Quirrell Robbed

The two-week Christmas break passed quickly, and Skylar and Draco returned to Hogwarts.

Over the past two weeks, Skylar had lived a very leisurely life. Aside from occasionally helping Draco with his homework, he sometimes went out to take a look around the Muggle world. Skylar had no intention of spending his entire life confined to the wizarding world; that would be far too dull and boring.

In his spare time, Skylar had not forgotten to study the spells from the first-year Charms curriculum. In his view, whether it was Lumos, the Sonorus Charm, or the Fire-Making Spell, what the school taught was merely the most basic and superficial application. As long as one dissected those spells and traced them back to their roots, there was still immense potential to be uncovered.

Skylar had always believed that a spell's power depended on its caster, not the spell itself. Rather than blindly pursuing spells that consumed just as much magic as they offered in power, it was better to choose refined basic spells best suited to the situation. Not only would that save magic, but it could also achieve unexpected results.

Fire, put simply, was a state of gas combustion. The principle of the Fire-Making Spell was to convert magic into energy that ignited the air. Its power depended on the size and temperature of the flames produced; the more magic consumed, the greater the flames that could be released. In the original story, Dumbledore had once conjured a vast sea of fire that drove back thousands of Inferi. It was one of the rare spells in the wizarding world capable of dealing area-of-effect damage.

A young wizard's magical power was nowhere near enough to imitate Dumbledore's sea of flames, but that did not stop Skylar from finding another path to achieve the same effect.

Skylar's first idea involved Potions. After consulting several Muggle chemistry textbooks and gaining an understanding of the nature of fire and combustion, he wanted to use Potions to create a magical potion similar to an accelerant. As long as the potion was thrown into flames, it could cause them to spread at once into a boundless sea of fire.

It was not particularly difficult. After all, simply buying a bottle of gasoline from Muggles could accomplish something similar. Skylar merely wanted to use his knowledge of Potions to create an accelerant that could both expand the range of the blaze and raise its temperature.

After conducting several experiments in the family's Potions laboratory—and getting himself covered in soot more than once under Narcissa's angry gaze—Skylar finally created his first potion: the Blue Flame Potion!

Just as its name suggested, this potion could raise a flame's temperature to that of blue fire and spread it across an area the size of a classroom.

Before Skylar began learning the Fiendfyre Curse, it had essentially become his most practical magical combination for dealing with group battles.

The wonderful holiday slipped by in a flash, and Skylar and Draco returned to Hogwarts once again.

As they walked through the corridors, the cheerful atmosphere of Christmas seemed not to have fully faded. The walls of the Great Hall were still coated in silver frost.

After the break ended, Skylar noticed that the homework assigned by the professors had begun to grow increasingly heavy. Quite a few professors had already started outlining the key points for the exams, hinting that the examination dates were drawing closer.

Even someone as capable as Skylar had begun to feel the pressure. He brought Daphne and Meredith together to form a study group, where they shared notes and tested one another on questions that might appear in the exams.

Daphne and Meredith were not poor students either, but compared with Skylar, they fell far short. Thus, the study group generally revolved around Skylar, with him responsible for tutoring the two girls in their homework and exam preparation.

Skylar had not intended to keep this matter secret, but somehow it spread throughout the school. Daphne and Meredith became the envy of everyone.

Over the entire semester, not only had the young wizards of Slytherin heard of Skylar's reputation as a "study god," even some students in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff had heard of it. Those who had borrowed Skylar's notes or sought his help with homework knew even more clearly that his study notes were legendary exam-prep treasures. Many young wizards found opportunities to ask Daphne and Meredith about them, trying every possible way to obtain Skylar's notes.

By coincidence, Hermione was also tutoring Harry and Ron with their homework and helping them prepare for the exams. Thus, when she heard about Skylar's actions, a fierce competitive spirit flared up within her. It was as if she were fighting a war without smoke or flame. She pressed Harry and Ron relentlessly, piling pressure onto them until the two suffered miserably.

One morning, while eating breakfast, Skylar casually flipped through the latest issue of the Daily Prophet. A small article printed in an inconspicuous corner caught his eye.

It was a wanted notice for a smuggler. The man had recently been smuggling Dragon Eggs into Britain and had now disappeared. Witnesses confirmed that the last place he had been seen was the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade Village, where he had stayed the night.

Skylar had a feeling that Professor Quirrell had already acquired that Dragon Egg and would soon make contact with Hagrid.

After spending a week making a series of preparations, Skylar slipped into Professor Quirrell's office under a Disillusionment Charm one day while Quirrell was teaching upper-year students. Skylar did not think Professor Quirrell would dare cast all sorts of dangerous defensive and monitoring magic over his office right under Dumbledore's nose. Doing so would only invite suspicion.

Sure enough, apart from a locked door that Skylar opened with a Muggle Universal Lockpick, he encountered no other obstacles as he slipped into the office.

Skylar carefully put on Muggle fingerprint-resistant gloves and began searching Professor Quirrell's office in detail. Quirrell's class lasted a full two hours, so Skylar actually had plenty of time. Still, in case Quirrell returned early for some reason, Skylar quickened his pace, hoping to find his target and leave as soon as possible.

After searching for some time, Skylar finally found a large, blackened egg in a hidden compartment inside a drawer. Aha, this had to be the Dragon Egg Quirrell intended to use to pry the Three-headed Dog's secret out of Hagrid.

Skylar smiled. Just as he was about to take the Dragon Egg, he noticed a well-preserved diary beside it. Skylar's Magic Eye showed no magical fluctuations on the diary whatsoever; it was just an ordinary diary. Hm? Could Professor Quirrell have a habit of keeping a diary? Skylar casually took the diary along with the Dragon Egg.

[Quirrell's Diary acquired!]

[Dragon Egg x1 acquired!]

Although the Magic Eye confirmed that neither the diary nor the Dragon Egg bore any signs of Tracking Magic, Skylar still had Dobby hide the two items in a cave deep within the Forbidden Forest, just to be safe. He also had Dobby cast an elf-specific warning spell at the cave entrance. If anyone entered the cave, Dobby would sense it and report to Skylar at the fastest possible speed.

Another two weeks passed, and March soon arrived.

Skylar noticed that Quirrell's complexion had grown increasingly pale, while even his voice had begun to sound weak and lifeless. Skylar knew that Quirrell had probably been severely punished by Voldemort for losing the Dragon Egg. Meanwhile, the warning magic at the cave in the Forbidden Forest had never been triggered, which meant Quirrell was now trapped at the Three-headed Dog hurdle with no way to get past it.

Skylar could not help sneering to himself. He had no objection at all to seeing Voldemort suffer setbacks a few more times.

The House of Malfoy was not actually a stubborn pure-blood supremacist family. Anyone who carefully studied its history would find that its ancestors had married Muggle aristocrats on more than one occasion.

The true extremist pure-blood supremacists were mainly the House of Black and the House of Lestrange. The House of Malfoy merely used pure-blood supremacy as a pretext, taking the opportunity to influence the Ministry of Magic into passing laws favorable to pure-blood families, allowing them to plunder wealth and seize benefits from Muggles.

Lucius and the other pure-blood families had supported Voldemort in the beginning because they believed Voldemort could bring greater benefits to pure-blood families. If a society in which wizards ruled Muggles were truly established, they could seize vast amounts of resources and wealth.

But what they had never expected was that after creating Horcruxes, Voldemort's actions became increasingly extreme and insane. At first, they had only wanted to find a puppet to plunder for them, yet they discovered that Voldemort wanted to become their master. Those declining families had no power to resist him.

Skylar understood this deeply. The wizarding world was a world where strength spoke for itself. The combat power magic granted every wizard rendered so-called laws and rules little more than empty words. It was different from the Muggle world. No matter how skilled a Muggle might be in combat, they could not defeat a large, well-equipped law enforcement force. People like Rambo existed only in movies.

Wizards were different. A wizard of Grindelwald's or Voldemort's level could easily take down more than ten Aurors, and how many Aurors were there in all of Britain? Hogwarts took in fresh blood every year, but once retirements and deaths in the line of duty were counted, the total number of Aurors had never exceeded thirty.

As for the Ministry of Magic's second strongest force—the Law Enforcement Patrol—even sending as many of them as possible would not be enough to fill Voldemort's teeth. In the original story, Minister Fudge believed that dealing with Sirius Black alone required deploying the Patrol's elite Hit Wizards. That showed how unimpressive the ordinary Patrol members truly were.

(Note: The Ministry of Magic had three armed divisions: Aurors were equivalent to Muggle special agents, proficient in all kinds of abilities and capable of carrying out various special missions; Hit Wizards were equivalent to counterterrorism special forces, specializing in combat; and the Law Enforcement Patrol was equivalent to Muggle police, handling petty thieves and non-dangerous illegal activities.)

This made Skylar understand that wealth, resources, reputation, and influence were all insubstantial. In the wizarding world, one's own strength was what mattered most. Only by possessing the strength to protect oneself could one truly hold on to those things.

At this thought, Skylar's sense of crisis intensified. If the House of Malfoy was to survive the coming years of turmoil safely, his strength was still far from sufficient. He could only use certain methods to delay Voldemort's return as much as possible, buying himself more time to grow stronger.

Although, according to the original plot, Voldemort would ultimately be destroyed by Savior Harry, that was not the result Skylar wanted. Lucius would be imprisoned, Draco would be forced to kill Dumbledore, Lucius would be ruined and disgraced, and the family would decline... If possible, Skylar still preferred to rely on his own strength to deal with Voldemort, the original story's Boss.

Since Hagrid had not incubated a Dragon Egg this semester, there had been no incident where Harry, Hermione, and Neville lost points for wandering the halls at night, nor had there been the later incident of entering the Forbidden Forest.

At the same time, because Harry had not joined Quidditch, this year's Quidditch competition was still led by Slytherin in points.

Combined with Skylar's presence, his outstanding performances in every class—whether Charms, Transfiguration, or Potions—earned Slytherin a large number of points. Under Skylar's influence, Draco, Daphne, and Meredith had also become exceptionally diligent in their studies. Their homework grades might not have surpassed Hermione, the true academic genius, but they could unquestionably crush the rest of Gryffindor's young wizards.

By the way, at one Transfiguration Club gathering, Skylar submitted a paper to Transfiguration Today at Professor McGonagall's request. The paper discussed the idea of using Transfiguration to create a magical lamp that could grow wings and fly through the air. It also proposed several practical applications for the concept. For instance, while traveling through an unknown tunnel, it could eliminate the need to use one's wand to cast Lumos, allowing the wizard to keep their wand free and ready for sudden danger. Or, when exploring a bottomless pit, the magical lamp could be used to scout ahead and measure its depth.

That paper earned Skylar Transfiguration Today's "Most Promising Newcomer Award." Even the usually stern Professor McGonagall revealed a rare smile and directly awarded Slytherin fifty points.

Thanks to Skylar's dazzling maneuvering, Slytherin led second-place Ravenclaw by a full fifty points in the House standings. As for bottom-ranked Gryffindor, Slytherin was ahead by as many as one hundred and fifty points.