Five minutes later, inside the Gryffindor Head of House’s office.
Professor McGonagall looked down at the lesson plan Thorne had submitted, her eyes scanning back and forth across the pages.
It was a complete teaching outline from first year through seventh year—clearly structured, logically sound, with course objectives and stage-by-stage focuses all clearly marked.
“You…” She looked up, genuine surprise in her voice.
“Have you worked in education before?” “No.” Thorne answered honestly.
“It’s just that back in the Sanctuary, whenever I needed to look something up for research, I’d often visit the local teachers’ archive.
After going a few times, I picked up a thing or two.” As he spoke, his gaze unconsciously drifted to Professor McGonagall’s face.
The mosquito lady’s proboscis had clearly lengthened a little compared to earlier.
From Thorne’s past experience, that usually meant she was pleased.
He’d once discussed drawing techniques with a mosquito illustrator.
Whenever the other party got excited while listening, the same change would occur.
“Not bad.
Not bad at all.” Professor McGonagall nodded and closed the lesson plan.
“It looks like we won’t need to give you any extra training on teaching methods.
However—” She changed tack.
“I believe all the practical sections should be removed.
We’ll keep only the conceptual explanations.” Thorne’s eyes widened instantly.
“No, Professor, that won’t work!” His tone grew urgent.
“Soul magic isn’t part of the O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s yet.
In this subject, pure theory is about as useful as a navy in the desert.” Professor McGonagall set the lesson plan back on the desk.
Her wings gave a light twitch behind her, and her proboscis retracted slightly.
“But as the subject develops, this course may very well be added to the examination system in the future.” She spoke calmly, then raised her eyes to Thorne.
“Also, could you explain something?
In your lesson plan, the very first practical class says—” She flipped to the page and read aloud in a quiet voice: “Learn to Obtain a Soul.” “Are you planning to have the students… stab each other?” Thorne’s mouth twitched hard.
Clearly, his rather crude demonstration during the interview had left Professor McGonagall with some unhealthy impressions.
“Uh, of course not!” Thorne explained quickly.
“I’m not turning the classroom into a knife fight, and I’m definitely not having students harm themselves.” He cleared his throat.
“I’m just going to have them try extracting souls from ordinary insects.” At that, Professor McGonagall’s long proboscis slowly extended again.
“Oh?” Her tone rose slightly.
“So you’re saying that by harming other creatures with a knife, one can obtain souls?” “It works, but—uh, what are you planning to do?” Before Thorne could finish asking, Professor McGonagall raised a hand to stop him, then turned and strode out of the office.
Less than a minute later she returned, now carrying a small wicker basket.
Thorne looked up and his eyebrows jumped.
Inside the basket, a dense mass of wriggling Pheromone Caterpillars squirmed—the same kind he’d seen near Hagrid’s hut.
“Professor, this is…?” “You demonstrate first.” Professor McGonagall’s tone was calm as she set the basket on the desk.
“A demonstration of how to extract a soul.
As Deputy Headmistress, I need to confirm whether this process will harm the students.” She naturally handed Thorne a small dissection knife.
Then she stared at him without blinking.
The anticipation was written all over her face.
Her wings twitched from time to time, and her proboscis had extended to its full length.
She was clearly very interested in what was about to happen.
Honestly, Thorne had thought Professor McGonagall was a serious, proper woman.
But it seemed all human disguises came off in bug form.
Thorne shrugged and prepared to begin.
But when his eyes actually landed on the soft, constantly wriggling caterpillars in the basket, he still couldn’t help pausing.
How to put it… In this world full of bugs, the thought of personally killing a real insect was somehow giving him a strange psychological burden.
Even though back in Hallownest he had probably killed enough bugs to stuff the entire Hogwarts castle several times over, from the inside out.
Thorne shook his head and pushed the odd feelings aside.
The next moment— His hand rose and the knife fell.
The motion was clean and decisive, almost identical to when he had cut himself earlier.
The instant the blade sliced into the caterpillar, thin strands of white light seeped from the wound like mist.
The light drifted outward, then was pulled by some invisible force and rapidly flowed into Thorne’s body.
The entire process was brief and quiet.
Professor McGonagall watched, and her eyes lit up instantly.
“Hmm…” She nodded thoughtfully.
“It seems we really can let students begin obtaining souls in a way that won’t harm them.” She changed direction.
“However—” She picked up a quill and without hesitation crossed out an entire line in Thorne’s lesson plan.
“The part about letting upper-year students participate in soul extraction activities is absolutely not allowed.” “What?” “Professor McGonagall, that’s currently the most efficient way to use soul matter!
As long as you inject another person’s soul into your body, you can obtain a large amount of their knowledge, and also—” Thorne tried to argue, but it was useless.
“Professor Thorne.” Professor McGonagall cut him off directly.
“First, I believe the situation you described is almost impossible to achieve in practice.” “Second, even if it were possible, from what you’ve said, this already falls very close to the territory of dark magic.” She gently set the quill back on the desk.
“At Hogwarts, that kind of behavior is absolutely forbidden.” “Instead of obsessing over such dangerous ideas, it would be better to focus on more realistic and concrete issues.” Thorne could only reluctantly set aside that dangerous line of thinking.
To be honest, he had never actually tried that method himself.
The leader of the Sanctuary, known as the “Soul Master,” had eventually gone completely mad because of experiments like that.
But there was no denying that he had also gained power far beyond what should have been possible.
Thorne had needed to put in real effort to deal with him back then.
And it was while studying the man’s casting methods that Thorne had learned an extremely important spell.
So he had been wondering whether he could use such an efficient approach.
But it was clear now that this path was not going to work at Hogwarts.
“Hmm…” Thorne thought for a moment, then asked, “So the current problem is what to teach the upper years, right?” “After all, just basic soul acquisition and using souls to repair the body probably won’t fill an entire semester’s worth of class time.” Professor McGonagall seemed to be thinking as well.
Her gaze drifted to the surviving Pheromone Caterpillars still in the basket.
Her tone was casual.
“I remember Albus mentioned earlier that you seem able to combine magic with singing?
That could also supplement Hogwarts’ aesthetic education.” Thorne blinked, then his eyes lit up.
“Oh… that’s right.” A thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
“In that case, I could make their singing extremely despairing.
That scene would definitely be beautiful.” He paused, then added, “Hogwarts Castle… should still be pretty sturdy, right?” Professor McGonagall clearly didn’t catch the hidden implication and answered offhandedly.
“It’s fine.
The founders built it with magic.
The fact that it’s still standing after a thousand years says quite a lot—” She suddenly frowned mid-sentence.
“However… Professor Thorne, if obtaining every soul requires killing something, I’m afraid even using up all of Hagrid’s stock won’t be enough for the whole semester.” She paused, her tone growing more serious.
“And the subsequent breeding would also be quite expensive.” At that, Professor McGonagall suddenly raised her head.
Her sharp, slender proboscis was almost in Thorne’s face.
“So, besides storing souls inside the human body, is there any other way?” Thorne carefully tilted his head to the side, dodging the proboscis that was threatening to turn him into JFK.
He blinked, hesitated for a second, then nodded.
“There is.” “Through a special kind of sculpture called a Soul Totem.” “It can store souls inside it.
You only need to strike it to release the souls for use.” The moment he finished speaking, Thorne noticed something strange.
For some reason, the moment he mentioned “sculpture,” Professor McGonagall’s wings began vibrating rapidly, filling the air with that annoying buzzing sound.
Was she excited?
This professor was acting a little weird…
“Oh…” Professor McGonagall looked thoughtful.
“Is that so?” The next second, her tone suddenly became unusually enthusiastic.
“Then Hogwarts should get some.” “Uh—” Thorne felt strangely uneasy.
He had the distinct feeling she was treating these things like some kind of fun toy.
He quickly added, “Though that kind of thing was created by an ancient civilization.
I don’t actually know how to make them.” “But you’ve seen them, right?” Professor McGonagall pressed on.
“Can you draw them?” Thorne froze.
“…Huh?” — Fifteen minutes later.
The Headmaster’s office.
Dumbledore took a sip from a cup that looked suspiciously like tooth-strengthening potion, then popped another toffee into his mouth.
He studied the patterns on the parchment in front of him for a long while.
Finally, he moved his gaze away from the pile of design sketches and looked at McGonagall and Thorne sitting across from him.
“So,” he said calmly, “you want to provide infrastructure in advance for the teaching of soul magic?” “Though from what I can see, this still seems to be at the conceptual stage.” Professor McGonagall nodded slightly.
“Yes, Albus.
That’s why we need to invest funds and technical resources into development.” Her tone gradually took on a note of excitement.
“Just imagine—if all our stone sentinels had soul matter stored inside them, how fun that would be—cough, how deterrent that would be.”