Unaware that Malfoy had already turned him into a Slytherin urban legend, John dove through the Black Lake all the way to where the giant squid lived.
In a place shaped like an underwater altar, the giant squid lay there.
It looked as though it hadn't moved at all since the last time John left, its posture completely unchanged.
John still remembered what had happened the last time he used mind magic, so this time he refrained from using it recklessly.
Even with his magic already at Tier Six, he could still sense the squid's extraordinary power.
For all he knew, it really might be an underwater version of Dumbledore.
"Spirit of the Black Lake, if you can understand my words, please speak with me."
John transmitted the message through the water in an extremely ancient language, using one-way mental magic so he wouldn't be overwhelmed by a millennium's worth of memories.
The giant squid, which had been sleeping, stirred when it heard the voice.
It seemed to understand. Its tentacles shifted, and its large eyes turned toward John.
An ancient aura emanated from the squid, and John felt a surge of delight. Communication was truly possible.
Since communication was possible, everything became negotiable.
John lowered his stance and transmitted his voice in a humble tone. "Spirit of the Black Lake, I am a student of Hogwarts. I have come seeking your assistance."
The voice entered the squid's mind. Its tentacles moved slightly, signaling for John to continue.
"I seek ancient blood, and wish to obtain it from your great body," John stated plainly, without pretense.
"I am one who honors agreements. I am willing to trade to achieve my goal."
He watched the giant squid closely, curious to see what conditions this thousand-year-old being might demand.
Perhaps John's words had been too complex, or perhaps his command of the language wasn't pure enough.
The giant squid waved its tentacles, taking quite a while to process what he meant.
When it finally understood that he wanted its blood, the squid extended one of its tentacles toward him.
John froze. No conditions?
The giant squid swayed its tentacles, radiating a sense of pleasant satisfaction.
It seemed genuinely happy to be able to help a Hogwarts student.
Compared to humans, these creatures possessed far purer emotions.
And by approaching them with human ways of thinking, John had trapped himself in a dead end.
Looking at the massive tentacle, John smiled.
He had been narrow-minded.
In a world filled with schemes and calculations, he had forgotten this kind of purity.
He hadn't expected that coming to seek out the giant squid would end up teaching him a lesson as well.
After expressing his thanks to the squid once more and seeing its tentacles sway happily, John began to draw the blood.
Collecting blood underwater came with its own difficulties.
John used magic to push back the water, creating a small dry space. The giant squid curiously passed another tentacle back and forth through it.
A vial of blue liquid was sealed away.
"Thank you, honored spirit of the Black Lake. Please allow me to repay your generosity with a bottle of wine I brewed myself."
John took out one of the few remaining bottles of Constellation and poured it over the squid's tentacle.
The golden liquid touched the tentacle and vanished almost instantly.
The giant squid was delighted. It clearly loved the stuff.
Seeing this, John smiled knowingly. Constellation was made of purified magical power, and magical creatures adored it without exception.
In a burst of excitement, the giant squid caused the lake water to rapidly darken.
It had inked.
The sheer amount made John seriously wonder if the Black Lake's darkness came from the squid in the first place.
After collecting some of the ink, John was sent back up to the surface by the giant squid.
Standing on the surface of the lake, John didn't sink thanks to the Meteor Shoes beneath his feet.
He bade farewell to the giant squid.
This trip had yielded an abundant harvest.
So much so that he'd lost track of time underwater, and by the time he emerged, the sky had already grown dark.
Using magic to dry the water from his clothes, John started walking toward the castle.
"The giant squid's vitality is astonishing. I think it can keep living for a long time yet."
John didn't know how long the squid could live, but judging by its state, outliving him would be effortless.
What was even more astonishing was that the squid was still growing.
"Its size should be far larger than it was a thousand years ago."
Glancing back at the Black Lake, John muttered, "Maybe one day, the giant squid will be bigger than the lake itself."
Just imagining that scene was enough to send a chill down even John's spine.
Voldemort, Grindelwald—none of them compared to the sheer growth potential and vitality of that giant squid.
Upon returning to the castle, John ran into Filch.
He was sitting leisurely at the foot of the stairs, eating some delicate little pastries.
Though those pastries didn't seem to be from Honeydukes.
John glanced at them, then circled Filch twice.
Filch shifted uncomfortably and muttered, "What are you doing?"
"Filch, how fast do you think you can run?" John suddenly asked.
Filch paused, then answered honestly, "I can reach Gryffindor Tower from here within a minute."
"Too slow," John frowned. "That speed won't do."
"?" Filch was full of question marks.
His speed was already a nightmare for students—and it was slow?
"Have you ever heard the saying, speed equals power?"
A sharp glint flashed in John's eyes. "I think you can be faster."
"That speed is just the limit of your shoes, not your own limit. You can go faster."
Filch was left completely baffled by John's words.
But one sentence stuck firmly in his mind: speed equals power.
Filch actually had one exceptionally outstanding ability.
That was his eyesight.
Even while wearing shoes capable of reaching flying speed, he could still grab students with perfect precision without injuring a single one.
If he weren't a Squib, Filch might have made an excellent Seeker.
Mrs. Norris spotted John and rubbed herself against the hem of his trousers.
Having planted a seed of "faster" in Filch's mind, John headed toward the Constellation Society.
He wanted to experiment with properly putting the giant squid's ink to use.
A being that had lived for a thousand years—anything from its body was bound to be extraordinary.
However, before he could reach the Constellation Society, he was stopped.
…
The hospital wing.
"So you're saying he ended up like this just from drinking wine?" John looked at Ron lying unconscious on the bed, a thousand questions running through his mind.
Dumbledore stood beside the bed, while Harry glared angrily at John from Ron's side.
His best friend was lying unconscious because of John's wine.
Dumbledore said gently, "I examined the bottle. There was indeed a poison inside—enough to kill someone."
He looked at John with a probing gaze and asked, "That bottle of wine was a gift from you to Slughorn?"
"That's probably right," John nodded calmly. "After all, none of the other wines have that kind of richness."
But his complete lack of guilt made Harry furious. "Why did you poison it?!"
John looked at Harry as if he were an idiot and sighed. "Use your brain, Harry."
"If I wanted to kill someone, do you really think I'd need to do it like this?"
He continued evenly, "It's obvious someone tampered with the wine."
"Is it?" Harry shot back. "Then besides you, who else would have touched that bottle?"
"That's something you'll need to ask Professor Slughorn," John said casually. "Plenty of people could have handled it."
"And most importantly—"
John glanced at Ron, still unconscious, and said with calm confidence, "Do you really think I'd poison someone so crudely?"
Two drops of emerald potion had brought him back. John wouldn't do something that low-grade.
Though Harry was furious, reason told him John was right.
There had been emerald potion in Slughorn's office. If John had truly meant to poison someone, he wouldn't have left the antidote there.
Ron had simply been incredibly unlucky—he drank the antidote first, and then the poisoned wine afterward.
Dumbledore seemed never to have believed it was John from the beginning. Calm and incisive, he said to John, "Then there's only one possibility—someone entered Horace's office and poisoned your wine."
"Let's think about who has been in and out of Horace's office recently," Dumbledore said.
John replied evenly, "I haven't gone in since Christmas."
"Professor Slughorn has been holding Slug Club gatherings. That could have been an opportunity."
This poisoning gave John a sense of a familiar hand at work.
Much like the attack on the Weasley family, it felt like someone was trying to make a big incident.
If the plan had succeeded and Slughorn had died,
the entire magical community would have been thrown into an uproar.
At the same time, as the one who provided the wine, John would have become the prime suspect.
"Killing two birds with one stone."
As for who was behind it, that wasn't hard to guess.
The difficulty lay in identifying the poisoner among those who attended the Slug Club after Christmas.
"Another traitor, Tom? Couldn't you come up with something a little more original?"
John felt it necessary to have a talk with Slughorn about who he'd been inviting to his after-dinner little lessons.
"I can rule out four people right away: Draco, Daphne, Astoria, and Neville."
The names he listed were all members of the Constellation Society, which made Harry protest, "Then I can rule out Ginny and Hermione as well."
"No, you can't," John said flatly. "Because they can't resist the Imperius Curse."
Harry fell silent.
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John is on vacation in Japan - studying the Magic of Love.