In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 39: The Five Stones

The atmosphere at Hogwarts after Christmas was somewhat subdued.

Even if no one died in the last night's attack, the frequency of two consecutive attacks in less than half a school year let every student's heart fill with anxiety, because no one knows if there will be a third time in the future.

Students who still have families to go to were sent home individually by Lily one by one after Christmas, and both Neville and Ron were the first-year students who left the wagon to spend a week with their families during this holiday break without classes.

The original double dormitory is now left for Jon alone, but he didn't feel lonely, spending most of his time alone in the dormitory reading, and only occasionally going to the common room to relax with Lavender and Justin at their invitation.

After Christmas night, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall did not openly reward or praise him, which is also a kind of protection for him.

After all, although the creature lurking in the wagon so far did not hurt anyone, but there is no way to guarantee that it won't retaliate against Jon after learning that it was because of Jon that its trail and identity were discovered

However, in private, McGonagall asked Jon to make a small not too excessive request as a reward, Jon did not think twice about it and asked for the right to borrow books from the restricted section of the library.

The library on the wagon also has several shelves of restricted books, which are stocked with magical books that are dangerous to students, and no one can borrow them unless they have the professor's approval.

After some hesitation, McGonagall agreed to this request, but she added a precondition that all books borrowed by Jon from the restricted section should be additionally registered with her.

He didn't want to secretly study the dark magic in the restricted section, he just wanted to have access to more magical knowledge, and he didn't have any reason to refuse Professor McGonagall's request which is purely aimed to ensure his well-being.

On the third day after Christmas, Jon knocked on Slughorn's office door early in the morning.

After three days of recuperation, the burns on Slughorn's back had almost healed, and for a master of potions like him, he had the means to save his own life as long as it wasn't a kind of injury that would kill him instantly. The injuries caused by the exploding charm seem serious, but in fact, they are all superficial wounds, and there won't even be any scars left after the potion takes effect.

"You are spot on time."

Slughorn, who was lying on a reclining chair and eating Crystallised Pineapple early in the morning, saw Jon walking in, and a smile unconsciously appeared on his face.

"Are you feeling better, teacher?"

Jon asked while putting down a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans he had received at Christmas. Visiting the sick certainly required a gift, although the main purpose of this visit was not just for visiting a sick person.

A box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was certainly nothing to Slughorn, but the smile on his face noticeably grew even wider.

"I am not that delicate, Filius can teach charms class even with a missing arm, and Moody can swing his wand on the battlefield even with a missing leg and an eye, so what is this injury to me."

Slughorn did not say too much about these unnecessary things and went straight to the topic.

"According to our previously established schedule, today is the day that I officially will start to teach you about the way to cast spells with this ring, but you can not relax your learning on Occlumency either, at the moment you are still in the stage of building a wall around your mind, if someone really wants to invade your memory, it is easy to spot issues in it, and in this case, your situation may become more perilous due to your resistance."

Jon nodded solemnly at this, even without Slughorn's reminder, he would not have ended his study of Occlumency, this kind of magic is equivalent to the foundation of his life in the wizarding world.

"That's all I have to offer now, give me that ring."

Jon took off a pendant from his neck, the sapphire ring was tied to this pendant, otherwise, it would be too attention-grabbing for a child who had no contact with the outside world since he came to Hogwarts at the age of 11 to have a gemstone ring on his hand for no reason.

Slughorn took the ring from his hand and pointed the diamond-shaped sapphire that is embedded in the ring's surface at the sunlight.

"As I told you before, you can use this ring as another type of wand altogether. See this blue stone? It equals to the wand core of the wand."

"Just like the legendary Philosopher's stone of Nicolas Flamel, this sapphire is also a man-made alchemical stone, and its exact method of production is only known to my dead friend, but I can be sure that, unlike the wand, this ring has more than one wand core."

He spoke while pointing at both sides of the sapphire ring to Jon, and each side had two other diamond-shaped slots the same size as the centre stone.

"When I got this ring from him, this was the only stone left on it, and he didn't tell me the whereabouts of the four remaining stones in the last remaining hours of his life, but I learned in his magic notes that one of them was hidden by him at Hogwarts."

Jon blinked.

"Hogwarts?"

"Yes, but not this wagon we are in now, but the Hogwarts castle that has been taken over by them. Before the Dark Lord completely seized hold of the wizarding community, Adrien used to be a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts for a year in the past, but he had an accident at the end of the semester and didn't continue teaching after that, however, he left part of his research in that castle."

Slughorn gave Jon a deep look.

"In the future, if you have the opportunity, you must try your best to get that stone back, and the same goes for the remaining three unknown stones, all of them are very important to you."

Jon stared at the blue stone on the ring and asked hesitantly.

"And what exactly is the use of these stones on the ring?"

"You can think of each stone as a spellcasting device."

Slughorn said seriously: "Wizards require a very high level of 'will' to cast spells on their own, even if you meet the conditions to learn this way of casting spells, it does not mean that you can cast any magic without care. Because magic is active in you, the 'will' that is needed will also constantly have an effect on yourself, so it will interfere with the release of other spells, because of this one can only cast one spell at a time. The gem on the ring was designed to help you share this kind of pressure by keeping the 'will' of casting spells on itself so that you can cast spells without being held back by any of the magic used on yourself."

"Simply put, for each stone, you can learn a type of magic that will change your inner magic. And in theory, the number of magic one can handle with this is five."

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