Hogwarts 1991

Chapter 116 The Rocket (True) and the Imperius Curse

"Ugh! That's...a..."

Hagrid hesitated to speak.

And Ron and the others already understood what it was.

"Keeping a dragon in captivity...Hagrid, have you really considered it?...Is this against the wizarding law?" Hermione looked at Hagrid very seriously. .

Under Hermione's aggressive gaze, Hagrid turned around awkwardly and added a few more logs to the fire.

The flames became bigger and smaller irregularly, sweeping and roasting the dragon eggs, and as the flames licked the wood, sparks strangely scattered from the fireplace and fell into the room.

Hagrid looked excited as if he had discovered something.

He put his big face close to the fire, obsessively observing the black dragon egg, ignoring the scorching smell from his beard being scorched by the high temperature.

"Look, the little guy is sleeping soundly inside? Maybe he's still snoring."

Hagrid opened a large 'masterpiece', pointed to a page, and showed Harry and the others.

"The book Raising Dragons for Fun and Profit says you have to put the eggs in the fire and keep the flame on because their mother is breathing on them....Sometimes you can see the flame throbbing with the little guy's breath...like just now...beautiful!"

Watching little sparks floating in the cabin full of wood, fur, and cloth.

Harry just felt terrified, and really couldn't think it was even a little bit pretty.

—Hagrid's cabin was sure to burn.

"Hagrid, are you really ready to raise this dragon? If not, why don't you give it to a professional organization that specializes in dragon research? This will also make this little dragon take good care of..." Hermione made a more sincere suggestion.

But Hagrid didn't listen at all, he hummed and wanted to be a 'good mother' to the little one.

Ron was concerned about another question. He squatted by the fire, looked at the dragon egg, and asked Hagrid,

"Is this egg worth a lot of money? How much did you spend, Hagrid..."

"Win it!" said Hagrid with pride.He told several people that he got it from a card game with a stranger while drinking in the village.

"This stranger, Hagrid, do you think it's possible that Quirrell or Professor Snape is trying to get something out of your mouth..."

McGuffin continued to try to direct the attention of several people to Quirrell, but Hagrid was now completely possessed by the "Dragon Mother" and his dragon son was all on his mind.

"Look here—this is a Norwegian spineback. It's very rare..." He pointed to a picture in the book full of various dragon eggs.

At this time, Ron Harry and the others were also most interested in the topic of dragon eggs and dragons, while matters related to the Philosopher's Stone, Quirrell and Snape had long been left in Java.

"Hermione, I heard that the market for dragon blood is very tight, and the price of different dragon blood is still different. This dragon is so rare, maybe the price of its blood..."

Ron asked Hermione about the price of dragon's blood with great interest, which made Hagrid frown.

"The 'Twelve Uses of Dragon's Blood' does not introduce the functions of various types of dragon's blood. As long as you weigh it a little, you will know the approximate value!...God! Ron, this is a key knowledge point that must be taken... If you continue like this, you will definitely fail the final exam, and you may stay in the first grade..." Hermione said sharply to Ron.

This gave Hagrid something to think about.

"Hermione is right! Harry, Ron, you have to study hard for the final exam..." Then Hagrid looked at the ground and said to several people.

"Hagrid, why are you like this..." Ron looked at Hagrid with a distressed expression.

Harry looked at Hagrid and said, "Let me see again, I haven't seen a real dragon yet..."

Hagrid turned his head with a guilty conscience, and said, "I sent an owl to tell you when the dragon hatched, Harry..."

Then without any explanation, they 'sent' them back to Hogwarts Castle.

(McGuffin—I'm so...? Have you forgotten something? What about the doubts I raised?
McGuffin was crazily complaining about these guys, and he didn't dare to report the matter of revealing "Quirrell's true colors" by Harry. )
……

Now apart from the Philosopher's Stone and the final exam, Harry and the others had new things to worry about.

——What if someone finds out that Hagrid raised a dragon? He won't really be put in prison, right?

This worried Harry.

MacGuffin is different. Firstly, he knows that nothing will happen to Hagrid in the future plot of the original book, but Harry is not sure.

Secondly, he has other things to do, such as the ancient magic that Quirrell asked him to learn. He inspects McGuffin's learning progress in his office every week, and asks McGuffin to report on Harry's developments to see if he has discovered his true face.

In addition to fighting wits with Quirrell, the most important thing can only be the lifting of the blood curse.

He must study the books on curses or black magic in depth to see if he can find a way to undo it. (So ​​far, I can't find any element of the method to break the blood curse)

And if you want to improve efficiency or open research and study, talent points are indispensable.

- Well!I get angry just thinking about it.

"10 talent points!..."

McGuffin didn't dare to count on so many talent points.

Forget about taking one step at a time, he can only complete those tasks now, improve his strength, and prepare himself.

And McGuffin can feel that Quirrell or Voldemort is looking forward to something, which has a lot to do with the blood curse on his body.

This gave him an anxious premonition that the fragile balance between him and Quirrell could not go on like this forever...

All these preparations are so that when the current balance is destroyed, I can at least escape from him...

As for the blood curse, (before the degree of erosion has not increased significantly) it is not too urgent now.

And McGuffin also dismissed the idea of ​​revealing Quirrell's true colors.

One is because after so many days of McGuffin's efforts, Harry still has a deep-rooted obsession that Snape is more suspicious (Snape is also very cooperative and keeps making things difficult for Harry and McGuffin, aggravating Harry's negative impression and suspicion of him), Ron, Hermione and the others also think that McGuffin's suspicion of Quirrell cannot be taken seriously without direct evidence.

The second is because McGuffin also wants to understand that Dumbledore is probably looking forward to Harry's face-to-face with Voldemort.

——This is accidental and inevitable.

Although Dumbledore did not directly promote them, he arranged the stage for them early (underground checkpoints, the Mirror of Erised), and always guided Harry step by step in key positions. (e.g. Invisibility Cloak, Mirror of Erised)
It's all about turning that prophecy that has been in motion for 11 years again.

McGuffin guessed based on the comparison between the plot and everything he knew now-he himself just became one of the new patches arranged by Dumbledore in this wheel of fate. (That's why he doubted Quirrell, and ignored the contact he was very interested in by Quirrell. Perhaps in Dumbledore's great interests, he can also be sacrificed...)
"I really want to change the original plot to the greatest extent...to expose Quirrell's 'true face'...in case this is really Dumbledore's plan..." McGuffin fell into various Dumbledore conspiracy theories about "brain supplementation" that he had seen in his previous life. The more he thought about it, the more pressure he felt, and the fear was abnormal.

Maybe Harry was an integral part of Dumbledore's grand plan... and McGuffin couldn't believe what the old bee would do to him if he blocked what Dumbledore called "great interests".

So much nonsense...so much worrying conspiracy theories...

It is conceivable how busy McGuffin is with his 'business' all day long, and how stressful he is.

He didn't have the energy to worry about final exams, Hagrid raising a dragon, and so on.

He must be careful, hide his purpose and actions to complete new or previously accumulated system tasks to obtain talent points to improve his strength.

such as--

"coax……"

There was a blast, and the shock wave pushed the McGuffin against the wall, knocking him out for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes.

—he didn't know, and didn't care.

This is on the eighth floor of Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement.

McGuffin didn't want to come here. One of Voldemort's Horcruxes, Ravenclaw's diadem, is hidden here. (Who knows if Voldemort has a brain twitch one day and wants to see it, what if he blocks himself at the door?)

But apart from here, there is really no other place where McGuffin can feel safer to conduct experiments.

McGuffin set the Room of Response as [a room that only he can enter], so that Quirrell could avoid discovering his secrets as much as possible.

Here he can try to cast magic to his heart's content, or do alchemy experiments at the lowest cost to improve his strength or complete some of his previously accumulated tasks.

For example, now, he is trying his previous idea to make a flying broom that suits him, to complete the task of [Extreme Flying-Broom].

Forehead!In fact, it can also be said that it is not a broomstick.

With the current McGuffin's ability, he can't make a broomstick from scratch. Even if it is made, it will be an ancient model of the Middle Ages-slowly, without a cushion spell, and it may fall off at any time when riding it, and it may even be unable to turn...

It's like a Muggle car that only has a chassis and tires, not even a steering wheel, and even if it moves forward, it still needs to be 'pedaled' by manpower...

(One of the main aspects of not being able to make a broomstick is that now he doesn't know where to learn the braking spell, which happens to be the most important spell for a modern broomstick. Even though the braking spell has been invented for many years, there is almost no record of it in the Hogwarts books.)
So McGuffin had to find another way.

——If there is no magic, it depends on technology.

McGuffin's tongue-in-cheek idea of ​​a rocket broom for flying gave him some inspiration.

So he bought Ron's worn-out toy broom, and now he is trying to modify it here, adding equipment (magic rocket propulsion).

(Although it is driven by magic, the basic physical rules are still obeyed, just like the principle of water rockets that I used to play when I was a child in my previous life

——If a certain mass is thrown backward at a certain speed, it will be pushed forward by a reaction force and accelerate forward.

The modern rocket propellant (liquid or solid fuel and oxidant) burns in the engine combustion chamber to produce a large amount of high-pressure gas, which is ejected from the engine nozzle at high speed, and the reaction force on the rocket makes the rocket advance in the opposite direction of the gas injection.

Naturally, MacGuffins can’t make such high-end things. Of course, the Room of Requirement can only create things that MacGuffins know. They can’t make things such as the Dongfeng series, the Long March series, and the Shenzhou series...or even if they are made, they will be harmonized by a power that is more unknown and mysterious than magic, and a higher level.)
But he was barely a wizard, even if he was a half-wizard in his first year, and he had learned quite a bit of ancient magic and alchemy in a few weeks.

(In ancient times, most magic spells were vague and chaotic, and the purpose of casting spells could be modified at will to achieve new spell casting effects)

Even if you can't build Gundam by hand, you can build or refine a toy-like thruster according to that principle

——It should, probably!
Although it exploded that time just now, it also proved that my thinking works.

——It is indeed possible to turn a broomstick into a flying rocket!

However, it is necessary to measure some parameters and conduct some experiments to find out what kind of enchantments need to be cast inside and what kind of materials should be added so that it will not explode frequently.

If it doesn't work, if there is always an explosion, McGuffin has to make some early warning devices and some emergency defense devices, such as parachutes on planes, lifeboats on ships, and so on.

As long as I can safely complete the [Need for Flying Broomstick] task within a certain period of time.

——The flying rocket broom gradually took shape during the trial process. (However, there are some problems. This kind of experiment consumes a lot of MacGuffin's little savings, which can even be said to be pitiful.)
In addition, McGuffin is still practicing magic spells, alchemy, transfiguration and other magic here, not to mention practicing black magic, curses, and other magic spells that Quirrell taught himself.

This guy also checks the progress every week, and if it doesn't meet his expectations, he will change the McGuffin into a snake form as punishment.

In order not to further deepen the curse, McGuffin can only practice ancient magic or black magic such as curses very hard.

With each practice of ancient magic or curses, the erosion rate of the MacGuffin curse displayed on the system is also slowly increasing, although it does not increase as much after one transformation...

……

Wednesday morning, before herbal medicine class,
Quirrell's office.

McGuffin is having a weekly 'meeting' with Quirrell.

"Soul out of the body!"

Now—the MacGuffin, he said to Quirrell, holding his wand.

In his expectant eyes,
Quirrell turned his body stiffly in a strange posture, twisting his limbs

——His neck was stretched forward forcefully, and his head slowly and unnaturally turned towards his shoulders, as if a pair of powerful, invisible hands were holding Quirrell's chin with one hand, and his scalp with the other.

——Forcibly breaking Quirrell's head, wanting to twist it 90 degrees directly, as if bending his head horizontally on his neck.

——Quirrell's limbs slowly folded back, and his arms and wrists slowly twisted back 180 degrees.

——It's like a classic horror scene in a Muggle weird movie.

"Okay..." Quirrell exhaled and recovered from the controlled state. He slowly twisted his body and returned it to its original shape.

"It's amazing, McGuffin! Very creative method of casting the Imperius Curse... You lived up to my expectations... Yes, yes... Much better than those incompetent and hypocritical peers..."

Quirrell clapped his hands and applauded, looking at McGuffin with joy...

No!It was an expression of ecstasy and obsession,—like the hot pot has started to boil, and you are holding the meat slices with chopsticks, brushing them in, drooling with anticipation.

Looking at Quirrell's abnormal expression on that face, McGuffin couldn't help feeling a chill in his heart.

Once or twice a week since the blood curse, Quirrell would ask McGuffin to come to his office unobtrusively.

Here, Quirrell will examine McGuffin's progress in learning ancient magic, and even teach McGuffin some ancient magic, or older curses, black witchcraft and other spells.

What I just cast was the [Soul Imperius Curse].

Not long ago, Quirrell asked him to choose one of the three unforgivable curses to learn, and McGuffin chose [Imperius Curse] without hesitation.

Whether it's because this spell is the least harmful, easiest to hide, and most practical of the three.

It is also because of the other two Unforgivable Curses, one requires the will to have the idea of ​​killing people, and the other requires the desire to torture people.

——If you choose to learn these two spells, McGuffin will gradually degenerate into psychopaths like these dark wizards.

He chose this spell, which was a wise choice in desperation.

"That's right! McGuffin... To cast the Unforgivable Curse, you have to enjoy the pain in your heart, and you can't have the slightest emotion... Especially the Imperius Curse, any sympathy and hesitation towards the caster will easily make him get out of your control..."

Quirrell teaches the MacGuffin how to cast the Imperius Curse.

(McGuffin thinks that the key to this Imperius Curse is not emotion, but control, how to influence and control others more effectively, and rely on magic power to order others, just like Quirrell just now. As long as you want to resist and have strong will magic power, a wizard can easily resist this spell.)

"Is Harry meddling?"

Quirrell then asked MacGuffin.

(End of this chapter)