42- Malfoy, the meat paste
After quickly turning off the projection of the password, Rhys glanced at Daphne with red cheeks. Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with the little girl. Maybe she didn't see the whole password clearly, or maybe she thought that sentence was correct.
After using his authority to change the password back, Rhys said the statue's password for the third time: In Parseltongue: open.
This time there was movement.
The huge stone face moved, and its mouth opened, forming a huge black hole. After the entrance to the cave appeared, there was a rustling sound inside, as if something was moving in the mouth of the statue.
Rhys's expression changed, and he immediately recognized it. This was the Basilisk he had left in the secret room that had been awakened. He immediately gave new instructions: "Go back and hide," and then the sounds in the cave gradually stopped.
"What is that?" Daphne was not deaf, so she naturally heard the sound of the Snake King moving.
After Rhys gave her a brief explanation, Daphne fell silent.
'So the Basilisk whose skin we saw is not dead and is hiding inside the mouth of the statue?' Daphne didn't want to get in now.
It's a matter of opinion whether sewer pipes harboring filth and dirt are more disgusting, or whether a tunnel hiding a giant snake is more psychologically uncomfortable.
Rhys didn't notice the change in the girl's mentality and led Daphne straight into the statue's mouth.
Different from the first impression given by the appearance, the tunnel inside the statue is spacious and flat, and there are even candlesticks installed on the wall every few steps. But now that the candlesticks were empty, Rhys could only summon a sun-flame for lighting.
There were traces of large snakes crawling on the ground, obviously left by the snake king. Daphne was still a little worried, fearing that she would encounter the terrifying monster at a certain corner. Fortunately, the Basilisk hid very thoroughly, and she could not find any trace of the Basilisk until she reached the end of the tunnel.
"Actually, the spell here is similar to the spell on the wall in the backyard of the Leaky Cauldron. In the future, you will be able to detect it when you master the magic more deeply." Rhys stood in front of a thick stone wall and talked to Daphne.
After he said this, Daphne became curious about what the world looked like in Rhys' eyes.
"From my eyes? Just like ordinary people, but my perception of magic power is more acute. Of course, if I notice something strange and focus the mana on my eyes, what I see will indeed change, and I can see the flow of magic around me.
For example, now, in the eyes of ordinary people, this is an ordinary wall, but in my eyes, the whole wall is shimmering with magic. "
Daphne opened her eyes wide and stared at the wall seriously, but her eyes were sore from looking at it and she could not sense the flow of magic in the wall.
"You're still a little underheated now, but you'll be fine in the future." After a little comfort to the little girl, Rhys pressed the wand against a stone brick.
"Just count seven blocks down and seven blocks horizontally. And—"
With a poke of the wand, the stone bricks sank in and then disappeared. Then, like a chain reaction, the entire stone wall disappeared, exposing the exit. "—a passage will open like this"
Coming out of the tunnel, Daphne recognized where they were: next to the underground dock where they had arrived by boat on the day of the opening ceremony.
On the way back to the common room, Daphne couldn't help but ask about the content of tomorrow's teaching. Rhys told her that he planned to let her brush up on today's flying magic, and then teach her a practical protective spell.
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This spell has a simplified version in the modern magic world, called The Shield Charm. It is a relatively advanced spell that many Hogwarts graduates cannot use.
In Rhys' opinion, this spell is far less effective than the defensive magic he taught Daphne - it is too rigid and cannot be used by beginners due to its high requirements on spellcasters. However, this spell has the upper limit. It's not tall enough and feels a bit flashy.
So, unlike the shield charm, Rhys's defensive shield does not have any upper limit, beginners can use it after a period of practice, alas, the defense is relatively weak for them, but as the caster's strength increases, the spell's defense can be stacked up almost infinitely.
As expected by Rhys, Daphne learned the spell in just one day.
She can mobilize her magic power to form a thin protective shield in front of herself. Although it may not be able to stop the bricks thrown at her, it is still a breakthrough from zero to one, and the rest is only left to time.
This can't help but surprise Rhys: he has found a treasure, a really talented individual and his skills have been inherited.
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After taking the class seriously for a week, Rhys began to adjust his life rhythm to a state he was satisfied with.
—What, just a History of Magic class on Monday? Great, my weekend will be three days now.
—What, the professor gave me a lot of homework? It's not a big problem. Daphne, come here and write my assignment...
After returning to Hogwarts, Rhys' life has become much more nourishing: he no longer has to fight world-ending magical animals, no longer needs to prepare lessons every day, worry about stupid and crazy medieval semi-literate little wizards, and no longer has to deal with the mess caused by energetic students.
After some comparison, Rhys felt an inexplicable sense of happiness. Especially when he saw Professor Snape cursing and busy dealing with the mess left by his students, he was glad that he was not the professor of the school now.
Draco Malfoy, who had had conflicts with him before, seemed to have complained to his father, but Lucius Malfoy seemed to have no intention of standing up for him for the time being. Malfoy, who failed to get his father's support, quickly forgot about the small friction between him and Rhys and turned to target the child named Harry Potter.
Rhys could see that he wanted to be friends with Potter at first, but the reputation of Slytherin House dragged him down, directly strangling the budding friendship between the two in the cradle.
Of course, the bad reputation of the house was only a secondary factor, and Malfoy's pompous, high-pedestrian character was the main reason. He was high-profile, flamboyant, and sometimes disgustingly narcissistic. If he didn't have a powerful father, he would have been locked in the toilet and beaten by the senior students in the house.
In the first week of school, Malfoy kept showing off his "distinguished" family background to the people around him. In the second week, the topic became Quidditch. He talked about flying all day and complained loudly at the dining table that first-year students were not eligible to join the college Quidditch team.
He liked to run near Daphne and brag loudly about his childhood flying stories. The content of the stories changed a lot, but the result was always the same: Draco Malfoy, who was good at flying, narrowly avoided a Muggle helicopter.
Daphne, who had already experienced the beauty of flying by herself, didn't care about it at first, but Malfoy was so annoying, so she finally couldn't help it.
"At that time, my hair was only a few inches away from what they call a helicopter's propeller, and I could even feel the strong whirlwind..." Malfoy's story was coming to an end as usual, but was interrupted by a girl's voice.
"Are you sure it was only a few inches?" Daphne glanced at him.
"Of course!" Malfoy patted his chest and assured.
Daphne didn't say anything. She had heard of helicopters, a Muggle vehicle. After she and Rhys briefly discussed the structure of the helicopter, Rhys turned a pair of knives and forks on the table into the shape of a helicopter and turned a piece of grilled steak into a little man riding a flying broom.
"Even though the broom has some defense, mere inches away from the blades, how did you avoid the Suction effect"
"What effect?" In Malfoy's confused eyes, Daphne controlled the little man to fly to the helicopter floating in the air, and then...
Pah!
The little man was sucked in by the propeller and was instantly turned into meat sauce.
The meat sauce and grease splashed everywhere, and a drop directly smeared on the face of Malfoy, who was completely stunned.
"So how did you manage to hold on? Or has the Malfoy family's medical technology advanced far enough to restore the meat paste to a human body?" Daphne looked at Malfoy with a smile on her face.
Malfoy: "..."
"Humph!" Daphne killed the discussion.
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