To be fair, Professor Baker had indeed handed over his trump card—the method for learning Dual Casting—to Avada in its entirety. During the summer break, after removing the Trace from his wand, Avada had squeezed out time to practice. In the final few days of summer, he had even managed to succeed once…
And then he realized that, at his current stage, this thing was basically useless.
From the standpoint of innate configuration, a normal human—whether in brain structure or mental architecture—is simply not built for true dual-threaded thinking. In other words, one brain can only focus on a single task at any given moment. Those so-called cases of "multitasking" are nothing more than rapid switching between lines of thought. Spellcasting, however, is a process that does not allow interruption. Thus, throughout history, there had never been a wizard capable of truly casting two different spells at the same time.
And yet, along came a freak of nature like Professor Baker.
No one knew where his inspiration came from, but he had somehow devised a method that perfectly bypassed the normal mental-energy mechanisms, achieving true "two things at once" through something akin to exploiting a bug.
Naturally, that also meant the method came with severe limitations and side effects.
The first was that it was extremely difficult to master—any tiny mistake would cause it to fail outright. Even though Avada could directly perceive magical energy, he still had to fail countless times before barely succeeding.
The second was the terrifying drain on stamina. Avada had no idea how Professor Baker endured it, but on the very night of Avada's first successful Dual Casting, he slept for fifteen straight hours—and even the next day, he woke up groggy and unfocused.
Then, when you combined those two drawbacks, a third one naturally emerged: while using Dual Casting, it was practically impossible to cast high-powered or even slightly advanced magic.
That was easy enough to understand. A person only has so much mental energy to begin with. Just maintaining the Dual Casting state already drained nearly everything—where would the capacity come from to cast a powerful spell on top of that?
At Avada's current level, he could only manage two of the most basic spells at the same time—like a Petrification Curse paired with Transfiguration, or the Leg-Locking Curse with a Levitation Charm. The moment the spell's complexity increased even a little, it became impossible. For instance, when casting the Confundus Charm, he absolutely could not spare even a fraction of attention to construct so much as a single Lumos.
So things like performing Apparition while simultaneously maintaining an Undetectable Extension Charm were nothing more than a pipe dream for him at present. Even for Professor Baker himself, it seemed extremely difficult. According to a note left in the manual, the most he could do was fire off a Stunning Spell with his right hand during a head-on exchange, while sneaking in a Disarming Charm with his left.
"But still… it feels like if I could master that combination, the results would be insane. Giving up now would be such a waste."
"If only there were some magical creature related to spatial abilities that I could study… maybe I'd get some inspiration. Though a Niffler is out of the question—that thing only has an Undetectable Extension Charm pouch. It has nothing to do with Apparition at all."
With a disgruntled sigh, he packed up his things and left the Room of Requirement, planning to check the library for relevant materials. Just as he reached the corner of the staircase on the fifth floor, he ran into Baron.
"You went to the Room of Requirement?" Baron asked quietly the moment he saw him.
"How did you know?"
"I ran into Hagrid while I was training outside earlier. He asked me to tell you to go to his hut—said he'd gotten hold of a batch of good stuff. Then I couldn't find you in either the library or the Great Hall, so I figured you must've gone to the Room of Requirement. I was just about to look for you."
"Hagrid's looking for me?"
Avada frowned in thought. He couldn't recall Hagrid getting anything at this point in time that could be described as "good stuff." The Philosopher's Stone was under strict secrecy, Blast-Ended Skrewts wouldn't be bred for years yet, and obtaining a dragon egg wouldn't happen until the end of term. School had barely been in session for a month…
Wait. Don't tell me Voldemort thought of trading a dragon egg for information ahead of time and already got Fluffy's weakness out of him?
No, that doesn't make sense either. My relationship with Hagrid isn't that close yet. In the original story, he didn't even dare tell Harry about the dragon egg.
"Want to go check it out together?" Avada said. "If Hagrid calls it good stuff, it's probably not bad. You're done with training, right?"
In the end, he temporarily classified this as a minor side branch that hadn't been mentioned in the original story.
Of course, if they really ended up getting face-ridden by Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback, that would be a whole different level of disaster.
"Me? Can I even go?" Baron hesitated. "Hagrid didn't invite me. He seems to have some… very stubborn prejudices against Slytherin."
"He doesn't think much of Hufflepuff either, honestly. But since he asked you to pass the message, that means he doesn't have a problem with you. And hey, this could be a chance to improve Slytherin's image, right?"
In the end, Baron was still dragged along to Hagrid's hut by Avada. When Hagrid opened the door and saw the two of them, he showed no displeasure at all. On the contrary, he seemed genuinely happy to have an extra guest—and not in a superficial way, either. The half-giant's mental perception was even more transparent than that of ordinary people.
"Welcome, Ken! And Baron, too… come to think of it, this is your first time here, isn't it? Hang on a bit—someone else will be coming along shortly. Come in and sit down first. I've got some tea ready, and I made some rock cakes myself…"
The corner of Avada's eye twitched almost imperceptibly.
At last, he was about to face the hardest substance in the original story.
Thank Merlin Voldemort had gotten Hagrid expelled early and never had the chance to experience his rock cakes. Otherwise, the world might have gained an indestructible Horcrux, granting him true immortality…
While silently mocking fate, Avada followed Baron into the hut.
And for the first time in two lifetimes, he discovered that he had trypophobia.
It wasn't that Hagrid's hut was decorated in any sort of eldritch fashion. On the contrary, the interior could only be described as simple: aside from a bed, a table, several chairs, a storage cabinet, and a boiler, there was almost nothing else. Several strips of dried meat hung from the ceiling, and a single animal-hide tapestry was pinned to the wall.
But through Avada's Magical Perception, the hut transformed into an entirely different scene.
The cracks in the floor were packed with incredibly complex magical structures. The cloth bundles inside the cabinet made his scalp prickle at a single glance. And most horrifying of all was the patchwork quilt spread over Hagrid's bed…
Unicorn hair, Mooncalf fur, Hippogriff down, what looked like Niffler or Kneazle fur, and a vast array of magical structures he didn't even recognize. From that one quilt alone, he could identify the hair or feathers of at least twenty different magical creatures, many of them extremely valuable magical materials. The overlapping layers of complex magic nearly triggered his trypophobia on the spot.
By his conservative estimate, two or three quilts like that could be traded for a Nimbus 2000.
"Sit tight for a bit, you two. I'll go fetch the rock cakes… Oh! Harry, Ron—you're here too!"
At Hagrid's enthusiastic call, a face with round glasses and another topped with a head of red hair poked in. Judging by the timeline, Hermione Granger had not yet joined the trio.
"Hagrid, are these two your friends as well… Ken? Baron?"
Harry greeted Avada naturally enough, but his gaze toward Baron was a little awkward. It couldn't be helped—while he didn't have a bad impression of Baron, the Slytherins had thoroughly disgusted him over the past few days.
"Oh, you're that 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,' right? You even cast a Transfiguration spell on my Scabbers and completely stunned that busybody…"
Ron recognized Avada as well. He had always thought the whole "no one knows his real name" thing was incredibly cool.
"Brilliant! Since everyone's here…"
Hagrid looked positively delighted. "Come on—I'll take you to see the new arrivals in the Forbidden Forest today. A whole bunch of Diricawls!"
(End of Chapter)