From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 315 Hidden History
"So, the person you don't want to see is actually Ivy?" Harry asked, turning his head to look at the stairs that were gradually disappearing behind him.

Hearing this, Ariana, who was pushing them forward, stopped and turned back to check if Ivy had caught up.

She was greatly relieved to see that the people coming in from the stairs were just other unfamiliar Slytherin students.

"Yes, it's the Demon King of Destruction." Ariana nodded vigorously.

"Wait, Ariana...what did you call him?" Hermione asked curiously.

"The Lord of Destruction!" Ron grinned. "You know what, it's pretty cool."

"Cool?" Ariana asked back. "Don't you think he's scary?"

The trio shook their heads in unison.

Ron said: "I think Ivy can be described as humorous, steady and reliable."

"And so knowledgeable," Hermione added, "it's like he's read every book in the library!"

"The most important thing is the magic power!" Harry said finally. "I don't know what magic can't do in his hands."

“No, no, no!” Ariana crossed her hands in front of her chest. “You have to believe me, he is really a scary guy!”

The trio looked at each other and then burst into laughter.

"Okay, Ariana, even if you say Ivy is a terrible person, there must be some evidence, right?" Ron asked, "What did he do to make you feel terrible?"

"He... threw a huge pile of exercises and textbooks to Albus and asked him to tutor me during the summer vacation!" Ariana prescribed the right remedy.

"Oh - that's really horrible." Ron shuddered at the thought, but he immediately cheered up. "But he gave us tickets to the Quidditch World Cup during the summer vacation! And they're in the VIP box!"

"He also separated me from my best friend! And he even wanted to destroy it!" Ariana accused loudly.

"Your best friend?" Hermione asked. "You used 'it' as a pronoun, so a pet? But Ivy helped me find two good friends by sticking a smelly troll on the wall... From this perspective, he can be quite scary sometimes..."

"Right?" Ariana nodded in sympathy. As for Hermione's mention of Ivy's help to her, it was completely out of her consideration. "The Lord of Destruction is a cold-blooded and ruthless guy! I begged him so hard, but he didn't waver at all!"

This description reminded Harry of the Quidditch match he had with Ivy in his first year. No matter how hard Harry tried to irritate him, Ivy remained unmoved and simply completed his pre-match tactical settings efficiently and accurately. Harry's reckless behavior failed to catch the Golden Snitch, but instead put himself in danger.

Harry shook his head and asked, "So, why did Ivy do those things to you?"

This question made Ariana wilted immediately. She said hesitantly, "Well, it was to treat me. Because of a serious illness, I couldn't come to school, and Albus called him to help... Although I am indeed in Hogwarts now, don't think that I will be grateful to him! Because he caused indelible damage to me! Mental damage!"

"But as a result, you've become healthy," Ron pointed out. "At least Professor Dumbledore doesn't have to worry about you anymore."

"Albus? Humph." Ariana wrinkled her nose. "Let me give you some advice. If you accidentally get sick one day, it's best to go to the school hospital to find Madam Pomfrey, or Mrs. White downstairs. Don't go to the Lord of Destruction! He will definitely use you to do some unspeakable magical experiments!"

"Ivy does like to study all kinds of new magic, and this is indeed a piece of advice. But at least he will tell you clearly in advance." Hermione nodded in acknowledgment, and then asked about Ariana's treatment process, "By the way...what about your best friend? The one who was asked to separate? Is this also some kind of treatment method of Ivy? Or is your friend a stuffed toy? Like a teddy bear?"

"No!" Ariana denied hastily as if she was insulted, "I'm not a girl who likes to sleep with a stuffed animal!"

The trio stared at her with suspicion.

"Okay, okay. Anyway, it's no big deal to let you see it, right?" Ariana stood in the stairwell and looked around for a while, but other students often passed by. "I think we should find a quieter place... so that you can see my best friend!"

"What Hogwarts lacks the most is empty classrooms," said Harry. "There are many empty rooms near the Potions classroom, and most of them are filled with miscellaneous items, such as iron cages."

The four men then emerged into a room filled with crates and canvas.

Ariana closed the door behind her and took out a small bottle mysteriously: "Come and meet my best friend - Albella!"

The air was very quiet, because the thing in the bottle reminded Harry and the other two of what was in Neville's cauldron in the Potions class. They couldn't help but step back because the slurry was still tumbling and bubbling. Usually the next step would be to burn through the crucible, or emit a lot of pungent gas, or there would be an explosion.

Hermione's reaction was the most serious, hiding her body behind Ron and Harry, who were growing taller rapidly. In fact, Hermione had always thought that Ariana was a cute girl who liked furry animals, or at least a guy who liked magical animals, but the thing in her hand made Hermione find countless possible explanations in her mind, and in the end she could only attribute it to the quirk of wizards.

"Uh..." Ron, who came from a pure-blood wizard family, didn't expect Ariana to take out a bottle that looked like the product of a failed potion brewing. "So your best friend is a ball of mud?"

"Of course it's not mud!" Ariana denied it and encouraged the small bottle in her hand, "Albella! Come on! Show them your skills! Let them see how powerful you are!"

As soon as she finished her words, the viscous slurry in the small bottle began to surge even more violently.

With a "pop" sound, the cork on the bottle was knocked off and black mud continued to flow out, soon leaving the room full of debris with no place to stand.

Fearing that their shoes would be corroded, the trio had to stand on the crates. Neville's potions often left ugly holes on the table, so their worries were not unnecessary.

Looking at the embarrassed look of the trio, Ariana laughed: "Alright, alright! Stop scaring them!" The dark mud then stopped its endless spreading and condensed into a ball, then bulged high and turned into a human-like shape.

"Oh! This is amazing!" Ron exclaimed. "Hermione, what kind of magical creature is this?"

Hermione had already approached the mud man and looked at it carefully. "I've never seen anything like it, but many dark magic creatures without a fixed appearance are similar to it in the descriptions in the books."

"Could this be... I always feel like I've seen it..." Harry had a flash of inspiration in his mind, and wanted to blurt out the word "spiritual world", but stopped in time. However, after this, his only impression of the spiritual world disappeared without a trace, and he just felt that he should have seen this mud-like thing in front of him.

"What exactly is Arbella?" Hermione had already shaken hands with the mud man in front of her. "It feels strange, not as sticky as I imagined..."

Hermione squeezed Albella's hand a little, and a strange feeling of comfort spread through her body.

"Although it looks a bit strange, it's... quite relaxing." Hermione smiled a little bit, but she was more curious about Alberta.

"Albella is... in the words of the Lord of Destruction, a mud monster." Ariana thought about it for a moment, and reluctantly adopted Ivy's name, "It is a kind of activated magical force, different from ordinary magical creatures."

"So it was Ivy who made it like this?" Harry was keenly aware of this. "You had a magical disease before? Ivy turned the cause of your serious illness into this!"

"How did you guess that?" Ariana was dumbfounded. She had clearly said it in a very general and vague way, but the boy opposite her guessed it.

"A little intuition." Harry himself didn't think there was anything wrong with it. "Ivy's magic is really unheard of... What can Albella do?"

"Except for being unable to speak, it can do everything a human can do." Ariana plucked a piece of the Obscurus and rubbed it in her hand. "And it can split into smaller individuals at will! Albella can tell me many secrets of the castle!"

"Can it help you with your homework?" Ron couldn't help asking.

"Ron." Hermione looked at him disapprovingly. "Why would anyone want a mud monster to do your homework? If you had a house-elf...wait! You're not going to let Diego do your summer homework for you, are you?"

"No way!" Ron's eyes widened. "I'm just a little curious! Curious, is that okay?"

"You'd better not have such thoughts!" Hermione gave him a warning look. "Do you know that house-elves have been enslaved and oppressed by wizards for so many years? That is a covered-up history! You really should go to the kitchen under the Great Hall and see how terrible their living conditions are! They live in old and abandoned wooden barrels, and their beds are just cushions made of scraps of cloth! They wear tattered pillowcases all day long! And you actually want them to do your homework for you!"

"What's wrong with you, Hermione?" Ron asked with his head raised in confusion. He was already dizzy from Hermione's spray. "Isn't the 'vomiting' thing over? I thought you had given up that stupid idea..."

"That's the House-Elf Rights Promotion Association!" Hermione showed a suppressed anger, "The fight for the rights of house-elves has never been over! But I have realized that the methods I used in the past were too immature and naive! Not only did I fail to deeply understand how the house-elves got such a distorted sense of right and wrong, I also failed to let them figure out what freedom is! Freedom should not be given, but must be won by oneself!"

"Professor Lupin is right. If there is no urgent motivation to change the status quo, the house-elves will do nothing! What they need is not the freedom granted by wizards, but the judgment and understanding of their own situation! That's why I will stop temporarily, because I know very well that my actions can't change any house-elves! But I haven't done nothing! I hope that house-elves can have a set of values that are in line with universal society! I have made a lot of efforts for this!"

Hermione's words stunned the other three people in the pile of junk. Harry didn't know how to calm the conflict between his two good friends. Ron looked listless and almost wanted to crawl into the ground.

Compared with his two good friends, Ron, who was still thinking about how to get by with his homework and play, felt so ashamed.

"Sorry, Ron." Hermione, who had calmed down, apologized first. "I know you just meant it as a joke...but I've been under a lot of pressure lately..."

"No!" Ron shook his head to stop him. "I am indeed an idiot. Having you two as friends is the best thing that has ever happened to me at Hogwarts...but I hope you can share similar things with me next time...but don't get so angry again."

The tense atmosphere relaxed instantly, and Harry patted his two friends on the shoulders with assurance: "We will always be best friends, right?"

"How disgusting..." Ariana, who witnessed everything, curled her lips, "Fortunately, I also have a best friend!"

After saying that, she hugged the mud monster Albella tightly, almost merging with it.

"Hermione, are you trying to organize the next goblin rebellion?" Ariana's muffled voice came out from Alberta's body, as if separated by a layer of very sticky liquid.

"Goblin rebellion?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"You can't see the relationship between house-elves and goblins, right?" Ariana pulled her head out of the mud monster again. "They are close relatives of goblins, and goblins are a magical race that is very unwilling to obey wizards."

"But isn't the goblin rebellion over?" Hermione looked very confused, as if she had learned that the mummified Egyptian pharaoh could play cards.

"The goblin rebellion is not just something that exists in magic history textbooks. As long as that kind of thought is still spreading among the goblins, who knows when the next rebellion will break out." Ariana said, "I'm still alive... Well, more than a hundred years ago, the goblins were quite restless, but fortunately there was no rebellion in the end. The magic world is still relatively stable."

"Wait... this seems different from the story I heard from Ivy!" Ron raised his voice, hoping to attract everyone's attention. "Remember? Ivy once said that there was a goblin named Lanlock who caused a rebellion and fought a battle with the professors at the time in the basement of Hogwarts. In the end, he turned the tide and defeated the goblin, but something went wrong when he was sealing the magical power that the goblin coveted, so he slept for more than a hundred years."

"Lanlock?" Ariana asked with a frown, "Are you sure this is the name? I have no impression of it."

"That should be it? How about we go ask Ivy again?" Ron wasn't too sure.

"Forget it, at least it doesn't have any impact on our current world." Ariana shook her head, "I don't want to be in the same room with the Lord of Destruction anyway."

(End of this chapter)