A broken Hogwarts

While we were having dinner in the auditorium, it was already raining heavily outside. The enchanted ceiling reflects the sky outside the castle, and the low and thick clouds hide flickering lightning.

Several people who had swapped bodies in the morning have returned to their original forms one after another. The Weasley twins were teased by their friends around them, and the sounds of booing came across the two long tables.

"...That's enough, I'm George! This matter has nothing to do with me!"

"Don't listen to him, I am George! Just wait and see, maybe you will be lucky enough to see Fred wearing a short skirt tonight..."

Owen cut the steak on the plate into neat little cubes with graceful and precise movements, listening to the fragments of conversation that reached his ears from time to time. Only then did he learn that several more body swapping incidents had occurred this afternoon.

Some of the people involved have already been admitted to the campus hospital, and several same-sex friends who had swapped bodies appeared in the auditorium with great interest, using various methods to prove this weird and novel thing to their friends, which attracted a lot of attention. There were bursts of exclamations.

Some people find this very novel and interesting, while others feel uneasy, fearing that this will happen to them. It's not harmful, but it's embarrassing.

"It's quite frequent. I'm really worried about the world being in chaos when facing the wall space." Owen thought with his eyes empty, "What will be the source this time? The thin red line connecting each other? Or will it be a hidden person? A spool of yarn or a ball of yarn somewhere?”

"Well, you can ask the cats and cats to help you pay attention. Anyway, they usually like to run around." He forked a piece of steak and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing it. The fragrant juice exploded in his mouth, making him squint with satisfaction. He opened his eyes and said, "Well, there are also ghosts..."

However, he always felt that the red thread that didn't seem to exist in reality might not be so easy to find. Maybe he would have to undergo a body swap himself to find the source, just like the last emotional infection incident.

But body swapping or something... is still a bit uncomfortable as expected.

Midway through, Madam Pomfrey hurried over and announced to everyone some findings about the body swap incident.

"There is no doubt that the cause of these accidents is a red thread." She frowned slightly and said, "It does not exist in reality and is easily ignored..."

"When one person has some strong emotion towards another person, that red line may be drawn." Ms. Pomfrey said slowly, "Whether it is love, hate, anger or admiration, as long as the emotion is intense enough, Half of the conditions are met..."

Some of the little wizards began to become restless, looking at each other furtively, and many of them secretly blushed. Harry almost spit out the juice in his mouth. He suddenly felt that he was in danger, and Draco moved around uncomfortably.

"Of course, for body swapping to occur, another person needs to think about you at the same time." Ms. Pomfrey said in a gentle voice, which made many people breathe a sigh of relief, "But this part does not require strong emotions. As long as you think about it, even if it is just a passing thought, you may meet the conditions.”

As soon as the words fell, some people's expressions became solemn again. Blaise looked around vigilantly, as if everyone was paying attention to his body. Daphne buried her head low, and her smooth forehead turned a light pink.

"But don't worry too much. I found that this situation only seems to happen when the distance between two people is far enough." Madam Pomfrey comforted her softly, "That is to say, when you are face to face, or can When you see each other, you don’t have to worry about this happening..."

"At present, we have not found any measures to prevent this situation. Fortunately, it has not shown too much harm. So far, the body swap time does not exceed twelve hours at most."

"If this kind of thing happens to you, you can go to the campus hospital to find me. I have perfect methods to protect everyone's privacy. You can even choose to have a good sleep in the campus hospital. When you wake up, everything will be fine. It's in the past."

"We still don't know what triggered the series of events that happened in Hogwarts." Ms. Pomfrey glanced at everyone and her expression became serious. "If anyone finds anything suspicious, they must Remember to report it to the professors, as it may contain immeasurable dangers."

Owen nodded confidently, showing no sign of guilt.

Madam Pomfrey quickly left in a hurry and the Great Hall became noisy again with everyone talking loudly about the incident. Some young wizards who felt they were very popular sighed, feeling that the days ahead were going to be miserable.

Dinner ended in a commotion, and Owen returned to the common room with his friends. Harry and Draco walked together into the wind and rain outside. They were going to participate in today's Quidditch training. Along the way, Draco could be heard complaining about the damn weather.

But they were willing, and the cold wind and rain could not stop their love for Quidditch. Owen, who could not understand the charm of this kind of movement in any case, just pitied them for half a second, and then curled up comfortably in the warm armchair in front of the fireplace, holding Melete in his arms and playing lazily. Doze off for a while.

The common room soon became very lively. The little wizards gathered in front of the bulletin board and pointed at a newly posted notice and murmured excitedly. A wave of excitement spread quickly.

"At the end of October, before Halloween, I went to Hogsmeade Village to spend the weekend for the first time!" Blaise said enthusiastically. "I have wanted to go to Zuko's Joke Shop for a long time, but I have never had the chance to go there before..."

"I've been there twice, with my family. Honeydukes' candies are novel, interesting and diverse. It's the best candy store I've ever been to." Daphne curled her golden hair and held her cheek with one hand. After learning that body-swapping incidents are not that easy to happen, she became much more relaxed and natural.

Owen's eyes narrowed in disinterest, his head moving bit by bit. In fact, he didn't find Hogsmeade very interesting at all. There were no amusement parks, TVs and movies, and there were no novel magic tricks to inspire him. The lack of entertainment activities for wizards made him so bored that he almost grew grass. .

"Actually, I tried divination in the divination class yesterday." He closed his eyes and yawned, and the cat on his lap also yawned at the same time. The expressions of the two guys were in sync, " If you go to Hogsmeade, something bad might happen..."

As he spoke, he raised his right hand and quickly wiped it on his face. When he put his hand down, there was already a tarot card in his lips. One corner of the tarot card was gently bitten by two neat white front teeth. The top of the dark tower in the card was burning with blazing flames, which contrasted sharply with Owen's cold white skin.

"Come on, I didn't know you had the gift of prophecy, Owen." Blaise spread his hands, "You are the person Trelawney emphatically named as someone who has no 'halo'... and someone whose life is in danger."

He rolled his eyes, clearly not believing this at all.

"Professor Trelawney's prediction seems to be quite accurate." Owen held the cards in his mouth between his fingers and said seriously. At least he and Harry were both in danger, although the "ominous" shadow came to find him, not Harry as Trelawny said.

He quickly turned over the tarot cards in his hand, hooked his fingers slightly, and pulled out a piece of black cloth from the cards. He opened the black cloth with a smile, and a bouquet of brilliant white roses appeared in his hand, with the delicate petals trembling gently on the branches.

Owen winked mischievously at Daphne, who was looking at him blankly. The little witch's cheeks turned red for no reason, her eyes flashed and she suddenly turned her head, making people couldn't help but worry about her long and slender neck. It will break.

"Tsk, Daphne is always inexplicable today." Blaise snorted lightly, took the rose from Owen's hand, and quickly pressed the stamen on Melete's nose.

After avoiding the cat's claws with quick eyes and quick hands, he grinned proudly and watched Melete sneezing due to being choked by pollen.

The stone walls of the common room slid open, letting in clammy moisture, and a group of Quidditch players returned soaked to the skin. Harry skillfully waved his wand to clean away the water stains on his body, then ran stiffly to the fireplace, sat in the armchair next to Owen and warmed himself shiveringly.

Draco also came over, and the two little wizards were trembling and huddled together, their faces green and white, looking like two pitiful quails.

"Hey! End of October, Hogsmeade!" Blaise said concisely when they calmed down.

"Great! I want to go to the Three Broomsticks and have a butterbeer," Draco said, nibbling on a chocolate bar.

"I'm not going to go." Harry said feeling a little depressed. Although he had always looked forward to going to Hogsmeade, he knew that leaving Hogwarts would only cause trouble for the professors and bring danger to his classmates.

"Oh -" Draco drawled, looking at him as if he were looking at a poor crying child, "Don't expect me to bring you candy."

Harry forced a smile. He looked at the time, stood up and said, "I have to go find Sirius. I have an appointment with him today."

After saying that, he waved his hand and walked out in a hurry.

"Harry is also very busy during this period." Blaise raised his eyebrows and glanced at Owen again.

Owen smiled and said nothing, and took out a large roll of parchment, controlled his quill and started writing the Potions homework.

Time passed quietly, and when the night got darker, Owen put away his homework, carried his schoolbag and returned to the empty dormitory, saying hello to Nicks who was resting on a perch.

Then he took out the time turner hanging from his collar and spun it four times expertly, feeling like he was flying backwards and returned to four hours ago. It was still dinner time.

Owen walked out of the dormitory. There was no one in the lounge. He walked through the stone wall and rushed towards the Room of Requirement.

This is the inconvenience of using a time converter. There will be two of them in the same time period. You must pay attention to avoid them and stay in different places, otherwise it is easy to cause problems.

He entered the wall-facing space in the Room of Requirement, thinking about how to improve the Shadow Vengeance Curse, and decided to start with the soul. After researching the soul version of the coma spell, he has gained a lot of experience and insights about it through repeated failures and dangers.

While Owen was writing furiously in the wall space, Harry knocked on the door of Sirius' office.

After entering the office, Harry looked around with a complicated expression. He had entered this office many times last year. At that time, he thought Peter Pettigrew was a hero. This room was always filled with all kinds of clutter, and the sultry air was always filled with the sweet smell of biscuits...

Now the office has completely changed its appearance, becoming clean and empty. The surrounding decoration is simple and casual, and there are paintings on the walls. It looks more like a home. There was a roaring fire in the fireplace, and the air was warm and dry, not dull at all.

Sirius, who was grading students' homework, stood up with a bandage around his neck. He waved to Harry and pointed to a large black wardrobe standing next to the door.

"There's a Boggart hidden inside." Sirius smiled quickly, his eyes flashing brightly, "Are you ready for the chase, Harry?"

Harry nervously pulled out his wand, swallowed, and nodded: "Ready."

As soon as he finished speaking, Sirius opened the cabinet door and turned his head to smile narrowly at him. Harry's breath hitched as he saw a gleaming, rotten, slippery hand sticking out of the cabinet, followed by a hooded head. Along with the grunting sound of breathing, a chill that penetrated into the bone marrow enveloped him.

"Guard!" Harry shouted.

The practice didn't go well at the beginning. Harry fainted twice and was stuffed with chocolate by Sirius. When he began to deliberately reject the influence of the Dementors, the rest became much smoother. After all, he had mastered the Patronus Charm early and was soon able to summon the white mist to stop the Dementors.

By the end, Harry felt that he was almost able to summon the complete Patronus, but Sirius persisted until this point, so he stopped.

"It doesn't look like it will take long." Sirius drove the Boggart back to the closet, smiled in appreciation, and handed over another chocolate frog.

Harry took small bites of the chocolate frog's legs, and his mouth was filled with a sweet taste. He felt like he had never eaten more chocolate in his life than tonight.

He helped Sirius correct his homework for a while, and asked questions about Animagus with interest, and learned a lot of things to note from Sirius.

"...If I learn Animagus, what animal will I turn into?" Harry looked at his hands, imagining them turning into animal paws or paws. "Your patron saint is a stag, right? Just like your father." Sirius showed a gentle and nostalgic smile, but also a little sad and lonely, "Then your Animagus form should also be a stag. Stag.”

"Is that so?" Harry was fascinated for a moment, and then his face fell. If it was such a conspicuous animal, it wouldn't be as useful as he thought.

"Are the Animagus and the Patronus necessarily the same?" he asked reluctantly.

"Well, most of them are the same, but there are also some that are different." Sirius pondered for a while, "But the form of the patron saint itself is the animal form that best suits you. It will be much smoother and safer if you change in this direction. .”

Harry's eyes lit up: "So, can a wizard influence his Animagus form with his will?"

"Normally speaking, it's uncontrollable..." Sirius frowned, "But it's hard to say."

"When your father and I were learning Animagus together, we hadn't learned the Patronus Charm yet, but our transformed forms instinctively moved closer to the Patronus." He said slowly, "But while we were learning During the process, James and I kept thinking about turning into larger animals, and the animals we turned into were all very large."

"Normally, a dog wouldn't be that big, would it?"

"And Peter Pettigrew..." Sirius showed disgust at the mention of this name, "He had always wanted to become a small animal, but he turned into a mouse."

"I don't know if there is some kind of mutual influence between Animagus and the Patronus, but I think the wizard's will does have a certain influence on his Animagus form." Speaking of which, He shook his head, "But there are too few recorded Animagus, so it's difficult to summarize universal rules."

He suddenly turned to stare at Harry and asked, "You ask me these questions because you want to learn from Animagus?"

"Ah...this, I think is quite useful..." Harry felt guilty for a moment, and then quickly admitted.

"I don't encourage you to learn this, Harry." Sirius put his elbows on the table, crossed his fingers in front of him, and said seriously.

"But, you just learned..." Harry said unconvinced.

"But it's dangerous. I still feel scared when I think about my recklessness." Sirius stared at him closely, then sighed and leaned back on the chair, "Okay, I admit that I was I have some experience in this aspect, and it can provide you with some protection during the final transformation. After all, Peter Pettigrew successfully mastered it with our full help..."

He sneered, and then frowned his handsome eyebrows: "But the danger of the Animagus does not end there, Harry. A large part of its danger comes from ordinary times."

"You know, Animagus learning usually lasts for months or even years. In addition to the weather, it's more because people tend to forget the steps they need to adhere to every day." He stared at Harry seriously. Eyes, "For example, for a period of time, you need to insist on chanting a spell to yourself at sunrise and sunset every day..."

"Once you forget once or miss the time, you have to start over. But that's the best case scenario..."

"If you ignore a certain time, fail to discover it yourself, and still follow the original steps..." Sirius spread his hands, but his expression was very heavy, "It is conceivable that the final result will inevitably fail, and even terrible things will happen. Mutation. At that time, you didn’t even know how you failed.”

Harry frowned, wondering how to avoid this. But it seems that I can only rely on my own care and caution.

"At this point, it's hard for me to help." Sirius said in a low voice. "From this perspective, it will be easier for several people to learn Animagus together. Because they can remind each other, What one person forgets easily, a group of people will never forget."

Harry nodded thoughtfully, wondering if he should invite his friends to learn Animagus together?

He started taking stock of suitable candidates in his mind.

Draco? Come on. Thinking of his attempts to commit suicide in the Care of Magical Creatures class, Harry had no doubt that this guy would hold him back like crazy.

Blaise? no. He is not an ordinary sloppy person, he is someone who can forget to write his name on his homework time and time again.

Neville? Forget it, his memory is not as good as mine. And it’s best to choose someone from the same college.

Daphne? No, no. It’s so inconvenient to remind each other with girls.

Crabbe and Goyle... uh, excuse me.

Sure enough, the best candidate is Owen, but Owen has made it clear that he is not interested in Animagus. Harry sighed.

He couldn't help but wonder why Owen wasn't really a cat? Then he can learn from Hagrid and bribe him with some catnip.

The two ended the topic of Animagus in tacit agreement. It was close to curfew time before Harry said goodbye to Sirius.

……

Owen walked out of the door of the Room of Requirement somewhat sleepily, and walked back along the dark and long corridor, lazily thinking in his mind that it would be great if Nyx would be willing to be a means of transportation.

The underground city is always damp and cold, and the stone walls on both sides of the corridor are also slippery, glowing with a faint green color under the sparse candlelight. The surroundings are very quiet, even the subtle crackling sound of candlelight can be clearly heard. The forks on both sides of the corridor are even darker, like the entrance to a ghost, making people can't help but wonder if there is something scary. Come out from inside.

Owen walked through the corridors without feeling the slightest fear. His footsteps echoed hollowly around him, as if there were several more people following him behind him.

In this unsettling atmosphere, there was a slight rustling sound in the echo of footsteps, as if someone was walking on their feet. Owen turned around abruptly, raised the wand that had appeared in his hand at some point, and pointed it behind him.

"Don't do it! It's me!" Harry took off the invisibility cloak and his figure emerged in the air.

"Don't do this kind of thing in the future, you'll get beaten easily." Owen said with a half-smile, turned around and continued walking forward, playing with his wand in his hand.

The two walked side by side for a while, and Harry suddenly asked: "Owen, do you really not want to learn from Animagus?"

Owen paused, turned his head and said, "I don't want to." Even so, he still felt like a kitten was scratching his heart. But the learning process of Animagus is really unbearable, and now he needs to use the time turner frequently, so he can't learn at all.

After seeing Owen's reaction, Harry felt happy. He was moved!

"Sirius said that if anyone could learn the Animagus with me, he would be willing to teach us." Harry said seductively.

Owen rolled his eyes at him. Is he someone who cares about such a thing?

Looking at Harry's increasingly frustrated look, Owen said slowly, "I'm in a special situation recently and can't learn from Animagus."

Harry blinked and suddenly his eyes lit up: "Because of the clone technique?"

"Huh?" Owen tilted his head.

"Except for the clone technique, how could you allow yourself to appear in two classrooms at the same time? I've noticed it!" Harry waved his hand carelessly, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"...Oh." Owen closed his mouth.

"So, when the time is right, will you learn it?" Harry asked again.

"Maybe." Owen struggled for a moment.

"Then I'll wait for you." Harry said happily.

Owen said nothing, looking deeply ahead, listening to Harry chattering in his ear about tonight's Patronus Charm practice: "I think we can let the people in the study group practice on the Boggart... Oops, No, it’s not necessarily Dementors they’re afraid of…”

After talking for a while, Harry became dejected again: "Owen, Sirius said that Professor Snape was once a Death Eater and told me to stay away from him..."

"Then what do you think?" Owen glanced at him lightly.

"I...I don't know..." Harry said dully, looking very confused, "I think the dean is not a bad person. He has protected us several times, and Dumbledore also believes in him. But I can't tell the difference. clear……"

"Dumbledore or Sirius, whose judgment do you trust more?" Owen asked softly, his voice like the whisper of the breeze in the long corridor.

Harry opened his mouth. He believed everyone, but in this matter, he was more inclined to Dumbledore. He felt that Sirius had deep-seated prejudice and hatred for Professor Snape, which would obviously affect his judgment...but in this case, he felt sorry for Sirius.

"I don't know." He finally said, giving up on himself.

"Then are you willing to believe Professor Snape?" Owen's voice was still light.

"Yes," said Harry.

"Then it's two to one, why are you still struggling?" Owen said with a smile.

Harry was stunned for a while before he realized what Owen meant. He exhaled angrily and amusedly, but his mood became lighter.

He said dumbfounded: "You have always been on Professor Snape's side, right?"

Owen let out a slight "hum".

Harry breathed out heavily again: "It doesn't matter so much. Professor Snape has never harmed me anyway, and Dumbledore is always willing to believe him, so what should I worry about?"

After figuring this out, he became energetic again.

Owen glanced at this stubborn guy and shook his head slightly in amusement, but his mood became inexplicably lighter. (End of chapter)