Disarming Charm Lightning Chain

Hearing Harry's answer, Dumbledore smiled in relief.

"It's Legilimency. The incantation is Legilimens."

He put the Cockroach Candy back into the jar.

"But you needn't be nervous. I wouldn't use this spell on young wizards." Dumbledore wore a wise smile fitting for his age. "I've lived long enough, Harry. To an old man over a hundred, whatever an eleven-year-old child is thinking is written all over his face."

"That's true." Harry smiled and set his cup back on the table.

But he still kept his head lowered.

Seeing that Harry was still reserved, Dumbledore said, "All right, it's getting late. I won't keep you here chatting any longer—go back and get some sleep, Harry. Forget today's unpleasantness."

"Yes, Headmaster." Harry answered politely.

Dumbledore blinked, wisdom gleaming behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Rather than Headmaster, I prefer being called Professor."

"Yes, Professor." Harry readily went along with it.

After Harry left, Dumbledore sat in his chair in a daze for quite some time.

The Harry from earlier had reminded him of an old acquaintance.

A former Hufflepuff student—the Magizoologist named Newt Scamander.

He had not suspected that Harry was the one from a hundred years ago. After all, Time Travel happened from time to time, but he had never heard of anyone crossing a century.

What was more, Harry was not only an eleven-year-old new student now, but also a child whose birth Dumbledore had witnessed and whom he had personally delivered to the Dursley family.

The Harry Potter who had "perished together" with Runcorn a hundred years ago had been a Sixth year student.

Unless Dumbledore had truly gone senile, he would never entertain such a wildly absurd suspicion.

"The magic of love is truly great, isn't it?" Dumbledore seemed to be talking to himself, yet also seemed to be speaking to Fawkes.

Fawkes cocked his bird head and chirped twice.

The next day, just after breakfast, Harry dragged Ron and Hermione to the eighth floor of the castle.

It was Sunday, with no classes scheduled. Ron had originally planned to find someone to play Wizard Chess with for a while.

Pointing at the painting above, The Troll Who Beat Barnaby Silly, he said, "Look, this painting is really interesting."

"'The Troll Who Beat Barnaby Silly.'" Hermione gave Ron a rundown of the painting's background.

"How do you know everything?" Ron asked dejectedly. "I feel like you're more like someone born into a wizarding family..."

"Read more. It'll do you good." Hermione raised one finger and tapped her temple.

While the two were talking, Harry had already prepared the Room of Requirement's setup.

A large door abruptly appeared in the wall opposite the painting, startling Ron and Hermione.

"This is where we'll train for duels." Harry introduced it to his two friends. "From now on, it'll be our secret base—"

"A secret base?" Ron was clearly more interested in those words. "Brilliant! I'd bet Fred and George definitely don't know about this place!"

"Why do you say that?" Hermione asked, puzzled.

"If they knew, then I'd know too." Ron shrugged.

The three of them pushed open the door and entered. Before them lay a professional spell training ground.

The walls around the room were as reflective as mirrors, with thick mats piled casually in the corners. At the far end of the room was even a row of mannequins holding wands.

"Cool!" Ron exclaimed, pulling out his wand. "It's such a shame this is a secret. Otherwise, Fred and George would be insanely jealous!"

"So which spell are we practicing?" Hermione asked.

"Something Professor Quirrell won't teach us," Harry said succinctly. "For example, the most basic dueling spell—the Disarming Charm."

He walked to the center of the training ground and beckoned over a mannequin holding a wand.

"Look, like this... Expelliarmus!"

A red beam shot from the tip of Harry's wand and struck the mannequin's hand. The mannequin's wand spun through the air toward him, and Harry caught it in one hand.

"That's a simple Disarming Charm." Harry put the wand back into the mannequin's hand.

"So that's the Disarming Charm?" Ron scratched his head. "Why doesn't it seem that cool? It's not as... flashy as I imagined?"

"The truly powerful spells are often plain and unadorned." Harry explained, "And spells can be used in endlessly varied ways... just like the Levitation Charm you used before."

As he spoke, Harry lightly lifted a stool beside him with his wand. "Wingardium Leviosa—"

"Like this. Watch."

He flicked his wand sharply, and the stool jerked upward.

"What if I do this instead?"

Harry gently lowered the stool, then used the Disarming Charm again to knock the mannequin's wand away. He used the Levitation Charm to accelerate the wand and drove it into the mannequin's eye.

"That's far too brutal..." Hermione said with a frown.

Brutal? Harry inwardly sighed. They really were children who had grown up in peaceful times...

In the era when he had attended school, his classmates had feared only that their spells were not brutal enough to effectively injure Dark Wizards.

"Dark Wizards won't bother being civilized with you, Hermione," Harry said. "You need to know that Dark Wizards are all vicious and evil. Take the Death Eaters who tortured Neville's parents, for instance. If you fought them, would you still care whether you were being civilized or brutal? No. At that point, you'd only worry that your spells weren't powerful enough."

"Yeah, Hermione," Ron said. "Dark Wizards are the most cunning and ruthless people there are..."

"Sorry, Harry." Hermione nodded, accepting Harry's point.

"Like this." Harry patted Ron on the shoulder and demonstrated for both of them in slow motion. "Move your wand like this—one horizontal stroke, one vertical stroke... Expelliarmus!"

"Expelliarmus!" Ron swung his wand and pointed it at the mannequin in the center of the room.

The atmosphere turned a little awkward. Nothing happened.

The same went for Hermione.

Harry patiently corrected them both. More than half an hour passed before Hermione was the first to master Expelliarmus.

After a while longer, Ron, unwilling to admit defeat, mastered the spell as well.

While Hermione and Ron practiced the Disarming Charm, Harry fell into thought.

There was no doubt that Expelliarmus had been his best spell back then.

Verathea had even suggested that he develop the spell further. According to her idea, he could use other magic to leave marks on targets, then use those marks to create a chain effect with the Disarming Charm.

Put simply, one Disarming Charm could strike several enemies at once.

In theory, when several opponents stood close together, one Disarming Charm could disarm them all at once. But the path Verathea had pointed out was to use a single Disarming Charm to disarm multiple enemies over long distances—or even extremely long distances.