Professor Teaches Well, Regulus Doesn't Learn Well

The Apparition landed on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, on the grass.

As soon as I landed and settled down, the cold air rushed into my lungs. January in the Scottish Highlands is completely different from the sea breeze in Cornwall; it's dry, cold, and has no saltiness, making my nasal passages feel tight from the cold.

It was completely dark.

Hogwarts Castle stood in the distance, its massive, imposing silhouette, its spires and crenellations casting dark shadows against the night sky.

The windows were lit up intermittently, and warm yellow light leaked from the stone walls, stacking up layer by layer in the night, until it melted into the moonlight at the top of the tower.

A thin layer of frost covered the lawn, and the two people's footsteps crunched as they walked on it.

Professor Sprout walked ahead, wand raised, and a five-meter-diameter ball of earth floated steadily above his head, without swaying. Tree trunks and branches extended from the top of the ball, swaying gently in the night breeze.

The professor wasn't tall, but he walked quickly, with Regulus following behind.

Baruk poked his head out of the inner bag, his eight eyes fixed on the huge earthen ball in front of him. His chelicerae opened and closed slightly, but he didn't make a sound. When they reached the open space behind Greenhouse No. 4, Sprout put the earthen ball down.

With a light wave of the wand, without chanting a spell, the tip of the wand touched the soil, and the ball of earth automatically loosened, revealing the roots stretching out one by one.

The ground in front naturally sank inward, the soil Whomping Willow fell into it, and then the soil covered it again, compacted it, and leveled it. The whole process was quick; she was so skilled at this that her hands moved as naturally as she breathed.

Regulus stood by and watched, his Magic Perception spreading out and resting on the Whomping Willow; its condition was somewhat better than when it was in Cornwall.

The root system's absorption channels are more active, and the flow of Magic Power in the main trunk is slightly faster than in the afternoon. The circuits that were infused with Natural Magic Power are still operating without diminishing.

He then probed his senses towards the professor.

Besides the Magic Power that lifted the soil ball, there was something continuously being pumped into the tree trunk, seeping from the tip of the staff along the air into the tree, all the way to the ends of the root system.

Unlike Natural Magic Power, its texture is different.

The professor's Magic Power is gentler, slower, and less targeted; it simply flows, taking its course wherever it leads, with a nourishing and unblocking quality. It's much like the professor himself: gentle, tolerant, and unhurried.

The Whomping Willow.

The branch swayed slightly in the night breeze, a small movement with no aggressive intent.

The new shoots at the tips were barely visible in the darkness, but the Magic Power of their tender green color was still emanating from them, slowly and weakly, yet undeniably growing.

At that moment, Professor Sprout glanced back at him, Regulus blinked, nonchalantly withdrawing his senses.

The professor glanced at him again, said nothing, turned around, squatted down next to the tree, and ran his fingers down the roots, stopping at a certain spot.

She tilted her head, pressed her fingers on the bark, released them, pressed them again, raised her eyebrows, and curved her lips into a smile.

"Mr. Black, come and take a look."

She raised her left hand in a gesture of greeting, while her right fingertip remained pressed against the tree bark.

Regulus walked over and squatted down beside her.

The professor pointed to a spot at the base. "Here."

He attached the Magic Perception to it.

The newly grown Magic Circuit are different from the original ones.

The original was its own thing: linear, fast, with a clear direction, a standard oscillatory Conduction structure, straightforward.

These newly grown ones are heading in different directions.

It's gentler and slower, like adding several side streets alongside the original main road.

The paths meandered and twisted, sometimes running parallel to the main road and sometimes diverging from it, seemingly inefficient, but they were indeed functioning. Their texture carried something familiar to him, his Natural Magic Power.

The substances he had previously injected to rebuild the cycle were neither retained nor rejected by the Whomping Willow.

It absorbed that Magic Power, regenerated it in its own way, and grew a new structure bearing its traces.

The traces remain, but they have become part of the tree.

Sprout looked at his face and knew he had sensed it.

"These new circuits grew on their own," she patted the trunk, her palm against the bark. "You gave it Magic Power, and it remembered it, using your things to grow a new self."

She withdrew her hand and wiped it on her robe twice. "Before, if you touched it, it would slap you first, then talk. Now, if you touch it..."

She looked at Regulus and nodded her chin towards the tree trunk.

Regulus extended his right hand and placed his palm on the tree trunk.

The branch twitched, and the nearest one stretched weakly toward his arm, its end drooping, stopping about half a foot away.

It hovered there, its tip slightly bent, moving closer to the inside of his wrist, but didn't pull down.

After a few breaths, the branch slowly retracted, swayed a couple of times, and drooped back to its original position.

"It's determining if it's you," the professor said, his gaze fixed on the branch, a slight smile playing on his lips. "It's finished determining it, so it didn't hit it. If someone else touched it, it would still hit them."

Looking at Whomping Willow's listless and weak appearance, her smile widened.

"Of course, that's for later; it doesn't have that strength right now."

She looked away, glancing at Regulus with a look that was neither accusatory nor entirely without implication.

Regulus ignored the professor's gaze and deliberately stared at the tree trunk.

There's an old crack on the bark, probably from when it was transplanted; the edges have already started to heal.

He stared at the tree bark for a long time, reluctant to look away.

Sprout snorted a laugh through his nose.

She stood up, patted the mud off her knees, and after several tries, she couldn't get it off, so she simply gave up.

Many wizards believe that Natural Magic is simply about making plants obey commands.

She looked at the Whomping Willow, her gaze as gentle as it had been in Cornwall that afternoon, her voice soft in the night breeze, as if talking to the tree, or perhaps to him.

"You give it something, it remembers, and it will repay you in its own way, not immediately, and not in the way you expect, but it will." Regulus also stood up, rubbing his fingers on the side of his robe.

He was pondering the professor's words.

He had previously used Natural Magic in a one-way manner: extraction, replication, infusion, and channeling.

He drained twenty mandrakes, and the Whomping Willow Mandrake is now half-dead.

When grafting Baruk, Natural Magic Power acts as a cushion; when researching Magical Plant, Natural Magic Power acts as a tool.

It's easy to use, extremely easy to use.

But ultimately, for him, Natural Magic Power was always something to be used, to acquire other things.

The extracted Magic Power transformed into the Severing Charm, the Disintegration Charm, and the Fire Affinity Module on Baruk's body.

As for the Natural Magic Power itself, it is, from beginning to end, a transition, a means, an intermediate step that is used and then discarded.

But the professor said that in addition to use, there is also exchange.

The tree remembered the Magic Power he gave away, and used it to grow new things. The tree also remembered what he took away, but the tree couldn't speak. He looked down at his shoulder.

Baruk was staring intently at the Whomping Willow, his eight eyes unmoving, his chelicerae half-open, his two front legs raised to reach towards the tree, but unable to reach it, he lowered them again.

It is looking at the tree.

Regulus stared at the dark red markings left by the Salamander graft on Baruk's carapace.

During the grafting process, he used Natural Magic Power as a buffer to maintain the balance between the new module and the host system.

The Natural Magic Power had stayed in Baruk's body for so long that, according to the professor, the plant would remember the Magic Power it was given and then use it to grow new structures.

Was Baruk also keeping a record?

The Salamander module was inserted by external force, and it was only thanks to Natural Magic Power that it wasn't rejected.

However, if Natural Magic Power itself can leave traces in the host system, then grafting is not just about inserting a foreign module, but rather about creating a translation between the host and the foreign module.

Something that allows both sides to understand each other.

He stopped himself from digging deeper into the matter, deciding to deal with Baruk's issue later.

Following the professor's words, my mind inevitably took a turn.

To put it simply, the professor meant that after Natural Magic Power is given out, a certain connection is formed between the receiver and the giver. Plants recognize them, but to what extent can this recognition be applied?

He had nourished the meadow with Natural Magic Power beforehand. Would the plants, at the crucial moment, act according to his will—entwining, obscuring, and releasing paralyzing toxins?

What about scaling up?

A pre-planned territory, soaked in Natural Magic Power beforehand, with every blade of grass and every leaf bearing its Magic Power mark.

When the enemy stepped on it, the ground suddenly became slippery, grass blades got tangled around their ankles, and tree roots came up from the soil and tripped them.

If plants are willing to stand with him, it's essentially a form of exchange of benefits.

He gives goodwill, and it reciprocates with cooperation. If he can control the scale and manner of giving, the entire area becomes his territory.

He didn't need to Spellcasting; the land itself did it for him.

To take it a step further, imagine him burning down the Forbidden Forest, a Fiendfyre leaving only scorched earth, then using the Natural Magic Power to make it grow back. From the seed, from the soil, every new tree, every newly sprouted blade of grass, carries his Magic Power from the very first moment of its existence. Once this thought arises, it's impossible to stop.

Destroy first, then rebuild; destruction is the means, and reconstruction is the path.

The Forbidden Forest is now a complete ecosystem, with its own balance, and perhaps even its own will, something more primal. The Magic Power accumulated over thousands of years is in the soil and among the roots; it will not willingly accept a foreign wizard, just as the human body will not willingly accept a foreign organ.

But what if we disrupt the existing order first?

Burn the old one and start from scratch.

Ashes are the cleanest starting point; the soil bears no trace of the past, the roots have no old connections, and the entire system's Magic Power is reduced to zero. Then, everything is rebuilt with Natural Magic Power; new plants grow from the ashes, their root circuits flowing entirely with his essence. At that time, will he become the Master of the Forbidden Forest?

Thinking further, what our Eldrin accomplished back then was probably in this very direction.

Our ancestors were gifted, able to resonate directly with the Natural Magic Power, from the faint vitality of small flowers and plants to the profound energy of mountains, forests and rivers, all of which they could make their own. There was no barrier between them and nature; they had an innate language and an innate bridge.

Regulus didn't have that talent, but there wasn't just one key; his ancestor used the main entrance, so he could tear down the wall.

Destroy first, then rebuild; give first, then receive; it's a clumsy, slow method, but perhaps it will get us to the same place.

He twitched the corner of his mouth, his thoughts drifting.

Burning down Forbidden Forest is easy—it's just a matter of a fire—but it's difficult for it to grow back.

He poured so much Natural Magic Power into that one "Whomping Willow" that his current reserves couldn't withstand the sheer size of the entire Forbidden Forest.

It can be done on a small scale, such as a lawn, a garden, or perhaps a grove of bushes.

But we'll have to wait to see the scale of the Forbidden Forest.

However, the direction is clear: to break the old order through destruction, to rebuild New Order with the Natural Magic Power, and to let the rebuilt ecosystem bear his mark. This is not the path of our ancestors, but the End is the same.

He suppressed the thought, deciding to think about it later.

You could try it on a small scale; find some time to conduct an experiment in a small area on the edge of Plantation or Forbidden Forest.

We can talk about large-scale deployments later when we have enough Magic Power.

Sprout bent down to pick up the tool bag from the ground, fastened the buttons, dusted it off, and glanced at Regulus as he straightened up.

The child was standing there, eyes slightly lowered, his gaze fixed on something uncertain.

He listened to what she said, which made her feel that her words hadn't been in vain.

The professor's lips curved into a slight smile as he slung his tool bag over his shoulder, his movements becoming lighter.

Talking to a thoughtful child is not tiring.

She had seen many talented young wizards, but those who were both talented and obedient were few and far between.

She felt quite comfortable inside, but didn't show it on her face.

"I'll talk to the principal about where to plant it later and ask him to approve a location."

The professor said casually as he walked towards the Greenhouse entrance, "But Albus n't be at school for the next couple of days, so let's start planting and talk about it when he gets back." Regulus snapped out of his thoughts and followed.

In 1974, Voldemort's name was becoming increasingly prominent in the Wizarding World, and the Death Eaters ' activities were becoming more and more frequent. Dumbledore could roughly guess what he was up to.

The Order of the Phoenix.

During this time Dumbledore was traveling around, contacting allies, setting up defenses, and dealing with the Attacks that had begun to become public. He looked up towards the Castle; the window of the Headmaster's Office on the Seventh Floor was dark.

Sprout stopped at the Greenhouse entrance, turned to look at Regulus, and then at Baruk on his shoulder.

Baruk was peeking his head out from Regulus's shoulder, his eight amber eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his chelipeds opening and closing slightly as if to greet her.

The professor didn't ask anything, just smiled and said, "You've had a hard day. Go home and get some rest."

Regulus bowed slightly. "You are too, Professor."

Sprout pushed open the Greenhouse door, went inside, and the door closed behind him.

Regulus stood outside the Greenhouse door.

A night breeze blew from the direction of Black Lake, carrying damp, cold moisture, and the frost on the lawn shimmered faintly in the moonlight.

Baruk shrank into his inner pouch, leaving only half his head exposed, and his chelicerae clicked.

He looked up at the sky.

The moon peeked out from the edge of the clouds, mostly half-full, almost full.

My stomach rumbled.

I haven't eaten yet.