A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

Chapter 125 The Students (Please Subscribe!)

The weather at Hogwarts has become milder, the snow has melted into the earth, and tender buds have sprouted. The young wizards have recently taken a particular liking to lying on the grass in front of the Black Lake, lazily basking in the sun.

On Saturday, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna sat around the lake, watching Harry and Neville exchange blows.

Two more dueling classes passed, and Harry and his friends learned two new spells. One was a defensive spell—the Armor Charm; and the other was a minor evil spell invented by Snape himself to help younger wizards—the Tongue-Locking Charm.

His actions also sparked some controversy, but Snape ignored these comments.

"Even dark wizards usually shout spells during duels, relying on language to evoke emotions and using those emotions to amplify the power of their spells," Snape said sarcastically. "Therefore, it is essential to silence your opponent."

In fact, Felix had privately suggested that Snape switch to the Silent Curse, but Snape refused.

"The Tongue-Locking Charm can glue a person's tongue to the roof of their mouth. It's not as gentle as the Silent Charm, and that's exactly what I wanted," Snape said. He had developed it independently while in school, and he was very satisfied with its effectiveness in practice.

The Ironclad Charm, taught by Professor Hyp, is much more advanced, and many younger wizards simply cannot master it.

Even Harry and Hermione never succeeded.

But it is a spell that can resist many kinds of magic, and what's even more remarkable is that—

Professor Hyp said at the time, "The Ironclad Charm can defend against both spells and physical attacks. It is probably the most practical defensive spell you will encounter in school."

The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Damocles Belby, also explained a very useful spell in class—the Sense Enhancement Charm, which makes students' senses more acute. Flitwick had mentioned it in his dueling class.

"You can use it to sense danger in advance, especially when you are in a dangerous environment."

He used magic to create a cloud of black mist. "Let's assume it's late at night—that's when Red Hat and other magical creatures like to attack. If you're in the wild, do you remember what to do?"

The young wizards started discussing it animatedly.

Belby nodded and said:

"Peaceful protection... All protected... Thief detection... Ideally, add a Muggle shielding charm. Of course, you can't do these things now, but that doesn't prevent you from memorizing this knowledge."

Then he had the young wizards enter the black mist one by one to try to avoid the Red Hat's attack.

"I've laid some leaves and twigs on the ground. Stay focused, and you'll spot the danger early."

However, the truth is that only a few people can spot the red hat in advance and fight back; most of the young wizards are driven out of the black mist by being hit with cork sticks.

Fortunately, apart from being a bit disheveled, no one was injured.

Harry had always been curious as to why the two red hats were so cooperative. Later, Professor Belby explained that he had fed them many nutritional potions, "They like the taste of blood, especially the blood of magical creatures, and I happen to have plenty of that..." Now, the two red hats could be considered his assistants.

Unbeknownst to many, dueling lessons and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts class had become an integral part of the young wizards' lives, subtly changing the entire school. The most obvious manifestation of this was that many young wizards enjoyed playing dueling games in the hallways after class.

But these students didn't fare well; Filch arrested a large number of them.

For a few days, the jewels in the Gryffindor House Cup started falling like rain, and Professor McGonagall's expression nearly scared the little lions to death.

It wasn't just Gryffindor; quite a few young wizards from the other three houses were also caught.

During this period, the number of students punished with voluntary labor was extremely large. Snape directly asked a group to process potion ingredients, Professor Sprout asked a group to take care of flowers and plants, and Hagrid also asked Professor McGonagall to find a few young witches to take care of the soon-to-be-born unicorn.

Even Professor McGonagall couldn't resist the trend; she had the remaining students work with a modified version of the "answer parchment" test.

Having learned a painful lesson, the young wizards of Hogwarts finally realized that casting spells in the corridors was extremely foolish, and they chose abandoned classrooms, the Black Lake, the courtyard, and hidden corners instead...

Just like now, Harry is instructing Neville on the Disarming Charm.

Neville, his face flushed, struggled to cast the spell. Finally, after countless attempts, a very thin red light flew out of his wand.

"Great job, Neville!" Harry shouted.

Hermione and the others, who were sitting on the grass, clapped their hands, and several Gryffindor whistles could be heard in the distance.

Neville blushed, wanting to say something, but all he did was scratch his head and grin happily.

The two returned to the open space, and the group began to chat.

Ron spoke of information he received from the twins: "A new version of the 'Question Parchment' is nearing completion, and many of the features mentioned at the time are included."

Of the six people present, four had participated in the first test—except for Harry and Neville, who were all very interested in the topic because the new teaching aids were said to be used in the seventh grade.

"What new features are there?" Harry asked with interest.

"The most important thing is definitely the leaderboard," Ron said without hesitation. "I hope to see Gryffindor surpass Slytherin, ideally first, but that's unrealistic. The Ravenclaw nerds will definitely have the upper hand..."

"Ron!" Ginny glared at him, then turned to look at Luna, who was a Ravenclaw.

"Uh..." Ron said softly, "I'm sorry."

Luna, expressionless, pulled a very exquisite-looking wand from her pocket and pointed the tip at Ron—

"Oh, Luna," Harry advised, thinking Luna was about to cast a curse on Ron.

But the next second, the wand in her hand let out a piercing scream and turned into a giant rubber mouse.

Ron's expression became comical, one eyebrow furrowed tightly, the other looking like it was about to fly off his forehead.

Luna pointed at his face and laughed exaggeratedly, while Ginny chuckled softly. The two girls hugged each other and fell onto the grass.

Neville tried hard to suppress his laughter, but he couldn't help it; he made intermittent "coughing" sounds.

"Okay, this is funny," Ron muttered as he watched Luna pound the ground with her fists.

Hermione, holding the rubber mouse by the tail, watched in amazement as it transformed back into a wand. "What is this?"

Ginny got up from the ground, wiping away the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes: "It's a prank item that Fred and George came up with. They call it a fake wand. But they probably haven't been developing it for very long... How did you get this?" She looked at her friend.

"I... haha! I bought it from them... ten silver sicoes," Luna said, panting.

"How do you use this?" Harry asked with interest.

"Pour magic into it... pour it into it."

Harry took the fake wand and tried to infuse it with magic, but with a scream, it turned into a rubber mouse again.

Ron poked it with his finger and said with some disdain, "It's nowhere near as good as Scabbers."

Harry gazed at the large black squid that was faintly visible in the Black Lake, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair, and he felt very relaxed.

The battle against the basilisk in the secret chamber seems to have been a long time ago.

Chapters 123 and 124 were out of order just now. I've readjusted them, and some comments may have been omitted. I apologize to the readers; it was my mistake.

(End of this chapter)