Chapter 309 — Pensieve, Hagrid, Baby Dragon

"Are you really going to give him the Invisibility Cloak?"

From a shelf behind the desk came the voice of the Sorting Hat: "I fear he will do evil."

Harry turned toward the sound.

His lips were pressed tight, and in his emerald eyes was nothing but frost-like chill.

He brandished his wand: "Sword, come to me!"

Crack!

A glass case behind the desk shattered instantly.

The Sword of Gryffindor landed in Harry's hand.

He leapt forward in two strides, leveling the blade at the magical life form: "If you don't want to die, shut up."

Dumbledore silently separated the two.

He found the Invisibility Cloak passed down from the Deathly Hallows and handed it to Harry.

"You said earlier that you came to me about two matters."

The old headmaster of Hogwarts sighed and asked, "What is the second?"

Once, Dumbledore had believed that a person's nature was fixed, innate.

That was why the moment he saw Tom Marvolo Riddle, he had concluded that the boy would grow into a menace to society.

And so it proved.

That brilliantly gifted young wizard became the most terrifying Dark Lord in British magical history—Voldemort.

And Harry...

Dumbledore had firmly believed that such a promising seedling, even placed in a harsh environment like the Dursleys', could still grow into a loving savior who cherished life.

Now, he was beginning to feel lost.

Perhaps he had made a mistake.

It was said that many Muggle studies showed that a person who experienced tragedy, torment, and abuse in childhood was very likely, upon reaching adulthood, to become an antisocial criminal.

He should have sent Harry to the Chinese Elf King!

Dumbledore's heart felt as if it were being gnawed by venomous insects.

Had he made that choice back then, the Harry of today would likely have become a passionate, life-loving, comrade-loving socialist youth.

The Dumbledore of that time had believed that family affection was the most important thing in the world.

He had never considered that the Dursleys were only Harry's family in name.

Those two had never done what an "uncle" and "aunt" ought to do; they had merely treated Harry as a burden.

Beating, abuse, bullying.

Dumbledore believed that he bore most of the responsibility for what Harry had become.

Harry did not let Dumbledore wallow in regret for long.

He said bluntly: "The way to enter the Come-and-Go Room—or rather, the Room of Requirement."

"The books in the library record only superficial knowledge; they are of little use to me now."

"I need a finer essence of wisdom."

In Harry's current state of mind, an indiscriminate thirst for knowledge was like indiscriminate mating—both were base instincts engraved in the deepest part of the genes.

Those could be overcome.

Harry noticed that Dumbledore was somewhat hesitant.

He walked briskly to the south side of the office.

In a black cabinet sat a Pensieve.

Harry stood casually before Dumbledore: "You can use Legilimency to view my memories. I have nothing to hide from anyone."

He had indeed never done anything against humanity, so he was not worried about being examined by Dumbledore.

The headmaster complied readily, placing Harry's memories into the Pensieve and observing silently.

A long while passed.

The observation ended.

Dumbledore's expression was exceedingly complicated.

"You are a... good child."

He had not expected that the Dursleys would actually abuse Harry like that.

Was that what family ought to do?

"I have overlooked too much. I am sorry."

Harry was not surprised by Dumbledore's lament.

Everything he had done since arriving here had long been planned along the way.

On the other hand...

Harry's test had also yielded a result.

"As expected, Headmaster Dumbledore cannot view the memories of me, Ma Xiuyuan, Neville, and Hermione in the little world of famine?"

In Harry's eyes flickered a faint, swaying green light: "Professor Xuanyang is indeed superior, then?"

A guilt-ridden Dumbledore told Harry the method to enter the Room of Requirement.

The Invisibility Cloak, the Room of Requirement, the headmaster's guilt, the test regarding the ranking of Yanqiu's strength...

With all four objectives achieved, Harry left the headmaster's office and plunged straight into the Room of Requirement.

Hogwarts was a clear spring of knowledge.

Some sipped at it in small mouthfuls; some merely used it to rinse their mouths.

Harry, however, drank it down ravenously.

The NZT-48 Wang Xu had bestowed numbered only thirty pills, enough to sustain a high level of intelligence for just one month.

After a month, if Harry could not reverse-engineer the formula of these pills and produce them himself, he would have to go back to being an ordinary wizard.

Ordinary equals feeble-minded.

Harry would not accept such an ending.

He had not even entertained the thought of going back to Wang Xu for another supply after using up the NZT-48 pills.

Deep in Harry's heart, Wang Xu was the most terrifying person in the world.

Absolute fairness, absolute coldness, towering on high, looking down upon all living things.

Perhaps, in Professor Xuanyang's eyes, human lives were no different from ants?

He merely sought amusement for himself; as for what consequences his actions might bring, perhaps he did not care at all.

Harry shook his head and refocused on the books.

NZT-48 was a miraculous drug developed by scientists in ordinary human society.

Harry's scientific knowledge was far from sufficient for reverse engineering.

Moreover, he had no access to relevant books on biochemistry.

But magic was a very convenient thing.

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, The Mysteries of Potions, The Duplication of Muggle Artifacts, The Use of One Hundred and Seventy-Three Pharmaceutical Excipients, The True Nature of Matter...

As long as he made good use of the knowledge in those books in the Room of Requirement, he could naturally grasp the underlying principles and replicate an endless supply of "smart pills."

...

While Harry shut himself away in the Room of Requirement, his companions had to take his place and help him handle the trivial difficulties of daily life.

Asking upper-year students to use Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Harry and answer roll call in class was merely routine.

Ma Xiuyuan, Hermione, and Neville also had to deal with other emergencies.

For instance, the half-giant Hagrid.

This restless fellow had somehow gotten hold of a dragon egg and even succeeded in hatching it.

And Hagrid had other "important matters" to attend to.

In such circumstances, Neville and the others had to look after the baby dragon.

Neville tried to taste the "rock cake" on the table; after nearly breaking two of his front teeth, he gave up the attempt.

Rubbing his chubby little face, which had grown plump again, Neville sighed: "The World Wizards' Council of 1709 long ago passed a bill banning dragon breeding. Isn't Hagrid afraid of being arrested and thrown into Hogwarts?"

"Who knows what species it is? If caught, how many years would he get?"

"And how are we supposed to raise this little thing?"

As a half-giant, Hagrid had in his nature the stubbornness of giants; once his mind was made up, not even eight horses could pull him back.

This also made him a magnet for trouble.

If Hagrid had not been Harry's friend, Neville would never have paid this Jia Mingyuan any attention at all.

Hermione merely watched the newly hatched little dragon with curiosity.

Spiky wings, a thin black body, knobby horns on its head, bulging orange-red eyes, and every breath it exhaled sent out a few sparks.

"This is a Norwegian Ridgeback, relatively rare among ordinary dragon breeds. Ordinary wizards who keep one illegally generally face anywhere from five to twenty years in Azkaban."