"Well, I'll be leaving today. Thank you for your guidance."
Damon left Professor Flitwick's office, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
The Patronus Charm was actually much simpler than he'd expect—he'd successfully conjured a Patronus on his first cast.
But Damon had a unclear feeling—if, with his current magical power and the emotional energy he possessed, he couldn't summon a physical Patronus, something crucial must be missing.
Finding it would likely be difficult. Thinking of Professor Flitwick's words, he considered.
"A lack of unwavering faith in protection?" The future Harry and a host of Hogwarts students learned the Patronus Charm under Voldemort's coercion, but Voldemort couldn't put him under too much pressure, and he had no desire to protect anything from Voldemort. So, a key element was missing. But that wasn't necessarily the case. Did the Patronus Charm necessarily protect others?
A Patronus, after all, was meant to protect oneself.
Ultimately, it was probably a lack of a single, strong will.
He was so happy and free in this world that he'd become rather carefree.
"Never mind, I'll see what happens when fate brings me here. It's enough for now anyway."
He'd see if Professor Flitwick's Dementors would be effective for the next week.
At the end of the first week of school, Professor McGonagall received word—Wood had agreed to let him join the Quidditch team as a substitute, and he wouldn't have to join the training.
Everything seemed smooth, but the next week Harry secretly complained to Damon:
"Wood announced your substitution to everyone, but he told us to just ignore you—he said if the game got to the point where they had to play a substitute who didn't train, they'd be finished to lose."
Damon smiled and dismissed it.
While he certainly hadn't spent much time practicing Quidditch, he understood the magic and the rules.
These young wizards, including Professor McGonagall, hadn't yet realized how horrible a master of Charms and Transfiguration could be on the Quidditch track.
The Weasley twins, who had been sent flying by Damon's Bludgers during the summer, experienced this all too well—they were the only two, along with Harry, not angry about Damon's absence from training, but rather delighted.
"With such a strong backup, I feel like we can leave the field at any time without regrets!"
"You're right, Fred. If we ever can't win, perhaps we could consider intentionally fouling out,"
Harry said, disappointing their dangerous thoughts. But he was also relieved that Damon had joined the Quidditch team. Coincidentally, Malfoy, through his father, the school's governor, had bought all the Slytherin team new Nimbus 2001s for the new semester. These were the latest brooms, far superior to Gryffindor's Sweep Seven-Star Vs.
The gap in hardware had put considerable pressure on them all, and Damon's arrival was a welcome boost—though others didn't see it that way.
Wood seemed displeased by this, even fearing the other players would slack off in training, so he doubled down on their training.
Harry was perfectly content with this. His only real problem was that the heavy training put a damper on his spell practice. Ron spent almost two or three times as much time practicing spells as he did, which put a lot of pressure on Harry.
But he couldn't give up on either side, so he just put more energy into it, often falling asleep as soon as his head hit the bed.
The others observed but said nothing. After all, who wasn't working incredibly hard?
Hermione was constantly annoyed by her own mediocre spells. She couldn't understand why, even though she cast the same spells more accurately than Harry and Ron, she couldn't match power.
Neville, having never experienced such a positive atmosphere before, cherished it especially. He practiced with Ron until almost nine o'clock every night, refusing to leave until the night limit was reached.
As for Damon, everything was proceeding smoothly.
On Friday night, he returned to Snape's office to refine his Occlumency.
There seemed to be more unspoken understanding between the two, less teasing.
"You're here?"
"I am,"
they exchanged a simple greeting, then silently and in unison began their practice.
Snape took out the Emotion Amplifier and handed it to Damon, not mentioning its preciousness. He had already begun brewing a second batch, but it took a long time to make, and it wasn't ready yet.
He wouldn't share these details with Damon either.
Damon drank the water-tasting potion and felt his body begin to heat up again, his emotions rising. But this time, something seemed different.
The hazy mist seemed to reappear—it existed softly within Damon's body, invisible to the outside world.
After only the second use, Damon felt his body develop some resistance to the potion.
His soul seemed to split in two, as if it had detached from his body—as if he had gained a different perspective—viewing himself from the perspective of an outsider, feeling the heat of emotion, the outburst of joy—and if he wanted, he could switch back at any time, experiencing it all more fully.
The problem of controlling his emotions, which he had thought would be difficult and time-consuming, suddenly became simple.
Now he could change his emotions at any time, and so he did.
Following Snape's previous instructions, he would not alter the entire memory, but would modify and mask it. His memories of Hogwarts remained the same, but everything was filled with anger.
Dumbledore's endless probing, Harry, Ron, and the others' laziness, Hermione's misunderstanding, Malfoy's perverseness, the rage rising from his chest permeated his second soul, happiness and anger coexisting within the same brain.
At that moment, Damon felt a mental, tentacle-like stirring—Snape was casting Legilimency.
He channeled his anger into Snape, concealing any joy.
Snape blushed.
With a pained, bored grunt, they both opened their eyes at once.
Snape looked at Damon with surprise. He tried to clear his mind of the anger, then quickly delete his surprise, calming himself in a split second. He said to Damon calmly,
"You're mastering this much faster than I thought."
He was almost telling Damon, "You're ready to become a master! This can't happen. He's only got two photos of Lily. He needs to find another reason to keep this kid."
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(End of chapter)