Hermione stopped on the stone platform at the top of the tower, looked in the direction Victor was gazing, and asked, "Victor, what are you looking at?"
"Nothing," Victor answered directly. "I just noticed that the ceiling in the Great Hall went haywire again."
"Isn't that normal?" Hermione said, as if it were a common occurrence. "I heard Professor McGonagall say that the charms on the Great Hall ceiling haven't been maintained in over a hundred years. The school hasn't been willing to pay for the repairs because the goblins' prices are too high!"
"That's not it," Victor said with a smile. "Haven't you noticed that every time the Great Hall's ceiling goes haywire with thunder, it foretells an approaching storm?"
"Look at the clouds in the sky right now. These types of clouds usually precede a storm."
"This is an important moment." He said, pointing upwards.
Hermione subconsciously looked up. The sky was filled with countless cloud patches, shaping themselves into fine, fish-scale-like formations. They were illuminated by the golden-red sun, weaving together and shimmering, creating a fantastical scene.
"So what if a storm is coming? And what do you mean by 'moment'?" Hermione frowned, a look of confusion on her face. She quickly reacted, grabbing Victor's arm and asking, "Are you hiding a secret from me?!"
"Of course not!" Victor said with a laugh, reaching out to pat the little witch's head and changing the subject. "By the way, what brings you here?"
"Oh, right! Nearly Headless Nick is holding his Deathday party in the dungeons tonight, and I wanted you to come with me!" Having anticipated that this year's Halloween feast would be boring, Hermione and her two "silly boys" had decided to accept Nearly Headless Nick's invitation to his 500th Deathday party in the dungeons of Hogwarts. So, naturally, Hermione wanted Victor to come along.
However, when Victor heard the invitation, his first thoughts weren't about whether to accept or not, but a flurry of exclamation points and question marks. Had this little witch not bothered to find out what a ghost's Deathday party was like?!
He had been invited to the Fat Friar's Deathday party once before. He recalled the dungeon being quite spacious. The entire venue was decorated with black ornaments, and eerie black candles gave off a blue-white glow, making the atmosphere incredibly chilling.
Long tables covered with white tablecloths were laden with a large amount of moldy and rotten food. On the shiny silver plates were large chunks of rotten fish, piled-up cakes that had been burnt to a crisp, haggis covered in maggots, and cheese covered in green mold.
The entire dungeon was filled with a faint, indescribable cold and putrid smell.
Victor guessed that the food was not only for the ghosts' enjoyment but also to make the party's atmosphere more… Underworldly.
In addition, a huge tombstone-shaped gray cake was placed in the center of the table, with the Fat Friar's name and date of death spelled out in a tar-like frosting. The party also had a ghost band that played their musical saws on a black-draped stage.
Yes, you read that right: "musical saws"!
The musical saw is a musical instrument that is played with a bow and produces a unique, ethereal sound. This instrument is often featured in famous horror films and TV shows around the world.
At that party, Victor had seen thirty musical saws on the stage playing a terrifying and trembling symphony that made his skin crawl. The ghost guests in attendance were dancing to the music. In short, it was basically a giant haunted house. One that could genuinely scare unsuspecting Muggles to death!
So, remembering this terrible experience, Victor flat-out rejected Hermione's invitation. At the same time, he maliciously decided not to tell her what a ghost's Deathday party was really like! He thought to himself with a schadenfreude, "Go and eat your offerings, little lions!"
Soon after, Hermione, who had failed to get Victor to go with her, left in a huff.
Time quickly passed, and night fell.
The Hogwarts students were enjoying the Halloween feast, while the three Gryffindors were enduring an unexpected form of torture with pale faces.
As a brilliant bolt of lightning streaked across the night sky, Victor instantly disappeared from Hogwarts Castle and appeared on an unknown mountaintop. He clapped his hands together, and a temporary, gigantic magic-gathering circle instantly formed.
The pouring rain fell on him, but it didn't wet a single strand of his hair. Victor looked down at the ground, which had already been marked. He waved his hand, and the dirt exploded, revealing a bottle of red potion. He levitated the potion into his hand, then took out his wand, pointed it at his heart, and began to chant, "Amato Animo Animato Animagus!" Then, he pulled out the cork and drank the potion in one gulp.
Yes, just as Victor had shown, tonight, on this Halloween, during the storm, was the crucial moment he had been waiting for to complete the final step of his Animagus transformation. However, unlike the wizards who had become Animagi before him, his idea was bolder and broke from tradition.
Before drinking the potion, Victor had prepared the largest magic-gathering circle he could cast. He wanted to gather a large amount of raw magic to help him complete the transformation into a magical creature Animagus.
From the time the advanced Transfiguration spell, Animagus, first appeared in the world until now, the wizarding world had generally believed that an Animagus could not freely transform into any animal, and that the animal they transformed into was related to the wizard's personality and weight.
Generally, a person who wants to become an Animagus can only transform into one animal, and it is limited to a non-magical creature. Some rare, natural-born Animagi have been known to transform into two animals.
If one were to forcibly transform into a magical creature, such as a phoenix, dragon, or Hippogriff, it would lead to unforeseen consequences: the person could go insane and be unable to return to their normal human form.
For example, the Red Caps, which are classified as Dark magical creatures, are rumored to be the failed creations of wizards who tried to forcibly transform into magical creatures in the past.
Based on these past failures and extensive research, people believed that the reason why humans could not become magical creature Animagi was perhaps due to the fundamental differences in the physical structures of wizards and magical creatures. But for Victor, this so-called absolute theory didn't have enough reasons to hold up.
After reading a large amount of literature and carefully studying some of the cases of failed magical creature transformations, he suddenly made a discovery.
The wizards who had failed in the past had actually started to show the characteristics of the magical creatures during the transformation process, but they would often get stuck at a certain point. This was because from the moment a wizard drank the potion and began to transform, they would be constantly affected by the instincts of the creature they were transforming into.
For example, a lion would want to eat meat, and an owl would want to sleep during the day. So, if the transformation process became stuck and the wizard's consciousness was unable to resist the onslaught of the creature's instincts for a long time, the Animagus transformation would naturally develop in a completely uncontrollable direction, and the wizard would turn into a monster that was neither human nor beast.
So, once he found the problem, all he needed was a targeted solution. Victor guessed that the transformation getting stuck was likely due to a lack of magic power. This was because magical creatures naturally possessed powerful magic power, and this power was rooted in their unique physical structure.
So, if a human with a weak body wanted to transform into a magical creature, they would first need a massive amount of magic power to support the transformation. This was just like how a dragon egg needed enough heat to hatch successfully.
That was why Victor had prepared the magic-gathering circle in advance. The Mind Ward and the Wakebrew made with Helena's venom could also help him resist the onslaught of the creature's instincts.
At the same time, even though one couldn't choose the creature one would transform into as an Animagus, and all of the above was just Victor's guess based on his own research, he still felt that whether his guesses were correct or not, the massive amount of magic gathered by the magic-gathering circle should be able to make his transformation a truly transcendent possibility.
So, the moment the potion flowed down his throat, Victor suddenly felt two intense heartbeats and a sharp pain that ran through his entire body. Then, a creature appeared in his mind: a bird with a body covered in gray-blue feathers and a white forehead and crest. It was a grey heron, a bird commonly found in Eurasia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, and also in both the northern and southern parts of the country of the Chinese.
This bird often lived in small groups in swamps, fields, and along the coast. It would stand still in shallow water for a long time, staring at the surface, and would quickly catch its prey with its beak once it spotted it. Its diet mainly consisted of frogs and fish.
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