Chapter 43: This is a fairy tale
At this moment, Mr. Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts Castle, was very happy.
He had finally caught the little wizard who dared to make the castle all dirty—Harry Potter.
He knew, of course he knew, that these little wizards were training in the rain on the Quidditch pitch, and they would definitely track mud everywhere on their way back.
But he really couldn't stand it anymore!
He had just cleaned an entire corridor full of foul-smelling dung, meticulously picking out frog brains and rat intestines from the cracks. He had just looked with satisfaction at the gleaming floor tiles, patting his old back, when he saw a series of muddy footprints on the freshly mopped floor around the corner.
Hmph!
His temper couldn't help but flare up!
You wizards, can't you cast spells? Can't you use Scourgify?
Why do you still make the castle such a mess!
You're doing it on purpose, aren't you!
Deliberately making things difficult for poor old Filch, right?
You just like to laugh at me, a Squib, for being helpless and clumsy in dealing with this, right?
He followed Mrs. Norris (his pet cat) quickly with his oil lamp and finally caught the culprit—Harry Potter!
This child was indeed as annoying as Professor Snape had described!
"A little bit of mud to you, boy, but for me, it's wash and scrub, a whole hour's work!" Filch said angrily, holding a long black quill, ready to write down Harry Potter's crime on the form.
However, just as Filch's quill was about to touch the parchment, a loud crash came from the ceiling of the office, "Clang!" The oil lamp rattled.
"Peeves!" he instinctively roared, then realizing something, his expression changed. He looked at the door opposite the office door and suddenly saw a large pool of blood water gushing out from under the door.
"Professor Kettleburn!"
He stood up anxiously, not wanting anything else to happen to this old professor.
"Harry! Potter!" he called out urgently, "Take your wand and come with me! Hurry!"
Harry shuddered and stood up, soaking wet. The clever boy knew that this might be a chance to avoid Filch's punishment.
He quickly followed Filch, rushing towards the opposite office.
Only...
Why did this blood water gushing out from under the door look so familiar?
Yes, he would never forget that terrifying lesson. They had repeatedly felt the difference between the 'Wailing Widow' and the 'Cellar Rot,' and the blood water Professor Lockhart drank on the ground at Urquart Castle.
Mr. Filch kicked the door open forcefully.
Sure enough, it was Professor Lockhart.
But it was a little different from what he had imagined.
The scene before him was too horrifying.
The entire room was covered in charred black marks and wet blood water. An old professor lay on the ground, unconscious, while Professor Lockhart stood near him holding a cup of blood...
"!!!"
"!!!"
Filch's steps faltered, his body stiffening as he looked at the terrifying scene. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, and he reached out a trembling arm to touch Harry Potter.
Go, wizard!
Aren't you the savior?
Hurry up!
Harry swallowed hard. Even though he clearly knew what this blood water was, he couldn't stop the fear in his heart. Finally, after Filch glared at him, he gritted his teeth and stepped forward.
"Professor Lockhart..."
So, appearance was indeed incredibly important. If Lockhart had been able to cast the simple Scourgify charm, would he have had to face such an embarrassing situation?
He nodded to Harry and Filch, sighed, and helped Professor Kettleburn up.
After careful observation, thankfully it wasn't anything serious.
He summoned the Wailing Widow. Its unique singing had the ability to stimulate the vitality of human tissues. Under his guidance, it transformed into a wave of sound and swept outwards.
Harry and Filch beside him felt goosebumps all over their bodies. They were in a state of chilling terror that made their souls tremble, their hearts pounding violently as if they were about to jump out of their throats.
Harry Potter had experienced something similar at Urquart Castle before, but it hadn't been this intense, so intense that he almost couldn't help but scream.
"Ah~~~"
Professor Kettleburn shouted and almost leaped up, supporting himself on the armrests of the chair.
Fortunately, he had no feet and only one hand, so he couldn't actually jump up.
Lockhart quickly supported him. "Professor Kettleburn, are you alright?"
Professor Kettleburn chuckled, with a mischievous smile like a child. "Stimulating, very stimulating, Professor Lockhart! Can we do it again?"
"Your body probably can't handle it." Lockhart beckoned the Wailing Widow to transform back into a jellyfish and enter his body. He patted the old professor's shoulder. "You need to take good care of your health. Exciting adventures are always ahead, but we need to have a strong enough body to embark on them."
"Yes, yes," Professor Kettleburn said, his eyes gleaming as he looked at the Wailing Widow's disappearing form. He clicked his tongue. "Dark magical creatures have completely different characteristics from magical creatures."
Lockhart nodded. "We always need to close our hearts when facing them to avoid being disturbed. But it's the complete opposite when you face magical creatures; you need to open your hearts."
Professor Kettleburn raised an eyebrow, nodded to Filch who was carefully adjusting his prosthetic leg, and then said, "A very insightful statement, Professor Lockhart! It seems you have a deep understanding of all these magical creatures! However, I believe you are wrong!"
Lockhart was taken aback.
"We don't completely open our hearts when facing magical creatures. We always have to reserve a final stronghold. The name of that stronghold is self."
Professor Kettleburn spoke very sincerely about this, gesturing towards the direction of the Wailing Widow just now. "Conversely, I believe that when interacting with dark magical creatures, one should not close oneself off too much. You have to learn to open up a part of yourself to accept, to engage, to truly feel."
He said with a smile, "These words are spoken to you because you yourself have grasped some truths. You must manage this balance very well."
Such a balance was difficult to define clearly.
Lockhart couldn't help but recall that in the Forbidden Forest, his own magical characteristics were in a 'Forest Witch' state, so everything in the forest began to accept him, releasing goodwill towards him.
That feeling...
It was too difficult to fathom.
This seemed to require some talent, because the Forest Witch relied on instinct to achieve this level, including the original Lockhart. His achievements in the Obliviate Charm were not the result of in-depth research, but rather naturally reaching that realm step by step.
"We can use a small prop to help us understand this balance."
Professor Kettleburn looked at Lockhart's frowning face with an experienced gaze. In his decades of teaching students, he had seen too many such expressions, always appearing on the faces of some exceptionally talented wizards.
The smarter they were, the more they liked to get stuck on details, the more they liked to overcomplicate things.
Magic was a very simple thing, and it should be a very simple thing.
"Wizard!" he pointed to himself.
"Nature, the outside world, magical creatures, dark magical creatures... all the things we need to feel with our hearts." He gestured with his hands.
Then, he gently picked up his wand from the table and waved it in front of Lockhart. "It, the wand, is in between these two!"
Lockhart suddenly sucked in a breath of cold air, staring straight at the wand.
"Hahahaha..." Professor Kettleburn laughed, laughing with the smugness of a child. "See, I knew it! You definitely overlooked its existence!"
"I..."
Lockhart's voice was strangely hoarse as he responded with difficulty, "I always thought it wasn't that important."
Even in the direction of spellcasting that relied most on wands, he had always treated it as just a transitional tool for wandless magic, let alone thinking about using a wand when communicating with dark magical creatures.
"Hahahaha..."
Professor Kettleburn laughed heartily at his words, pointing at him with amusement. "The clever person's blind spot, I've encountered it again."
"This is a wand, the most important item strictly controlled by the Ministry of Magic! The African wizarding society always has to pay an extremely exorbitant price to obtain a limited small batch of second-hand wands! So much so that their magic schools have to desperately research how to cast spells without wands. Is it that they don't want to use them?"
"This is a wand that we strictly forbid magical creatures from touching. We have killed countless house-elves, countless goblins, and centaurs in our history, and even completely slaughtered several intelligent species, just because they still dared to covet wands."
He looked at Lockhart with a smile. "Now, do you still think it's not important?"
Lockhart listened to these words in a daze.
He only felt as if a huge bronze bell was ringing in his head, all the clouds dissipating, his thoughts clearer than ever before.
He trembled as he pulled the wand out of his pocket, staring at it blankly.
"The wand is between me and the world..."
Yes.
He tried to immerse himself again in that unique 'Forest Darling' state of the 'Forest Witch,' to feel the subtle relationship between himself and the world.
This wasn't very suitable, because he had left the environment of the Forbidden Forest and returned to Hogwarts Castle.
But the wonderful feeling was still there, or rather, it had always been there.
The wand in his hand suddenly emitted a soft glow.
He looked through the glow at the kind-faced old wizard opposite him and suddenly had a wonderful realization—he had solved the problem for the rabbit gentlemen, so the rabbit gentlemen had brought him to the home of the wise man, providing guidance for his confusion and dispelling the fog.
This was very fairy tale-like.
This was very magical.
But it was so, so real, so real that he truly felt that he, at this moment, was inside a fairy tale.
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