The Extraordinary Apothecary at Hogwarts

Then it was time to play hide and seek with the curse.

Eugenie was surprised to see the professor open the secret compartment of his desk that he had never used before, and took out an inconspicuous old wooden box. The lid of the box was opened, and it contained a bottle of medicine that she had never seen before. The lid of the bottle was rotated by a Sealed by the ball, fine golden glitter in the belly of the bottle floats in the crimson liquid.

Snape turned the bottle upside down and rubbed the tip of his wand back and forth against the ball to coat it with the potion.

"Give me your right hand," he said.

Eugenie obediently stretched out her hand, palm upward. This novel bottle of potion was obviously related to the magic stone and came from Mr. Nico Flamel.

The wand poked her palm and took out a pinpoint-sized amount of red magic power.

The special potion gave the wand temporary permission to manipulate this divine power. She saw the little red dot fluttering into Lockhart's body. It was now located on the tip of the little finger of her right hand.

The magic power of the magic stone is the embodiment of holiness, and it has a natural repelling effect on all dirty things in the world.But they could only use a very small amount to test where the curse was hiding. Once too much was used, it would arouse a strong reaction and make Lockhart fall into a bad fate in advance.

"It may take a long time to search. The waiting process is tedious but there is no room for relaxation," Snape reminded her. "Keep an eye on all the tracks near the red dot. The range cannot be too small. When we stand outside the body and search, our field of vision There are certain blind spots in itself.”

"Professor, how does this curse move? Is it very fast?" Eugenie asked nervously.

Snape gave her a flat look and said, "I know as much as you do."

Their eyes followed the red dot from the five fingers to the shoulder step by step. They could not skip it under the skin or between the bones. Soon a quarter of an hour passed.

No one knows what will happen next second.

The fire occasionally made a clear sound in their ears.

Then another quarter of an hour passed, and the red spot moved to the back of his head.

Eugenie's nerves were so tense that she didn't even dare to blink. Her eyes were extremely dry now, and the light spot was always in the center of her field of vision when she looked closely. Now even if she moved her eyes away to look at other things around her, there would be an indelible shadow in front of her eyes. spot.

There was no gain, there was no new movement in the complicated orbits in the field of vision.

Snape stopped and said, "Alternate," he took the lead and rubbed his eyes, so Eugenie followed suit. She reached for her waist and took out two bottles of eye drops, opened her eyelids and dropped three drops, which cooled her eyes. It spreads out and the excess slides down the eyelashes.

Every time the displacement of the red dot is paused, the task of keeping an eye on the changes in trajectory is handed over to another person, and the resting eyes only need to follow roughly.

Right arm, neck, brain, left arm, entire chest…

The red dot slowly moves down.

The charcoal in the fireplace had thickened a bit, and the minute hand passed twice silently.

Suddenly, a new trajectory flashed in the lower right corner of the field of vision.

"Here! It's here! It's escaping upwards!" Eugenie pointed at the location where it just appeared and shouted, her heart pounding faster.

That cunning figure was like a nasty locust. It was startled by the energy of the magic stone and then jumped up and down. It jumped up to the lungs and throat. The trajectory cunningly paused for a second, and suddenly without warning, it jumped from a distance away from where it was just now. A rapid fall of 2 inches.

It disappeared like hiding in the grass.

The last place it appeared was on the leg, but unfortunately it was the leg without arms.

Snape controlled the red dot and immediately chased after it. This guy who was good at hiding obviously knew how to take advantage of the blind spot in his field of vision - it had just moved a distance of 1 inches without any clues in 2 second.

The only way is to continue chasing and let it run into the prosthetic limb in a panic.

There are several more traces of the curse running through Lockhart's body, but these will be the last traces. This evil-doing thing is what caused the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers to encounter bad luck one after another, and the quality of teaching plummeted to the bottom. .

"Ready!" Snape gripped his wand tightly.

Cut it off!

Eugenie raised her wand high like a machete, her eyes fixed on the changes in the trajectory, and she held her breath.

The thin trajectory line escaped into the trap, the long-awaited spell was suddenly swung down, and the prosthetic limbs sprayed blood and rolled down.

As long as Lockhart remains Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, the curse will not leave his body.

It's still in "his body" now.

"Success, Professor—" Eugenie was about to cheer, but she stopped laughing when she saw that the professor still looked serious.

"It's not over yet, you stay here first." Snape quickly stopped the bleeding from the prosthetic wound and put it into an empty cloth bag.

Eugenie watched the door close, knowing that now was not the right time to ask, so she cleaned up the bloody scene so that it did not look like a place where some perverted murderer imprisoned and dismembered his victims.

There is still a small remnant of the prosthetic limb connected to Lockhart's leg. This part is not easy to remove now. As long as you give it some time, maybe half an hour, the damaged remnant of the prosthetic limb will lose its activity and it will fall off automatically by then. It turns back into a blood-red colloid.

Snape was holding the bag in his left hand, and the black robe was chasing after him quickly.

His heavy and urgent footsteps led to the principal's office.

"Dumbledore! Hurry!" Snape shouted as soon as he entered the door, and the portraits of previous principals on the wall looked at him dissatisfied.

"Oh, successful?" Dumbledore heard the voice and walked quickly down the small stairs.

After the prosthesis is damaged, it can remain in its original state for about half an hour. Before that, the curse can be firmly locked inside.

Once the expiration date expires, the limb is no longer "part of the living Defense Against the Dark Arts professor" and will return to the living Lockhart, and by then all the work has been wasted.

Snape asked urgently, "Destroy it with venom?"

"Yes, Severus, after much thought, this is the most reliable method." Dumbledore took out a snake tooth collected during the Halloween battle from the black cabinet. There was venom remaining in the hollow tooth.

Snape poured his arms out of the bag, and the portraits craned their necks and stared.

Dumbledore grabbed the fang, and the tip of the tooth pierced into the flesh. The poison spread quickly, and his arm broke into a black hole like parchment placed on the candlelight. Then the whole arm turned into black water with a sizzling sound, causing Dirty carpet.

"You always amaze us, Severus." said the portrait of Principal Black on the wall. "Last time it was an Animagus mouse. This time it's an arm. Whose arm?"

There are many ears waiting for the answer to this question just like him.

"No one," Snape replied coolly.

"It's a prosthetic arm, Phineas. It's so realistic that even you can't tell." Dumbledore smiled and put the fang back into the box and closed it in a locked drawer of the black cabinet. "Good news, Black The curse of Defense Against Magic is lifted."