The slacker professor at Hogwarts

072 Magic Cloak

After Lucius and the others left the school, Lockhart followed Dumbledore to his office.

Old Deng sat behind his desk, fiddling with a magical artifact shaped like a lighter in his hand, seemingly lost in thought.

Lockhart didn't disturb him, but simply waited quietly by his side, enjoying the ice cream waffles and an unidentified fruit tea provided by the school's house-elf.

"You mentioned his Horcrux to me last time..."

When Dumbledore spoke, Lockhart was so startled he almost spat out his ice cream.

Old Deng, are you trying to kill me?!

Mention this in front of me.

Dumbledore smiled slightly at him, "I cast a spell on the office. Don't worry, as long as you don't mention him, he won't be able to sense you."

He watched with interest as Lockhart breathed a sigh of relief before continuing, "I've been waiting for his reaction ever since then, and I'm pretty sure he's in a hurry to move all the Horcruxes' hiding places right now."

"This is by no means a wise choice; an emergency relocation would only expose the existence of the Horcrux."

"But he had no choice; he dared not gamble."

Lockhart knew about this. "Gringotts?"

Dumbledore nodded. "He was very cautious. The Death Eater he sent to transfer the Horcrux didn't know exactly what he was going to do. That Death Eater was even under the control of the Imperius Curse. When we captured him, we couldn't get any useful information out of him."

Even as he said this, a smile remained on his face. "But at least I now know that one of the Horcruxes is in Gringotts!"

Narrowing the search to a specific building makes things much easier.

He always has a way to find the Horcrux.

The only problem is that with him sending two Death Eaters into Azkaban one after the other, too many eyes are on him and the Order of the Phoenix, so it's not advisable to do anything to provoke anyone for the time being.

"I'll go with you to the Białowiezza Forest during the Christmas holidays to solve the problem with that rainbow fish farm. It couldn't be more appropriate, since it's for the students at the school..."

Lockhart understood. "Then you can secretly go to Gringotts to look for it?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Most wizards in the world believe Gringotts is the safest place in the world. They keep their most precious things there. If someone knew that I could come and go as I pleased, it would only cause unnecessary trouble."

To provide cover.

That's easy.

Lockhart agreed, "Don't worry, I'll make Boggart look like you, and no one will notice anything wrong."

"Boggart..."

Dumbledore narrowed his eyes. Boggarts can't shapeshift on their own. Clearly, Lockhart's words meant that someone's deepest fear was of themselves.

Is he really that scary?

Lockhart simply smiled.

"A single Confusion Spell will suffice; no Boggart needed!"

Dumbledore muttered something, then reluctantly put down the magical artifact in his hand. He grabbed a pile of cockroaches from the fruit bowl beside him, threw it into his mouth, and squinted as he savored it.

"But this is by no means just a cover-up. I hope that the children in the school will not suffer the same kind of harm as Xiao Gao and his friends. I need this batch of colorful fishbone stones."

He looked at Lockhart, "It just so happens that I know who put the curse on the Crabbe family's fishpond. I will write to her and ask her to lift the curse."

Lockhart exclaimed in surprise, "You know him?"

Dumbledore nodded, turned around and rummaged through the pile of snacks beside him, pulled out a box of chocolate frogs, and skillfully raised his hand and opened it with his mouth wide open.

The chocolate frog inside leaped out and jumped right into his mouth, where it started fighting with the pile of cockroaches inside.

He squinted, savoring the unique taste, and pulled out the wizard card that came with the snack from the box, handing it over.

Lockhart took the card and saw that it introduced a very unfamiliar wizard.

The name is quite interesting—"Invincible" Andros.

The biography states: Born in classical Greece, he is currently the only known wizard capable of summoning guardian deities the size of giants.

"It was only included in the Chocolate Frog wizard cards two years ago," Dumbledore explained. "His descendants pulled a lot of strings for it, and I helped out a little in this matter."

This is no small matter; restoring the honor of one's ancestors is considered an extremely important family honor in the eyes of many ancient pure-blood wizarding families.

Lockhart thought it would be an adventure, but it turned out that Old Deng had already made all the arrangements, and he was just going through the motions.

Even the outcome has been arranged.

Young Goyle and Young Crabbe were able to receive medical treatment, the Hogwarts students received a batch of amulets, and Dumbledore's actions were given cover.

He will also gain a breeding farm that can continuously produce high-quality amulets.

Emmm...

Well, he was itching to try his hand at something after digesting the adventures of the "Forest Witch," but it turns out everything was already arranged.

Previously, he had the three Death Eaters, Malfoy and his companion, try out the new chapter of the children's upcoming adventure, "The Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts." He thought these three Death Eaters, who were quite strong, would be able to hold their own against the monsters in the Chamber, and he even wanted to take the opportunity to cast a spell to help them out.

Okay, help the little golden retriever and Boggart team up to fight against the old Malfoy trio.

Unexpectedly, Malfoy and his companions were so terrified of the Dark Lord that they simply ran away in a panic instead of bravely facing him, resulting in him having no sense of participation whatsoever.

What can we do?

"Okay, I'll follow your instructions." Lockhart agreed.

But fate is sometimes so capricious. A few days later, Dumbledore came to visit again with a strange expression, somewhat helplessly saying, "Plans never keep up with changes."

The old witch who cursed the Crabbe family's rainbow fish farm, a descendant of the ancient Greek wizarding master "Invincible Andros," has passed away peacefully.

It was a reply from her youngest son to Dumbledore. In the letter, he mentioned that he and his brothers were compiling their mother's legendary life story. They had discussed it after receiving the letter, and all remembered their mother saying the following about this experience—

"I threw the magic cloak into their fishpond, and they never found a single rainbow fish again."

Magic Cloak?

Lockhart blinked. "Is it a type of invisibility cloak?"

The invisibility cloak, crafted from the fur of an invisible beast, allows one to conceal their presence.

However, there is a problem here. Unless it is the invisibility cloak, one of the three holy relics of death passed down by the Potter family, most invisibility cloaks on the market cannot maintain invisibility for such a long period of time as several decades.

The bigger problem is that, although we don’t know exactly how big the Crabbe family’s fishpond is, it can’t be just a small well opening. How big of an invisibility cloak would that be?

Even if you plucked all the fur off every invisible beast in the magical world, it still wouldn't be enough.

This kind of magical item cannot be transformed using magic such as the Inflation Charm.

Dumbledore frowned and shook his head. "I'm not sure what it is either. In ancient Greek, 'magic cloak' sometimes even meant the name of a potion. I need to have someone else confirm it."

Magic potion?

As Lockhart's thoughts wandered along this line, his eyes suddenly lit up. He quickly searched his memory. "Could it be a dark magic creature? You know, while cloaked dark magic creatures are rare, there are actually many different kinds!"

The most frequently mentioned cloak-like dark magic creature is the "Volverine," a dark magic creature that looks very much like a cloak. It likes to be active at night, floating close to the ground, covering wizards while they sleep, and then digesting and devouring them.

These rare dark magic creatures share a common characteristic—they can all be protected by the 'Patron Charm'!

Especially for magical creatures like the 'Groundbat', the only known way to counter them is with the Patronus Charm.

Guardian spell...

This is a challenge for Lockhart.

The forest witch adventures he had absorbed contained no mention of this magical ability.

In other words, he has to learn!

or……

He could call on his apprentices.

Harry Potter, get to work!