Chapter 177

” Potter, wake up! Potter …”

Harry opened his eyes slowly, the light of the torch is a bit glaring, which made Professor Hap’s shadow a bit blurred.

For a moment, his expression looked somewhat dazed.

He then rose from the ground and straightened his glasses, “What’s happened to me?”

“Exhaustion plus dehydration, a very normal phenomenon.” Felix looked at him, “That’s enough for today, let’s go up and get something to eat, and I’ll also work on your special training plan.”

Harry felt very uncomfortable, his limbs were weak, and he felt light.

He followed Felix’s footsteps stumbling on the stairs, his stomach turned upside down.

It wasn’t until he downed a large glass of juice and ate two pies that he felt alive again and is in the mood to think about something.

“Professor, you said this is normal, do you have a similar experience? Also, you told me that the period after an accidental magic burst is perfect for practicing spells, is this your personal experience …”

Harry’s tone slowly lightened, he remembered Hermione once very emotionally expressed sympathy for Professor Hap.

It was a time when the news of the Dueling Club was released and the topic of discussion revolved around the word “dueling”. Professor Hap’s ‘brilliant experience’ was once again brought out and talked about, the boys all wanted to take his place, and the young witches were adoring or sympathetic to the injustice during his school days.

And Hermione is one of them.

At the time, Harry could not understand her thought process, but now, he suddenly understood a little.

In the face of his question, Felix said shortly, “Indeed …”

What Indeed? As Harry lay in bed in a room where he stayed, he’s still thinking about this question.

Early in the following morning, Harry is woken up by Dobby’s knock on the door, he opened the door in a daze, the elf respectfully passed over the toiletries, next to him stood Professor Hap.

“Come on, Potter, we’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

Harry felt a novel experience, similar to the feeling he had when he was a guest in a Burrow and woken up by Mrs. Weasley. Rarely would any adult intervene in his daily life and remind him to brush his teeth at the right time – if you didn’t count the angry rantings of the Dursley’s towards him.

All morning they hunkered down in the basement as he kept casting the disarming charm, and in the words of Professor Hap, “We want to maximize the benefits, and you’ll find that at the student level, one trick pushes all the right buttons.”

He feels like he’s about to throw up, but Professor Hap takes great trouble to point out his mistakes and spends a lot of time explaining the trick to the spell’s advancement.

“You have to imagine yourself as a dualist, or a newcomer Auror. Your magic is very active, and you can feel it, mobilize it so that you can control it, and let it flow out in a stream.” Felix said as he applied a Supersensory Charm on Harry.

“Also, this is a good time to learn silent casting of the disarming charm.”

“And the theory of the spell part, I’ll only cover the ones most related to the disarming charm, it probably won’t help you learn the other spells, but we’re going to speed up time and I want to see how far you’ll go.”

Harry found that in the basement, Professor Hap always seemed unsympathetic, he would wake him up again and again after he collapsed on the floor without even a second’s delay, but after the special training, he would take him to Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, or just stand with him outside the window of the Quality Quidditch Supplies, as he admired the latest model of Firebolt.

Of course, Harry guessed that the broom was not on Professor Hap’s mind, because once again, after wondering for two minutes he would ask him about the disarming charm, “Isn’t there a feeling of euphoria? Like you were born to know this charm.”

His reply at the time was a bit sloppy, and he couldn’t remember if it was “kind of like that” or an unassuming “just like that”.

They also ran into Neville Longbottom, his classmate, a round-faced, fidgety boy. He followed his grandmother, who looked ghastly, carrying a large red handbag in one hand, and was sternly reprimanding Neville.

Harry wanted to run away because he had impersonated Neville while riding the Knight Bus, and he hoped that Neville’s grandmother would never find out about it.

But Neville saw Harry and waved excitedly at him: “Harry, Harry! It’s so good to meet you, I lost my book list.”

Harry hurriedly borrowed a piece of parchment from Professor Hap and wrote the name of the new course material on it.

“Ah, you are Harry Potter, right, Neville mentioned you to me, a good boy, very talented. You guided him in disarming charm, and he said you were a quick learner, unlike him …” Neville’s grandmother clutched her handbag tightly, her eyebrows knitted together, “The boy did not inherit his parents’ talent, and I was worried until he received an Admission letter,”

Neville grimaced and peeked at Harry, and Harry did not dare to speak, the old woman is really intimidating, but to his surprise, a silent Professor Hap spoke up: “Neville Longbottom, I saw you on the list of students who chose my class, I am glad you will take my class.”

“You’re a professor at Hogwarts?” Neville’s grandmother asked.

“Felix Hap, I teach Ancient Runes, ma’am.”

“I’ve heard of your name, Mr. Hap, and I admire your courage, not anyone would dare to face a despicable pureblood family,” she pointed proudly at Neville, “like his parents, who were on the front lines resisting dark lord’s rule all through the war years, even when tortured by some scum …”

She wiped the corners of her eyes and led Neville away.

Neville mouthed at Harry: see you on the train. With that, he is dragged away.

“What happened to Neville’s parents?” Harry asked as he looked at his back.

Felix replied, “I’m not really sure, I think they were killed in the battle with the Death Eaters.”

…

A week passed in a blink of an eye, and Professor Hap showed him a thick pile of charts.

“These are the data of me practicing the disarming charm?” Harry asked in surprise, pointing at the thick parchment.

“There is no need to make a fuss, to tell you a secret, I have made a fortune in the Muggle world based on this!” Felix said jokingly.

Harry looked at the curve above, with ten casts as a unit, his progress isn’t obvious, but if you take a hundred casting as a unit, his progress rate is a bit unbelievable.

“Interesting, isn’t it? No one has ever really worked on this.” Felix said in a brisk tone.

“Professor Hap, I’ve reached level four on the disarming charm?” Harry couldn’t help but stare at the note on the parchment that seemed to be at the level the Auror had reached after a few years of service.

“Ah, you remember the division of it?” Felix said, “In a way, it does meet that requirement. You can flexibly control the power of the disarming charm and make more delicate manipulations, such as drawing an arc, casting a silent spell, and so on …”

Harry’s mood became delighted, like eating a row of ten strawberry ice cream, from head to toe with a surge of pleasure. But Professor Hap quickly threw a bucket of cold water –

“Only this one charm, Potter, if you want to go further in the field of dueling, you should consider establishing your own fighting style in due course.”

“Fighting style?”

“Like which spell to use as the core-”

” Disarming charm!” Harry said without thinking.

“… don’t decide easily, besides, there should be complementary spell structure, such as: what spell you use to defend, what spells to attack; which spell is used to hold the opponent down, which is to deal with tricky problems, all these, you should think clearly.”

“Needless to say the pace of battle, critical judgment, scenario foresight, and so on.”

“Of course, there is targeted knowledge, well, maybe I’m asking too much from you, this is beyond the level of the average Auror.”

Harry excitedly took a notebook to write down: “That’s okay, you can say as comprehensive as possible.” He got inspired to imitate Hermione’s tone of voice: “Professor, in fact, I want to write a related thesis!”

“… Very well, I will say it.”

In the days before the school began, Professor Hap did not ask him to continue to cast the Disarming Charm – a relief that he had finally been exposed to a second spell.

“Potter–”

“Professor, you can call me Harry,” Harry said with some apprehension, having practiced in the mirror several times this morning just to say this phrase.

After a few moments of silence across the table, just as he was somewhat remorseful for his recklessness, Felix said, “Yes, Harry, I’ll call you that in private.”

“Your disarming charm will hardly improve in a short time, even with my all-round assistance you can’t-”

“Professor, I’m already satisfied,” Harry said contentedly, he had changed for the better, at least he didn’t think beating Malfoy and his two followers would be a problem.

He saw Professor Hap smiling at him, “I also got the test data I wanted, and you are gradually getting your Magic activity back to normal, I’ve tried to prolong the process as much as I can, but alas, I can’t defy the laws of nature yet.”

“In the next day or two, we learn some spells to surprise, the results will be three to five times quicker than your regular results.”

Harry nodded his head hurriedly.