Chapter 202

Ron came over to look at the parchment and said unexpectedly, “How come there is my dad’s name?”

On the parchment, the names of two people, James Potter and Sirius Black, occupied the center, and from their names led to various associated characters, such as James led to Harry, and from Harry drew the names of various sources of information, such as ‘Mr. Weasley’, ‘Minister Fudge ‘, ‘Professor Lupin’.

Harry explained, “Before we got on the train, Mr. Weasley told me to be wary of Sirius and made me swear not to look for him, so surely he knew more.”

“Do you want me to write him a letter?” Ron asked warily, a little afraid, to be honest.

“I’d like–”

“Potter! Come over here.” Professor McGonagall came in from outside and waved towards Harry.

The two went to the corner and murmured, Harry’s voice becoming more and more agitated.

Halfway through the morning, he returned, with a grim expression, and placed a Sneakoscope on the table, picking up a quill and adding a new name ‘Professor McGonagall’ on the parchment.

“She knows it, too, and yet she fools me like a child.”

Hermione looked at the pocket Sneakoscope and suddenly said, “It was made by Professor Hap, commissioned by Dumbledore, and it contains Sirius Black’s hair hidden inside.”

She promised Professor Hap that she would not reveal it in advance, but since the Sneakoscope has been delivered to Harry, there is no need to hide it.

Harry chuckled in exasperation, “So, everyone is trying to keep me in the dark, the one involved?”

“Come on, Harry, they have their reasons. But we can also look into those past events ourselves, can’t we?” Hermione said.

Ron’s eyes widened, “Do you know what you’re talking about, Hermione?”

“It’s important, Ron. We might be able to analyse valuable information from it, like the magic Sirius Black is good at, in case we meet him narrowly, it’s better than not knowing anything about him.” Hermione overbearingly assigned tasks: “Ron, you write to your father, while Harry works through Professor Lupin.”

“What about you?” Ron asked sensitively.

“I’ll ask Professor Hap if he knows something, but it’s unlikely, Harry’s father had already graduated by the time he enrolled.” Hermione crossed her fingers and said, “Oh yeah, and Hagrid, do you remember? The night Malfoy got hurt, we ran to comfort Hagrid, and he ended up getting excited and throwing us out.”

Ron said with a look of approval: “It will work, Hagrid is a big mouth, he will spill the beans.”

Harry suddenly reminded the two: “Snape must know it too. He hates my father, and he hates Professor Lupin, so maybe …”

“What a great idea, let’s run over and question him – Dear Professor Snape, were you beaten on the arse by a man called James Potter when you were at school? We’d like to know more about a friend of his …”

Harry dumbfounded.

Neville walked in, with a letter in his hand. Looking around for a moment, he came to Harry.

“A letter from Grandmother, addressed to Professor Hap, I don’t know whether to give it to him or not.” Neville’s round face showed a hesitant expression.

…

Felix saw the letter the next day, he opened the envelope in front of Neville and pulled out the letterhead.

Neville stared at him unblinkingly, “What did she say?”

“Asking me to come to Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop at the weekend and meet to talk more about it.” Felix grinned.

Neville swallowed, “Can I, can I follow, it’s about me, isn’t it?” He barely managed to get the words out that the trio had devised for him yesterday.

“Oh, no, you’re not allowed to enter Hogsmeade yet.”

…

“And you just agreed to that? Without further effort?” Harry said with a glare.

“I, I …” Neville stammered, “I think Professor Hap has a point, I really amn’t allowed to go to Hogsmeade village.”

“You could have asked him to take you with him, he’s a professor!”

“I didn’t think … of that at the time,” said Neville, rubbing the back of his head.

Harry sulked alone.

On the other hand, Felix is poking a glass vial with great interest.

Three days had passed, and the Acromantula inside it had grown as big as a walnut.

“I know you can understand my words, Mr. spider.” Felix said.

“Wizard, what do you want to do?” The Mr. spider said gruffly, its pair of large claws opening and closing with a “click-click-click” sound.

“A lot, but I need your cooperation.”

“No way, wizard, you can’t humiliate me.” It said fiercely, while waving its claws in anger.

If it had said this with its original size, I think it would have been quite intimidating.

Felix smiled, “I have to remind you that you attacked me first, the reason why I kept you is that you are still useful, if you are useless …”

The Mr. Spider tensed up as it once again remembered the fear of being tortured ( shrunken ) by this wizard, “So, you will let me go?”

“If it’s satisfactory, why not? Do you look delicious?”

“Okay, I promise.” It quickly changed its words.

“Next I will stimulate you a little with magic to bring you back to your original state, and you have to describe the corresponding feeling, understand?”

“… understand.”

In Felix’s perspective, a blue magic power which appeared to be extremely orderly coiled inside the Acromantula’s body, like a chain, which blocked its body from recovering, but the magic power on the other hand help it dissipate at an extremely slow rate.

After all, magic power is a featureless source, and the Acromantula itself is a magical creature, containing magic power in its body, and it’s also desperately trying to get rid of the imprisonments on its body.

Later, this process becomes more rapid. From the data obtained in the previous three days, the time period is between 5 – 8 days.

”If I can make my magic automatically draw from the free magic power, will it be permanent?” Felix speculated, but it is totally unrealistic, at least he can’t even touch a shadow of it right now.

Felix tried carefully, the blue magic power is very stable and seems to ignore him, the original owner. Instead of cancelling the magic with a zooming spell, he infused his magic into the Acromantula to help it fight and wear down the blue chains.

Wisps of blue mist appeared from the Acromantula’s body, and soon it became the size of a watermelon, but it didn’t dare to move a muscle, allowing Felix to poke him here and there.

Every few minutes, Felix would ask the Mr. Spider how he felt.

“How does it feel?”

“Nothing.”

After another moment –

“And now?”

“It’s like walking from the sun into the nest, much more comfortable physically.” Acromantula liked the cool, and damp environment.

“Was it hard before?”

“The transformation process was hard and very uncomfortable, but after a while, I didn’t feel it anymore, I thought it’s done.” The Acromantula said.

Felix looked at it quite surprised, although he knew that the Acromantula could speak human language, but did not know that they could express their intention so clearly.

“Do you usually chat and have tea parties in English?” Felix asked curiously.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Aragog taught us,” Acromantula said.

Felix understood a little, the wild Acromantula definitely do not have this kind of ability, being able to speak some short sentences would be good.

But Forbidden Forest batch seems different, their source is from Aragog, and Aragog was raised by Hagrid in his childhood.

This gave him some new ideas, maybe they could be kept ensconced?

When he politely suggested this to Hagrid, he said cheerfully, “That’s what Hogwarts does now! I’ll go every month or two and check on Aragog, it’s too old and probably doesn’t have much time left. In the meantime, I extracted some venom from the Acromantula, that’s good stuff, part of the school’s expenses come from this. But Aragog doesn’t allow much extraction at once, he has to think about hunting for future generations too …”

Felix looked at Hagrid dumbfounded, this is completely different from what he thought.

Hagrid said happily: “Finally, there is something you are not aware of too, Felix. Most of the intelligent communities in the Forbidden Forest keep in touch with Hogwarts, and Dumbledore asked me to manage this part.”

“For example, unicorns, I usually send them some herbs, tonic, they do not mind if I take some hair, the good things are taken away by Ollivander, the rest is not much use, I will use it to make some mats, rags and so on, it is very good …”

“Centaur, they act as a barrier of the forbidden forest, watch out for the presence of werewolves, trolls, and other dangerous creatures trying to enter the outer forest, and will inform me when they can’t be solved; they are also good at healing, which is not quite the same as the wizard’s method, and can sometimes be useful. As for the centaur’s divination, I don’t know much about this …”

“The same goes for herbs, Professor Sprout scatters some seeds each year into the forbidden forest.”