harry potter book of crimes

"Now, who can tell me what properties Mandrake has?" Professor Sprout continued to ask.

"Hearing a mandrake cry can kill you."

Seeing Maka's lack of response, Hermione had no choice but to answer by herself.

"Absolutely correct, plus ten points." Professor Sprout said, "Look, the mandrakes here are still very young and have no fatal effect yet..."

She pointed to the row of deep-bottomed flower pots in front of everyone and introduced them to everyone. Everyone looked carefully into the pots and saw that they were green and purple seedlings.

"Everyone come up and get a pair of earmuffs," Professor Sprout said.

The boys rushed forward, because no one wanted to get a pair of pink fluffy earmuffs.

Maka followed behind and randomly picked a pair from inside.

"When I ask you to put on earmuffs, be sure to cover your ears tightly," Professor Sprout said. "When it is safe to take off the earmuffs, I will give a two thumbs up. OK - wear them.

Put on the earmuffs!”

Regarding the lethality of the cry of mandrake, it only occurs after it matures. And as long as you don't force it out of the soil, it will not cry.

Generally speaking, during the day, wild adult mandrake plants will always bury themselves in the soil in open places such as grasslands; and until dusk, they will pull themselves out and wander around on the grasslands.

A whole night.

Maka has dealt with it many times, and for him, such a trivial matter as changing a basin for them is simply a piece of cake.

The earmuffs were cast with powerful sound-isolating magic, so you could hear no sound at all after putting them on. After Professor Sprout demonstrated once, she motioned for everyone to take off the earmuffs and start assigning tasks.

"Four people per pot, there are a lot of empty flower pots here. The compost is in the bag over there - watch out for the poisonous tentacles, it's teething." She smacked a crimson plant with spikes.

It retracted the tentacles that quietly reached towards her shoulders.

After that, she asked everyone to put on their earmuffs again and started today's class.

The students just saw that Professor Sprout was doing it very easily, but in fact it was not like that at all.

The mandrakes didn't want to be pulled out of the soil, but they didn't seem to want to go back. They twisted their bodies, kicked their feet, waved their pointed little fists, and gnashed their teeth.

The other three students assigned to Maka's group obviously took the least effort.

Maka picked up a small shovel from the edge of the flower pot, slightly loosened the soil around the mandrake, and then pulled it out easily.

Its rhizome is like a very ugly baby, with leaves growing on its head. Probably because it is still in its infancy, its skin is still light green with some scattered spots on it.

The little guy opened his mouth wide and was obviously shouting at the top of his lungs, but after putting on the earmuffs, no one could hear him at all.

Maka held it in her hand and used her other hand to cover the place where the leaves grew on top of its head. She saw that the little guy's mood immediately became much calmer.

He stuffed the little thing in his hand into another pot and buried it again with new soil that had been mixed with fertilizer.

By the end of class, most of the students were sweating profusely, had backaches, and were covered in mud. Only Maka's group looked the most relaxed, without even a speck of dirt on their bodies.

"Oh! How did you do that?" the Hufflepuff female student next to Maka couldn't help but ask.

"This will make it think that it has burrowed back into the soil," Maka said calmly, "it only works on juvenile mandrakes."

Professor Sprout habitually praised Maka and gave Hufflepuff 10 points. Next to Sprout, Maka had a happy smile on her face, but if you look closely,

You will find that there is no smile in his eyes at all.

Hufflepuff's next class was a Charms class, and Professor Flitwick's teaching style was still so relaxed and casual. Obviously, everyone was relieved about this.

But such a comfortable atmosphere disappeared in the afternoon.

Not to mention that Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class is always so strict, but the most critical one is Gilderoy Lockhart's Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

As soon as he entered the classroom door, a smile appeared on his face, and his bright teeth were so neat that people wondered if magic had been cast on them.

"I..." He casually picked up the textbook on the student desk in the front row and pointed to his photo, where he was blinking.

"Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, 3rd class, honorary member of the League Against Dark Arts, won the Wizarding Weekly Most Charming Smile Award five times - but I don't talk about that, I don't rely on my smile

The one who drives away all the female ghosts!"

He spoke these words very smoothly, probably because he had practiced this many times.

"I see that you have all bought my complete set of works - very good. I think we will take a small test today. Don't be afraid, just to see how you read and how much you understand..."

After handing out the papers, he returned to the podium and said: "I'll give you thirty minutes, now...start!"

Maka flattened the test paper passed to her hand on the table:

"1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color? 2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? 3. What do you think is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement so far..."

Maka just glanced at it casually and frowned.

There were a total of 54 questions in this paper, and all of them asked for some detailed information about Lockhart. Maka wanted to throw it aside directly, but after hesitating, he still filled in some random answers.

"There's no need to cause more trouble." Maka thought calmly.

The rest of the class was even more irritating.

Probably because the group of Cornish elves prepared for the little lions made such a mess in the previous class, the novels he wrote were actually read to the little badgers on the spot during this class.

When he got excited about reading, he even took the students to act together. Maka sat in the back and wrote research notes on potions by herself, without even glancing at the podium.

Until night, while everyone else was sleeping soundly, Maka leaned against the window alone. He looked at the cold moonlight outside and couldn't help but recall what happened after the school dinner.

That night, he immediately went to Ravenclaw Tower to look for the bronze eaglet. But no matter how he called, there was only the emotionless questioning sound of the bronze door knocker. For some reason, the bronze eaglet did not appear, let alone know how to do it.

Take him to Rowena's secret room.

"...Is it because of my current state?"

In fact, Maka is very aware of her current situation.

In the past, as a little liar who relied on deceiving people to make a living, his best skill was undoubtedly concealing his true emotions and wearing different masks when facing different people.

But because of this, he understood better that he did have his own emotions.

But after the journey that Rowena brought him, his emotions completely disappeared!

"I'm afraid this is a curse, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it -" Maka thought naturally, and suddenly shook her head, "No, this idea is probably because there is no emotion, and the basis for judgment has become single.

Start from reason."

That night, he leaned against the window and pondered for a long time, but the more he thought about it, the more difficult it became to clarify his thoughts.

Reason told him that this feeling was very good. Not only would it be of great help in research assignments, but it would also make him look wiser when dealing with things.

For example, he has decided not to participate in any events in the second grade, or even to be close to the trio of little lions. He wants to try his best to avoid sudden changes like last semester.

Although he will always affect everyone and everything he interacts with as long as he stays at Hogwarts, it is still necessary to reduce the magnitude of the changes as much as possible.

Things that are completely out of control are always scary. Besides, these things have nothing to do with him. What he wants to care about is the tasks left by Rowena and the improvement of his own magic knowledge, nothing more.

But is this idea really correct? Maka doesn't know, or maybe he has lost the angle of judgment that he is best at.

After a while, Maka finally lay back on the bed, but the experiences after being taken away by Rowena were always entangled in his mind, lingering.

…

"...Alani, this is your first mission after training. You are the smartest and most powerful among the guardians. I hope you can carry the will of my mission to carry out every mission in the future.

Task."

Beside the window of the castle, an old man in a robe turned his back to this side and spoke slowly in his deep voice.

Maka stood in the center of the room, frowning and constantly checking the situation in front of him.

"What's Rowena's purpose in bringing me here?" Maka pointed her eyes at the old man, but she glanced around the room with the corner of her eye.

"...Alani, take the mission away! We will set off from the Eagle's Nest today. I am waiting for your good news."

The old man turned around, with a kind face, but his eyes were as sharp and menacing as a vulture, looking straight at Maka.

"Yes." Maka lowered her head subconsciously, burying her face in the shadows.

He glanced at the table in front of him. There was a roll of parchment sitting quietly there, with blood-red sealing paint firmly fixed in the middle.

She picked it up casually, nodded slightly, and left the room without saying a word.

Until he walked out of the room, a large number of memories that did not belong to him suddenly flooded into Maka's mind. For a moment, he felt dizzy and had to lean against the wall of the corridor. After a long time, he regained his composure.

"B-Tahir Alani? An assassin from the Assassin sect?" Maka's face was full of confusion, "Does this have anything to do with the Scroll of Truth?"

Although his mind was still full of mush, Maka at least understood the current situation - he guessed that he might be in a state similar to Dumbledore's pensieve.

It's just that compared to the pensieve, the effect of the formation composed of regular runes is obviously much more realistic.