Regarding the cause of that unexpected incident, Marcel had managed to ask a few questions as Kevin was leaving. Although the Auror said the details were not for public disclosure at the moment, he did reveal a little under Marcel's questioning.
They were two dark wizards who had fled from the American wizarding world to Britain. The British Ministry of Magic had taken over the investigation. According to Kevin, they were a fugitive couple; the husband was a dark wizard, but his wife was just an ordinary witch.
"No wonder that woman was so nervous. It seems she was forced into it," Marcel said, shaking his head.
"Even if she was forced, it cannot be tolerated. The harm caused by dark wizards is immense," Kevin said seriously. "And no one can guarantee that she won't transform into a new dark witch in the future."
Marcel thought that what Kevin said made a lot of sense. When dealing with true dark wizards, leniency would only make them more reckless and arrogant.
But so what? Marcel didn't want to be enemies with anyone. As long as they didn't bother him, he had no desire to provoke those whose minds had completely snapped.
Learning all sorts of profound and complex magical knowledge was already draining enough. He didn't have the spare energy to get involved in such messes.
Besides, this time an Auror had helped him clear the record of using magic outside of school. What about next time? If something went wrong, or if there was a misunderstanding, it would surely be a significant hassle.
In the days that followed, Marcel took Luna around to see the sights.
Hyde Park, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, the River Thames, Buckingham Palace—they visited every place they could in London. They would watch the street scenes during the day and go to the theatre to listen to operas at night. This kind of life was truly a pleasure.
"Ah, there's never enough time," Marcel sighed as he brought Luna back to the Lovegood residence.
"Speaking of which, has no one ever mentioned that... that strange thing that happens when you use Floo powder?" Xenophilius couldn't help but ask when Marcel appeared in the Lovegood's fireplace.
"Oh, yes. Mr. Weasley asked me about that too, but I don't know either," Marcel said, equally puzzled. "He even had the Floo Network maintenance crew come and recalibrate his fireplace, and he even renovated it himself, but it was no use."
He had consulted many books at Hogwarts, but the structure of the Floo Network and the formula for Floo powder remained a mystery. He had no ideas about it. But this wasn't something you could just ask anyone about, so the matter was ultimately set aside.
In any case, it's probably related to the soul, but that's just a guess for now, Marcel thought to himself.
To be honest, he didn't understand himself any better than others did. Since ancient times, the deep exploration of the mysteries of the human body had always been a bottleneck for researchers, both wizard and Muggle alike.
"The holiday will be over in a few days," Marcel said suddenly. "I plan to spend the last few days organizing my study notes, so I won't be going out anymore."
"I'm sorry, Luna."
"Hmm? No, I should be the one thanking you," Luna said with a slight smile. "I had a lot of fun. A very pleasant Christmas holiday."
…
Marcel returned to Hogwarts on the evening before the start of term. He brought back a lot of miscellaneous things, most of which were the Christmas presents everyone had given him. Although they weren't anything extraordinary, and some were even just snacks, they were the heartfelt sentiments of others.
For example, there was a large bag of rock cakes from Hagrid. Marcel felt he would never eat them in his lifetime, but at least they could be kept as a rather special souvenir—they had an extremely long shelf life.
In fact, after Christmas Day, Marcel had successively received some late presents.
And among this batch of gifts, there were quite a few useful things.
Dumbledore had sent him a Nimbus 2000. It was obviously impossible to hide the fact that Marcel had joined the Quidditch team from him.
The other professors had mostly sent books of all kinds, and even their own summarized notes. For Marcel, these gifts from the professors were very much to his liking.
What was worth mentioning was that Snape had actually sent him a gift as well!
Well, although what Snape sent didn't look like a Christmas present at all, Marcel understood that his gift of Felix Felicis had clearly paid off.
What Snape had sent via a school owl was a small slip of paper.
"Sectumsempra... and its counter-curse, Vulnera Sanentur."
Marcel looked at the slip of paper. There was one spell on the front and one on the back, with a brief and concise analysis of each written in small letters.
"...This is a huge gift," Marcel said with some emotion.
This was an offensive spell invented by Snape. It was subtle, swift, powerful, and effective. If there were no counter-curse, the list of Unforgivable Curses would probably have one more entry.
"Oh! Welcome back, Marcel," Hermione waved at him happily as the Hogwarts dinner began. She had also just arrived today.
Besides Hermione, many others welcomed Marcel. Marcel figured his gifts probably had something to do with it; they had never been so enthusiastic before.
At the head table, the professors also nodded at him kindly. Marcel saw Dumbledore's somewhat mischievous smile and felt it was probably better not to go over.
He greeted the professors from a distance and then sat down at the Hufflepuff table.
"It's about to start again!" Charlotte said, pushing Ernie, who was sitting next to Marcel, aside and, as usual, patting Marcel's back with resounding thuds.
Marcel helplessly let her do it, because telling her to stop would only make her pat him harder.
What Charlotte meant by "start again" was, of course, Quidditch practice. Although he had received a Nimbus 2000 from Dumbledore, he felt it was fine to wait until just before the match to bring it out. There was no need to show it off everywhere.
After all, regardless of how effective the secrecy was, it was better to keep a low profile, wasn't it?
In the days that followed, although it was constantly rainy, the little badgers of the Quidditch team were full of energy. Known for their diligence and steadfastness, they would not be deterred by a small problem. Marcel, the lazy little badger squeezed in their midst, couldn't help but show some enthusiasm as well.
To make himself look more serious, Marcel also proposed several rather creative tactics. His ideas were unanimously approved by his teammates and received full support and cooperation in practice.
Marcel regretted this for a good while, because it meant the training load had increased by a large margin.
Of course, besides Quidditch practice, Marcel had many other things to keep him busy.
Lately, he had been constantly using various potions to nourish himself, boost his energy, and improve his efficiency. The effects were astonishing. But using too many potions would, after all, have the side effect of various drug residues building up. It was not a long-term solution.
Fortunately, a related series of research was nearing its end. If all went well, a new potion would soon be born.
The inspiration and cause for this research had all started from that sudden accident during the Christmas holiday.
For every wizard, their wand is a part of their life. Although wizards can replace their wands if they are accidentally damaged, it is common knowledge in the wizarding world that a wizard cannot carry two wands at the same time.
Once a wand has bonded with its owner, it becomes exclusive to other wands. When two wands are held by the same person, the only thing this poor soul will get is a pair of thick, long, hard, and mismatched chopsticks.
But what if one's wand was taken away? Marcel did not want to encounter that situation again.
After comparing various possibilities, he decided to work on what he was best at: Potions.
Generally speaking, the vast majority of potions are taken orally. This is because most potions, once excessively exposed to unknown substances in the air, will undergo a complex chain reaction of changes, with highly unpredictable consequences.
Therefore, Marcel abandoned his initial idea of researching a volatile sleeping potion and instead turned his research toward a more simple and crude direction.
Certain single-property materials would not undergo a chain reaction. The by-products from his past experiments were a good example of this. Based on this, Marcel developed a highly volatile, flammable liquid and used it to create a rather dangerous liquid potion. This thing would actually explode!
With just a tiny bit of a fire-based material as a catalyst, it could instantly erupt into a powerful, adhesive magical flame.
According to Marcel's judgment, the tenacity of this magical flame was about a weakened version of Fiendfyre. But its burning effect on magical targets was probably not much weaker than Fiendfyre itself.
Unfortunately, its safety during transport could not be guaranteed, which was a significant drawback.
Marcel gave this prototype an equally simple and crude name: Fiendfyre Flask No. 1.
The next day at noon, Marcel was sitting in the library during his lunch break, writing long strings of potion formulas in his notebook, when Hermione rushed in excitedly.
"Marcel, I found him!" she said. "I found Nicolas Flamel!"
"That couldn't have been easy. I heard he's back in France at the moment," Marcel said with a smile.
"Er, I mean, I found information about Nicolas Flamel!" Hermione whispered. "I found his name in A Guide to Medieval Sorcery!"
"Oh, yes, that's right," Marcel nodded. "So, you already know what Hagrid's three-headed dog is hiding?"
"I think so—it's the Philosopher's Stone!" Hermione said in a hushed voice.
After getting confirmation from Marcel, Hermione left happily. Marcel watched her retreating back, thinking to himself that the main event was about to begin.
He had actually considered whether he should join in on the action, but after some thought, he decided to let it unfold on its own. As things stood, his presence wouldn't make much of a difference, and it might even disrupt Dumbledore's plans for all he knew.
At the end of the day, this was always a matter between Harry and Voldemort. Why should he get involved and risk making things worse?