From Craze to Oblivion

Entertainment was entertainment; it was necessary. But wasting all one's time on entertainment was no different from courting death.

Every mealtime, Andrew received a fresh and profound reminder.

That terrifying noseless man was hiding over there, behind a thin scarf, staring fixedly at Hogwarts.

During this time, Andrew had considered several ways of reporting him, but none of them were safe.

A manuscript was the first option to be rejected—Dumbledore might be unwilling to investigate if he could not trace it, but it would be far too easy for Voldemort to locate Andrew through the editor.

An anonymous letter would not work either. It would never reach Dumbledore's desk.

If Dumbledore read every random letter sent to him, he would probably have died of exhaustion at his post long ago.

Who could he even complain to about such an effective method being blocked simply because the recipient was too important?

He had even considered sneaking into the kitchen and slipping a letter onto Dumbledore's plate—but after considering the house-elves' combat ability and how confidential that plan would be, he ultimately rejected the somewhat viable idea himself.

"Forget it. I'll practice Transfiguration first..."

What Professor McGonagall had given him this time raised the difficulty again—but fortunately, it was still only an exploration of one particular technique.

Simply put, it was how to maintain the duration of a Transfiguration.

It was an extremely time-consuming exercise—since there was currently no spell that could accelerate things in a stable, controllable way, he had no choice but to find several trunks to store the small transformed ornaments in and test them using the most straightforward method.

He had not only taken over his roommates' trunks, but had even acquired one from the neighboring dormitory.

But even so, most of his time was free—aside from waiting, recording results, and adding a new batch of comparison pieces, there was nothing else he could do.

"Wow, you can even transform wooden carvings now... and ones assembled from multiple wooden pieces... That's so cool..."

More precisely, they were not wooden carvings, but the kind of three-dimensional all-wooden puzzles Andrew had played with later on. This was the most complex structure he could currently transform, and it was extremely easy to damage, making it perfect for testing experimental results.

"It's all right. It's actually much easier than transforming living things. Too bad permanent Transfiguration is still far beyond us, or I'd give you one..." Andrew compared them again, making notes in his notebook as he replied to Kevin. "But you've looked really busy these past few days. What have you been doing?"

Come to think of it, I could see whether there are similar toys on the market... I wonder if LEGO exists yet. Maybe I could give Kevin a set for Christmas...

"Of course, it's the jinx that leaked out of Slytherin..."

Kevin put on a mysterious air. "It's already spreading in a small circle. I just got the incantation and technique... I've pretty much mastered it now. It's ridiculously easy..."

"That outrageous?"

"Not really... Jinxes are the simplest kind of magic. They can't even be considered proper spells."

He clearly had studied this far more than Andrew had. "You know, traditional spells are hard to counter. Once they take effect, they're hard to remove too. But jinxes are different—the faster you can learn one, the easier it is to counter. Those Slytherin guys probably only studied it for a day or two."

As he spoke, he pointed his wand at the shoe Bell had left on the floor. "Like this... Watch my hand!"

With a flick and a jab of his wand, he shouted, "Shoes, Bite Him!"

Andrew clearly saw the shoe he had pointed at open a huge mouth, then chomp down on the toe area with a crack.

"It's that simple. It didn't even turn into a shoe that runs around biting people..."

Kevin spread his hands. "I'm guessing the Gryffindor lot figured out a counter long ago, but they just don't seem to feel like doing anything about it."

"It really is simple..."

Andrew drew his wand and floated down a pair of his own shoes. Then he said, "Shoes, Bite Him!"

Just as he had seen moments ago, the shoes snapped their jaws at the air.

"Indeed. It doesn't even feel like Transfiguration—just a simple little jinx. The Gryffindor lot were only caught off guard."

He nodded, agreeing with Kevin.

But Kevin's mouth fell open as he stared at him, looking deeply wronged.

"I spent an entire—an entire morning practicing before I could do that!"

"I was even planning to show off in front of them before teaching them!"

"Ah, I promise I'll act like I'm hearing the incantation for the first time when that happens."

Andrew hurriedly apologized and assured him that he absolutely would not steal his thunder. Only then did Kevin, who felt as though he had suffered a blow, begin to feel better.

There were probably many people like Kevin. After only two or three days, this toe-biting magic had become popular throughout the castle.

Although everyone controlled its power and did not let the shoes take a vicious bite out of anyone's feet, even a light nip was quite painful.

But Andrew had already found a countermeasure—this little jinx only worked on ordinary shoes. It had no effect whatsoever on magical shoes that had been Transfigured.

At first, he had considered using Transfiguration to add an iron plate or something inside his shoes. But after discovering Transfiguration's forced suppression effect, he decisively began changing his shoes' color every day, then happily watched his classmates' helpless expressions whenever they tried to play a "joke" on him.

Of course, he did not forget to cheerfully return the favor with the same so-called "joke."

This effectively discouraged some of the people trying to retaliate against him. Though Andrew himself had plenty of complaints about the club he had joined, quite a few of those eliminated early still refused to accept it. There was nothing to be done about that.

Likewise, after Andrew gave Kevin credit, the protective method quickly spread as well. Once the first-years' Transfiguration grades rose by a tiny amount, the biting shoes completely became a thing of the past.

"These records..."

"Focusing on the core during casting does indeed resist the damage time causes to Transfiguration far better than other casting methods..."

"Of course, it is still closely related to magical power... The Transfigured wooden board and the set of three Quidditch balls I received still do not seem to have changed at all..."

"But another problem has come up... I feel the technique is somewhat rough. Is that because of my lack of experience, or did the other party simply use their growing magical power to forcibly raise the spell's intensity?"

Filled with questions, he began asking Professor McGonagall after class again before submitting his paper.

"That is a very interesting consideration, but as I told you before the school year began, before you have built a solid foundation, all theories are unusable..."

"However, I had also intended to tell you that when conducting magical experiments, aside from being careful, careful, and more careful, you must also learn to arrange your experimental time sensibly."

She produced another new reading list.

"Read these books, one at a time..."

"Yes, Professor."