With the arrival of December, Hogwarts was buried beneath thick snow, making the entire castle seem especially quiet and pure.
Ever since Colin Creevey had been petrified, the so-called "Heir of Slytherin" seemed to have vanished without a trace. The attacks had stopped.
That development surprised Lynn a little.
Based on what he remembered of the original story before transmigrating, not long after the Dueling Club, there should have been another student attacked by the Basilisk and petrified alongside the ghost Nearly Headless Nick. As for who exactly it was, he genuinely could not remember.
But now the term was already ending. Most of the students had packed their things and gone home for Christmas, yet those two attacks still had not happened.
Did my involvement change the way this world was originally supposed to develop?
That was Lynn’s guess. After all, his arrival had not only led many students, including Harry and Hermione, to start learning a completely different magical system, it had also indirectly caused changes like Gilderoy Lockhart never becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and Harry’s Parseltongue never being exposed in front of the whole school.
Of course, no further attacks was good news for everyone, and Lynn was more than happy to see things continue in that direction.
During this time, he had also been keeping a quiet eye on Ginny Weasley.
The youngest child of the Weasley family did not appear particularly strange. If anything, she seemed even quieter than she had at the start of the school year. Most of the time, she could be found buried in the library or sitting alone in a corner of the common room reading. Her enthusiasm for studying had risen to the point where even Ron found it frightening.
If things kept going like this, then once Dumbledore found a safe way to remove her soul-link to the diary, they could try destroying it with Disintegrate.
Of course, if even Dumbledore could not find a safe method, then the only solution Lynn could think of would be to wait until he reached Level 13 and could cast the 7th-circle spell Sequester, placing Ginny into a temporarily "sequestered" state and forcibly severing her connection to the diary that way.
He glanced at the level display on his panel:
[Level: 11 (66%)]
Since the battle with that little girl, it had only risen by 10%, and most of that had come from teaching as a professor in this school. About 3% of it had been gained after fighting Snape.
He dismissed the panel and picked up the huge cage at his feet, the one covered by a black cloth. From inside came a series of clacking sounds.
Lynn patted the cage. Inside was the juvenile Acromantula that had now "honorably retired" from Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. Today he was taking it back to Hagrid.
...
Hagrid’s hut was warm with a roaring fire.
"Oh, I knew you were a good little thing!" Hagrid was holding a towel and wiping down the huge spider’s mouthparts while dodging its excited pincers. "Look, Lynn, Spindle’s put on a fair bit of weight! Seems like he really liked life at school."
Lynn twitched at the corner of his mouth. The spider had definitely liked it. The students, on the other hand, clearly had not.
"By the way, Hagrid." Lynn accepted the mug of hot tea Hagrid handed him. "You should’ve gotten the Adventurer Profile I had someone bring to you last time."
"Oh, I did, all right." Hagrid grinned and took a sip of tea. "I’m already a Level 3 Druid now. Not bad progress, eh?"
Lynn smiled and nodded. "If you’re Level 3, then that means you can already use Wild Shape, right?"
"That’s right!" Hagrid straightened up, a trace of pride on his face.
"Congratulations." Lynn’s interest was piqued. "What did you choose? A bear? Or a wolf?"
"No, no, no. Those are too ordinary." Hagrid waved a hand and deliberately kept him in suspense. "It’s something... very strong, very solid, and I think especially adorable. There’s not enough room here, and it might scare people. Next time I’ll take you into the Forbidden Forest and show you there."
Looking at the smile Hagrid was trying and failing to hide, Lynn found himself genuinely curious. Hagrid’s definition of "adorable" was rarely the same as anyone else’s.
Could it be some magical creature unique to this world? It seemed that a class like Druid, which drew power from the energy of nature, would undergo some rather significant changes here.
In the knowledge Lynn carried in his head, Druids could choose from four main directions, or circles: Circle of the Land, Circle of the Moon, Circle of Stars, and Circle of Spores.
As for Hagrid...
Circle of the Forbidden Forest?
"Speaking of the Forbidden Forest..." Hagrid’s voice pulled Lynn out of his thoughts. "I’ve had the feeling something’s been off in there lately."
"Hm? What’s going on in the forest?" Lynn asked.
Hagrid’s excited expression immediately fell. His thick brows knitted together.
"Ever since I became a Druid, I’ve been able to feel more and more of the emotions of the animals and plants in the forest."
He gestured with his hands, each one as big as a shovel.
"Started about the middle of last month, I think. I keep feeling this... fear."
"Fear?" Lynn raised a brow.
"Yeah! I can feel it in the trees, and in the trembling of the ground." Hagrid waved his huge hands. "Something’s wrong. Aragog, that’s Spindle’s mother, absolutely refuses to come out of that deep pit lately, and her descendants have all been restless as well."
Hagrid drank a huge mouthful of tea, then went on.
"And it’s not just the spiders. Last week, I saw a bunch of hippogriffs fighting with thestrals! Merlin’s beard, they’ve never bothered each other before."
Lynn frowned slightly. It seemed the Basilisk had not really stopped moving around, no matter how things looked on the surface.
Just as the two of them were talking, there came a knock at the wooden door.
"Who’d be coming by at a time like this?" Hagrid got to his feet in puzzlement and went to answer it.
When he opened the door, a red-haired little girl was standing outside.
Ginny Weasley.
She was wearing Gryffindor robes, and her face looked a little pale against the snowy background.
"Oh, Ginny!" Hagrid stepped aside warmly. "Come in and warm yourself up! Lynn, would you believe it, this little girl’s been coming round for tea pretty often lately. She especially likes listening to me talk about the creatures in the Forbidden Forest."
Hagrid was clearly delighted by that. Very few girls had ever been willing to sit there and listen to him ramble on about his "lovely little monsters."
But when Ginny saw Lynn sitting by the fire, she only smiled at Hagrid and said,
"I won’t come in today. I was just passing by and wanted to say hello. I still need to get back to the castle and do some reading."
Before Hagrid could reply, Ginny turned and hurried off toward the school, leaving behind nothing but her retreating back.
"That girl, always in such a hurry." Hagrid scratched his head in disappointment. "I’d set aside a couple of rock cakes for her too."
Ginny, coming to see Hagrid?
Lynn found it strange, but after thinking it over for a while, he still could not see the connection.
Only 10 Wisdom really is too low... he thought with some frustration.
...
After chatting a little longer with Hagrid about various magical creatures, Lynn saw that it was getting late and took his leave, heading back to the castle.
Shaking the snow off his cloak, he had just stepped into one of the castle corridors when he heard a loud argument ahead.
"Potter and Granger! They disguised themselves as Crabbe and Goyle and snuck into our common room! I saw them turn back with my own eyes!"
It was Draco Malfoy’s voice.
Lynn slowed his steps and turned the corner.
At the far end of a corridor on the first floor, Snape was glaring venomously at Harry and Hermione.
Behind him stood Malfoy, pointing at them with a smug expression.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Read Advanced Chapters
p(a)treon.com/Shalltearr
Drop some POWERSTONES to push the story forward!
1100 P.S / 1 Extra Chapter!