The Bard of Hogwarts

Chapter 191 False Prophecy

Slytherin common room.

After finishing his divination class, Draco sat leisurely on the sofa in the lounge.

He had a great experience with the class this afternoon.

Especially that eccentric female professor, whose strange attire initially made her unpleasant to watch, but when she spoke... she was surprisingly pleasant to listen to.

The female professor shook her messy head and predicted that Scarface wouldn't live past next year.

Although he initially found Scarface's terrified expression amusing, he felt a slight sense of loss after things calmed down.

"Are you troubled by something?" The voice from beside him interrupted Draco's thoughts of the afternoon.

Turning his head, he also saw the owner of the voice, Daphne's younger sister, Astoria, a second-year student.

Before Draco could reply, Astoria continued speaking to herself:

"Sorry to bother you, but you seem a little unhappy."

"No, I'm just sitting here in a daze!" He always had an inexplicable feeling when he was around Astoria.

At that moment, Astoria whispered again:

"Actually, even if there are things that make you unhappy, there's no need to dwell on them. Being able to see the sunrise every day, breathe fresh air, and run freely—this is already a happiness that many people yearn for but cannot have..."

Although it was just ordinary words of advice, Draco could detect a sense of helpless sadness in his calm tone.

For some reason, this made him feel inexplicably uncomfortable.

By the time he came to his senses, Astoria had already lifted her robe and walked to the other side.

"What the hell is going on...?"

Draco complained sullenly.

The combination of Scarface and Astoria left him feeling suffocated, with a desire to vent but no way to do so.

……

On the other side...

In the dormitory, Ino sat quietly in a chair wearing a crown. In front of him was an open invisible notebook, the pages of which contained the symbols from the basilisk's eyes.

"Gaze...death...petrification..."

Ino murmured unconsciously. Although he had a crown that was almost like Felix Felicis, it was still difficult to decipher an unknown rune.

This is roughly equivalent to asking someone with no prior knowledge to translate cuneiform script or oracle bone script.

Felix Felicis has the effect of bringing good fortune to the mind, much like an artificial intelligence that easily retrieves memories from the mind, such as events, books, or past experiences, and then connects them together.

Undoubtedly, this is a very powerful effect, but it also has a fatal flaw: it requires that you have these things or related things in your mind.

Felix Felicis is not a panacea. Even if a troll were given a pint of Felix Felicis, it would still not pass NEWT's twelve ultimate tests.

Fortunately, compared to the utterly ineffective crown, Ino possessed some related knowledge about runes as perceived by the basilisk, such as the direct gaze upon death and the petrification reflected from it.

But reality dealt him a harsh blow: the knowledge he possessed was far from sufficient to reverse-engineer and understand this runic script.

After wearing the crown for more than half an hour, all I could think of was that it might be related to the Killing Curse, since the two had similar effects on death, and the person afflicted by the curse had no wounds on their body.

"The test and refinement of time..."

Ino sighed and closed his notebook. Half an hour of thinking had yielded no answer, which meant that he didn't have enough knowledge in his mind.

Without acquiring new knowledge, wearing a crown for a long time will not help at all.

But one thing is certain: he doesn't intend to hand over the crown anytime soon. While he wouldn't embezzle Hogwarts' assets, he could certainly borrow it for several decades—a fitting reward for purifying the crown.

……

And just then...

"Bang!"

The dormitory door was suddenly pushed open from the outside.

Draco walked in looking annoyed, but his annoyance was quickly replaced by a strange expression.

In his view, Ino had become somewhat indescribable at this moment.

Although he still had the same appearance and wore the same black robe, his aura was hard to ignore, especially with the sapphire-encrusted crown on his head.

If Draco had ever been to Middle-earth, he would have recognized that Ino's demeanor at this moment was exactly the same as that of the Elvenking Thranduil.

Noble, otherworldly, and also somewhat cold-blooded and ruthless.

Especially those familiar amber eyes; Draco didn't want to look them in the eye even when they merely glanced at him. Under their gaze, he felt as if he had no secrets at all.

Meanwhile, upon seeing Draco, Ino removed his crown and placed it on the table.

The blue light flashed again in the dormitory, and the crown disappeared along with it.

Seeing Draco looking somewhat dazed, Ino chuckled and asked, "What's wrong? You seem a little down?"

"Nothing much, just the divination class this afternoon!" After regaining his composure, Draco truthfully revealed his troubles.

Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, and don't be curious about what you shouldn't be curious about. This is a tradition of the Malfoy family, and he was instilled with this idea by his father from a young age.

Therefore, when he saw the crown disappear, Draco acted as if he hadn't seen it at all, not even lifting his eyelids, as if everything just now was an illusion.

But what he didn't know was that this was precisely the quality that Ino admired most.

Seeing that Draco wasn't asking any pointless questions, Ino naturally changed the subject:

"A divination lesson? What did Professor Trelawney say? Did she predict your death?"

"It wasn't me! It was Scarface!" Draco was annoyed again as the old story was brought up again.

"Scarhead? It's Harry again?" Ino was also a little surprised. Trelawney really was going to exploit any opportunity she could get her hands on.

Although the storyline has changed, the prophecy of Harry's death remains the same.

"Again?" This time it was Draco's turn to be surprised, but after a brief pause, he didn't ask any more questions and instead began to describe the content of the divination lesson.

Unlike Draco's worried expression, Ino looked relaxed, because Trelawney had clearly not entered a divination state during the previous narration.

To put it bluntly, it's a false prophecy, a tactic of sensationalism to grab attention.

Thinking of this, Ino stopped paying attention to the false prophecy, but seeing Draco's still troubled expression, he decided to pop the bubble as well:

"Draco, I suggest you ask the other upperclassmen what kind of terrifying predictions our Divination professor makes each year, and how accurate they are."

"You mean she's lying?" Nobody's stupid. After hearing Ino's explanation, Draco realized what was going on, but at the same time, he inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's obvious! She's lying." Ino chuckled and spread her hands.

"But we need to be careful when she has a seizure and makes predictions in a strange tone."

What was said in jest was taken seriously by Draco, who nodded earnestly as if determined to remember the words.

Xiao Di's sharing today: Divine Talisman Abraxan

Physical characteristics: Pegasus is a breed of Pegasus. It is huge and very strong, has wings, red eyes, generally light-colored fur, and white mane.

Habits: Mrs. Maxim's swan horses only drink single malt whisky and can only be properly cared for by someone with great strength. It is not yet possible to confirm whether all swan horses meet this criterion.

Abilities and Functions: The Divine Horse can pull a chariot and fly.

(End of this chapter)