Chapter 36: Destination

The abandoned girls' bathroom.

The innermost stall.

A white orb of light slowly circled in midair within the stall...

Allen Finis was intently studying his textbook; soon he sorted out the meanings of each key in the already-translated cleaning spell key-value pairs.

But unfortunately, these translated keys had little connection to the key with an empty value he received today.

"Destination," Allen Finis pondered, "why would this thing appear in the cleaning spell?" Allen Finis couldn't quite figure it out.

"Could the ancient runic translation Professor Quirrell gave be wrong?" Allen Finis couldn't help but doubt.

"Never mind, let's try it first! Even if the cleaning spell fails, there won't be any danger!" Allen Finis made up his mind.

He drew his wand, pointed it at a puddle of dirty water on the floor, focused his mind, visualized the dirty water vanishing, set the destination to Gryffindor Tower, and then chanted the spell:

"Scourgify!"

Then the dirty water on the floor exploded, splashing the unprepared Allen Finis all over.

Looking at the disastrous explosion scene, Allen Finis was momentarily speechless with despair; adding a single wrong parameter to a mundane spell caused such consequences—what if a more powerful spell had its parameters wrong?

Allen Finis found his reverence for magic had grown even stronger!

He had to pause his experiment to clean himself up first.

He cast several cleaning spells in succession on his clothes, and soon they returned to a clean state.

Looking at his clean clothes, a thought he had never had before popped into his mind:

"Where did all the 'dirty stuff' that got cleaned go?"

As soon as this thought appeared in his mind, it quickly took root and sprouted.

He found the chapter on the cleaning spell in his "Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1" and read it carefully; there was no explanation inside regarding where the "dirty stuff" went.

It seemed wizards never cared about the destination of "dirty stuff."

"The destination of the dirty stuff! Destination!" Allen Finis silently pondered these two things, "They seem connected!" He felt somewhat excited.

"But why did it fail just now?" Allen Finis was thinking about this question.

"Could it be that the destination cannot be too far?" The more Allen Finis thought about it, the more likely this possibility seemed.

He quickly decided to try again.

He walked out of the stall, pointed at a puddle of water on the floor, focused his attention, imagined the water being cleaned to a dry patch of ground nearby, and then chanted the spell:

"Scourgify!"

This time, no explosion occurred; the water on the floor vanished smoothly, and then a puddle of water appeared out of nowhere on the target ground.

Seeing this, Allen Finis was overjoyed; he had originally thought the cleaning process of the cleaning spell with the "destination" parameter added would be visible throughout, but he hadn't expected it to vanish out of nowhere and then appear out of nowhere.

"Isn't this just the spatial magic from those fantasy novels?" he thought excitedly in his heart.

This was far more useful than the flashy Lumos spell before; this was basically a beggar's version of interdimensional teleportation!

Although the applicable range of the cleaning spell was very narrow, the effect was already sufficient.

Immediately after, Allen Finis experimented multiple times with his improved cleaning spell; after several failures, he summarized the basic parameters of the improved cleaning spell:

1. The destination can only be set within a range of ten meters; exceeding this range causes the spell target to explode, but the explosion power is weak;

2. The destination can be set in the air, but not inside an object;

3. The farther the destination, the weaker the cleaning effect of the spell.

Although there were many limitations on the effect, Allen Finis had already begun to imagine his next duel with Draco Malfoy,

using this move to catch him off guard, and then shouting at him: "You've got shit on your head!"

Just thinking about it felt great! Moreover, this discovery would probably earn him a bonus from the Ministry of Magic, bringing him one step closer to paying off his debts; just thinking about it made him happy!

Having finally made a breakthrough, Allen Finis, satisfied, packed his things and prepared to return to Gryffindor Tower to sleep.

But after walking out of the abandoned girls' bathroom, he was surprised to discover it was already past eleven o'clock at night; this was the first time he had been wandering the castle so late.

He couldn't help but feel a bit regretful; if Argus Filch caught him wandering at this hour, Gryffindor would surely lose many points, and since Gryffindor had already lost many points because of him a few days ago, many people in the house had complaints against him.

Most importantly, Professor McGonagall would be very disappointed in him, which was something he did not want to see even more.

But he had no choice but to return now; if Harry Potter and Ron Weasley saw he wasn't back, they would surely be very worried, and besides, he had nowhere else to go; the weather in Britain in September was still quite cold.

Besides, as long as he didn't return to Gryffindor Tower, there was a risk of being caught.

Allen Finis gritted his teeth and decided to risk returning to the dormitory.

He tightened his robe, hunched his body, observed the surroundings, and only began to move quickly once he confirmed it was safe.

He dared not walk in the center of the path, only daring to hug the corners, using the statues one by one to advance toward Gryffindor Tower.

Fortunately, the portraits on the walls had all fallen asleep and made no sound; his journey along the way was surprisingly smooth.

But his body suddenly froze—he saw a pair of gleaming eyes in the darkness staring intently at him.

He locked eyes with those eyes!

It was Argus Filch's beloved cat—Lady.

Allen Finis felt his scalp go numb; he looked at Lady with a pleading gaze and simultaneously made a silence gesture toward her.

Lady just looked at Allen Finis quietly, appearing as if the times were peaceful and good.

Just as Allen Finis sighed in relief, thinking he could pass,

Lady let out a piercing, shrill cry; the cry traveled particularly far in the night, and then Allen Finis heard the footsteps of Argus Filch muttering curses as he walked toward this direction.

The situation suddenly became critical.

As Argus Filch's footsteps grew closer, Allen Finis quickly made a decision; he observed a puddle of water on the ground in the distance.

He drew his wand, pointed it at that spot, visualized cleaning that water, set the destination to Professor Snape's office, and then quietly chanted the spell.

This time, the spell failed as expected, and the water in the distance exploded as anticipated.

Lady looked puzzledly at the direction of the explosion, then looked at Allen Finis, appearing hesitant...

But she quickly made a decision—she lunged toward the spot where the noise had come from, then let out a warning shout toward Filch.

Filch's footsteps indeed changed direction, moving farther and farther away from Allen.

Allen let out a long sigh of relief, seized the moment, and ran all the way back to the Gryffindor Tower in one go.

Harry and Ron, thinking he had gone off to duel Malfoy, were so anxious they were about to go out looking for him.

After expressing his gratitude for Harry and Ron's concern, Allen climbed into his bed and, before long, sank into a deep sleep...

Before losing consciousness, Allen decided that from then on, he would go to Professor Quirrell for study every Saturday...