Hogwarts starts with stealing power.

In the prison, Lin Xia finally saw the polluter who had been imprisoned by the professor before.

The Honeydukes clerks and the manager were each held separately, but their cages were linked for easier observation.

Lin Xia's attention was immediately attracted by the manager of Honeydukes store.

At this time, the store manager's appearance was completely different from what he had seen before. Life in prison did not make him thinner.

In just a few days, he had expanded twice!
The whole person is like a balloon that has been punched. He is no longer fat, and his body is growing abnormally.

His eyes were dull, without a trace of light.

Lin Xia occasionally met his gaze, but the store manager did not react at all.

No, to be precise, he seemed to have no reaction to anything happening in the outside world.

Lin Xia deliberately stomped her feet, making a slight noise. Several store clerks in the nearby prison reacted, but the store manager did not turn his head at all. Nothing around him attracted him.

She thought about it and cast a silent and wandless extrasensory spell on herself, amplifying the senses in her eyes.

After careful observation, Lin Xia discovered that the store manager had a black spot on his neck, but most of it was covered by his collar.

However, his nails have turned black, and there is also a hint of black on his fingers, so the overall color of his appearance is grayish.

A person who was originally very fair has his skin color transitioning to gray, and it looks like it will continue to change, gradually turning black.

The black color reminded Lin Xia of the black blood that Bellatrix spat out when she besieged the Ministry of Magic and was later stopped by everyone!

Lin Xia nodded secretly. There was no doubt that the store manager had been infected. There were probably many small black bugs in his body, which had affected his appearance.

Thinking of this, she looked through the observation records here again.

The changes that occur to the store manager every day will be recorded by Hogwarts, and the entire process will be provided with a video.

This video is not an observer's recorded video, but since the store manager was put in prison, he was under surveillance.

Every day, every change in him was recorded on video.

Lin Xia just glanced at the records of other observers and started checking the videos of these days.

She trusts what she sees more than the data recorded by others.

Lin Xia buried her head in the tall basin placed beside her, letting the silvery-white liquid cover her face. The next second, she entered another space.

This space is very similar to the space imagined by the Illusionary Snail, but it is far less comprehensive than what the Illusionary Snail sees.

But it felt very real. Lin Xia could stand directly in front of the store manager. Except for not being able to touch him, she could see all of the store manager's reactions.

As long as she got close enough, she could even see the fine hairs on the store manager's body clearly.

She began to fast-forward the recorded scene, silently observing the changes after the store manager poured it in.

Day 1: I was full of energy and was in a mood to curse God and cry that I was innocent. There was nothing wrong with my body, but my eyes were a little black.

The next day: I woke up after a day's sleep, still in good spirits, but some of my nails had turned gray. I scratched my body unconsciously, not caring even if it left bloody marks. I had lost my sense of pain.

Day 3: The store manager started to lose his hair but still retained consciousness. He cried very sadly and then found that his skin was peeling off and his appetite increased, five times that of a normal person.

Day 4: Eyes turned black, eye sockets turned black, some of the onychomycosis turned black, body shape changed, without drinking water, body began to swell, I felt a little drowsy and didn’t like to talk.

Day 5: He stopped talking at all, his eyes were lifeless, his nails all turned black, he kept scratching his neck, and his body continued to swell.

On the sixth day, the day Lin Xia arrived, she silently repeated in her mind the phenomenon she had just observed.

With a splash, Lin Xia raised her head from the basin, waved the magic wand to dry her hair, and her wet hair and face became fresh again.

Then she waved her feather pen and wrote down what she had observed from her memory, and then compared it one by one with the observer.

Her perspective is different from that of an observer, and she focuses on observing the physical and mental changes of the store manager.

But the observers were more meticulous, and their focus was not on the changes in appearance, but on detecting the concentration of the evil god's whispers.

As expected, with the arrival of each day, the intensity of the evil god's whispers from the store manager increased day by day.

When the mumbling reaches a certain concentration, it will not increase again, but will reach a stable range.

But this does not mean that there is no growth, it's just that the growth rate has slowed down instead of skyrocketing.

Lin Xia wanted to know more specific information about the store manager, so she chose to provoke the manager.

"Lumos!"

Her wand burst out with a fierce and strong light, so bright that it seemed to dispel much of the darkness nearby.

The other shop assistants in the cages all reacted to the bright light, except the store manager, who remained unmoved.

Lin Xia deliberately waved the magic wand in front of his eyes, at the maximum distance that could be reached in the warning. The manager's extremely dark pupils suddenly turned and glanced in the direction of the strong light.

But it was just a glance, and soon there was no reaction.

Lin Xia made a note: I had almost no perception of the light source.

Next, Lin Xia used other methods to conduct tests and found that the process of the store manager becoming a polluter was a process of gradually losing his own senses.

After testing again and again, it turned out that "sound" achieved the best results.

Lin Xia used "Voice like a Bell" to amplify her voice. The store manager was obviously very excited, and the veins on his neck were exposed.

He grabbed the railing with his hands and made a roaring sound, as if he wanted to say something, but he seemed to have lost the ability to speak and could only roar meaninglessly.

Lin Xia looked through the records made by the observer again, and it was said that the store manager had already entered the state of an intermediate polluter the day before yesterday.

What puzzled her was that if the polluters gradually lost their human senses and turned into unresponsive monsters, then why was Bellatrix's performance so advanced?

The store manager's current performance does not show any wisdom at all.

Such polluters are like zombies in science fiction movies. What's so scary about them?

A hint of thought flashed across her eyes. Could it be that entering a state of high pollution would lead to a complete transformation?
But then Lin Xia shook her head again, that's not right.

Many wizards have entered a state of intermediate pollution. They can still communicate with others, but their actions will become extremely extreme.

This reasoning doesn't make sense.

In addition to observing the store manager, Lin Xia also began to observe the store clerks.

The cages where the shop assistants were imprisoned were not like the store manager's, without any protection. Considering that they might not be contaminated, their cages were all placed with strange objects that could expel the evil god's whispers.

It was a seemingly ordinary green plant placed in the prison.

The shop assistants all know that this green plant can save their lives. Unless they have lost their minds, they will protect the plant well and dare not touch it easily.

Because Lin Xia couldn't enter the prison, she couldn't feel the effect of the green plants.

But Lin Xia could clearly feel that when she came outside the prison of several people, her body did not feel hot, which meant that the evil god's mumbling here was almost non-existent.

A total of four employees were detained, two of whom were infected, but they had been taking cooling pills so they were able to stay sane.

The other two shop assistants were completely uninfected, and their conditions were obviously better than the one who took the cold pills.

But primary infection can be controlled by cold pills, and can even be expelled, so although the four shop assistants are very scared when they are imprisoned here, they are not in a very depressed state.

"Save me, save me, when can I leave this damn place?!"

Seeing Lin Xia coming over, some shop assistants rushed to the railing to ask for help.

Lin Xia said: "As long as we confirm that you are not infected or not in danger, Hogwarts will let you go."

"Now, please answer a few questions for me."

The questions Lin Xia asked were very simple, such as if there was anything wrong with their body in the past few days, if they felt unwell anywhere, what noises they heard the store manager make, if they heard any other strange noises in prison, etc.

The store employees' symptoms were so mild that observers did not record their conditions.

However, all the store employees had seen the observers, and said that sometimes the observers would go into the prison in person to check on the store manager.

Lin Xia was surprised by this. Could it be that there was another person who could completely resist the evil god's whispers? Was he so brave?

As for the rest, it was pretty much as she expected.

They heard all the mumblings of the store manager when he was first locked up, and they would even agree with him.

But the store manager has been noticeably quieter in the past two days, not saying a word all day, which has made them very worried.

In addition, every night, some strange wailing sounds could be heard from deep within the prison. Every time they heard those sounds, they felt uncomfortable and trembled.

One clerk said: "I only feel at ease when I am close to green plants."

Another shop assistant also said: "When I'm too scared, I will hug the green plants and dare not fall asleep for fear of having nightmares."

Everyone works at Hogsmeade, and they are all wizards, not ordinary people.

Naturally, we know that the wizarding world has many ways to kill people, especially the evil god's whispering, which can invade people when they are not prepared, which means it is very likely to invade them in their sleep.

Whenever they heard the wailing, they were afraid to even sleep.

Lin Xia wrote down some of the key points they said. She vaguely felt that the performance of these people after being infected by the evil god's whispers was different from those elite wizards who were infected.

After she had fully understood the situation, Lin Xia was ready to leave the prison.

Before leaving, she didn't know what she thought of, her mind moved slightly, she stopped, and stood in front of the store manager's prison.

She suddenly had an idea. Since the evil god's whispers were so strong in this place, wasn't it a ready-made place for training?
It just so happened that her skills could absorb the evil god's whispers. It would be difficult to come into contact with these while staying in Hogwarts, so she might as well take this opportunity to absorb a large amount.
-
On the other side, Harry and Ron had arrived at Professor McGonagall's office.

Harry stood outside the door and knocked a few times, "Professor, I have something to talk to you about. Can we come in... Professor? Professor!"

After waiting for a long time, there was no movement from inside.

Ron folded his arms and leaned against the wall, shrugging helplessly, "I just said the professor is not here right now?"

Harry thought for a moment and said, "Ron, I've been thinking about this question for a long time, but I still want to wait for the professor's answer. I want to go in and wait for the professor. What about you?"

"Ah?" Ron's face immediately fell. He wanted to go somewhere else to have a look.

Harry took the opportunity to suggest: "How about this, you go to Professor Lupin's office to see if he is there, if he is, ask questions, if not, then come back to see me.

I won't wait too long. If Professor McGonagall doesn't come back within half an hour, I won't wait any longer and we can go somewhere else."

Ron immediately agreed: "Okay!"

After Ron left, Harry took a deep breath, opened the office door and walked in.

What came into view was a tidy office. Professor McGonagall's office was stacked with many books. The desk was very large and was filled with densely packed documents and students' homework.

On the desk, Harry also saw many quills.

He subconsciously came to the position where the professor was sitting. Behind the chair was a huge floor-to-ceiling window. It was snowing heavily outside the window, and the window was a little blurry.

Through this window, Harry could vaguely see the Quidditch field in the distance, and some little warriors playing outdoors. Even the severe cold could not stop their enthusiasm for Quidditch.

Harry wiped the window and was able to see a little more clearly. Suddenly he saw a person and immediately turned around, feeling nervous as if he had been caught doing something bad.

Damn it, he actually saw Captain Wood!
They are going to play a match with Ravenclaw this weekend, and Captain Wood is personally leading the team in intensive training.

But because the weather was so cold, the team members basically delayed as much as possible and always found ways not to go or to sneak away.

Harry deliberately asked for leave today. He asked another teammate to bring the leave to the captain because he was afraid of seeing the disappointed look of Captain Wood.

Unexpectedly, I couldn't escape after all and still saw Wood.

Out of a strong sense of guilt in his heart, Harry had no intention of looking around the professor's office. He glanced around and hastily placed the egg of the Snail of Illusion in the gap of a bookshelf.

This location is quite convenient. If I come to ask questions in the future, I will pass by this bookshelf and can easily retrieve the snail to check the records.

At the same time, it is placed in a gap, and most people will not touch the gap when picking up books, which reduces the risk of being discovered.

After putting it away, Harry had no intention of staying and left the office quickly, feeling a little guilty.

He went to see Ron at Professor Lupin's.

Ron was lucky, as he happened to meet Professor Lupin coming back from outside, so Ron simply stayed to ask questions.

When Harry walked over, Ron was still talking to the professor about how it felt when he used the Patronus Charm.

Ron emphasized: "Professor, I just want to share my feelings with you so that you can have experience next time you teach others."

Professor Lupin looked at him quietly with his melancholy eyes. "Thank you for your kindness. Perhaps you could be more concise. You have repeated that sentence three times." (End of this chapter)