"Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?" Professor Sprout continued to ask.
"The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it," Hermione answered, seeing no reaction from Marcel.
"Perfectly correct. Ten more points," said Professor Sprout. "Now, as you can see, our Mandrakes are still very young. Their cries are not yet fatal..."
She pointed to the row of deep pots in front of them and introduced them to the class. Everyone looked carefully into the pots at the purplish-green seedlings.
"Everyone take a pair of earmuffs," said Professor Sprout.
The boys scrambled to the front, as no one wanted to end up with a pair of fluffy pink ones.
Marcel followed behind and casually picked a pair.
"When I tell you to put them on, make sure your ears are completely covered," said Professor Sprout. "I will give you a thumbs-up when it is safe to take them off. All right—earmuffs on!"
The fatal nature of the Mandrake's cry only applied when it was mature. And as long as you didn't forcibly pull it out of the ground, it wouldn't cry.
Generally, during the day, wild adult Mandrake plants would bury themselves in the ground in open places like grasslands. It wasn't until dusk that they would pull themselves out and wander around the grassland all night.
Marcel had handled them many times before. For him, a small task like repotting them was a piece of cake.
A powerful Silencing Charm had been cast on the earmuffs. Once they were on, no sound could be heard at all. After Professor Sprout demonstrated once, she signaled for everyone to take off their earmuffs and began to assign tasks.
"Four to a pot. There are plenty of empty pots over here. Compost is in the sacks over there—and be careful of the Venomous Tentacula, it's teething." She gave a sharp slap to a spiky, dark red plant as it shot a tentacle out to sneak up on her shoulder.
With that, she instructed everyone to put their earmuffs back on, and today's lesson began.
The students had just watched Professor Sprout do it so effortlessly, but it was not like that at all.
The Mandrakes did not like being pulled out of the soil, but they didn't seem to want to go back in either. They twisted and kicked, waved their pointy little fists, and gnashed their teeth.
The other three students assigned to Marcel's group clearly had the easiest time.
Marcel picked up a small trowel from the side of the pot, loosened the soil around the Mandrake slightly, and then pulled it out with ease.
Its root was like a very ugly baby, with leaves growing out of its head. Probably because it was still in its infancy, its skin was a pale green, with some scattered spots on it.
The little thing's mouth was wide open, clearly screaming at the top of its lungs, but with the earmuffs on, no one could hear it.
Marcel held it in his hand and directly covered the spot on its head where the leaves grew with his other hand. The little thing's mood immediately calmed down a lot.
He put the little fellow in his hand back into another pot and re-buried it with new soil mixed with fertilizer.
By the end of the class, most of the students were covered in sweat, their backs aching, and their clothes covered in dirt. Only Marcel's group looked the most relaxed, without even a speck of dirt on them.
"Oh! How did you do that?" asked the Hufflepuff girl next to Marcel.
"It makes it think it's back in the soil," Marcel said calmly. "It only works on young Mandrakes."
Professor Sprout habitually praised Marcel and awarded Hufflepuff another 10 points. Standing next to Professor Sprout, Marcel showed a happy smile, but if you looked closely, you would find that there was no smile in his eyes at all.
Hufflepuff's next class was Charms. Professor Flitwick's teaching style was as relaxed and casual as ever. It was clear that everyone was relieved by this.
But this relaxed atmosphere completely dissipated in the afternoon.
Putting aside Professor McGonagall's always strict Transfiguration class, the most dreadful was Gilderoy Lockhart's Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
The moment he entered the classroom, his face was wreathed in smiles, his teeth so bright and even that one suspected they had been magically enhanced.
"Me," he said, casually picking up a textbook from a student's desk in the front row and pointing to his own photograph. The him in the photo was winking.
"Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award—but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"
He said these words so smoothly, probably because he had practiced them many times.
"I see you've all bought my complete works—good. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about—just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in..."
After handing out the papers, he returned to his desk and said, "You have thirty minutes. Start... now!"
Marcel spread the paper passed to him on his desk:
What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour? 2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? 3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?
Marcel just glanced at it and frowned.
The paper had a total of 54 questions, and all of them were asking for detailed information about Lockhart. Marcel wanted to just toss it aside, but after a moment's hesitation, he still casually filled in some nonsensical answers.
"No need to stir up extra trouble," Marcel thought faintly.
And the rest of the class was even more annoying.
Perhaps because the Cornish pixies he had prepared for the little lions in the previous class had caused too much of a mess, this class he just read his novels aloud to the little badgers.
When he got excited, he even pulled students up to act out scenes with him. Marcel sat at the back, engrossed in his Potions research notes, not once glancing at the front of the class.
It wasn't until night, when everyone else was fast asleep, that Marcel leaned against the window alone. He looked at the cold moonlight outside and couldn't help but recall the events after the start-of-term feast.
That night, he had gone to the Ravenclaw Tower to find the bronze eagle immediately. But no matter how he called, there was only the emotionless questioning voice of the bronze door knocker. For some reason, the bronze eagle did not appear, let alone take him to Rowena's secret chamber.
"...Is it because of my current state?"
In fact, Marcel was well aware of his current state.
In the past, as a little con artist who lived by tricking people, what he was best at was undoubtedly concealing his true emotions, wearing different masks when facing different people.
But precisely because of this, he understood even more clearly that he did have his own emotions.
It was just that after the journey Rowena had brought him on, his emotions had completely disappeared!
"This is probably a curse, but it doesn't seem to be all that bad—" Marcel thought naturally, then suddenly shook his head. "No, this thought is probably also because I have no emotions. My judgment is now based solely on reason."
That night, he leaned against the window and pondered for a long time, but the more he thought, the more he found it difficult to sort out his thoughts.
Reason told him that this feeling was very good. Not only was it a great help for his research and homework, but even handling matters would be more sensible.
For example, he had already decided not to participate in any of the events of the second year, not even to get close to the trio of little lions. He had to avoid the kind of sudden changes that had happened last term as much as possible.
Although as long as he stayed at Hogwarts, he would always affect all the people and things he came into contact with, it was still very necessary to minimize the extent of the changes.
Things that were completely out of one's control were always very scary. Besides, these things had nothing to do with him in the first place. What he had to care about was the task Rowena had left him and the improvement of his own magical knowledge, nothing more.
But was such a thought really correct? Marcel didn't know. Or rather, he had now lost the very perspective he was best at.
After a good while, Marcel finally lay back on his bed. But the experiences after being taken away by Rowena were still tangling and circling in his mind, refusing to dissipate.
…
"...Alani, this is your first mission after completing your training. You are the smartest and most powerful of the guardians. I hope you can carry my will and execute every mission in the future."
By the castle window, an old man in a long robe stood with his back to him, speaking slowly in his deep voice.
Marcel stood in the center of the room, frowning, constantly confirming the situation before him.
"What is Rowena's intention in bringing me here?" Marcel focused his gaze on the old man, but his peripheral vision was scanning the room.
"...Alani, take the mission. Depart from the Eagle's Nest today. I await your good news."
The old man turned around. His face was kind, but his gaze was as sharp and piercing as a vulture's, directed straight at Marcel.
"Yes," Marcel subconsciously lowered his head, hiding his face in the shadows.
He glanced at the table in front of him. A roll of parchment lay quietly there, firmly sealed in the middle with blood-red wax.
He picked it up casually, nodded slightly, and then left the room without a word.
The moment he stepped out of the door, a large number of memories that did not belong to him suddenly flooded into Marcel's mind. For a moment, the dizziness made him have to lean against the corridor wall. It was a long time before he recovered.
"Butahir al-Ani? An assassin of the Hashashin?" Marcel's face was full of doubt. "What does this have to do with the Scroll of Truth?"
Although his mind was still a mess, Marcel at least understood the current situation. He guessed that he might be in a state similar to using Dumbledore's Pensieve.
It was just that compared to the Pensieve, the effect of this formation composed of rule-runes was clearly much more realistic.
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