Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 34 If only quill pens could do their homework by themselves!

"Should we eat first or go to the library first?" After herbalism class, Rice picked up her bag and headed out of the greenhouse.

"Let's eat first, I'm a little hungry," Daphne replied shyly, a blush creeping onto her face.

"Okay." Rice didn't insist. In his opinion, reading was actually a physical activity, and you needed to be well-fed to have the energy to do it.

"Wait a minute!" A voice suddenly rang out, interrupting their conversation. Rice turned around and saw that it was Hermione, who had somehow gotten close to them.

"Did you just say you were going to the library? Do you want to come along? We can share our notes." Hermione looked at Rice expectantly.

Rice was never stingy with his teachings to eager learners, even if they weren't Slytherin students, so he naturally agreed to Hermione's "team-up request," but he still had to go have dinner first.

The Slytherin upperclassman at the opening ceremony was right; the food served at the opening banquet was something they could eat anytime. Every time Rice saw the abundant dishes laid out on the table, she felt a sense of reassurance, knowing that the school was still functioning normally.

"Speaking of which, the way you handled the spilled potion just now was really skillful. How did you do that?" Daphne thought of Rice's skillful handling in Potions class, and even the steak on her plate lost its appeal.

"It's nothing, you'll get used to it after a few more times." Rice sighed, a hint of weariness flashing in his eyes.

Snape probably didn't know that the person who could empathize with him the most in the entire Hogwarts was Rice.

During his time as Head of Slytherin House and Professor of Potions, Rice felt his mental fortitude had greatly improved. Today's Potions class was nothing compared to what happened; those young wizards, who seemed to have troll blood, were capable of causing trouble at any moment.

So what if the crucible melts? After witnessing the entire underground classroom filled with the vapors of a deadly poison that could send one to their death in an instant, Rice felt that there was no difficulty he couldn't overcome.

Rice managed to rescue the entire class, and he himself felt it was a miracle afterward.

After that incident, Rice had a heated argument with the other three founders. The other three couldn't understand why Slytherin wanted to abolish the Anti-Transposition Charm on Hogwarts campus, until he showed them the "spectacle" of the underground classroom.

However, they ultimately retained the spell, preventing the Apparition Charm from being used within Hogwarts Castle. In contrast, the four of them revised the Potions textbook, removing some overly dangerous potion recipes.

After shaking his head to clear his mind of those unpleasant memories, Rice began to struggle with the food on his plate.

After their meal, Rice and his two companions went to the Hogwarts library and sat down at an empty table.

Daphne and Hermione took out the homework assigned by the professors from their bags, while Rice went to the bookshelf and took a book back.

"Aren't you doing your homework?" Hermione couldn't help but ask, looking at Rice engrossed in her book.

"Homework..." Rice couldn't help but glance at Daphne.

He really didn't want to waste his energy on these somewhat childish things—what was the point of studying werewolf behavior guidelines? As for the paper Snape left behind, that was even more absurd. He was the one who improved the scabies medicine formula back then, so it was ridiculous to write a paper on that topic now.

In comparison, the assignments for Transfiguration and Charms were much more lenient.

He can teach Daphne all kinds of spells, so Daphne can be considered his student. Isn't it only natural for a student to do something for their teacher?

Feeling Rice's gaze, Daphne had a bad feeling.

"So much homework!" she exclaimed, slumping onto the desk. "If only a quill pen could do my homework by itself!"

If given a choice, Daphne would naturally not want to do two assignments, so playing the victim is essential.

Believe it or not, that sentence immediately struck a chord with Rice. The idea of ​​having a quill pen do homework automatically was indeed feasible. He had previously invented a quill pen that automatically wrote acceptance letters, so making a pen that could automatically do homework wasn't far-fetched.

But after careful consideration, Rice realized that realizing this idea would be a bit difficult, because unlike the acceptance letter with its content remaining basically unchanged, the content of the assignments is ever-changing. Sometimes, changing just one word in the question would lead to completely different answers, requiring a high level of recognition ability from the quill pen.

Making a quill pen for doing my own homework is no less difficult than making a Sorting Hat, but it's definitely a challenge for me.

Rice has included the quill pen project in his schedule.

After a brief chat, the three went about their own business: Hermione was working on the assignments given by the professors, Daphne took out a roll of parchment and began writing a letter to her father, while Rice was engrossed in the world of a novel.

"What are you looking at?" Hermione stretched after finishing a paper, then her attention was drawn to the book with a rather flashy cover in Rice's hand.

"Breaking Up with the Ghost, written by Gilderoy Lockhart, is a very interesting novel about his exorcising of a female ghost in Banden."

"A female ghost?"

"Lockhart's book?"

Hermione and Daphne gleaned different keywords from the conversation.

"A female ghost is a dark creature that lives in Scotland and Ireland. It looks like a woman, but its scream is as deadly as a mandrake," Rice explained to Hermione.

Who is Gilderoy Lockhart?

"A novelist." That's how Rice defined him.

"An extremely skilled adventurer!" Daphne's assessment of Lockhart differed somewhat from that of Rice.

Rice had noticed this bestselling author before at Flourish and Blotts, but his books were too expensive—one book was equivalent to three of other books. After much deliberation, he finally gave up on buying them, only to unexpectedly find these works in the Hogwarts library.

These books by Lockhart were most likely purchased by Mrs. Pince, the librarian, on behalf of Hogwarts. This is a common practice; Hogwarts regularly acquires books from the market to enrich its library collection. It is this consistent practice over the millennia that has made Hogwarts the largest magical library in all of Europe.

Rice found Lockhart's adventures quite interesting, though many details didn't quite match reality. But that was understandable, since novels require some literary embellishment.

Lockhart is a novelist with rich experiences who can write interesting stories—that's how Rice sees him.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

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(End of this chapter)