Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 141 The vacation is over
The Christmas holidays of 1992 came to an end quickly. Tyella only accompanied Harry around for the first few days. After Harry's initial excitement wore off, Tyella started taking him to the library to study together.

With Harry's scent accompanying her, Tyella felt her study efficiency was much higher, and she finally completed the analysis of the magical structure of the sixth layer of mental barrier before the end of winter break.

In addition to the Heris potion, constructing the sixth layer of the mental barrier also requires a concentrated flower juice called Typhon Flower.

Extracting this flower juice is quite troublesome. It takes more than a month of continuous extraction using a rotary evaporator to extract just enough juice for Tierra to use from dozens of kilograms of Tiphon flowers.

After Tiera finished crafting the "Sign of Vayne" brooch, she placed a rotary evaporator, consisting of a water-filled crucible, a condenser, and two distillation flasks, in the Chamber of Slytherin.

To truly build the sixth layer of spiritual walls, the rotary steamer needs to operate for at least another half a month.

After the winter break ended, the students of Hogwarts gradually returned to school.

Ron couldn't wait to share his winter break experiences with Tyrell and Harry—

During his winter break, Ron accompanied his parents to Romania to visit his older brother Charlie, who was raising dragons there.

Hermione, on the other hand, chattered on and on about her preparations for the winter break to Tyrell, and even asked Tyrell about some of the questions she didn't understand.

Thank goodness, Hermione finally gave up her fantasies and devoted herself wholeheartedly to her studies.

But frustratingly, Hermione became even more annoying than before when she was engrossed in her studies—

"Tiera, should the Latin pronunciation in this spell be pronounced as a soft 's' or a soft 'f'?"

“Tiera, there’s something I don’t understand here. I don’t know how the spell for this transformation magic is related to its material form.”

"Tiera, shouldn't the result of this potion formula be negative? Why is my result in the positive range? Can you help me see where I calculated it wrong?"

"Tiera, this..."

"Tiera, that..."

“Tiera…”

"Tiera!" Hermione suddenly growled.

"Hmm...hmm?" Tiera, whose attention had been focused on Gilderoy Lockhart, snapped back to reality and leaned back.

"Don't you think...don't you think Professor Lockhart is a little different?" Hermione, sitting behind Tierra, asked quietly.

"Hmm... I guess so." Tiera glanced at Gilderoy Lockhart on the podium and then answered casually.

This was the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class of the new semester, and Gilderoy Lockhart was already standing in the classroom early.

Hermione was right; Gilderoy Lockhart had indeed changed compared to before Christmas.

Although Gilderoy Lockhart still wore his usual frivolous smile.

But every student felt that their Professor Gidrow Lockhart had changed dramatically.

It was a visceral shift in feeling; if Gidlow Lockhart was a clown before Christmas—

Now, Gilderoy Lockhart is like a truly powerful wizard—

His every move exuded powerful confidence and an overwhelming sense of arrogance.

Only Tierra knew—

Gilderoy Lockhart was finally driven mad by Tom Riddle. Tiera witnessed everything that Tom Riddle did during the three weeks of Christmas break, from persuading Gilderoy Lockhart to take the potion he had designed to torment him.

It must be admitted that Tom Riddle is indeed a genius, a genius in every aspect, including but not limited to potions, spells, magical rituals, pyramid schemes, and PUA.

Through a simple yet cruel blood sacrifice ritual and a bowl of magic potion, the utterly useless Gilderoy Lockhart was transformed into a normal wizard in just three weeks of winter break.

"First of all, I want to apologize to everyone here," said Gidlow Lockhart, standing on the podium. "It was my mistake that I was unable to present my best performance to everyone over the past few months."

“As everyone guessed, I was indeed unable to use magic normally before Christmas,” Gilderoy Lockhart said. “Because during my last adventure… as you all know, I was cursed by a vampire. To fight this curse, I had to take a potion that disrupted my magical power, causing my spells to have unexpected effects. It wasn't until this Christmas that I completely broke free of the curse and regained my true strength—”

As he spoke, Gilderoy Lockhart raised his wand, and the students present all habitually lowered their heads—

But nothing happened.

Or rather, nothing out of control happened—

Gilderoy Lockhart summoned a ball of fire from the tip of his staff, which transformed into a fire dragon in mid-air, then into a phoenix, and finally—

It transformed into a sphere that hung in the sky, resembling the sun.

"Look, everyone, this is the magic I used to scare away the vampire at the end of 'Sailing with Vampires,' and I call it the Sun Spell."

Hearing the scattered gasps from below the stage, Gilderoy Lohart grinned with satisfaction.

“Of course, I have to apologize to everyone here. This spell is not the Sun Spell, nor is it a spell I created myself. After all, when you write a novel, you need to exaggerate the plot a bit so that readers will like to read it, right?” After saying that, Gilderoy Lockhart smiled again. “It is actually a simple fire spell combined with a transformation spell to produce the effect. You will learn about this kind of advanced transformation spell that can transform into flames in your fifth-year textbook, ‘Advanced Transfiguration Tutorial I’. I won’t steal Professor McGonagall’s thunder here.”

After saying that, Gilderoy Lockhart smiled again—

“Ti, Tiera…”

Hermione patted Tyella on the back again, and Tyella leaned back slightly.

“Professor Lockhart…” Hermione asked hesitantly, “I have a feeling that something’s wrong with Professor Lockhart… his smile… it’s a little…”

"A little creepy?"

"Yes, you think so too?"

“No,” Tierra denied. “Don’t scare yourself, Hermione. Professor Lockhart looks perfectly normal. It’s just that you haven’t seen him in a while, so you find him a little creepy. You’ll get used to it after seeing him more often.” Tierra said nonchalantly.

Gilderoy Lockhart's smile was not a little creepy—

Gidlowhart's smile was chilling.

That was no longer just a simple, flamboyant, and pretentious smile—

It was a smile tinged with the cruel desire of a wild beast.

Tyella noticed that Gilderoy Lockhart's gaze first swept over Hermione—

But in the end, it happened to him.

Then Tierra's fingers, pressed against the diary, "heard" Tom Riddle say to Gilderoy Lockhart:
"Let's make him the next one."

Thank you Korsi for the 100 points!
Thank you Storm_Yui for the January vote.
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(End of this chapter)