4: Chapter 04: All You Have to Do Is Stroke Its Spine…
4: Chapter 04: All You Have to Do Is Stroke Its Spine…
The scene before him looked extraordinarily familiar to Eric.
Of course he knew exactly what was going on.
It was 1993.
If he remembered correctly, Hagrid would be teaching Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts this year, and these vicious, biting books were the textbooks Hagrid had chosen for the class.
Objectively speaking, Hagrid could be rather careless, and that same trait carried over into his teaching style.
As a professor, the reason he had ordered these books was apparently because he thought they would be “interesting.” He clearly hadn’t given the students’ experience much thought.
Besides Eric and Tom, a large crowd had gathered outside Flourish and Blotts.
Nearly all of them were witches, wizards, and students who had come to buy books.
The shop was in complete chaos, while passing witches and wizards had formed a semicircle around the entrance to watch a spectacle that was rare enough to happen only once in several years.
“Are those The Monster Book of Monsters?” Eric stepped forward and asked casually.
“Yes!
That’s exactly what they’re called!” Mercer snapped as he busied himself trying to separate the books attacking one another.
Whack!
Without even turning around, Mercer swung the wooden stick in his hand and struck two Monster Books that were savaging each other.
One of them had its teeth firmly buried in the other’s pages.
Forced apart by the blow, it gave a violent wrench as it was knocked away and tore the other book clean in half.
The unfortunate volume fell apart completely, loose pages scattering across the floor as it went still.
“Oh, no!
That’s another one ruined!” At the sight, Mercer clutched his head in despair.
These books hadn’t exactly been cheap to stock.
Before today, he hadn’t even known something like this could happen.
He hadn’t sold a single copy yet, and already the Monster Books had destroyed a fair portion of their own stock.
He ran a bookshop, not a charity.
If he allowed the Monster Books to keep this up, he would lose nearly an entire month’s profit.
One of the employees pulled out his wand and tried to use magic to calm the books down.
Unfortunately, the instant he raised it, a Monster Book lunged at him from the side and sank its teeth viciously into him.
The employee screamed, and his wand went flying Merlin knew where.
Amid the shouting, banging, and furious curses, Flourish and Blotts descended into even greater chaos.
Eric found the whole thing rather amusing.
The Monster Book of Monsters was a magically animated book, and even by the standards of the wizarding world, it was absurdly unruly compared with an ordinary volume.
There wasn’t any particular spell that could force these books to behave.
The only solution was the method Hagrid had demonstrated in the original story.
You simply had to gently stroke their spines.
That would calm them down for a while.
[Ding!
Timed Quest issued.] [Within fifteen minutes, personally help the owner of Flourish and Blotts resolve the chaos caused by The Monster Book of Monsters.] [Quest Reward: Choose one spell and raise its Spell Proficiency to Intermediate.] The System’s voice suddenly rang out inside Eric’s mind.
Oh?
A quest even at a time like this?
Even if the System hadn’t asked him to do anything, Eric had already been planning to step in and help the bookshop owner deal with the problem.
After all, he hadn’t forgotten why he was here.
He hadn’t come to watch a war between man and book.
He was here to buy the textbooks he needed for Hogwarts.
Now that the System had issued a quest, however, its objective aligned perfectly with what Eric had already intended to do.
He could solve the textbook problem and earn a System reward at the same time.
“Er…
Mr.
Clapton, perhaps we should go to Ollivanders and buy your wand first?” Tom looked towards Eric.
“It doesn’t seem as though they’ll be sorting this mess out any time soon.” Eric shook his head.
“No.
There’s no need.
I think I know how to calm them down.” With that, Eric ignored Tom and walked out from among the spectators, heading straight into the sea of torn pages littering the ground.
The employees and Mercer were far too busy protecting themselves to notice him.
Apart from Tom and a few nearby witches and wizards, no one paid any attention to what Eric was doing.
“What?” For a moment, Tom thought he’d misheard him.
He stared at Eric in astonishment.
By the time he realised what Eric intended to do, the boy had already passed him.
Tom hurriedly reached out to stop him, but it was too late.
He could only watch helplessly as Eric walked directly into the midst of the rampaging Monster Books.
One of them immediately noticed him.
Its enormous mouth snapped open, and it hurtled straight towards Eric’s face.
The Monster Book was covered in wounds, with one corner of its cover completely missing.
Its jagged teeth gleamed coldly beneath the sunlight, scraps of parchment still caught between them.
Clearly, it had been one of the winners of the ongoing brawl.
And now it was charging straight at Eric.
Tom’s face changed.
“Come back, Eric!” Although Eric’s tangible burst of magical power back at the Leaky Cauldron had given Tom quite a fright, after spending the better part of half a day talking with him, Tom had already gained a fairly clear understanding of the boy’s circumstances.
Eric didn’t even own a wand yet.
Nor did he know a single spell.
In other words, he really was a complete beginner.
Tom couldn’t understand where Eric had found the confidence to voluntarily walk up to a swarm of uncontrollable, vicious books.
Hadn’t he noticed that several fully grown witches and wizards were already at their wits’ end?
Who did he think had given him this sort of courage?
The Weird Sisters?
The instant the Monster Book launched itself at Eric, Tom could already picture himself accompanying the boy to St Mungo’s several hours later.
Arrogant little brat!
Tom thought irritably.
But what happened in the next second made him doubt his own eyes.
Faced with the vicious book flying towards him, Eric remained perfectly calm.
He shifted sideways.
At the very last moment, he narrowly avoided the Monster Book’s attack.
Only inches from his face, its huge mouth snapped shut, its upper and lower rows of teeth smashing together with a sharp metallic clack.
Eric’s right hand shot upwards.
He caught the Monster Book by its spine and pulled it in front of him.
Sensing that a wizard had restrained it, the Monster Book immediately began thrashing violently, struggling to tear itself free from Eric’s grip.
Eric gave it no such opportunity.
His left hand, which he had already prepared, swiftly ran down the length of the Monster Book’s spine from top to bottom.
Its outer covering was covered in short, coarse bristles, making it feel remarkably like the hide of an actual beast.
Beneath Eric’s fingers were numerous uneven bumps and patches of tough, rough skin.
The instant Eric stroked its spine, the Monster Book in his hand gave a sudden shudder.
It trembled violently twice.
Then, as though Eric had somehow touched its one fatal weakness, its formerly ferocious resistance vanished in an instant.
The book went completely limp in his hands.
Having done that, Eric casually flipped it open.
Only after feeling that it was no longer resisting him did he nod in satisfaction.
Tom, who had been about to rush forward and rescue Eric, froze where he stood.
His eyes widened as he stared dumbfounded at the book in Eric’s hands.
The Monster Book was actually lying there quietly, allowing Eric to hold it without the slightest struggle.
It was so unbelievably well-behaved that the contrast with the chaos raging all around them could hardly have been more striking.