The days of hanging out at Hogwarts

In Hagrid's hut.

Harry and Ron squatted next to the red firewood stove, using twigs to poke the salamanders scurrying back and forth in the fire. For a moment, sparks flew everywhere, and the sound of the salamanders baring their teeth and exhaling could not be stopped.

Loren put a few blue bellflower flames in a transparent glass jar containing honey, luring three or four salamanders to rush into the glass jar, and then stopped filling it.

After closing the lid, Loren put the glass jar in front of his eyes, observed the salamander holding the glass, and looked up happily at the big man next to him: "This much is enough, I can't raise any more. It's too much Thank you, Hagrid."

"Is that all you need? I thought you were going to use them to make potions or alchemy materials, and I was worried that you wouldn't have enough..."

Hagrid waved his hand carelessly, "Don't worry about raising them, just pour them into the fireplace in the common room. These little guys will find food by themselves."

While the two were talking, Hermione took the glass jar from Loren and observed the salamander curiously.

Hagrid poured the hot milk for several people, and also poured a bowl for Fangya. He watched the hound eagerly lick it up, and it was so hot that it screamed.

Hagrid laughed and slapped the dog's head, then turned around to remind the young wizards to be careful about getting burned.

"Salamanders have already learned..." Hagrid sat down on the tattered leather sofa, "But the cold weather will continue for a while. I plan to get some fire crabs to teach you. It happens that the Black Lake is about to thaw. .”

"Salamander, fire crab, what's next, ash snake?" Ron joked.

Hermione put down the glass jar and reminded: "No matter what comes next, stay safe, Professor Hagrid, we don't want to see what happened with Bobby Barker happen again."

This title made Hagrid couldn't help laughing: "Of course!"

A few people were teasing the salamanders and chatting, enjoying the warm time around the fire in the late winter.

Loren put his arms around Fang, rubbed its head with a smile, opened his eyelids to see the pupils, opened the ears to see the piercings, squeezed the lips to see the teeth, and even opened the wrinkles on the face for a look. .

Loren closed it after just one glance. He couldn't help shouting to the dog owner next to him: "Hagrid, you should give Fang a bath! I suspect it may not be a black hound."

"Well... Yaya's hair is relatively short, so it's easy to catch a cold if you take a bath in winter..."

Hagrid's tone was a little weak, and his face was slightly red. The reason was a valid reason, but more importantly it was because they were both lazy, not to mention Tooth. Even Hagrid himself didn't take a bath very often in winter.

The hound Yaya didn't seem to understand the disgust in Loren's words, thinking that he was playing some kind of game with her, and flopped into Loren's arms. In every sense, it was playing into someone's hands, and Loren was able to carefully observe its appearance. .

Yaya is a black Neapolitan Mastiff, possibly mixed with the blood of some magical animal. He looks very big, and is also a giant in the hunting world. The muscles on the torso are strong, but the skin on the face hangs loosely. If it were the first time to meet it, the little wizard would probably be frightened by its ferocious appearance and have nightmares.

But Loren, who has been together for two years, knows very well that Yaya is a complete coward, with a gentle personality that is too gentle to be fierce. When encountering other ferocious beasts, he will run to Hagrid for help as quickly as possible, looking aggrieved like a little kid. girl.

Even something as small as a salamander can scare it.

Seeing his careful observation, Hermione frowned and leaned over, rubbed the soft flesh on her teeth, and whispered in Loren's ear: "Do you want to become a puppy? Can you be cute? The fluffy kind.”

The hot breath hit his ears, which was a little itchy. Loren turned his head suddenly, bared his teeth, and said viciously: "Who said I want to turn into a puppy? I want to turn you into a puppy!"

Hermione was so frightened that she screamed, and then slapped him on the back angrily. She originally wanted to teach him a lesson, but thinking that she had not yet fully mastered the art of human transfiguration, she withdrew the slap angrily and put aside this grudge for the time being. In the little notebook in your mind, prepare to defer processing.

On the other side, Harry and Ron were telling Hagrid about Quidditch. The laughter and the occasional barking of Fangs were mixed into the crackling wood fire, making the fire burn even more vigorously.

…

The second week of the new semester.

Animagus teaching classes have reopened.

Professor McGonagall's first class of the new semester is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

The little wizards in the classroom can be divided into three echelons. The first echelon is the outstanding students of the previous class. They have completed the process of burying the secret medicine before the Christmas vacation. Now they only have to wait for a thunderstorm before they can try to transform.

The second echelon is the students who have started to mouth Mandrake blades in the last month. Hermione, Harry and Ron are in this echelon.

The third echelon is the salted fish echelon that is the least progressed. Some of them started to suck mandrake leaves last month but have failed, and some have not sucked the leaves at all.

Loren does not belong to the above three echelons. He has basically given up on the Animagus, but he has not officially withdrawn from the class with Professor McGonagall, so this class is still here.

In addition to telling the students to pay attention to the time of the full moon this month, Professor McGonagall still taught the same content as before, and also added some new knowledge, but not much.

Loren held his head with his left hand, and shook a charcoal pen between the index and middle fingers of his right hand. On the parchment paper on the table, there was a sketch of a salamander, from the scales on the surface to the arrangement of the internal organs in the body. The content was detailed, the map clear, and deep. Get the true version of the anatomy book series.

Of course, the salamanders were still alive and well, sleeping in the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room.

These anatomical diagrams were drawn by him using materials obtained from Professor Snape and combined with fantasy books.

"Sure enough, they are not much different from ordinary lizards..." Loren muttered in his heart.

In the past few days, he had tried to transform into a salamander in the Book of Fantasy Library, but he had no ability to live in flames or feed on fire. Even the lower-temperature blue bellflower flames, the surface scales could only be burned with fire. After baking for a few minutes, it will dry up and break into pieces, and it will turn into ashes in a short time.

According to the current situation, it is speculated that the main source of the magic of magical animals is magic. If you want to simulate the magic of magical animals, you need to convert the magic into special alien magic.

This leads to a strange cycle. Instead of working hard to convert magic, it is better to delve into the same type of magic.

For example, the ability of a salamander to inhabit flames can be achieved by mastering the magic spell of invulnerability to water and fire. It can even block even the fire spell.

Loren casually marked the name of the salamander's internal organs, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart. His experience seemed to confirm what Dumbledore said, the most important thing for wizards is magic.

"Wait...Dumbledore, Dumbledore..."

Loren's writing suddenly stopped, leaving a black dot mark on the parchment, "Phoenix Fox!"

Loren felt a faint excitement rising in her heart.

The magic of wizards cannot completely replace the magic of magical animals!

Just like the magic of Phoenix's nirvana and resurrection from the dead, no wizard has invented this kind of magic since ancient times.

Even the immortals who are drowned behind the historical truth can only maintain their lives carefully and cannot resurrect from the dead...

It seems that research on magical animals will continue.

Suppressing the heat in his heart, Loren exhaled softly.

An hour later, the get out of class bell rang. After Professor McGonagall once again told her about the mandrake, she ended the class, packed up her lesson plans and books, and left the classroom.

"Hermione, take the book back for me. I'll go find Professor McGonagall to cancel the class."

"Oh." Hermione replied in a muffled voice.

Loren scratched the tip of her nose with his index finger, stood up and left the classroom, chasing after Professor McGonagall.

Professor McGonagall was wearing a dark green satin robe, her hair was tied into a thick bun, and she was walking solemnly and gracefully. When she heard a series of footsteps approaching, Professor McGonagall only moved her eyes and glanced at him:

"Mr. Morgan, if you're here to apologize for being distracted throughout class, I might consider forgiving you."

"Hehe..." Loren scratched his head and smiled, "I'm sorry, Professor McGonagall, but although I am distracted, I am indeed thinking about the content related to transfiguration."

"Oh?" Professor McGonagall said lightly, "It sounds like you are here to ask for advice."

"certainly!"

Loren answered the question confidently and confidently.

…

"...So I'm thinking that exploring the field of magical animals may inspire different magic."

After Loren finished speaking, he glanced at Professor McGonagall and saw that the professor didn't reply for a long time and seemed to be deep in thought. He picked up the tea on the desk and took a sip.

Professor McGonagall looked thoughtfully at the little wizard sitting opposite, with a deep look in his eyes. He was silent for a moment, but did not reply to his thoughts about magical animals. Instead, he asked: "Can I demonstrate the transformation of your animal?" "

Loren put down the tea cup honestly, closed his eyes and concentrated, constructing the shape of the cat in his mind.

A faint white light appeared on the surface of his skin, turning into a white-haired lion cat squatting on the desk, looking at the professor with a pair of beautiful heterochromatic pupils.

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, a glimmer of light flashed in her eyes, and her fingers trembled slightly, looking a little ready to move.

"Ahem..." Professor McGonagall resisted the urge to rub the kitten and nodded calmly, "Change back."

A faint white light appeared, and Loren sat back in the chair. After a period of practice, he has completely mastered the transformation process between cat form and human form, and the transformation speed is very fast.

"The transformation process is somewhat similar to Animagus, but the details are very different..."

Professor McGonagall gradually entered a professional state and carefully recalled the discovery just now, "From the analysis of the eye color, it is not a complete imitation of the deformation, but retains some wizard's physical signs..."

"Yes, Professor..." Loren added, "Unlike the animals that lose their magic power after the Animagus transformation, after the transformation, I can reverse the process by controlling a strange magic power in my body."

Professor McGonagall frowned slightly and spoke slowly in thought: "You said you can also turn into an owl... Have you ever tried to directly change from one animal to another?"

"This..." Loren was stunned for a moment. He had never thought of this before and shook his head in denial.

"You can try to use that magic power to transform directly...or use that magic power to complete some simple magic that does not require the use of a wand. It is best to fit the shape-shifting animals."

Professor McGonagall paused and added: "For example, moving the ball, pulling the rope, supporting the jump, etc..."

For the next half hour, Loren and Professor McGonagall conducted a detailed and thoughtful discussion of the actions and magic that could be attempted in cat form.

Listening to Professor McGonagall's endless thoughts and plans, the corners of Loren's eyes twitched. He felt that Professor McGonagall's ideas were a little too detailed, as if they had been tried before.

"These are just some of my ideas. Your transformation is different from Animagus. I can only make some suggestions. Whether you adopt them or not is up to you..."

"Besides, Albus is right, the exploration of magical beasts should not take away from your time learning magic."

Professor McGonagall mentioned more than a dozen ideas at once, and at the end she was still a little unfinished. She sighed softly and said, "You don't need to come to the teaching class in the future."

"Okay professor, if I have any progress or doubts, I will come back to you for advice." Loren nodded in agreement, politely bid farewell to the professor and left.

Professor McGonagall sat behind the desk, used a cleaning spell to clean the tea sets on the desk, and then put them back to their original places. She looked at the soft candlelight in the office and the cat climbing frame piled up in the corner of the room, quietly lost in thought. Lost consciousness for a long time.

…

Loren came out of the Vice Headmaster's office and went straight back to the Gryffindor common room.

The lounge was noisy. In addition to the group of people playing cards, chess, and chatting, there was also a group of first-year wizards gathered in front of the fireplace. They had never seen a salamander before. They were all extremely curious, and their faces were burned red by the flames. My mouth is so dry that I won't leave even if it peels off.

Hermione huddled on the single sofa by the window, immersed in a thick book, with a silly smile on her lips.

Suddenly someone came over and read out the title of the article she was reading: "Wizards and Their Cats"?

"boom!"

Hermione slammed the big book shut and turned to look at him warily.

"I haven't read clearly what's written in the first paragraph?" Loren put his hands on her shoulders and shook her, "Is there anything I can't read?"

Hermione's slender eyelashes fluttered a few times, she pursed her lips and did not answer. Instead, she pulled out a letter from behind her and said slowly, "I have your letter. Hanhan sent it just now."

"strange……"

Loren glanced at her suspiciously, took the letter, squeezed into the single sofa, and started reading the letter next to her.

There was no postmark on the light yellow envelope, and the wax seal was a little blurry. It could only be vaguely seen that the seal was divided into four parts.

Loren had some doubts in his heart. He took out the letter and immediately looked at the signature in the lower left corner:

[Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts

Sincerely, Tom Gunter]