, Irving returned to the wall-facing space in a good mood, stretching lazily in the hazy white world.

The improvements to Ravenclaw's mind-separation magic, along with various theories, experimental data, and conjectures, filled a thick notebook. Owen flipped to the last few pages, pondered for a moment, and then turned his gaze to the mutated nightmare he had copied from the Nightmare Forest.

This tiny nightmare, about the size of a human head, was drifting aimlessly at the edge of the white mist space, like a small balloon. Its bright red eyes were wide open in a daze, and it was making long, whimpering sounds. It was unconscious, yet it had instincts.

Owen thought for a moment, then tried to replicate the little thing like he would any other object. The white mist silently gathered, and another identical nightmare appeared out of thin air. The two little things, with their red eyes wide open, floated lightly, making Owen's eyes light up.

"Does copying things from the Nightmare Space no longer require connection points? This way, we won't lack test subjects." He copied multiple Nightmas in a row, then stretched out his palm towards one of them.

Like touching a wisp of cold smoke, the Nightmare instinctively burrowed into Owen's body from his palm. A chill spread up his arm, bringing a slight numbness, but it wasn't very noticeable. It takes a long time for a Nightmare to possess a person's body, and it's not very effective against those with strong willpower or high magical power.

Just as Owen was about to close his eyes to fully experience the feeling, an even colder and more malevolent dark power suddenly surged from the depths of his body, instantly engulfing his entire being and making his eyes even more profound.

"The power of the Dark Guardian?" Owen looked down at his palm. This power aggressively attacked the nightmare that had just invaded, and with a sharp cry that seemed to come from inside the body, the nightmare was mercilessly crushed, just as the Dark Guardian crushed the souls it had torn out.

"The Dark Guardian can protect me from possession, but when faced with a more powerful and evil soul, it becomes the most suitable vessel... How extreme." Feeling the power within his body fade away once more, Owen slowly curled the corners of his mouth into a smile. "Is this what they mean by 'if you can't resist, enjoy it'?"

He looked up at the next nightmare. This magical creature clearly possessed some of the characteristics of a soul. It could not be touched or hit by physical attacks, just like a ghost or a Dementor.

This mutated nightmare can mysteriously control two bodies simultaneously, and Owen's problem lies precisely in his inability to imbue his mind with the qualities of a soul, to fill that empty shell. But perhaps if he could allow his soul to occupy two bodies at the same time, like the mutated nightmare, this problem could be solved.

"Then we need to understand its structure first, which requires dissection..." Owen elegantly waved his wand, endless malice surging wildly in his mind, and the Dark Guardian silently appeared beside him.

Unable to resist licking his lips with the tip of his tongue, Owen squinted, savoring the unrestrained feeling. He couldn't help but cup his cheeks and murmur with a smile, "Dark magic is truly captivating."

He chuckled and reached out to the Dark Guardian. A dark shadow swirled in the air, gracefully enveloping him and shrouding him in darkness. Owen tried to touch the nightmare before him, and this time, he succeeded.

The Dark Guardians can grasp souls, so they can naturally touch this kind of being. In fact, while Nightmares possess some characteristics of a soul, they are not truly souls; they are merely magical creatures. Fortunately, they are not souls, since the study of souls is still a difficult area for Owen to grasp at his current level. The only magic he knows that can affect souls, besides the Dark Guardians, are the three Unforgivable Curses, which can only cause harm, but researching them is out of the question.

Owen, his eyes hidden beneath the black mist, indifferently examined the Nightmare in his hand. Then he raised his wand, summoned the power of the Dark Guardians, and pierced the Nightmare's pale, illusory body.

Although the nightmare before him lacked consciousness, it instinctively let out a sharp, piercing howl. Owen, however, remained completely unmoved, using his wand to slice open the nightmare's body, examining it with the obsessive fervor of a mad scientist. He occasionally cast spells to detect and collect data, jotting down his findings and inspirations in a notebook beside him.

The research on the mutated nightmare continued for several days, and Owen quickly discovered a peculiar structure that caught his attention. He was somewhat surprised to find that it seemed to be in a strange superposition state, like two identical nightmares overlapping yet tightly intertwined, but in reality, there was only one. It was precisely because of this magical state that the mutated nightmare could control two bodies simultaneously, because it was essentially one yet two-sided.

Owen glanced at Muse, the rabbit currently living in a corner of the walled space, and felt that the two were somewhat similar. The rabbit was in a state of alternation between life and death, and would show one side depending on Owen's interference, but the mutated nightmare's state was obviously more stable and more mysterious.

However, Owen's level of knowledge was simply insufficient to understand the principles behind this state, and even when combined with Elizabeth's research notes on the soul, he remained completely baffled.

"This is beyond the scope of the curriculum," Owen shook his head.

Fortunately, he has already figured out the specific structure, and even if he doesn't understand it, he can directly copy and create a similar structure. As long as his own soul has similar characteristics, he might be able to achieve a function similar to the mutated nightmare.

The research inevitably touched upon the soul in the end. Even if the final target structure was already in place, all that was needed was to follow the pattern and make adjustments and changes step by step. But the soul is something that is very difficult to influence.

When conventional methods failed, Irving could only resort to the power of emotions, such as malice.

After much effort, he finally managed to create a rough prototype, but it turned out to be a form of black magic...

"Using dark magic to counteract its side effects, isn't that unreliable?" Owen looked at his somewhat messy, altered notes, his expression shifting. "And since it involves the transformation of the soul, I have a feeling it might backfire..."

The first rule of Adebbe Wolflin's "Fundamental Rules of Magic" is: Anyone who arbitrarily alters the deepest secrets—the source of life, the essence of the self—must be prepared to bear the most extreme and dangerous consequences.

Owen's Dark Guardian might have violated this rule. The Patronus is not only the embodiment of a wizard's positive and joyful emotions, but also represents a hidden and positive part of the wizard's self. To use Dark magic to transform the Patronus is undoubtedly to alienate and betray this part of oneself. As for the consequences, Owen deeply felt them; he was being dragged uncontrollably towards the abyss of darkness.

And the transformation of the soul is undoubtedly also within this rule.

"But do I have a choice? Am I supposed to just wait to be possessed by Voldemort? Or try to find a way to help him get the Philosopher's Stone and resurrect?" Owen was inwardly opposed to it; after all, Voldemort was truly a scoundrel. "And the side effects of dark magic need to be dealt with as soon as possible..."

Voldemort was indeed a prehistoric disaster, and Dumbledore, who lured him to Hogwarts, was truly despicable! Although Dumbledore probably didn't know Voldemort had infiltrated the fold, he was still a scoundrel!

Irving shook his head, putting aside the various concerns that suddenly popped into his mind: "Let's try and improve it in the Wallfacer Space first. Hopefully, the problems won't be too big."

He pointed his wand at his forehead and began chanting a rather lengthy and complex incantation. This transformation was divided into two parts: first, using a modified Ravenclaw mind-splitting spell to alter his own thoughts and separate any future evil intentions; second, using a soul-transformation spell he had created to change the state of his soul.

In this way, the soul, as an superimposed state, can simultaneously occupy both the physical body and the Black Demon Guardian's shell. That part of the mind can also be implanted into the Black Demon Guardian, using its original malice as a bridge, and can still be easily used without affecting itself.

He was already very familiar with the first part, but when he finished reciting the incantation for the second part, Owen felt himself becoming dizzy and disoriented, as if he were drunk. He slumped over his desk, desperately trying to maintain a sliver of consciousness, carefully sensing all the changes within himself, waiting for the process to end.

Time ticked by, and Owen didn't know how much time had passed before he regained consciousness. He propped himself up, first checking himself to find nothing amiss, then closed his eyes and focused on his thoughts. He felt his mind had never been so clear. His brain seemed to have split into two independent yet closely cooperating parts, as if it had evolved from a single core to a dual core.

"This part can be considered a success." Owen sensed his own emotions and found nothing missing. Then, his expression became slightly strange. Without using his wand or chanting a spell, he simply thought of the Dark Guardian and it quietly appeared before him.

Casting spells without incantations or staffs! Owen stared at the ominous shadow before him, feeling an even stronger and more inseparable connection between himself and it, as if he could control it as if he were controlling his own body.

Owen tried making the Dark Guardian fly around in a circle, even making it make a sound. He couldn't help but think of the Order of the Phoenix's method of using Patronus to transmit messages; the two seemed to have a similar effect. When Owen released control, the Dark Guardian returned to its usual behavior, obediently and nimbly circling around him.

"This part is also successful. Only the last part remains, the issue of the side effects of dark magic..." Owen closed his eyes, then drew his wand and, drawing upon his emotions, cast several Unforgivable Curses on the dummy used for practicing spells.

Without encountering any obstacles, the spell was cast smoothly. After all, Owen's original negative emotions hadn't been completely separated from his control. After several experiences of abusing dark magic, this malice was not to be underestimated, though he could usually control it. Owen focused on the nascent malice, discovering that it flowed into the Dark Guardian through a strange connection, yet he could still manipulate it at will, enhancing the power of his own magic.

A large part of the side effects of black magic stems from the fact that when a person is immersed in malice for too long, they inevitably become evil and paranoid. Owen's method, in fact, was to change his own way of thinking, thus separating himself from this subtle influence.

"It really worked?" Owen slowly lowered his wand, momentarily feeling a sense of unreality. "It seems there were no side effects, or perhaps they were hidden too well for me to detect?"

He didn't waste any time and started trying and eliminating various methods, testing his current situation again and again, and finally found that this state was indeed quite good.

Instead of recklessly experimenting on his own body, Irving repeatedly entered and exited the walled space, conducting a total of seven experiments until he became very proficient, eliminated all possible hidden dangers, and made certain improvements to some details before finally making up his mind.

It was exactly nine o'clock at night. Owen stood up from the armchair by the fireplace, placed Melett in the chair, gently stroked her fluffy head, and then walked towards the bedroom.

The dormitory was still empty. Draco and Theodore were probably doing their homework, and Harry hadn't returned from Dumbledore's place yet. Owen silently climbed into bed and recited the spell he had become quite familiar with.

The mysterious and drawn-out incantation echoed softly in the dimly lit bedroom, carrying an eerie and mysterious meaning. After reciting the incantation, Owen lay on the bed in a daze, staring blankly at the green curtain above the four-poster bed, letting the spell gradually change his body and even his soul.

Before he knew it, he had slowly fallen asleep, only to groggily get out of bed in the early morning. Melete had somehow climbed onto his pillow and was curled up, his face pressed against his as he drifted off to sleep.

Irving abruptly raised his hand to touch his nose. Thankfully, it was still there. Then he tugged at his thick hair. Hmm, not bald. He chuckled as he went to the mirror and examined himself.

The little wizard in the mirror had a calm yet cold expression. His already slightly pale skin had become even paler, and even his lips were pale white, making him look unhealthy.

Owen stroked his cheek, not particularly surprised. After all, he had performed a form of dark magic transformation, so there would inevitably be some effect.

He flashed a bright smile at his reflection in the mirror, but a wisp of black mist suddenly welled up in his dark eyes. The ominous, faint black mist instantly spread throughout his body, making him appear mysterious and sinister.

"As expected, once you fall into darkness, it's hard to return to the light. What follows is an endless confrontation and tug-of-war between reason and malice. But it's still somewhat interesting," Owen said with a half-smile. "This way, I can be a... dark wizard even more freely."

The little wizard in the mirror quietly returned to normal, and the surroundings remained as quiet as ever.

(End of this chapter)