Chapter 136
At half past eleven at night, Soren cast an invisible phantom spell on himself and quietly left the Slytherin common room.
Soren's destination was Hagrid's hut.
If the original plot hadn't collapsed, today would be the day when Charlie Weasley and his group transported the dragons from the Romanian dragon reserve to Hogwarts. As the Keeper of Keys and Grounds, Hagrid would be responsible for designating an area for the dragons to temporarily reside, so he had to go greet the visitors from Romania.
The area was pitch black. Soren walked towards the light coming from Hagrid's hut across the lawn. The large carriage from Beauxbatons was also brightly lit, and as he approached Hagrid's hut, he could hear Madame Maxime speaking inside the carriage.
After waiting for about five minutes, Hagrid finally stepped out of the door, walking with a light step and humming a tuneless melody as he made his way to the Beauxbatons carriage.
Hagrid knocked three times on the door marked with two crossed golden wands.
Madame Maxime opened the door. A silk shawl was draped over her incredibly broad shoulders. She smiled slightly upon seeing Hagrid.
The two exchanged a few meaningless greetings and then walked side by side towards the edge of the temporary enclosure. As they walked, they had already gone quite far around the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and neither the castle nor the lake was visible anymore.
Suddenly, loud shouts from several men came from ahead.
Four enormous dragons came into view.
Yes, dragons; the plot had not changed.
Moreover, the dragons had indeed been sent from the Romanian dragon reserve, and as the second largest shareholder of the reserve, Soren recognized most of the staff inside. This meant that the possibility of these dragons being replaced or tampered with was extremely low, as he, being a major shareholder, would have been aware of any abnormalities at the reserve over the past few months.
By the way, the team leader of the dragon reserve was an acquaintance of Soren's, a distant relative of the Malfoy family who had been placed there through Soren's introduction, while Charlie Weasley served as the deputy leader.
Although the Weasley family and he were not on good terms and belonged to different factions, Soren still recognized Charlie's abilities in raising dragons, and he was not so petty as to deny that. Of course, he could keep his job and position, but if he wanted to be promoted to any key role, that was out of the question.
Soren saw Karkaroff, who was also following the two, but he didn't care.
What if these people knew the topic?
The magical confidentiality contract set up by Dumbledore was absolutely beyond their capability to break.
Didn't even Hagrid dare to invite Harry to witness this scene? Soren would bet that Hagrid had thought about it, but once he showed that thought, he would be bound by the power of the contract and unable to move.
Soren felt very pleased with this situation; he hadn't made this suggestion for the sake of winning the competition. This was actually his first move against little Barty Crouch, just to see how he would break it and help Harry win the first challenge. At the same time, he was looking forward to how all the champions would perform when they had no idea what they were about to face.
The next day, November 22, morning.
Knowing the topic, Soren was confident. He hid in the Slytherin chamber, practicing his Transfiguration and reviewing his strategies for defeating the fire dragons.
He had more than five methods to deal with fire dragons, but he couldn't just be satisfied with winning the competition.
He had to showcase his potential and win decisively.
He wanted to win this challenge in the coolest, most spectacular way!
So, the Eye-Binding Curse was ruled out first—Eleanor and Katalin were both from prestigious families, how could they not understand that the Eye-Binding Curse could break the dragon's defenses?
Transforming a small dog to distract the dragon?—No way, what if the dragon roasted the puppy with its breath?
Using a hypnotic spell to put the fire dragon to sleep?—Don't be silly, dragons have extremely high magical resistance, and he didn't have the Veela bloodline bonus...
Using a sonic blast curse combined with a flash spell to stun the fire dragon and then quickly grab the golden egg?—That's an idea, but it doesn't seem flashy enough.
Fiendfyre, explosive curses, soul attacks?—That might end up killing the dragon.
Hmm? Can slaying a dragon count as a victory?
Soren fell into distress; he finally realized that even slaying a dragon wouldn't be impressive!
He looked at the books he had placed on the table, all of which he believed could help him with the first project: "The Secrets of Human Transformation," "The Fourth Volume of Abathar," "Forbidden Transformation," "The Mysteries of Space," and that one...
His eyes swept over the book in the far corner of the table, and a bold idea emerged in his mind. This plan could likely work, but the prerequisite was that he must ensure the fire dragon could not attack him.
He set aside the idea of relying on transformation magic and instead practiced the protective magic he had been researching for some time.
He had already mastered the Iron Armor Spell, General Protection, and the All-Evil Repelling Spell. The more powerful the effect, the more limitations there were.
Likewise, he also understood how to use the Ancient Rune to release Eihwaz.
Eihwaz was the most powerful protective magic he had mastered so far, but its duration was too short. It was sufficient to counter a wave of attacks from the dwarf star Peter, but it would definitely not be enough to deal with the continuous assaults from the fire dragon.
However, this did not prevent him from exploring new avenues.
First, he needed to find the most optimized point among the three variants of the Shield charm, meaning—the effect must be stronger than the normal shield charm Spell, but the incantation should not be too complex, and at least the casting time should not exceed that of the All-Evil Repelling Spell.
In his view, the speed of casting was key; if he couldn't fully release the magic, no matter how powerful it was, it would be meaningless.
In this regard, he had an advantage.
He could cast spells with both hands.
As long as he could cast this new protective magic while simultaneously using the Ancient Rune to cast Eihwaz, the two layers of protection would certainly be foolproof.
The reason the Ancient Rune's magic symbol had a short duration was that the magical power used to draw the symbol had no support in mid-air—if it could be attached to other spells, using other spells as a medium, it would extend its effectiveness and not fade away so easily.
Thinking of this, he acted immediately. After all, he had the hourglass and enough time to work out this magic.
He began to break down the All-Evil Repelling Spell; even Professor flitwick took nearly five minutes to chant it, which showed how long the complete incantation was.
The first modification he made was to eliminate the least important syllables of the incantation, as these sounds did not help in the conversion of magical power into magic; they were purely for the convenience of the caster to pronounce smoothly, which was redundant for a caster of Soren's level.
The second improvement focused on sacrificing part of the protective range. He removed most of the syllables that specifically expanded the protective range, as long as the protective range was sufficient to cover himself, 360 degrees without dead angles.
Finally, he used the Iron Armor Spell and the Fortress Spell as references, specifically selecting syllables that increased protective strength and adding these sounds into the incantation one by one.
Thus, Sorem focused intently for several hours.
Finally, he picked up a piece of parchment covered in chaotic doodles, his face filled with satisfaction, "Done!"
"This new self-created magic combination shall be called 'Guardians of the Gods'!"
Just then, as Soren set down the parchment, with a crackle, Flash and Dobby appeared simultaneously.
Dobby respectfully bowed and said, "Master, according to your orders, we have been using the scrying mirror to monitor Moody and the surroundings of Hogwarts, and have not seen any suspicious individuals. However, there is intelligence from the Alchemy Workshop that a group of unfamiliar faces has recently appeared in Hogsmeade, about five people."
A gleam sparkled in Soren's eyes; were they coming? This band of monsters!
He said in a deep voice, "Well done! Do you know where they are staying?"
"It is an empty old house located on the edge of the village. Dobby has already contacted Director Bourns and obtained the magical land deed registration records for Hogsmeade. Please take a look, Master." After speaking, he respectfully handed over a scroll sealed with a secret spell.
Soren nodded, appreciating Dobby's cleverness; he knew how to get things done without needing to be told, and he was becoming increasingly capable.
Soren drew his wand and gently touched the scroll with the tip, seeing the names on it, revealing a wicked smile. Just as he finished reading, the parchment suddenly ignited spontaneously, turning to nothingness in no time, leaving not even ashes behind.
" Dobby, go contact Batty. She can transform into a bat and shadow, suitable for stealth, and have her help me investigate the identities of this group."
"Yes!" Dobby took his leave.
"Flash, how is Harry Potter doing?" Soren asked in a deep voice.
"Master, due to various rumors and attacks on his relationships recently, Porter seems to have somewhat given up on himself. He has hardly practiced for the competition and has even neglected his daily studies. His spell-book for summoning was originally left with Professor Flitwick due to a failed summoning spell, but fortunately, Moody took it away, saying he would give him private tutoring to help him master that summoning spell."
Ah, I see. Even though he can't inform the warriors about the competition items, Little Barty can still help Harry prepare the spells and tools that can be used in advance?
It seems we really can't underestimate these people; they are smarter than we imagine!
"Very well, you weren't discovered by Moody, were you? That fake eye of his is quite troublesome."
flash replied respectfully, "No problem, Master's Invisibility Charm is indeed powerful and effective on us house-elves. I stood right in front of Moody, and he was completely unaware."
Soren nodded in satisfaction and then said, "What about those families in France? How's your contact with them going?"
"I have already contacted the Delacour family. Mr. Delacour has agreed to your proposal and conditions. He will lead several families with which he has cousin relationships to ally with you. The details are all written in this confidential letter." After saying this, Flash respectfully took out a crimson envelope that radiated a very obvious magical fluctuation.
Soren recited in French: "Finis Incantatem!"
After a while, the magical fluctuations on the envelope slowly dissipated. According to the prearranged code, if this letter encounters any accidents and falls into someone else's hands, that person will trigger an explosion if they read the counter-curse in English or Latin, giving them a big surprise.
Soren looked over the contents of the letter, and after reading it, he put the letter into his locked folder in the French section.
This letter mainly contains a magically binding alliance agreement, detailing the list of families closely related to Mr. Delacour, who will all form an alliance with Soren according to the agreement.
Although the Delacour family is a mixed-blood family, Mr. Delacour's mother-in-law is a pure-blood Veela, so through his wife, Apolline Delacour, the Delacour family has developed a very close connection with the Veela tribe in France.
Veela are a type of inherently charming beings, usually appearing as beautiful women, but when angry, they resemble the Harpy. Although they are few in number and possess no other powerful magic apart from their charm, many wizards have had marital relationships with them, resulting in numerous mixed-blood offspring.
Centered around the Veela tribe, a complex and vast interpersonal network can be derived, and the Delacour family has benefited from this, holding significant connections within the French wizarding community.
Of course, he publicly claims that all of them are his cousins.
The Evers family, the Bonacorde family, the Amolinu family...
These families are all mixed-blood, yet each has its own expertise and achievements in various fields in France. Through their marriages with Veela, they have quietly formed a network of connections that rivals that of pure-blood families—the Evers family is a family of herbologists, with Mr. Evers holding a high position managing the magical gardens in the Pyrenees (the owner of the magical gardens is the Ministry of Magic from various European countries); Mr. Bonacorde is the French representative of the International Confederation of Wizards; Amolinu is the editor-in-chief of the "Stone Statue Winged Beast Gazette"...
The letter also states that his daughter, Fleur Delacour, has been informed of the alliance between the two families and will unconditionally cooperate with all of Soren's actions during her stay at Hogwarts.
Very good! Now, even the matter of planting spies in the Beauxbatons carriage has been resolved.
["Ally" Delacour family acquired!]
["Ally" Evers family acquired!]
["Ally" Bonacorde family acquired!]
["Ally" Amolinu family acquired!]
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