A Professor of Magic at Hogwarts

Chapter 102: The Study Group

After a long while—

Ginny, with tear-stained cheeks, spoke, "Professor, will I... will I be expelled?"

"You need not worry about that. I assure you."

...

When Ginny returned to her seat, her eyes red from crying, Ron and the twins stared at her.

Ron wanted to say something, but Ginny completely ignored him. She moved a small chair close to Luna's side, where Luna softly hummed an odd little tune in her ear.

For the rest of the time, the twins were somewhat fidgety, but fortunately, Professor Harp allowed them to hand in their suggestions and then dismissed them with a wave.

"Ginny, what happened?" Not far from leaving the office, George couldn't help but be concerned for his sister.

Ginny shook her head.

"Did Professor Harp scold you, Ginny? I mean, it was a bit risky going into the Forbidden Forest, right, Fred?"

Fred immediately chimed in without hesitation, "Absolutely right. If you're interested in the Forbidden Forest, I can show you around... though it's not really that exciting, just trees, rocks, and flowers."

She clenched her lips tightly, remaining silent.

Luna and Ginny held hands, and in a sing-song voice, Luna said, "Professor Harp is quite reasonable, isn't he? But your complexion does seem a bit off. I suggest you visit the school nurse."

"Thank you, Luna."

"How did you kn—"

"Fred, George, and Ron, I'm fine. I just...," Ginny took a deep breath, "encountered some trouble earlier, and Professor Harp helped me out."

Seeing her brothers about to ask more, she said sternly, "I won't tell you." Then, Ginny grabbed Luna's hand and briskly walked away.

Watching her retreating figure, Fred remarked with a hint of nostalgia, "Ginny's grown up, no longer just a little tag-along."

George quipped, "So, you miss the old days, then?"

"Well, don't we usually yearn for things precisely because we can't return?" Fred made a wry face.

The two of them playfully bantered.

In the following week, Hogwarts remained as calm as ever.

Every evening, the nine young wizards reported to Professor Harp's Ancient Runes office and carried out various testing tasks as per his instructions.

In truth, most of their detentions were scheduled for weekends. Only Ron, due to his "particularly grave" behavior, coupled with a strong recommendation from Lockhart, found himself in continuous detention for a full thirty days.

However, when Professor Harp promised them that subsequent detentions could be offset by completing the current ones, the other young wizards scarcely struggled and willingly requested to finish their detentions under his supervision.

The reason was simple: elsewhere, the tasks were monotonous and repetitive, while Professor Harp's were the most intriguing.

By the third or fourth day, they had already formed a study group across houses and earnestly discussed improvement ideas for the "Answering Space."

This wasn't just idle chatter; they were genuinely invested.

Seeing their enthusiasm, Felix Harp was pleased and willing to provide guidance.

Yet, as the sole technical consultant and referee, he had to veto one impractical idea after another, selecting only the most feasible aspects for enhancement.

"Young wizards, even Professor Harp has limits. Not all your fanciful ideas can be accommodated."

This was Professor Harp's response when the twins suggested adding a "video call" function to parchment.

Finally, with Felix's suggestion, the young wizards designed several different versions.

The most basic and primitive version was similar to what they had seen that day, but with the addition of house crests and more feedback features.

In this endeavor, the twins and Ron played significant roles.

The feedback on the parchment could be roughly categorized into two types: praise for correct answers and playful criticism for incorrect ones.

The twins' acerbic tongues impressed their fellow wizards, while Ron excelled in the realm of praise, coming up with all sorts of cheesy compliments.

"In truth, these are all just Lockhart fan quotes," Ron explained.

And in the subsequent versions, they followed Professor Harp's professional advice and completed a step-by-step iterative plan based on difficulty.

The clamor for a leaderboard was the loudest, and that was easily resolved—Felix could use Synchronization Magic to consolidate all the information from the parchment onto an exquisite scroll in his possession.

This device essentially played the role of a server.

However, it wasn't quite as intelligent. After obtaining the data, one still needed to manually arrange it in order of high and low.

As for the other features in different versions, such as online dueling, friend lists, and subject divisions, they weren't something he could solve in the short term or something a piece of parchment could accommodate. Felix postponed those to a distant future.

By the end of the week, the twins, Graham Montague, and Marcus Flint had completed their detentions. Nonetheless, they chose to stay and finish this task.

Ginny and Luna did the same.

Upon accidentally learning of the study group, Hermione immediately applied to Felix and joined this ad hoc team.

With Felix's presence, no one dared openly mention the conflicts between houses. At most, there were mocking expressions, but at such times, Professor Harp's gaze often followed in the wake of such expressions.

"I never thought we'd be able to accomplish something together, and my second partner would turn out to be a Slytherin!" One day, Fred whispered to George.

"Hey, who would've guessed? This is even more unbelievable than us not causing too much trouble during finals." George shrugged.

The twins' gaze landed on the Slytherin Quidditch captain—

With Marcus's intellect, he couldn't contribute particularly insightful ideas. However, he essentially represented the lower limit of the young wizards. As a pure test subject, he repeatedly exposed bugs in the "Answering Space."

Such situations as, "Professor, why did the writing on the parchment disappear?" and the response, "Oh, you took too long to think, it thought you fell asleep."

Until the morning of the tenth day, Felix woke up early, preparing to go to the Room of Requirement to complete that day's magical practice.

He had only recently discovered this room's function.

In truth, he stumbled upon the Room of Requirement by accident during the first attack, but he always thought it was a mysterious chamber for hiding things.

At most, the concealment magic applied to it was decent, worth studying. However, this matter was relatively low on his priority list.

It wasn't until the diary of Tom Riddle told him the true secret of this room that he regained interest.

The Room of Requirement could adapt its internal environment flexibly based on the user's desires, fulfilling their needs.

This practically set his research desires ablaze in an instant. Yet, using his existing knowledge, Felix couldn't decipher the room's secrets at all. He could only catch faint glimpses of magical pathways crisscrossing the room from hidden vantage points.

'The magical supply of the Room of Requirement is rooted in Hogwarts' thousand-year-old castle.'

That was Felix's conjecture.

Although his research was hindered, he devised a new purpose: practicing spells within it.

Here, he could wield his full power without reservation, including his Instant Kill technique. The benefits were clear—now, he didn't need to spend an hour wandering deep into the Forbidden Forest for practice.

...

As dawn broke, Felix walked along the empty corridor.

Having completed today's training and preparing to head downstairs to the kitchen for some food, he unexpectedly collided with Lockhart.

Lockhart was dragging a large box and had two small ones floating behind him.

"Professor Lockhart?"

The sudden voice startled Lockhart, causing the two boxes he was struggling to control to crash to the ground with a thud.

"Who's there?" Lockhart whispered.

Felix's figure descended from the steps, as he sized up Lockhart, "Professor Lockhart, are you about to go out?"

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