"Ah!"
In the dueling arena of the Room of Requirement, a figure was suddenly sent flying from the center of the field, crashing hard toward the wall.
However, just as he was about to hit it, the wall rippled like water and swallowed him whole.
Apart from his head, his entire body was sealed inside the wall.
Tom struggled with all his strength, but it was useless.
His body, trapped within the wall, felt as though it had been bricked in.
The pressure pressing in from all sides made it hard for him to breathe.
Fortunately, his head was not embedded as well, or he would have suffocated on the spot.
At that moment, Tom was filled with regret.
"I was such a fool… truly… I actually believed that guy would kindly bring me here for some kind of training…"
Just as he was brooding, the wall encasing him suddenly trembled.
Lowering his head, he saw Wade slam into the very wall he was trapped in, foam at his mouth.
"Again!" Wade wiped the froth from the corner of his mouth and charged forward once more.
Tom's face turned green.
It was true that when Wade told him he could train alongside him under Dumbledore, Tom had been extremely excited.
But now…
"Haaaa! Madman… absolutely mad… Wade's gone mad, Dumbledore's gone mad… I'm still just a child!"
"Tom, what are you standing there for? Fight alongside me!"
Wade's shouting rang out again from the distance.
Tom's lips twitched.
He wanted nothing more than to stop following these two lunatics, one old and one young.
But deep down, there was a trace of unwillingness.
In the end, Tom gritted his teeth and began to chant a spell.
After trying more than a dozen counter-charms, he finally freed himself from the wall and landed on the ground, panting heavily.
Rip!
Tom had just raised his head when a blazing red light rushed straight toward him.
"Fuc—"
Bang!
Tom's Shield Charm shattered, and he was sent flying once again.
"At least let me catch my breath…" Cold sweat poured down his face.
"Your enemy won't kindly give you time to breathe, Tom." Before Dumbledore even finished speaking, another spell was already on its way.
If not for Wade launching a timely attack to block Dumbledore's follow-up assault, Tom would have been struck again.
Tom would have been sent back into the wall again…
Even so, he was blasted away once more, landing hard and sliding backward over ten meters.
"That's brutal…" Tom forced himself to his feet again, feeling as though his backside was on fire.
By now, he was completely exhausted and very much wanted to surrender.
Yet Wade was still going head-on against Dumbledore.
"Wade! You're a Slytherin, not some foolish Gryffindor lion!"
Bang!
Wade was knocked back again. He seemed to want to say something, but Dumbledore's assault was so relentless that he had no chance to speak.
Seeing Wade charge forward without a care, Tom cursed under his breath.
But for no reason at all, a strange surge of courage rose within him.
"Damn it, to hell with reason!"
With a roar, Tom rushed forward as well.
…
Half an hour later.
Huuff. huff.. faah..
Tom lay on the ground, utterly drained, his vision going dark.
Wade was in slightly better condition, but he could only sit there, gasping for breath.
Dumbledore at his peak, enhanced by the Elder Wand, was truly terrifying.
Even though he had held back during the sparring session with Wade and Tom, the two of them still suffered greatly.
"Tom… why did you have to call Gryffindor foolish lions just now…" Wade complained after catching his breath.
"What? Haven't we always said that?" Tom replied, unconvinced.
"No, no… that's you, not me!" Wade quickly shifted a little farther away.
"Didn't you notice that after you said that, the beating we took got even worse?"
Only then did Tom suddenly remember that Professor Dumbledore was from Gryffindor.
His remark had essentially insulted the professor as well…
"Uh… I didn't mean it like that…" Seeing Dumbledore walking over with a smile, Tom tried to salvage the situation.
"Your performance today was quite good," Dumbledore said with a smile. "However, there are still many shortcomings. Tomorrow, same time, same place, we will continue."
Tom sucked in a sharp breath. C-Continue…?
"Ah, right." Just as Dumbledore was about to leave, he suddenly turned back. "To help you learn more and deepen your understanding of the training, write a paper and submit it to me here tomorrow evening. Based on your papers, I will make slight adjustments to your combat training methods."
"Professor… a paper? We already have plenty of homework!" Wade was the first to protest.
You can make me take a beating, but make me write a paper after taking a beating? Just so you could increase the beating based on it..?
What a headache… memories from his previous life were attacking him relentlessly.
"You are both very outstanding students, so I believe you can do it," Dumbledore said, then turned with a smile and left the Room of Requirement.
Tom sucked in another breath. "He's taking revenge on me, isn't he?"
"On us… I got dragged into it because of you," Wade said mournfully.
Was the kind and gentle Professor Dumbledore really starting to head in Snape's direction?
That was something best avoided.
…
After each downed a large bottle of Invigoration Draught and rested for quite a while, Wade and Tom finally managed to stand and head back toward the Slytherin common room.
"I think we should go to the library and finish the paper first," Tom suddenly said.
"The library? Do you even know what time it is… At our current pace, by the time we get there, it'll already be closed," Wade replied weakly.
"Then we'll have to write it in the common room…" Tom said just as listlessly.
They had just gone through Dumbledore's "special training."
Their impressions were still fresh, so writing the summary now would indeed be far more effective than waiting until tomorrow.
"The common room lighting is too dim. Let's go to your ancestor's study," Wade said.
"Hm? Isn't that place sealed off?" Tom asked in surprise.
"What's sealed is the Chamber of Secrets. Slytherin's study isn't. And… for certain special reasons, Dumbledore has approved it for us to use as a laboratory and study," Wade said cheerfully.
After what happened that night, and upon learning part of the truth, Dumbledore began urging Wade not to return to the wizard tower for the time being. That place was far too strange.
To that end, Dumbledore specially arranged a laboratory for Wade, which was Slytherin's old study.
After Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet had cleared out the dark magic manuscripts, the place had been left unused.
Now, letting Wade use it as he pleased was rather fitting.
Of course, Slytherin, who had not yet left Hogwarts at the time, had agreed to this arrangement.
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