Draco's vision went black. He stumbled back two steps, then touched his nose.
"I'm bleeding!"
"How dare you! My father is a School Governor!" Draco roared angrily, glaring at Harry, while the three pairs of eyes beside him glared too.
None of them had expected the Chosen One, the one said to have killed Voldemort, to hit him without warning.
"You bird-brained bastard, how dare you insult my big brother and little Ron! You deserve to die! You deserve to be killed! You deserve a beating!" Harry rolled up his sleeves.
He didn't really understand what "Half-blood" meant in the wizarding world, but he could understand the other prefixes and Draco's tone of voice.
"Crabbe, Goyle, get this bastard!" Draco clutched his nose and barked orders at his two lackeys.
Crabbe and Goyle were fat, but half a head taller than the other students their age. Standing there, they looked like two walls.
But Harry wasn't intimidated at all. He raised his fists and charged.
"I'll screw your mother! Did your mothers mate with wild boars? You worthless idiots! You sons of— I'll screw your father..." Harry threw punches as he cursed.
His insults were simple: starting with their mothers, he extended his greetings to three generations of their families, sparing no one, male or female, young or old.
Before they could even fight back, Crabbe and Goyle were already a step behind Harry in sheer ferocity.
"Uh..." Ron was completely dumbfounded.
If Harry was cursing them now, then the few things Draco had said to Ron earlier had practically sounded like sweet talk.
Tom: (￣ω￣;)
He said nothing, merely turning his head away in silence.
Tom swore to Merlin that he had never taught Harry those words. (guilty.jpg)
"Tom, what do we do now?" Ron asked nervously.
Harry had already driven the fight out of the compartment, and the corridor was in an uproar.
Harry was indeed strong. His fists could easily overpower 99.9% of his peers, but Crabbe and Goyle were no pushovers either.
Harry clearly had no martial arts training and relied on brute force. With two opponents against him in such a narrow space, his advantage wouldn't last long.
And Draco had already drawn his wand. If this went on, Harry would be in danger.
At that thought, Ron drew his own wand, ready to rush over and break up the fight.
"Don't panic. I'm thinking of a way to stop them." Tom rubbed his chin as the super-intelligence granted by [Wisdom (Lv.9)] went into overdrive.
Unfortunately, he knew too few spells so far, and most of them were utility spells. His only offensive spell was Diffindo.
Use Diffindo to break up a fight?
No need. Absolutely no need!
As he thought, Tom noticed his fists...
Got it!
"LO-co-MO-tor MOR-tis!" Draco chanted, flicking his wand and casting the Leg-Locker Curse.
Harry's legs stiffened at once, as if someone had tied them together with a rope. He could no longer spread them apart freely.
This was bad!
Crabbe and Goyle's fists were about to land—
Whoosh—
A hand suddenly reached from behind, grabbed Harry by the collar, and yanked him back.
The owner of the hand raised his other arm and blocked the two fat boys' punches head-on, without budging an inch.
Thud! Thud!
Before Crabbe and Goyle could react, two fists were already right in front of them.
"Ugh!"
"Ugh!"
They cried out and flew backward, hitting the floor. Blood streamed from all four nostrils.
"Merlin's nose!" Draco jumped in fright.
Together, his two lackeys had to weigh at least 300 pounds.
And yet someone had sent them flying with a single blow. How strong did you have to be to do that?
As Tom approached step by step, Draco's wand trembled in his hand. He hurriedly cast the spell again. "LO~co~MO~tor MOR~tis!"
"Not bad for a Pure-blood." Tom felt the force pressing against his legs.
Many young wizards couldn't even manage a decent Floating Charm before starting school, yet Draco could easily cast a somewhat complex beginner spell like the Leg-Locker Curse.
The Pure-bloods certainly had a solid foundation.
"I've got him under control! You two, get up and beat him!"
Even though the spell had worked, Draco still didn't dare face Tom at close range. Instead, he hurriedly urged his lackeys on.
Before he could finish speaking...
Riiip—!
The sound of something snapping rang out.
Tom had been hit by the Leg-Locker Curse, yet he simply strode up to Draco.
"Please, don't hit me in the face~" Draco hunched his shoulders, his voice almost whimpering.
"Listen, little master. If you come looking for trouble again, I'll shove your head into a toilet and let you experience what the kids at Stonewall High go through." Tom pointed at Draco's nose and spoke slowly, each word clear.
"Yes, sir."
The next second—
Bang!
Draco took a punch to the face and went flying.
He lay on the floor for several seconds before getting back up, half his face covered in blood and the other half in tears.
"You big liar! You'll regret this!"
With that, he hurried away from the compartment with his two lackeys.
["Robust" +1 progress]
["Robust" +10...+1...+2...
The commotion in the corridor had been loud. Everyone in the nearby compartments had witnessed what happened.
After Tom and Ron sat back down in their compartment, Ron finally came to his senses and looked at Tom with admiration.
"Tom, you're a real warrior. How did you do that just now?"
"Just exercise regularly. It's nothing difficult."
"No, I mean the Leg-Locker Curse. How did you break it?" Ron asked, puzzled.
Tom hadn't even taken out his wand. Could he use the legendary Nonverbal Spellcasting? And without a wand, too?
"It's simple. Just exercise more, and you'll learn the counter-curse for the Leg-Locker Curse." Tom gave the same answer.
"?" Ron.
Seeing that Ron didn't understand, Tom patiently explained:
"Breaking the Leg-Locker Curse isn't difficult, as long as you understand the theory. The Leg-Locker Curse turns magic into an invisible rope that binds someone's legs. In theory, it can bind more than just legs—it can bind arms, fingers... anything. The Full Body-Bind Curse and Petrificus Totalus are both derived from the Leg-Locker Curse. Their effects are similar; they just bind the whole body instead of the legs."
Tom had learned all this from Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, a textbook for first-years.
"According to that theory, if your legs are strong enough, you can break the invisible magical rope binding them."
"Huh?" Ron felt like his brain was on fire.
What did it mean for your legs to be strong enough? And what did it mean to break a magical rope with brute force?
They were all speaking English, so why couldn't he understand a word?
Was he just bad at understanding things?
"I can show you." Tom reached for Harry's legs.
He felt around and, sure enough, could feel an invisible rope. He grabbed one end of it and gave it a hard tug.
Harry was free at once.
Ron: (°Д°)
He couldn't learn it. Ron decided that there was no way he could learn this counter-curse.
He wondered whether even experienced Aurors could master this trick.
The three of them chatted on and off.
Just then—
There was a knock at the compartment door.
"Excuse me, have you seen a toad?"
Hermione Granger stood in the doorway, timidly asking the three boys for help.
If her friend's pet hadn't gone missing and she hadn't been so worried, she really wouldn't have wanted to ask for help in this compartment.
There were a lot of bloodstains scattered on the floor outside the compartment. It was genuinely frightening.
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