Chapter 176
Felix chuckled, “Anytime, Potter, I’ll temporally move here. But first I have to go back to school and arrange some things. You can think about your own schedule, too.”
He stood up, “The special training will be hard, Potter, be prepared. In my personal experience, the period after the accidental magic burst is an excellent time to learn spells, as you will improve by leaps and bounds.”
Harry agreed without any hesitation.
Felix found Tom, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron Bar, a hunched-back, wrinkled wizard, and at his suggestion, Felix chose room number twelve, right next door to Harry’s.
He waved his hand at Harry, who is standing at the top of the stairs, and turned to walk out of the bar, using the public fireplace to return to his office.
He sorted through his recent work, and in addition to attempting to add the Sneakoscope to his curriculum, he came up with some good ideas. Then he rolled these half-finished plans together and tucked them into his ring.
Then he looked at the observation log of the yew wand tree, which he and Professor Flitwick were doing every day, but this job would be handed over to Filius alone for now.
So he went to the charms’ professor’s office and informed Filius of his conflict in time, and the short professor quickly agreed, smacking his lips and saying, “The accidental magic burst … also I don’t know what happened to Potter, and with you by the boy’s side, Minerva will be relieved. ”
Felix then also saw Snape’s figure in the school, he took a big step, his black robes floating behind him.
“Severus?” He greeted him: “You’re back so early?” He knew, that Snape would go home for the holidays every year, and usually returned to school only a day before the school started.
Snape said with a stern face, suppressing his discontent: “You’ll have to ask our esteemed Headmaster Dumbledore, who called me back in order to brew a disgusting potion.”
He seems to be in a bad mood at the moment, throwing off his cloak and quickly walking away.
Disgusting potion, what could it be? Felix watched his back curiously.
Ten minutes later, Felix returned to Diagon Alley again. He knocked on room eleven and saw Harry’s bed littered with miscellaneous items, textbooks for various subjects, parchment, bottles of ink, and a broom repair kit.
“Professor, I’m going over my assignments, well, I have three History of Magic thesis, two Potions thesis, and a charm thesis left to write.”
“History of Magic …”
Harry clearly heard a groan of discomfort from Professor Hap, but the professor said nothing more as he took a seat across the table in front of him.
“Time is precious, Potter,” Felix said, “I will guide you through your homework – in your spare time.”
…
The owner of the Leaky Cauldron Bar offered an empty basement that, according to him, had been abandoned for a long time.
Old Tom hunched over with a toothless grin, “I remember there are still some protective wards here, but that too may have expired, and you’ll need to deal with it yourselves.”
He snapped his fingers a few times, and the torches stuck in the wall lit up. He then bowed and stepped back to leave.
Felix waved his wand and cleared the room of the dust and cobwebs that had accumulated. And smoothed out a few broken bits of flooring. When his wand touched the floor, the ground like waves undulating, Harry seemed to be in a small boat, which reminded him of the first time Hagrid took him on a boat ride.
When everything quieted down, the wooden floor turned into an exotic carpet.
Harry took a few steps back and forth, and it didn’t feel as soft as he thought it would, to which Professor Hap explained, “I didn’t create a few cushions, so you could practice your magic in comfort.”
As he watched, some bits and pieces of trinkets flew out of Professor Hap’s ring, and they popped into a small square table, two armchairs, and some human-shaped targets.
At the moment, Felix is sitting in the chair, watching him from behind the square table.
“Here, Potter, let’s practice your best spell for the first hundred times.”
Harry’s hand holding the wand shook unnaturally, this does not seem to be what he thought …
He also thought that he would struggle to dodge the professor’s attacks, like a chipmunk constantly jumping, while Professor Hap easily waved his spells, to show off his might.
But now, Professor Hap behaved like a scholar, sitting quietly in a chair, if he put a gold-rimmed glasses, it would look more like a teacher he saw in the Muggle school.
Harry looked at the target seven or eight meters away from himself, he waved his wand and shouted: “Expelliarmus!” A red light flew from the tip of his wand and hit the wall, but it was a full two feet away from the human-sized target.
“Uh, sorry, I missed.”
“That’s okay, keep going.”
So Harry waved his wand continuously, a red light flew out, and after almost half an hour, he shouted out in a hoarse voice breathlessly, “Expelliarmus …” which resulted in his wand merely spewing out a string of sparks.
“Well, we stop, for now, come and sit over here,” Felix said.
Harry walked wearily to the other side of the square table and sat down, he looked at Professor Hap across the table, he is writing and drawing on parchment. Half a minute later, he looked up, “I know enough about this spell of yours, good, we finished the first step of the test.”
“Just a mere test?” Harry shouted out in surprise, he was going to die of exhaustion, every cell in his body was desperately screaming in pain.
Felix curled his mouth and whispered in an enchanting tone, “Potter, at your age, I already understand the disarming charm no better than an ordinary adult wizard, and you have every potential to do so.”
“In addition to the disarming charm, the not-quite-skilled shield charm, as you said yourself.”
“And the tongue-Tying Curse, I will even throw you an extra simple and practical spell or two …”
Harry swallowed, with the help of the bright firelight in the basement, despite the respect, he felt he saw the devil’s smile.
But he must admit that his heart thumped.
Professor Hap hadn’t said what would happen if he learned the spells, but he couldn’t help but make the connection; the adoration of his classmates, the extra credit in class, and maybe the chance to show off his abilities in front of the girl he loved …
With a little tremble in his voice, he said, “Professor, I’m at your disposal.” He felt like he sounded tragic when he spoke, as if he was about to head to the execution ground.
Felix took out a piece of chocolate and handed it to him, “Eat something first, and we’ll do the second test next.”
Ten minutes later.
Felix and Harry were seven or eight meters apart, facing each other.
“Potter, we’re here to test the maximum power of your spell this time. You have to fully mobilize your emotions, remember what we mentioned in the dueling class? Determination, confidence, and most importantly the INTENT, the disarming charm is meant to protect yourself and disable your enemy’s ability to harm you.”
Harry nodded, he took a deep breath and imagined that across the room stood Malfoy, who suddenly turned into a gargoyle with Peregrine hair, waving a club towards him …
“Puff!” He burst out laughing, “Uh, sorry.”
After brewing his emotions for a while –
“Expelliarmus!”
Harry hissed and shouted as a finger-thick red light rushed straight at Felix, and stopped by an invisible barrier.
“Not enough, Potter, let me see your potential!” Felix cheered.
Harry gritted his teeth, mobilized his magic with all his might, and for a moment, he really felt the difference, it seemed to be the “active magic” as Professor Hap had said, and he thought to himself: disarm, make the enemy lose the ability to hurt me …
He thought of the real enemies, Professor Quirrell, the Basilisk, and … Voldemort!
The red light became as thin as a hair after a few tremors, Felix almost thought he had failed, but the next second, a searing beam of light flew out from Harry’s wand, spanning seven or eight meters, and instantly crashed into Felix’s shield charm.
The two magic spells wrestled in midair, and a low rumble echoed through the basement.