The days at Hogwarts

Ron and Neville were counting the spells they knew on their fingers, as if they were trying to pick one out of them. In such an environment, Harry and Seamus, who were leisurely sitting aside playing wizard chess, stood out.

"Forward." Seamus pointed to the chess pieces in front of him, and the finger-sized White Queen chess piece stepped down from the throne, picked up the chair and smashed the Black Knight's horse.

Hermione was startled, and her confused expression was somewhat cute.

Loren sat down next to the two of them: "Have you chosen a spell to focus on practicing?"

"Do I need to choose?" Seamus asked confidently. Seeing the understanding expressions on their faces, he nodded with satisfaction. "I have already made a plan. Next time I will ask Professor Flitwick directly for advice on Thunderbolt Explosion. There is no spell more suitable for me than this."

Hearing this, Loren and Hermione couldn't help laughing.

"Harry, what about you?" Hermione asked.

"I chose the Disarming Charm," Harry said a little sheepishly. "There's no reason. I just thought it was appropriate. It's very easy for me to use."

After running back and forth several times, the twins finally shook off Percy's pursuit. When they passed by a few people, they heard a conversation and sat down to catch their breath, laughing.

"Yes, Seamus, you are suitable for this job."

As they spoke, George and Fred sat down and gave Seamus some instructions, making the situation, which was originally advantageous, become tense.

Loren curiously asked the twin brothers: "What about you? Is there any spell you want to focus on practicing?"

They each answered:

"Percy is pretending to be mature though."

"But he's right, there are many things more important than spells."

They directed a few more moves, and the result was that Harry was now inexplicably in the advantageous position.

Simo was tortured with a look of pain on his face. He angrily slapped away the hands of the two people who were causing trouble and took over the command again...

In the following days, the young wizards were discussing the pros and cons of various spells, imagining what it would be like if they mastered the spells completely. Professor Flitwick started a spell practice craze, and the corners of the common room, the abandoned classrooms, and the Black Lake were all shining with the brilliance of magic.

At the suggestion of a senior person, Hermione chose the Shield Charm as the spell to focus on. It didn't have beautiful lights and shadows, nor cool and powerful power, but it gave her a full sense of security.

Loren also focused on practicing the Iron Armor Curse, but he was not looking for the most suitable way to cast the spell, as the Three-No Golden Finger had already helped him do that. He hoped that during the long process of practice, the Iron Armor Curse could achieve a certain level of sublimation, similar to the sublimation of [Gate Opening] to [Thunderbolt Piercing].

The fighting practice room of the Book of Fantasy.

Flamel's duel opponent this time is a pure-blood wizard with a stern face and elegant posture. His every move retains his aristocratic upbringing, and his face has a polite but cold smile.

With a slight smile on his lips, Flamel held the magic wand and pointed it to the right front: "[Break into pieces]"

A magical light emitting a dangerous aura burst out.

"【Armor Protection】" Loren skillfully bounced the spell back and moved to the left.

The two kept fighting, and the light of the spell bounced everywhere during the collision, hitting the walls of the classroom.

"[Fainted]"

"[Armor Protection]"

Cast a spell and it will be countered.

"[Shattered to pieces]"

"[Armor Protection]"

Cast a spell and it will be countered.

This scenario is repeated over and over again.

The dark wizard played by Flamel still performed his duties and maintained his noble demeanor, but his brows were slightly furrowed, showing some dissatisfaction.

During the duel practice in the summer vacation, Flamel had clearly pointed out that Loren's obsession with parrying was a bad habit. In the subsequent duels, this habit was much reduced, but now it seems that the old habit has come back again.

In order to correct Loren's habit, Flamel no longer strictly played the role of a noble black wizard, and adjusted his respectful tactics and strategies. He returned to the previous rhythm of attacking, suppressing, and forcing Loren to make mistakes.

As long as Loren indulged in parrying, he would be overwhelmed by the endless wave of attacks and eventually make mistakes. And now the result of making a mistake is no longer the previous repulsive spell or binding spell, but the crushing spell!

“【To be smashed into pieces】【To be smashed into pieces】【To be smashed into pieces】” Flamel attacked three times in a row, striking towards the opposite side in a V-shape.

"【Armor Protection】" Loren dodged two of the spells by leaning sideways and deflected one with the Iron Armor Spell.

Seeing that the two spells were about to miss, he used [Apparition] to flash to the path of the spell, and then condensed an armor spell to block one. Then he repeated the above operation once more, blocking all three crushing spells with the armor spell.

This is so outrageous! Flamel was so angry that he could no longer maintain his disguise. A burst of light flowed from his body, revealing his true face.

He pointed at Loren and cursed, "Do you have any weird habits? You used the Armor Charm to catch an attack that you could have dodged with Apparition!"

"Do you think you are amazing?"

"How many chances do you think you have to catch the opponent's spell in a real battle? Huh?"

"If the Crushing Curse is replaced by the Killing Curse..."

Loren lowered his head and silently accepted all the scolding. He deserved the scolding for being so reckless in actual combat training.

After Flamel had vented his anger for a while, Loren told him the reason why he practiced the Iron Armor Curse: he wanted to push the Iron Armor Curse to a higher level in actual combat.

Flamel's eyebrows twitched slightly when he heard this... You actually want to rely on your talent to forcibly deduce the spell, who do you think you are, Merlin?

But when I think about this person's past successes and his rare talent that only appears once in a few hundred years...

Flamel had an even bigger headache. He sighed and said, "Have I ever told you that the creation of spells should be done after you are familiar with the principles of the spells, and then deduced in the direction you expect."

Loren lowered his head, stared at his shoes, and remained silent.

I see. He won't give up until he hits his head against the wall and bleeds. Flamel thinks it's okay to let him try: "Even if you want to rely on talent, but you don't have a clear direction, how can you evolve the spells?"

"Do you still remember the experience of accidentally creating [Thunderbolt Piercing]? The background of the door-opening spell plus your long-term expectation of explosion eventually triggered a long-term accumulation when you intended to break through the giant monster's defense, creating this spell with both explosion and penetration properties."

Flamel asked, "If you want the Iron Armor Spell to be sublimated, you must have expectations for its effects. Loren, do you have expectations for the Iron Armor Spell to be explosive?"

This sentence was like a light that illuminated Loren's heart and completely resolved his doubts.

Loren practiced many spells, not just the Opening Charm and the Shield Charm, especially the Patronus Charm that Hermione had practiced thousands of times during the summer vacation. But no spell had the same sublimation as the [Opening Door], because Loren had no expectations for these spells, strong expectations that would trigger changes.

Loren had a vague idea, but he needed to put it aside for now to turn it into reality. He now had to prepare for something more important.

Hogwarts started school on September 9st, and it is already the third week. An ordinary yet extraordinary day happened in the third week.

Preparing a birthday gift for someone is a wonderful thing. If it is an ordinary friend, you can just pick a book or a pen. If you want to be more perfunctory, you can buy a birthday gift box specially launched by Honeydukes Candy Store.

But if you have a close relationship with the person whose birthday is coming, it becomes difficult to give a gift. A simple gift seems perfunctory, and a book or a quill pen is too ordinary. It takes time to think about a gift that is extraordinary and shows your heart.

Friday night.

When Loren found the twin brothers in the corner of the common room, they were staring at a box of toffee with faint magical powers.

"I'm pretty sure that what we accidentally mixed together some swelling potions and toffee is something wonderful," George whispered.

Fred added distressedly, "But except for the product made by coincidence the first time, none of the products we made later had this effect."

“Can we just try blindly?”

“The cost would be astronomical.”

The two looked at each other and sighed in unison: "Ah~"

Loren walked lightly behind the two of them, squatted down and looked at the toffee that was shining with a faint magical light, and asked in confusion: "Fat Tongue Toffee?"

The twins' eyes lit up. "What a great name! It's like it was tailor-made for me!"

"But!" Fred said loudly.

They turned around and stretched out their arms to hook around Loren's shoulders.

George asked, "We haven't used this product to trick anyone yet. How do you know what it does?"

Loren spread out his hands and explained, "Potions, different potions have different properties. I noticed that there are several tongue swelling potions on this piece of toffee, so I roughly guessed the effect."

George's first reaction was not that he had found a solution to the recipe, but he said with regret: "Potion knowledge has cursed you. You will never be able to experience the wonderful candies we make in the future."

Fred nodded in agreement. It was a pity that they would never be able to trick Loren into eating candy again.

"Ron reminded everyone in freshman year that they can't eat anything you give them." Loren said that the credibility of the two has long been negative.

George and Fred didn't want to talk about the misunderstandings people had about them, so they got the topic back on track.

Fred asked hopefully, "Loren, can you help us analyze the content of several potions in the toffee?"

George said seriously: "This is extremely important to us."

"No ready-made medicine is needed. Just use the fungus of the Amanita muscaria and the pulp of the Solanum gracile picked in July..." Loren read out the simplified formula.

Even without his help, in order to save experimental costs, the twins would select several main materials for the swelling agent and try them out, and they would be able to make it after a few attempts.

The twins wrote down the recipe in a notebook with excited expressions, as if they had found a treasure.

"Wait until we mass-produce Fat Tongue Toffee. We'll make as much as you want, all you want!" George said gratefully.

Thank you for repaying kindness with hatred...

"No, I want to borrow your Marauder's Map." Loren stated the purpose of looking for them.

Fred readily pulled out an old parchment from his pocket, which was badly worn and neatly folded. It was obvious that the two of them took good care of it.

"Although I don't know how you know the Marauder's Map, you are the same kind of person as us. George and Fred are willing to trust you."

"Now repeat after us—"

"I solemnly swear that I will not do bad things."

Chapter 179 Hogsmeade

On September 9, the remaining warmth of summer was blown away by the autumn wind, and the average temperature was only about 19 degrees Celsius. The nights would be even colder, and the little wizards had already replaced their thin blankets with thicker ones.

Gryffindor girls' dormitory.

The sunlight outside had already filtered into the room through the window, and Hermione was the only one left in the dormitory, lingering on the warmth and comfort of her bed.

Her fair face looked a little glittering in the sun, her long eyelashes cast shadows on her eyelids, and because she slept too comfortably, she pouted her lips, and her delicate nose twitched for a while, pulling her chubby cheeks. Her cute look seemed to soften the light.

Influenced by the spell club, her roommates all chose their favorite spells and practiced them day and night. At dawn, they got up and went to the Black Lake to take a good seat.

Repeating the same spell countless times requires a suitable environment. Believe me, after casting a spell against the wall in an abandoned classroom for dozens of times, you will begin to doubt yourself, and another voice will ask in your heart: Who am I and what am I doing?

Practicing next to the Black Lake is a completely different experience. You cast dozens of spells towards the Black Lake, and there will be a giant squid interacting with you, splashing water with its tentacles to wash away your fatigue.

Hey! It's so interesting.

Many little wizards, especially boys, fell in love with this game. Every day, more than a dozen boys were soaked by water and were helped back to the lounge shivering.

Hermione practiced the Shield Charm with the help of Loren in the Room of Requirement. Because of the special nature of the Shield Charm, she always had to resist the spells that kept coming, and Loren happened to be particularly keen on this way of practice.

Because of someone's preference for the Binding Curse - [Petrification], Hermione now felt that her muscles were stiff and she felt a little sore when she moved. She could block five out of ten Binding Curses, dodge one or two, and had to lie straight for the remaining three.

Fortunately, she gave that man a severe lesson before parting, otherwise Hermione would have been so angry that she couldn't sleep.

This also made her, who was always self-disciplined, choose to take a little time off on her birthday. She slept half an hour longer than usual and woke up feeling refreshed, but Hermione felt a little guilty.

Birthday presents from friends and roommates were neatly placed beside the bed. Unlike last year's birthday when no one cared about it, this year's birthday was much more lively. In the past year, Hermione made many friends, and the roommates who had caused some unpleasantness in the past gradually became familiar to her.

Most of the books given by friends were given by Miss Know-It-All as a nerd, but Hermione really liked them and put them neatly aside, intending to use them as bedtime reading for this semester.

Harry and Ron both received a gift box set from Honeydukes Confectionery - a collector's edition of the Colorful Chocolate Frog Cards and a Pippi Every Flavour Beans Pack.

Hermione and Loren didn't have the habit of collecting Chocolate Frog cards. They would give the cards they opened to Harry. Occasionally, when they opened a rare card, Ron would compete with him for it. As for Bibi Every Flavour Beans, it was Ron's favorite.

She had every reason to believe that the gifts these two people gave were chosen according to their own preferences.

Putting the candy gift box next to the book and looking at the remaining gifts, Hermione had a bad feeling in her heart.

Could it be that Loren gave a gift box full of cockroaches?

If so, he's dead!

Unexpectedly, there was no gift from Loren in the pile of gifts. Hermione felt a little regretful but also secretly happy, because it meant that he wanted to hand the gift to her personally.

Anyway, she couldn’t have forgotten her birthday. She remembered it when she first entered school last year. How could she forget it this year?

Wash, dress, fix your hair, and then go to the auditorium for breakfast.

Loren had just arrived at the auditorium. There was a sluggish look in the corners of his eyes as if he had just woken up. He had a yawn in his mouth, and he wanted to yawn but couldn't. He took the food on the long table slowly.

He saw Hermione from afar. She was wearing an elegant black wizard robe, a plain white shirt collar that made her face look cute, and a Gryffindor red and yellow tie.

The girl couldn't help but smile when she saw him, and her smile became brighter and brighter, and then she hurriedly ran towards him. Her long, smooth hair danced behind her head, drawing people's attention to it.

Hermione sat down next to him and said cheerfully and naturally, "I'll have a sandwich. Bacon, ham and eggs, please."

Loren: ???