Chapter 34: Calm

Since the first duel club, Lockhart seemed to find that his position in the hearts of students was rapidly declining, and the activities of the duel club ended in vain.

But after that, Schelling still maintained a good teacher-student relationship with Professor Lockhart.

Schelling would visit Lockhart's office from time to time to ask some questions about defense against the dark arts, especially about some vague descriptions in Lockhart's works. Of course, Schelling would not forget to bring him a bottle of Ogden's aged fire whiskey every time, which made Lockhart embarrassed to turn Schelling away.

Schelling's cleverness and eagerness to learn made Lockhart feel bad, just like when Schelling talked to him about the human form restoration spell used in "Wandering with Werewolves", he could feel that there was no admiration in Schelling's eyes, but more curiosity about this spell.

That genius was very interested in the human form restoration spell!

If it were in the past, teaching the other party the human form restoration spell would undoubtedly be an opportunity to bring the two sides closer, but it was a pity that Lockhart didn't know how to use this spell at all.

When he heard Schelling asking him, he almost couldn't answer. In the end, he could only send Schelling away by saying that he needed some time to sort out his professor's thoughts. However, Schelling seemed to have seen through his thoughts and said that he would come to visit him another day.

Lockhart had to go back to his former residence during Christmas to find some useful things.

"Wandering with Werewolves" still left a deep impression on Lockhart - there was no way, the old Armenian wizard was old and ugly, and the clothes he wore were tasteless, which made him complain a lot. At the beginning, Lockhart spent a lot of time investigating this matter, and also went to the village that was plagued by werewolves to investigate, and cast the forgetfulness spell on the villagers living there, so that all those who knew about it would forget the matter completely.

Lockhart naturally knew about the human form restoration spell, after all, it was the most core spell in "Wandering with Werewolves". He spent a lot of time and effort to get the spell out of the old wizard's mouth. This is a spell that the old wizard developed by himself from the ancient magic handed down from the Seleucid Empire, but he did not seem to realize the significance of this spell.

Lockhart had thought of relying on this spell to become famous. After all, the spell that can temporarily turn a werewolf back to human form is of great significance, so when he left, he not only erased the other party's memory, but also stole the records and research of the human form restoration spell. If he could learn it and publish this magic, Lockhart knew that he would definitely be famous in the international wizarding world.

Unfortunately, things did not go as he wished. He tried for a whole year but did not even touch the surface of this spell.

Lockhart found the drafts of his books over the years in his residence, as well as many secret achievements he had obtained from others - the chronic venom extracted from ghouls in "Hanging with Ghouls", the potion to resist the mental control of ghouls in "Holidays with Hags", the vampire amulet used in "Traveling with Vampires", and the human form recovery spell in "Wandering with Werewolves"...

Lockhart flipped through them carefully, and after making sure that there was nothing else that could not be shown to Schelling, he brought a whole box of research materials back to Hogwarts and gave them to Schelling.

[Lockhart's research notes obtained! ]

Schelling spent the entire two-week Christmas holiday studying Lockhart's research notes.

Although Lockhart's strength is not very good, he is really good at writing books, which can be seen from the way he organizes materials and extracts key points. In his research notes, every detail of the person he investigated is recorded in detail, and the arrangement is very neat and orderly, which is very comfortable to read.

Soon the first week of January arrived, the second semester began, and the little wizards returned to school from the Christmas vacation.

Harry and his three friends probably learned a lesson and were silent for a while. Hermione put a cat hair into the Polyjuice Potion as human hair, and turned into a cat girl. She stayed in the school hospital for several weeks.

Although Harry and Ron escaped the punishment of being expelled, they were also confined to Filch to do various cleaning tasks. Filch still believed that Harry killed his cat, so he would not let Harry have an easy life. Every day, he would find ways to assign Harry the dirtiest and most disgusting cleaning tasks.

Draco, Goyle, and Crabbe recovered quickly under the effect of magic, and were discharged from the hospital on the second day of hospitalization.

Although Draco's embarrassment was only seen by a few people present at the time, the embarrassment of him being beaten up still spread like wildfire in Slytherin College, making Draco, who was always high-profile, feel so embarrassed that his face has been gloomy and terrible during this period, and he has been acting much more low-key.

Ginny tried to get rid of the diary and threw it into the girls' bathroom on the third floor, and then Harry picked it up. All of this was seen by Shaylin who was hiding nearby.

Shaylin had experienced the battle of the Duelling Club and the battle of the Slytherin Common Room, and was already a little celebrity in Slytherin College. The brilliant record of defeating Harry Potter twice made these young wizards deeply feel the gap between themselves and Shaylin. Everyone recognized one thing: Shaylin was not only the first in academic performance, but also seemed to be the strongest among the students of the same class in terms of real strength.

In the school corridor, many Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw wizards began to greet Shailling when they saw him, while Gryffindor wizards gnashed their teeth at Shailling, as if they regarded Shailling as Gryffindor's number one public enemy.

Shailling sneered at the childish mentality of these little brats and ignored them.

To be fair, Shailling was different from Draco. When Draco was young, he was full of admiration and fantasy for Harry, the person who defeated the Dark Lord. As a result, when he proposed to make friends with Harry on the Hogwarts Express but was rejected, he had a complex emotion of love turning into hate for Harry. He wanted to attack Harry from all sides, and he wanted Harry to understand how stupid it was to refuse to be his friend!

Shailling did not hate Harry and Ron. To be honest, in his opinion, the grudge between Harry, Ron and Draco was purely a childish fight.

He never considered Harry and Ron as opponents of the same level. His ambition and goal had always been to defeat Voldemort, and of course he had to fight with Dumbledore and other pure-blood families. He crushed Harry twice just by chance. The first time was due to Snape's selfishness and instigation, and the second time was just Harry asking for trouble.

That's why, in both incidents, Schelling chose to deal with Harry cleanly and neatly, without thinking about how to humiliate or ridicule him.

The dueling club incident did remind Schelling - Schelling decided to open a small dueling club inside Slytherin, and only invited first- and second-year Slytherin students to participate. Schelling's fame quickly attracted many members to the dueling club, and almost everyone was there, even the self-important Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini were no exception.

Schelling did not teach them any powerful spells or combat skills that could quickly improve their strength, but he started with the basics of holding and waving a wand.

In the first few activities, the young wizards were more or less disappointed because of Schelling's fame. However, after participating in several activities, they all found that they had made great progress in their daily spells and transfiguration classes. Only then did they realize how much help Schelling had given them, and Schelling gained a good reputation again.

Since the battle in the Slytherin common room, there have been no more attacks in the castle, and the Easter holiday in April has come in a blink of an eye.

Second-year students have to choose two elective courses for the third year.

Schelling has no interest in the three subjects of divination, arithmetic divination, and Muggle studies. As for the study of ancient runes, it is not that Schelling is modest. Schelling doubts that Professor Bathsheda Baburin can teach him anything he doesn't know yet.

In order not to waste time on these courses that were of no practical use and uninteresting to him, he and Draco only chose one magical biology course after several correspondences with Lucius. Then Lucius used his influence as a school director to let Hogwarts reopen the "Alchemy" course that had been discontinued for centuries.

Alchemy is a highly specialized subject. There are two reasons for the discontinuation: insufficient demand among students and the difficulty of finding a qualified professor.

These two problems are not a problem for Schelling at all.

He is confident that he can convince most of his Slytherin classmates to choose Alchemy together, and finding a professor is not a big problem for pure-blood families.

As far as Schelling knows, the two giants in the British alchemy world are the Nott family and the Burke family. Both are pure-blood families with deep interests in the Malfoy family. If Lucius is willing to come forward, they will not refuse to give Lucius this face.

At the same time, Professor Sprout also announced that the mandrakes had a lively and noisy dance in the third greenhouse. It will be fully mature soon, and all the petrified victims can be cured.

The continuous good news made people gradually happy. The little wizards also turned their attention back to the upcoming Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff Quidditch game.

Just when Schelling thought that this dull life would last until May, the reality that deviated from the established track slapped Schelling hard.

Most of the little snakes in Slytherin came from wizard families with deep backgrounds. The relationship between several ancient families has always been entangled and complicated. These families are allies who support the concept of "pure blood supremacy", but they are also competitors who fight for power and pursue interests.

For young successors, the family will instill various competitions and the law of the jungle in them from an early age.

At the same time, in the Sorting Hat's Sorting Ceremony, ambitious and scheming people are usually sorted into Slytherin, which has created a strange phenomenon of factions and the survival of the fittest in Slytherin.

Whether it is Draco borrowing the money of the Malfoy family to successfully occupy the position of Seeker in the Quidditch team; or Shaylin defeating the famous Harry Potter twice and successfully establishing popularity and reputation among the young wizards in Slytherin; they are all regarded by other pure-blood family children in Slytherin as the performance of the Malfoy family's intention to get involved in Slytherin.

Of course, with the financial resources and influence of the Malfoy family in the British political and business circles today, not many forces dare to provoke the Malfoy family openly, but some tests are inevitable.

Among the pure-blood families, the Lestrange, Rochiel and Black families were originally the most powerful. However, in the First Wizarding War, these three families were the first to stand out and suffered the most damage. The two brothers of the Lestrange lineage were both imprisoned; Ivan Rochiel died directly at the hands of Mad-Eye Moody; the two brothers of the Black lineage were imprisoned and the other died in an unclear manner.

Except for Ivan Rochiel, who was rumored to have left an illegitimate child and fled overseas, the direct bloodlines of the other two families were almost cut off.

Lestrange was lucky. He found a clan member from the illegitimate branch and gave him the identity to inherit the family.

The Black family was much more unlucky. The descendants of the other branches of the Black family were all daughters. As a result, the Black ancestral home fell into an embarrassing situation where no one inherited it.

In contrast, the families that knew how to protect themselves at the beginning retained a lot of strength. After the Death Eaters were liquidated, they took the opportunity to nibble away at the industries and markets vacated by the three families. Coupled with the indulgence of the newly appointed Minister of Magic Fudge, these pure-blood families gradually grew stronger.

The most powerful of them is the Malfoy family. The Malfoy family, which has a small population, even won over the Goyle family and the Crabbe family to become its vassal families, and also has a very close alliance and cooperation relationship with the Parkinson family and the Burke family.

Following closely behind are the Avery family, the Nott family and the Carrow family. These three families had preserved a lot of strength at the beginning. After some hard work, they believe that they are not much inferior to the Malfoy family.

Of course, Sherin also learned from Daphne that some pure-blood families that are not so high-profile, such as the Greengrass family and the Macmillan family, although these families do not often talk about the supremacy of pure blood, and their style of behavior is not so perverse and extreme, these low-key families have also cultivated a strong force in secret.

Take Greengrass, to which Daphne belongs, for example. In recent years, it has quietly annexed some small and unknown families. Even the long-established Shafik family eventually became a vassal of Daphne and Meredith because of their relationship.

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