The slacker professor at Hogwarts

051 Go find the magical conch shell!

Many people know that Hogwarts Castle is right next to the wizarding village of Hogsmeade. At least everyone knows that the school's train station is in the village, and each generation of young wizards remembers how they used to walk directly into the village from the back gate of the school on weekends.

Strangely, Hogwarts is currently experiencing a long rainy season, which Lockhart believes will last for at least half a year, while the weather outside is exceptionally clear.

In the afternoon, before the sun had even set, it started raining again at Hogwarts.

However, when Lockhart followed Dumbledore and Apparated to the Carol family ancestral home in the neighboring county, which should theoretically be in the same climate zone as Hogwarts, it was a warm evening.

Bathed in the warm sunshine, the Carlo family's ancestral home even looks somewhat cozy.

The garden is full of blooming flowers and trees are laden with fruit. Sunlight shines on the mushroom-shaped dome of the ancestral home, giving it the feel of a cute castle from a fairy tale.

This momentarily eased Lockhart's tense emotions.

Not every wizard likes a dark and eerie style. At least the Carol family ancestral home gave Lockhart the feeling of a kind old lady knitting a sweater while her cat dozes off in the afternoon.

Warmth and coziness—that's the feeling of home that this house provides to every generation of the Carlo family.

The people living here must be very happy.

Unfortunately, the house is just a house; the Caro family has completely declined.

Especially after Amicus was captured, strictly speaking, the family was completely without male heirs, signifying that the Carlo family, one of the twenty-eight sacred pure-blood families, was about to disappear from the annals of history.

The past glories and honors now seem as illusory as this house itself.

When Lockhart followed Dumbledore into the house, he truly witnessed the reality of a dilapidated family.

Everywhere there were signs of decay and decay. The sunlight seemed to hate this place and refused to shine in. The corners of the walls were so damp that the plaster was peeling off, and grayish colonies were growing inside.

"etc!"

Lockhart called out to Dumbledore, who was casting an Illumination Charm on his wand to probe ahead, "There's something wrong with this house!"

His gaze swept intently around, his brow furrowed deeply. He strode to the tea area near the entrance of the hall, kicked a small black and white striped stool, and said knowingly, "This little stool usually likes to play hide-and-seek, making the family members search everywhere, but look, it looks like it can't move at all now!"

"There's none of that magical activity you'd expect from a magic mansion here!"

Dumbledore's expression shifted, and he waved his wand around, causing a shower of colorful bubbles to float and pop against the walls and ceiling with a series of popping sounds.

"This is an illusion!" He quickly stepped in front of Lockhart, looking around warily.

Yes, this house is an illusion!

As the bubbles were detected, everything around them was rapidly peeling away; large sections of plaster were being torn off, and the ground was quickly decaying and cracking. Everything was collapsing at an alarming rate.

boom!

Suddenly, the entire ceiling shattered, collapsed, and crashed down.

Dumbledore grabbed Lockhart's arm and used Apparition to quickly leave the house and go outside.

But then something extremely strange happened.

The spatial traces of Apparition seemed to become real and tangible, and the entire space was rapidly distorting, as if no matter how Dumbledore moved through space, this space would expand to any size.

It was subjected to a powerful anti-appearance restriction!

Dumbledore instantly changed his strategy, stopped Apparition, and swung his wand upwards, unleashing a powerful shockwave.

The falling ceiling was instantly torn apart, crashing down to both sides with a loud roar and billowing dust.

Lockhart looked up and saw that the original rooftop had become a reflected world.

Through the thin clouds, one could vaguely see upside-down trees and the earth and river at the highest point that seemed to have turned upside down.

It's as if there's an upside-down world in the sky.

Not only that, looking down, it's as if you're standing above the clouds. There's another world below, in the dense forest, where a little squirrel is holding a nut and looking up at them curiously from a big tree.

Lockhart gasped and quickly looked at Dumbledore. "The Carol's Bedtime Stories, a family heirloom, is a magical book that can transport you into a fairytale world! They've disguised it as a house!"

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. As the saying goes, danger comes from the unknown. Now that we know what happened, there must be a solution.

"How do we crack it?" he asked.

"This book is definitely being manipulated. It can't function on its own. This is a restriction imposed on it by the second-generation Carlo after the book caused the accident. Now, someone is definitely watching us!"

Lockhart spoke quickly, trying to explain the answer clearly and unambiguously in the fewest words possible: "No matter what scene in the storybook, there's always an exit! There are also some seashells in various corners of the scene. Find the seashells, listen to their sounds, and they will guide you!"

As he spoke, the world in the sky began to descend rapidly, while the world on the ground rose rapidly, as if a book was about to close.

He grabbed Dumbledore's sleeve and said, "Don't make any moves now. Blindly struggling will lead us to unknown dangers. This is a warning that every generation of Carroll has given when teaching their descendants how to use this book."

Lockhart is playing its role by providing solutions and warning of crises.

He tensed, carefully sensing the surrounding air currents. His expression changed, and he inwardly cried out in alarm. He quickly continued, "The person controlling the fairy tale book has clearly realized that I know the Carlo family's secret and plans to separate us. I will try my best to find the conch shell and call to you. Remember to find the conch shell as soon as possible and listen to my voice!"

bang~

The book was closed.

The two worlds are rapidly overlapping.

Everything around was filled with dazzling, multicolored light, twisting and swirling.

When Lockhart regained his sight, he found himself on a scorched earth. Looking up, the world was so dark and desolate that it was unimaginable.

The dark earth cracked open, revealing rolling orange-red magma that radiated terrifying heat.

Looking around, there was nothing to obstruct the view except for a burnt, broken tree that still stood there, with a flock of strange, carrion-eating birds perched on its top, waiting to devour his corpse.

Further away, where the sky meets the gray haze, faint, mournful howls can be heard.

"Despair Land!" Lockhart's expression was solemn. This was the scene from the thirteenth chapter, "The Jewel of Caribou," in Carol's Bedtime Stories, characterized by the scarcity and difficulty in finding conch shells.

Clearly, the person controlling this fairy tale book overheard his explanation to Dumbledore and specifically chose this fairy tale setting.

Just then, a black, rotting hand with exposed bone suddenly emerged from the scorched earth and grabbed Lockhart's ankle.

He looked down and was horrified to see that the ground had cracked open, and a corpse that had been lying on the ground at some point was pulling on his ankle to sit up.

The corpse's head looked at him, opened its mouth full of black, sticky mucus, and roared.

Bang!

Lockhart raised his other foot and kicked it hard, slamming its head back into the ground.

But such damage wouldn't kill the corpse.

Lockhart kicked the dark wrist again, breaking free from his opponent. He quickly retreated to create distance, and a wisp of black smoke flew out of the pocket of his wizard's robe, crashing to the ground. A tall figure draped in a blood-stained rag slowly stood up.

For some reason, Boggart was so fond of the image of the "upside-down god corpse." At this moment, he quickly swung his huge cross-shaped axe down at the corpse.

boom!

The laborer possessed immense strength; the axe blade instantly sliced ​​through the corpse and cleaved into the scorched earth.

The corpse let out a mournful wail, then suddenly vomited a large amount of thick, black blood at Boggart before collapsing completely, dead.

This viscous blood is their attack method; contact with it will cause intense irritation and pain, but it obviously has no effect on Boggarts.

Soon, the corpses began to decompose rapidly, bubbling and turning into a thick, black paste. The three corpses struggled to get up from it.

Boggart swung his axe again.

"Wait, don't kill it anymore!"

Lockhart stopped them, ordering, "Throw them all into the lava!"

Boggart dropped his axe, reached out and shoved his large hands at the heads of the corpses, pulling them out of the viscous blood. He strode to the edge of the crack in the earth and threw them in.

The corpse wailed in the lava, spitting blood at Boggart, before being completely burned away.

Lockhart was now completely certain that this was the desolate landscape scene from the fairy tale "The Jewel of Caribou".

The core of this chapter's story is "life," and the most frequent characters appearing in the scenes are these undead.

These undead are practically indestructible; they revive through the power of 'killing' and split into three.

If you don't understand this key point, you'll only find that the more you kill, the more Yin Corpses there are, until eventually the entire land is covered with Yin Corpses.

To deal with them, we need not kill them, but throw them into the high temperatures they fear, forcing them into an unsuitable environment to perish on their own.

Thinking of this, Lockhart looked into the distance with some worry, wondering if Dumbledore knew about this information.

Of course, he didn't need to worry too much. Old Deng was incredibly powerful; no matter how many Yin Corpses there were, they couldn't harm him.

I should worry about myself.

He had to find the conch shell as soon as possible and reunite with Dumbledore.

The unknown figure who secretly controls the fairy tale book is watching them, and only being by Dumbledore's side can give him a sense of security.

I don't know how many people are on the other side, or if Voldemort, the Dark Lord, is among them...