Hermione, join me as Minister of Magic!

"Stop, stop!" Lockhart yelled, "This is a magical duel, not a Muggle wrestling ring!"

But it was useless, Malfoy was holding Harry's neck with one hand, not daring to let go.And Harry also grabbed Malfoy's other arm, using the strength of his elbow joint, to snap it back forcefully—this was a move that Dudley Dursley used to use against him often, and there was no way to escape easily.

Neither of them could stop.

Seeing this, Snape simply took out his wand, and directed at the two of them, "Let your strength loose!"

Harry's and Malfoy's bodies softened at the same time, and the force that restrained their opponents also disappeared. The two separated in unison, and then lay down on both sides, panting

I'm out of breath.

Lockhart and Snape stepped forward quickly, helping Harry and Malfoy up respectively.

"The spell stopped! Cleaned up! Healed as before!"

Lockhart first lifted Harry's Locking Curse, then helped him clean up the bird droppings on his body, and finally healed his swollen eye sockets and bruised neck. Snape also Did pretty much the same thing.

Neither of them blamed these two brats. What happened just now was inevitable in a sense. When they decided on this duel strategy, things could only continue to develop in this direction. They didn't make any wrong choices.

Seeing that they were all right, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick, who had already stood up, sat down again.

The students in the audience were applauding all the time, whether it was Gryffindor or Slytherin, because they had just enjoyed a "fierce" duel, even though both sides only said two spells.

"For the first time, your performance is not bad." Lockhart praised Harry, "And you are also very smart. At that time, switching to hand-to-hand combat was the best choice."

Harry smiled embarrassedly: "It's a pity that I didn't win."

"It doesn't matter, there are points for a draw, and considering Mr. Malfoy's violation of the rules at the beginning, the points for this game should be counted for you... I will go and talk to Percy about it later."

"Huh? Already started scoring points?" Harry was taken aback.

"Every match will be strictly recorded, including the spells and actions used by both sides—Percy knows ESP spells." Lockhart explained, "So you just scored 3 points..."

"I don't think so," Snape interjected beside him.

Obviously, he had heard what Lockhart had just said.

"Of course violations don't count as points. Mr. Malfoy's failure is his own fault, and we have nothing to say about it. But the result of this duel is a draw, no matter what happens in the middle, it's a draw." , so Porter can only get - points at most.

"A draw? Mr. Malfoy has lost his wand, so according to the rules, it should be a loss." Lockhart pointed to the rules board on the sidelines. .

Mr Fenden Potter could no longer cast spells, and from the point of view of a wizard who could not cast spells silently, it was no different from losing his wand. ' Snape retorted

Lockhart was right.

"Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with what you said. Rules are rules... Percy, add one point to Mr. Potter, but no points to Mr. Malfoy!"

"I heard that, Professor!" Percy replied solemnly. "I have already noted down the second duel in the 1992-1993 school year, Mr. Potter in the second grade against Mr. Malfoy. The result was a draw, but Because Mr. Malfoy has violated the rules, no points will be awarded, and Mr. Potter will add one point."

Lockhart gave Percy a thumbs up approvingly, then walked back to the center of the dueling ring and cleared his throat.

"Okay, after the demonstration by me, Professor Snape, Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, everyone should have a clear idea of ​​what a duel is all about, so you can just follow along—I mean, except for the last one. Apart from hand-to-hand combat, this is not a locker room, so wrestling is prohibited."

Although he couldn't understand the last stalk, there was still a burst of laughter from the audience, which made Malfoy and Harry feel like they were sitting on pins and needles.

Seeing the lively atmosphere, Lockhart lost no time in announcing the opening of the Dueling Club

...if you're sure you've figured it out, go to Percy Weasley

Apply for a duel there, sir!You can choose one-on-one, one-on-one, or two-on-two, find your assistant, challenge your opponent, and come when you are ready—I announce that the duel club is officially opened! "

There was thunderous cheers from the audience.

The little lions of Gryffindor seemed impatient, and rushed to Percy without saying a word, applying for a duel with the Slytherins, and most of them named them by name.Just when they were watching others duel, they were already eager to try.

And the little snakes who had a feud with them for a long time did not show any weakness, they would not allow themselves to lose to Gryffindor in anything related to the sense of honor, especially since they believed that they had a long history of family education and knew a lot of magic spells when.

The people in the Eagle Academy were also a little bit moved, but after seeing this situation, they decided to take it easy.They are mainly curious, not to fight for anything, and they don't want to use duel as a means of resolving personal grievances.They seem to be more willing to invite friends to have a duel to test new spells in their spare time.

The people in Hufflepuff regard it as a kind of team building, so they behave more Buddhistly.

Why are you beating life and death like that? Wouldn't it be good for everyone to meet up to play two games on weekends, drink some drinks after the games, and then stay where they are and wait for dinner?Anyway, our Guanyuan dormitory is the closest to the cafeteria—I mean the auditorium.

The Lion Court and the Snake Court rushed to Percy's side, asking them to arrange a duel for themselves, and both asked to arrange their own rounds first.

Lockhart later heard Percy say that that day "it was already booked two weeks later in one night."

"But I guess most of them are just looking for novelty and making a fuss. It is impossible to have perseverance in this matter." Percy disapproved.

If it weren't for the reputation of "hosting the game", he would not come to do this kind of thing, because he thinks it is pointless.

Chapter 57 Only masters can use polymorph

Seeing the students eager to duel, Professor McGonagall was both happy and a little disappointed—because she didn't see a single one using Transfiguration.

On the way back, she couldn't help talking to Professor Flitwick about tonight's duel.

"Everything is fine for the duel tonight, but...do they really not know that Transfiguration can be used in combat?" she asked Flitwick.

Flitwick is well aware of the key point: "You are too demanding of them, Minerva, not everyone can use Transfiguration for combat, that requires too much concentration, and from combat In itself, the price/performance ratio is not worth it.”

"Cost-effective? I don't understand what you mean, Felius." Professor McGonagall was even more puzzled. "If Transfiguration is used in battle, it must be the most powerful."

"I don't object to the point of "the most powerful", but when a person is dueling, he needs to consider not only how to use the appropriate magic according to the appropriate time, terrain, climate, and the state of his opponent, but also the changes in the scene. Having teammates also involves too much of their attention.

To be honest, it is not bad for a person to be able to pay attention to these two points at the same time, not to mention that Transfiguration also takes up a lot of their concentration, such as water prison, fire ring, and giving the dead objects agility. energy to maintain their existence.

"I don't think it's so difficult." Professor McGonagall tilted his head and said, "It's enough to divide my mind into three parts. I can even use four parts. I can draw a square with my left hand, a circle with my right hand, and a circle with my left foot." Pentagram, just kick another Quaffle with your right foot."

Flitwick nodded in agreement: "It's really not difficult for us, but if we have the ability to divide into three, four, or even sevenfold like the Mysterious Man and Dumbledore,

Force, so why not use it for multicasting?Using a silent spell to launch a dozen different spells in one breath, the effect is much faster than maintaining one or two polymorphs. "

Professor McGonagall finally understood: "It turns out that this is the price/performance ratio you mentioned...even if it is

A master who is proficient in transfiguration combat, in actual combat he will also choose to use small spells to shoot minions. "

"Yes, that's what I mean. Only duels between magic masters and magic masters are necessary to use the transformation technique, because ordinary spells will no longer work on them. The transformation technique increases the upper limit of combat power, not the width .” The dueling champion Flitwick made a conclusion.

"That is to say, it is impossible for me to see Transfiguration in the students' duel." Professor McGonagall was even more disappointed.

"This is a high-probability event. I am thankful that they can master silent casting before graduation. Even Lockhart has graduated for more than ten years and has experienced so many adventures. I think he has mastered a second spell." Recast the spell, and it's very stiff, and I guess it was done by a trick." Professor Flitwick made a look of being helpless.

They walked farther and farther, and did not say goodbye to each other until the boundary between the two towers.They still have student assignments to approve and can't waste too much time.

If Lockhart had heard their conversation just now, he might have been terrified on the spot.

Because what Flitwick said is indeed correct, his double spellcasting skills come from the blank soul of the original owner Lockhart, after he merged into that soul, he injected some mechanical instructions into it, so that he can use fake spells. o The skill of double casting.

—Some small spells that he guessed he would use frequently in the future, such as the Disillusionment Curse, Confusion Curse, Forgetting Curse, and a series of small magic spells such as blinding eyes and slowing the mind. trigger.

This technique allowed him to use Disillusionment and Phonograph spells to cover himself while Snape was casting the Chain Dance Curse, but it was too late to add an anti-shock spell to himself.

: That's why I won such embarrassment.

He thought it was covered by the sound of thunder and cloud mist, and no one would have noticed it. It's a pity that there was a Flitwick who was good at perception and had the blood of a goblin at the scene.

Sometimes life is so helpless, geniuses are often pretentious, but in the end they will find that their so-called "talents" are all within the knowledge and experience of those old guys-this is really scary .

Snape, for example, was already very talented in potions, and his level was at the top of the magic world.But when he relied on his talent to improve the potion with great difficulty, those improvements could be explained by the old walrus Slughorn, and he explained the ingredients or steps of the improvement, The same goes for Hermione, Lily, and Harry in Potions.

The distance between a "master" and a "legend" is likely to be farther than that between a genius and a mortal, and at this time Lockhart may have just left the novice zone.

In any case, after this duel, one of Lockhart's original intentions for establishing the Dueling Club was considered complete.From now on, he only needs to keep an eye on the standings, and then draw all duelists from all grades into his circle.

Hogwarts in October was almost rainy all the time. Except for the Gryffindor Quidditch team who still insisted on training every day, the other three houses all stopped outdoor activities, and even the herbal medicine Classes were suspended once.

Now that outdoor activities are no longer possible, Hogwarts students can only turn the battlefield from outdoors to indoors if they want to relieve their boredom.Even the sixth or seventh graders who were just starting to love each other and spent their days in the woods together had to risk their date in an empty classroom.

In this case, the Dueling Club quickly took Hogwarts by storm.When everyone is bored after dinner, the most common thing to do is to invite a few acquaintances—or friends, or deadly enemies—to go to the auditorium for "heart-to-heart talks"

Even people who don't want to fight will go to the auditorium to watch other people duel when they are bored, and use the duel that night as the talk of the next day.

After two weeks, as Percy Weasley expected, dueling fever had been popular among the students for a while, and finally it slowly cooled down. Except for a dozen regular visitors to the dueling field, most of them Students seem to be using it as a recreational pastime, like Quidditch.

However, this was completely within Lockhart's expectations, or he was very satisfied that he could achieve this. As long as the duel is not the top priority of the students, they will not pay special attention to this—wait until that person returns. Not necessarily.

Among these "dull-loving" people, the Weasley twins are undoubtedly the most conspicuous.

Although it is said that in the heads-up duel arena, there have been duelists like Cedric Diggory, but it may be a little controversial to say "the strongest", because Diggory is not invincible in every battle, and Many of the victorious people were his friends.

But in the 2v2 duel arena, the title of "best partner" has lost its suspense. Fred and George can be described as rampant in it, and have even begun to challenge the seventh graders in Slytherin.

Maybe those seventh graders can overwhelm them in singles, but in cooperation, the Weasley brothers won. The captain and main batsman of Lytlin Quidditch were sent to the school hospital twice by them.

Later, Hogwarts had to come up with a temporary rule - "It is forbidden to duel with the Weasley brothers before the Quidditch match and during the class", which was also dubbed "Wesley by the Gryffindors". Lai Clause", the two made a big splash again

They were worried that their mother would scold them, but Mrs. Weasley surprisingly said nothing when she heard that this was the club run by Lockhart.

"Don't focus on fighting, learn more from the professor." Mrs. Weasley warned them in the letter.

Even if it was to deal with their mother, the two of them decided to attend a "Weekend Seminar on Dueling Skills" held by Lockhart.

Chapter 58 Fighting against the dark arts is inherently a political issue

Following what Professor Slughorn did, Lockhart also invited some of the best-performing students these days to his office.

"Strong stems and weak branches," Hermione read to the doorknob.

After hearing the password, the doorknob of Lockhart's office creaked, and then the door lock popped open, letting them in.

Although he has only been in Hogwarts for two months, Lockhart has already used his authority and financial resources to make his office a good place that "you can enjoy it just by looking at it (Ron)" .

When she was here last time, Hermione remembered that Lockhart's office door did not have this thing called a "screen", but this time she almost bumped into it when entering the door.And the crystal chandelier hanging on the ceiling is obviously a Muggle style—the wizarding world still uses candles, or magic lamps in the shape of candles and flames.

Furthermore, whether it's the readily available booze, drinks, and refreshments, or the imported sofas, cushions, and rugs from the Muggle side, it makes the room look more like a socialite's club than a teacher's office.

Now this "Duelers Club" is full of top dueling students from Hogwarts, and their dueling points are basically in the top three positions in the rankings of each grade.

They chatted and ate snacks while they waited for Lockhart to arrive.The house-elf had told them that all drinks and refreshments in the room were free to take, and that Lockhart was out on errands and said he would be back in the afternoon, but I'm afraid he'd have to wait a while longer.

Compared with Ron and Harry who were feasting, Hermione was more curious about where Lockhart had gone, but unfortunately no one could answer.

After about half an hour, Lockhart hurriedly emerged from the fire in his office and greeted the students who had been waiting for a long time.

Everyone has been waiting for a long time!I just went out with the Headmaster to do some errands, and it was trickier than I thought, but finally... oh, thanks, Miss Granger, this is my favorite. "

"I know." Hermione replied eagerly.

She had just managed to save the last plate of English muffins from the gluttons because she knew who liked them.

"Because I'm late today, we don't have much time left, so let's start with today's topic. You are all people who love duels. This club can be said to be for you to show off your skills. And this regular gathering On the one hand, it is for everyone to exchange duel techniques, and on the other hand, it is also to let everyone understand the current situation in the magic world in terms of black magic confrontation, so that everyone can understand the significance of practicing duels..."

Yes, Lockhart is now blatantly instilling his thoughts into the students

Heart,

No matter how unwilling some people are to admit it, the foundation of maintaining a country or regime is still violence, or armed forces.Although administrative organs seem to be only responsible for administration or macro-control of the economy, it is still violence that provides coercive power for these organs.

In other words, although there is violence, there may not be a stable regime, but a stable regime must have violence. The phrase "magic is power" that Voldemort later hung out at the Ministry of Magic, to put it bluntly, is actually "violence is power."

Therefore, Fudge allowed Dumbledore to have a higher reputation than himself, allowed him to be in charge of academics and education, and even repeatedly compromised with the political forces of the Lions who admired Dumbledore, but he could not tolerate Dumbledore cultivating his own "army"—he very clear dumb

If Lido really wanted to deal with him, his subordinates wouldn't last a few seconds.

And what Lockhart is doing now is to cultivate an "army" that conforms to his own values." Even if he won't say that clearly to the outside world, he only says "duel technical exchanges" or "eating, drinking and chatting"

If Lockhart was a little worried about doing this before today, then after going to deal with Snape and Dumbledore today, he can do it with confidence and boldly.

Because he had done Dumbledore a great favor just now, so he felt a little bit arrogant about his merits. Even if he did a little too much now, Dumbledore would not say anything.

For example, right now the Dueling Club is discussing a very disharmonious issue—whether Avada eating a big melon is a hot chicken spell or not.

Probably because there were more girls present, Ravenclaw's Roger Davis was eager to express himself, so he made a violent comment on the spot, saying that the forward swing of the Killing Curse was too long and the movements were too obvious. "Only people with slow reaction nerves, or when they are attacked by surprise, can be hit", "But in that case, you can use any spell to sneak attack", so "the actual combat significance is not great"

And he does have the capital to be proud-as the Quidditch captain of Ravenclaw, his reaction speed and physical tonality are very good, and he is very good at using summoning spells to block opponents' spells, so the winning rate is not high. Low, and the ranking has entered the top four in the grade.

But Lockhart was still sweating for this guy—the Killing Curse didn't work, he really was a student, he dared to say anything.

But a good teacher should never "correct" students' prejudices roughly, but should let them solve it in practice, so that they will not be so embarrassing when they find out that they are the wrong party

But Lockhart was sure that the Killing Curse was not a useless spell, even now that he knew how to avoid the problem of the Killing Curse's forward swing.

Sure enough, without Lockhart's objection, the senior students have already

One after another began to refute:

"How do you know that the dark wizard won't predict your actions?"

"Don't forget about Apparating, they can Apparate behind you and cast spells."

"Anyway, it's an instant death spell, which can permanently reduce the number of Aurors in an instant, so as to reduce obstacles for future battles. I personally think that this is something that spells such as the Stunning Spell can't match anyway, so The Dark Wizard certainly won't give it up."

Even Hermione expressed a different opinion: "Dark wizards can use time-delay spells such as flying sand and rocks to blow up your summons, and then cast spells on you, they can even use explosions to directly force you out , so they have plenty of time to cast spells—their kills won't be as gentle as our club's."

Only then did Davis realize that he had made a mistake.

Lockhart came out in time to smooth things over, and changed the subject: