Chapter 132: Dumbledore

"Your attention to detail surprises me, Mr. Ollivander."

Hogwarts, Great Hall.

Dumbledore looked at Silven and said with a smile, "So far, there are no signs of damage to the magic I placed on the bathroom door—it remains secure."

"As for the magical residue shift you mentioned, I believe it is related to Miss Warren."

The Miss Warren mentioned by Dumbledore was Moaning Myrtle; Warren was her original surname.

"Can ghosts even affect the magic on the door?" Silven asked, puzzled.

"It is indeed possible," Dumbledore said. "Ghosts are a very special form of existence—magical imprints left behind by wizards after death, and they naturally influence magic."

"But such influence is minuscule, merely causing slight shifts in the magical residue."

"I understand, Headmaster," Silven nodded.

He did not care about the relationship between ghosts and magic; as long as Dumbledore’s spell on the bathroom door remained intact, Riddle could not enter, and the Basilisk could not escape.

Silven returned and sat down at the Gryffindor table.

Over the next few days, Lockhart returned to his usual self and made no further attempts to approach Myrtle’s bathroom on the second floor.

Meanwhile, Malfoy had returned.

Although Dumbledore knew what he had done, he did not expel him, allowing him to resume his studies at the school.

After all, it was Dumbledore—this outcome was only natural.

Yet Malfoy himself became quiet and withdrawn, always staying with others and never acting alone again.

It probably isn’t to watch me… Silven thought to himself.

Fortunately, the other students knew nothing of these events; they were eagerly anticipating the upcoming Quidditch match.

Saturday: Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. If they win the match while scoring two hundred points, they will have one hand already on the Quidditch Cup.

As the match day drew nearer, Oliver Wood once again dragged everyone into intense training; every night, the common room echoed with his excited shouts.

"Our opponents are Hufflepuff—what’s the difference between this and handing the Cup to us?"

"Don’t let them touch the ball!"

"If we don’t win this, just snap your wands and become goblins!"

…

The pressure on the other players grew heavier, especially Harry’s.

The Hufflepuff team was weak, but that certainly did not include their Seeker, Cedric—he had given Harry considerable trouble last year.

Worse still, he had grown taller this year; his arms stretched out far longer than Harry’s, giving him a clear advantage in catching the Golden Snitch.

On Saturday morning, Harry sat in the Great Hall, picking listlessly at his bread.

Silven ate even less than him; he had taken ten minutes to finish the milk he normally gulped down in a few bites, then put down his cutlery.

"Silven, how come I feel you’re more nervous than I am?" Harry asked, unable to help himself. "But I seem to remember you don’t even like Quidditch."

"I don’t dislike Quidditch—I just prefer making wands," Silven corrected.

Hogwarts had too many Quidditch fanatics; if he said he disliked Quidditch, a crowd would immediately gather to endlessly lecture him on how wonderful the sport was.

Like Oliver, Fred, and George lately.

So now Silven no longer claimed he disliked Quidditch—he simply said he was too busy to watch the matches.

"But how did you know I was nervous?" Silven asked.

"Because you only drank one glass of milk this morning," Harry said. "And last night too—you only finished half a bowl of porridge."

"Ah, well… there’s nothing I can do," Silven pursed his lips. "Just assume I’ve lost my appetite."

Silven was suffering inside too—it was full moon again. With mandrake leaves in his mouth, he dared not eat much; milk, pumpkin juice, and corn soup had become his staple meals.

Because of this, when the previous two transformations were interrupted, he had even felt a strange sense of relief.

But learning Animagus transformation was unavoidable.

So now Silven only hoped to succeed on the first try—please, no more repeats.

At eleven in the morning, everyone went to the pitch; Lockhart went too, applying to be the match referee—but was immediately rejected by Madam Hooch.

Half a term had passed since Hogwarts’ opening; although a few students still believed Lockhart’s flowery words, the professors had long seen through his hollow, showy nature.

In short, he was a fool.

Add to that his glorious achievement of pulling out Malfoy’s leg bones, and Madam Hooch would never allow him near the players again.

She did not want every player returning from the match as boneless sacks of flesh.

Snape also went to watch the match, so Silven felt safe staying in his dormitory, focusing on refining his spherical wand.

This was not the toy Fred and George had made—it was child’s play to Silven now, something he could produce effortlessly, making it impossible to fully concentrate.

So Silven carefully followed wand standards, crafting a solid oak sphere the size of a Golden Snitch, and began the official construction of his spherical wand.

Needless to say, this was even more complicated than Silen had imagined; a wand is not a toy—it must be capable of casting spells.

As a result, Silen was forced to confront one problem after another: magical instability, delayed spell formation, and inability to control direction.

After all, it’s a sphere, not a wand with a clear tip—spells could emerge from any direction, even toward the wizard’s own face.

Later, Silen solved the issue by constructing a spell channel using runic inscriptions, but the added runes disrupted the original balance, reducing spell success rate by twenty percent.

Silen is currently working on solving this very problem.

This complex process quickly made Silen forget about the mandrake in his mouth, immersing him completely.

He didn’t even notice that the spectators had returned, nor when they left again.

It wasn’t until evening, when intense hunger finally forced him, that Silen left his dormitory and headed to the Great Hall.

At the table, everyone was still discussing the afternoon’s match.

“You really shouldn’t have clashed with Slytherin,” Hermione told Ron. “Professor McGonagall was the referee today, and Snape was the only spectator—he’s bound to favor Slytherin.”

“It’s not our fault—they started it. Marcus even tried to interfere with Harry’s pursuit of the Golden Snitch.”

Ron said, “Yet Snape only docked us twenty points, as if Slytherin did nothing wrong. McGonagall shouldn’t have been the referee.”

“I’m used to it by now,” Harry said. “It doesn’t matter—as long as we win the Quidditch Cup this year, we’ll make up all those points.”

“I hope so,” Ron replied.

“We’re definitely going to win,” Harry said confidently. “We’re currently first, and our last match is against Slytherin, who are in second place.”

“But their next opponent is Hufflepuff—Malfoy has no chance against Diggle.”

Harry didn’t dare say it aloud, but their next opponent was Ravenclaw—the team with the lowest points—so they’d surely win and might even rack up extra points.

Silen listened to their conversation and only then realized another conflict had broken out on the pitch.

But if it was Slytherin versus Gryffindor, that wasn’t surprising—it would be truly unbelievable if those two houses never had any friction.

Sometimes Silen wondered whether Voldemort, when cursing the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, had also split off a bit of that curse for Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Just as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor changes every year, Gryffindor and Slytherin never stop fighting—they erupt into conflicts several times a year, and Gryffindor usually comes out worse.

After all, Professor McGonagall cares about her reputation; other professors might not.

Silen slowly sipped his pumpkin juice and porridge while listening to Harry and the others chat.

Their conversation shifted from the conflict to the match, and when Harry mentioned how agile the Golden Snitch was, Silen suddenly had an idea.

The Golden Snitch is also a ball—it can’t fly on its own, so someone gave it a pair of wings…

Of course! Why couldn’t he add a pair of “wings” to his spherical wand?

Silen leapt to his feet and turned to run back to his dormitory.

He knew—if he moved the spell channel from inside to outside, he wouldn’t risk disrupting the wand’s balance!

He loved Quidditch!

……

(End of Chapter)