The Pacifist Necromancer of Hogwarts

Chapter 351 Storm

Perhaps because of his awkward posture, Anthony did not sleep well that night. He woke up several times, but he could not muster the energy to grab a pillow for himself or move his feet to the bed. When the wind whistled through the window, he turned over in a daze, but the sideways posture was even more weird, so he turned himself back.

What's that word called...lumbar record...lumbar plate...

He dreamed that he was sitting on a small boat with his legs tucked in, sailing in the dark. The cabin was small, there were no lights, and the wooden seats creaked. Anthony wanted to ask the person next to him where they were going, but when he turned his head, he suddenly saw a huge turban wrapped around the other person's head. That was Professor Quirrell. He tried to greet him with some surprise, but Professor Quirrell never answered... He asked Professor Quirrell if he knew where they were going, and Professor Quirrell suddenly burst into a nervous laugh: "You know." He was confused and a little frustrated, so he had to ask them if they were going to Azkaban together. Professor Quirrell didn't answer him again, but the cabin suddenly became bigger. Many people were sitting around him. The person in the front row turned his head and said, "You know."

White light... rumbling sound...

The lights suddenly turned on. The people sitting on the boat were all people he knew. Neighbors in the community, former classmates and friends, customers he was familiar with when he was a cashier, colleagues and students at Hogwarts... The person who turned his head and looked at him was Mr. Wright. Next to Mr. Wright sat Snape. He turned around and saw Umbridge and Dumbledore sitting behind him.

Another flash of white light… and suddenly a tearing pain came from his neck.

Anthony opened his eyes suddenly. He finally understood. These were the people he had eaten.

……

"Honestly, cat, neck?" Anthony asked, standing in the bathroom mirror and looking at his slowly healing wound.

The Skeleton Cat ignored him. The Wrathful Chicken stood beside the sink, craning his neck, watching Anthony move closer to the mirror.

Anthony looked up and commented, "It must have been tough for Nick."

The ghost chicken jumped onto the towel rack where the towels were hung, flapping its wings to try to keep itself balanced. Anthony withdrew his gaze from the mirror and helped the chicken before it fell over with the towels in its grasp. The bathroom light was on, but the bedroom outside was still pitch black, with only the occasional flash of white lightning piercing through the gap between the curtains and the window, casting long, flickering shadows on the ground from all the furniture in the abrupt light.

Anthony walked out of the bathroom and saw the cat lying on its quilt, swishing its tail. The soul fire in its eye sockets was burning and flickering, reflecting the two pieces of bone on its front paws. Amid the rumbling thunder, the rain was banging against the glass, as if trying to break in through the window.

Anthony sat down beside the bed and reached out to touch the cat, but the cat turned its back and left its skull to him.

"Thanks, Kitty."

The cat slowed down the frequency of its tail swishing, still turning its face away.

"Thanks for reminding me not to have a good appetite," Anthony said, gently scratching the cat bone with his index finger.

The nightmare was fading away, but his stomach was still twisted in a knot, as if it was still in the dream, feeling a different gravity than the outside world. The feeling of weightlessness, he thought, was like being on a boat going down a waterfall... The river slid down the cliff and became a waterfall, and all the boats capsized with it, like cereal mixed with milk sliding into the stomach...

The cat turned over impatiently and dodged his fingers.

Anthony laughed, stood up, pushed the quilt into a heap, wrapped the cat in it, and hugged the quilt.

The cat struggled furiously—Anthony thought he heard the cloth tear—then it darted out and leaped onto the wardrobe, rattling the skeleton. The next moment the wardrobe collapsed and the cat fell on him, opening its mouth in anger—the skeleton's jaws were really flexible—

Suddenly, an alarm bell rang in Anthony's mind.

The ghost chicken rushed over, grabbed the skeleton cat's spine with its claws, and defensively pulled it away from Anthony. Under inertia, they fell back into the pile of tattered cloth. The sound of flapping wings, the sound of bones colliding, the sound of scratching... The ghost with messy feathers and the embarrassed skeleton rolled into a ball. Anthony quickly stood up to make room for them.

More quilt rips. The sheets were torn. Some cotton was hooked out of the mattress (the evil mouse took the cotton that floated to the ground back to the cat's bed). The mattress slid to the ground with a thump. The chickens and cats fought loudly. The wind and rain raged outside the window.

Anthony stood in the middle of the room and looked around.

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked the evil rat that was crawling across his feet.

The mouse hesitated for a moment. Boom, the cat and the chicken rolled off the bed together.

"Squeak." The ghost mouse raised his nose and agreed. ...

Purple-white forked lightning flashed from the dense dark clouds from time to time, tearing the sky apart and suddenly illuminating the dim corridor. Bean-sized raindrops hit the windows with a crackling sound, seeping in through the window cracks, winding down along the stone bricks, soaking every brick seam in the corridor wet and cold.

The wraith mouse stood on Anthony's shoulder, its claws tightly grasping his collar, twitching its nose, sniffing the accumulated smell of summer rain in the air. Anthony vaguely heard a few portraits whispering about rain and mold, but when his clattering footsteps approached, the portraits stopped talking alertly, as if it was some shameful topic.

Just as he was about to quietly bypass the portraits pretending to sleep, Anthony suddenly heard intermittent voices, but when he carefully identified them, he could only hear endless rain and thunder. Just as he suspected that he had heard it wrong, the evil spirit mouse suddenly jumped to the ground, stood up, shook its whiskers and looked around for a while, then squeaked softly, dropped its front legs, and ran quickly towards the stairs.

"Hey!" Anthony whispered to it, "I'm not that curious, okay?"

The mouse turned its head at the top of the stairs and looked at him, then continued running forward and soon disappeared into the darkness. Anthony quickly followed it, following its figure as it climbed the stairs nimbly, wondering where their destination would be.

When they got closer, Anthony realized that it was not intermittent talking, but a muted argument.

The mouse crouched at the corner of the stairs, looking expectantly at the door. Anthony waited with it for a while in confusion, watching a dozen tomatoes line up and jump in.

The quarreling sound was getting closer: "You will make us lose points in the school! You know that everyone is against us now-"

"Well, so why did you follow me? All you had to do was pretend you didn't know—"

"And then you'll tell everyone I made you do it, right? You freak! I've got it...if you get caught, you'll try to put all the deductions on me, just like Anthony did that time!"

The evil rat quickly snatched a tomato. The tomato kicked and struggled violently. Anthony quickly picked up the rat and put it in his pocket (along with the tomato), and cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself. The noise in the corridor stopped and it was quiet for a while.

"What happened?" Pansy Parkinson asked in a low, trembling voice. "Your tomatoes, what happened to them?"

After a while, Tracy Davis said, "It could be a rat or a snake." She paused, "If you keep making such a fuss, you might call Mrs. Norris over."

The tomato team, having lost their companions, continued to march upstairs with brisk steps, unaffected. When they came to a high step, the tomatoes piled up in pairs and climbed up the steps with some shaky, clumsy acrobatic skills, leaving only a single tomato banging its head against the stairs. The mouse poked its head out eagerly, but Anthony reached out and rubbed its head, then pushed it back into his pocket.

Pansy seemed relieved, and her voice became confident again: "I know what you want to do, Davis. You want to go find that bastard brother of yours." She even sounded a little complacent.

"Hey, Mrs. Norris!" Tracy shouted. "Mr. Filch! Peeves! Myrtle -"

Her voice was suddenly muffled, and then Anthony heard something fall heavily to the ground. The two Slytherins seemed to be fighting outside the door. Lightning.

"Stand still!" Tracy whispered clearly.

"Davis!" Pansy gasped shrilly.

"You're dumber than I thought you could be," Tracy whispered sarcastically, almost drowned out by the rumble of thunder. "Is this what your pureblood family taught you? Covering someone's mouth? With your hands? And you claim that purebloods are somehow the more magical wizards?"

"And you think your inferior brother still cares about you?" Pansy retorted, "The descendants of those Muggle lovers who betrayed magic, of course, also have blood that is good at betrayal -"

Tracy said nothing.

"Do you think he cares how many Gryffindors tried to turn the Investigative Team badge into dung balls, or how many people secretly tripped us up? You know he's just friends with those people. Ha, maybe he's one of the planners! Madam Umbridge left, and poor Tracy went crying to her brother - do you really think he'll accept you?"

"You can say whatever you want," Tracy said, and she cast another spell. Several tomatoes came bounding back from Anthony and the mouse and began tap-dancing outside the door, making some noise.

"Good night, Pansy," Tracy said softly. "Good luck to you."

(End of this chapter)