Harry Potter: I Get Stronger by Taking Loans - 182

Chapter 182: Materials for the Philosopher’s Stone, Herbology Class

While eating lunch in the Great Hall, Leonardo was also quietly planning Lockhart’s early retirement.

Lockhart really was an empty suit, a decorative vase. He offered young witches and wizards nothing useful for learning or growth.

Unless someone wanted to learn how to dress up, smile and pose, fabricate stories, and become the darling of middle-aged witches…

A timid voice beside him suddenly broke his train of thought.

“H-hello, Harry?”

“I’m Colin Creevey. I’m in Gryffindor too. C-can I take a photo of you?”

Leonardo saw a very small, thin, ash-grey-haired boy standing behind Harry, clutching a Muggle camera, his face full of eager hope and nerves.

As Colin introduced himself, Leonardo understood. Another Muggle-born. He wanted to take more magical photos and send them home to show his dad.

Leonardo had thought it had nothing to do with him and was about to get up and leave when Colin turned to him as well, eyes shining.

“You’re definitely Leonardo Grafton, right? The Sorting Hat mentioned you. And last night in the common room, there were twin prefects selling magical items you invented. It was incredible. They said it’s alchemy. It looked so mysterious!”

“It’s a shame I don’t have enough pocket money. I can’t buy the compass yet. The stairs before class today made my head spin. But it’s all right, I can follow my roommates. Some of them bought one…”

Hearing that, Leonardo decided the demand for the compass and map really was solid.

Once other students personally experienced how “wicked” Hogwarts staircases could be, and saw Gryffindor’s late rate drop sharply in comparison, the twins’ business would only get better.

Colin raised the camera, looking back and forth between Harry and Leonardo.

“Could I take a photo of both of you? And if you could sign it afterwards, that would be even better!”

Leonardo did not mind and nodded.

Harry, perhaps because he had already been forced into publicity at Lockhart’s signing and photographed by the Daily Prophet, hesitated briefly, then agreed as well.

Colin quickly took the picture. He squatted beside Harry to confirm the shot, talking excitedly as he did.

“I heard that if you use a special developing potion, the photos can move. Magic is amazing.”

“When it’s developed, could you sign it for me? Sorry to bother you…”

Then a drawling, smug voice floated in from the side.

“Potter. Looks like you’re already important enough to hand out signed photos, are you?”

“Should we queue up for ours?”

Harry did not need to turn around to know who it was. When he faced the voice, there was Draco Malfoy, wearing his usual irritating expression.

But Harry’s reaction was strange. He stole a glance at Leonardo and saw an amused, knowing smile.

Draco frowned. His little jab had not landed the way it should.

He sensed something off in the atmosphere and instinctively looked at Leonardo, smiling as if nothing was wrong.

Draco had noticed last term that, outside tutoring sessions, Leonardo rarely interfered in his “battle” with Harry.

He had planned to mock Harry and win back a point, but something felt wrong.

Draco could not figure it out. His words were perfectly sharp, so why was nobody taking the bait?

Leonardo looked at Draco and found him genuinely entertaining.

Draco, the little dragon, had a tongue as sharp as Harry’s in its own way. He envied Harry and resented him. He wanted to be friends, but his first impression had been atrocious.

One glance, a lifetime.

A bad first meeting, and a potential friend became an enemy.

An idea struck Leonardo, and he turned to Colin with a light laugh.

“This is Draco Malfoy. The Malfoy family is one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, pure-blood wizarding nobility…”

“Colin, aren’t you documenting magical things? The heir of the Malfoy family is representative enough, isn’t he?”

Before Draco could react, Leonardo gave Colin a quick blink.

Colin was quick-witted. He immediately understood and raised the camera toward Draco.

“May I take a photo of you?”

“Huh?”

Draco looked as if his brain had stalled.

To be honest, Draco had been jealous, or perhaps envious, that Harry had been photographed and reported on by the Daily Prophet a few days ago.

Now a kid was asking to photograph him?

Yes, the kid was in Gryffindor. Yes, he looked like a Muggle-born. Yes, yes, yes.

But Leonardo had just said it.

He was the heir of the Malfoy family. He was pure-blood nobility. He was a symbol of magic itself.

How could he refuse?

Draco, thoroughly led by the nose, suppressed his excitement, cleared his throat, and tried to sound dignified.

“Ahem. Very well — Malfoy grants permission. Er… try to get my good side.”

He stood very straight, face set in solemn determination.

Colin clicked away.

“Er, could you do a pose?”

Draco hesitated, then stiffly held up a V sign.

The back of his neck went slightly red, betraying how awkward he felt.

Leonardo nodded faintly. As expected, pure-blood nobles were vulnerable to this sort of thing.

The plan he had set up for the twins was probably fine. Most students were short on money, but that did not include the pure-blood crowd.

Especially Slytherin. Their purses tended to be full.

Still, Draco’s emotions felt a little bottled up…

Leonardo glanced at the colourful crystal ball in his pocket. In his special vision, thin strands of ribbon-like colour drifted off Draco and slipped into the crystal ball.

This was a method Nicolas had taught him: collecting “emotion”.

And “emotion” was one of the materials needed to refine the Philosopher’s Stone.

According to Nicolas, the best and purest material for creating a Philosopher’s Stone was the soul energy left behind at the moment of a human’s death.

Leonardo had assumed that meant a whole soul at first, but thinking it through made it clear. If the Philosopher’s Stone required refining human souls by such a wicked method, then the pinnacle of alchemy would belong under Dark magic.

So why had Nicolas been able to make so many Philosopher’s Stones?

He had lived for more than six hundred years. How many times had humans suffered mass death during that span?

Wars. Famines. Plagues.

Nicolas had set Leonardo an assignment: to refine a Philosopher’s Stone with his own hands.

If there was not enough soul energy to be found, then the “colour of the soul”, emotion, could also work.

…

Emotion.

Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, anxiety…

They were ripples of the soul’s movement, tiny yet real traces of soul energy.

They could not compare to the eruption of energy at death, but they had one advantage: they were everywhere, and they could be collected continuously.

Where people gathered, emotions tangled.

And what group’s emotions shifted most frequently?

Children and teenagers.

Leonardo looked across the Great Hall at the young witches and wizards. There was no better place than a school.

And because magic existed, witches and wizards produced more energetic emotions than Muggles.

Holding the colourful crystal ball, Leonardo felt the only pity was that it required constant magical power to maintain. Nicolas’ method was also complex and difficult to learn. Otherwise, hiding a few of these in a Muggle school would have been a gold mine.

Aside from sleeping hours at night, when only late-night students and rule-breakers could provide emotional energy, everyone’s emotions were wonderfully rich.

During lessons, the dominant emotions were surprise, sorrow, fear, and the like. During breaks and weekends, it was all joy and delight.

After mastering the spells Nicolas had taught him for observing and capturing emotion,  
Leonardo returned to Hogwarts—and made a remarkable discovery.

The castle didn’t just absorb the stray magic of young witches and wizards to keep itself alive.  
It also gathered their emotional energy.

The founders had built something extraordinary.  

He longed to see the heart of that design for himself—to understand what principles of ancient alchemy and rune‑craft it was based on.

A magical structure of such scale couldn’t exist without at least one central core.  

Those cores would guide the flow of magic and hold the system together,  
ensuring the entire castle remained stable.

Dumbledore, as Headmaster, definitely knew.

But this sort of school secret would not be easy to negotiate access to.

Did he have to wait until he became Headmaster Grafton?

…

Afternoon.

Outside the greenhouses.

Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff waited for their Herbology professor.

Soon, Professor Sprout appeared.

She was dressed as practically as always, her thick hat patched again and again, her clothes streaked with soil.

Leonardo, sharp-eyed as ever, noticed something unusual. Professor Sprout, normally warm and cheerful, was wearing a stern expression, clearly displeased.

His gaze shifted behind her, and he immediately understood why.

Gilderoy Lockhart, dazzling in a bright silver robe, followed at her heels. The robe was painfully eye-catching, covered in medals of various sizes that clinked and swayed as he walked.

Lockhart was bareheaded, letting his golden hair gleam in the sunlight.

As they drew close, Leonardo could hear Lockhart’s voice.

“Pomona, the method I used this morning did not show obvious results. I must have mixed it up with the incident from Travels with Trolls. My adventures are so rich, it’s a burden of its own.”

“Ordinary spells only enrage the Whomping Willow, but there is an extremely ancient soothing ritual, nearly lost to time. All it takes is a moonlit night and the singing of a beautiful Veela lullaby…”

Leonardo’s lips twitched. What Lockhart described sounded vaguely like an ancient magic Nicolas had taught him.

But Leonardo was certain Lockhart was boasting and making it up. If pressed for details, Lockhart would probably dodge with an excuse like, “Oh, it’s far too complex and dangerous, it may lead to, er, unpredictable consequences, so it is not the time to reveal it to the public,” and then slip away.

Lockhart kept prattling, completely ignoring the rare edge of irritation on Sprout’s face.

His attention had already shifted to the students waiting for class. Lockhart lifted his trademark smile.

“Hello. Professor Sprout and I are currently treating the Whomping Willow. Do not try to imitate out of curiosity. That creature is injured, but it is still beyond the capabilities of young witches and wizards. After all, driving off Banshees, outwitting trolls, facing down werewolves…”

Some girls listened, gazing at his smile, giggling dreamily. A few boys also looked impressed by his “adventures”.

Just as Professor Sprout was about to cut him off, Lockhart, smiling smugly, noticed someone in the crowd.

Someone who looked familiar.

Those deep green eyes…

Lockhart remembered the signing a few days ago and recognised their owner at once, the handsome young wizard whose bearing and looks were not inferior to his own.

Lockhart had not expected such a coincidence.

There had been so many people at last night’s feast, and he had been basking in admiration. He had not paid Leonardo any attention.

Now Leonardo’s gaze was calm. There was no obvious judgment in it.

But it still made Lockhart uncomfortable.

As if the look could peel away layers of disguise and reveal what lay underneath.

“Ahem. I’ve just remembered something I must deal with,” Lockhart said abruptly. “I won’t disturb you. I’ll be off.”

He cut the conversation short and hurried away toward the castle.

Strangely, that guilty, uneasy feeling began to fade.

Lockhart breathed out, then his confidence flared back up.

It did not matter. With that miraculous diary guiding him, he could cause a major incident at Hogwarts and have a truly great adventure at last.

He would become the centre of the wizarding world.

Imagining that overwhelming fame and endless praise, Lockhart’s steps became lighter.

His departure was abrupt, but Professor Sprout did not care. Good riddance.

This new colleague was thoroughly unlikable.

Professor Sprout waved the students over.

“All right. We’re going to Greenhouse Three.”

In the first year, they had only used Greenhouse One, where the plants were safe.

Greenhouse Three held more interesting plants.

It was also more dangerous.

Once the students were in position, Professor Sprout began.

“Today, we will be repotting Mandrakes. Now, who can tell me what properties Mandrakes have?”

Since the previous class had been Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, there was no shortage of answers. Hufflepuff tended to excel in Herbology, and Ravenclaw tended to be widely read.

“Mandrakes, also known as Mandrake roots. Their root and sap are a powerful restorative. They are used to return transfigured people, and those under certain spells, back to normal.”

Leonardo knew this plant well. He had a patch growing in his own trunk.

At first, it had been pure curiosity. A mature Mandrake’s cry could kill.

Later, it became essential to make the antidote to his Transfiguration Sweets. A prank was one thing, but if you turned a student into an animal, you had to turn them back.

Otherwise, Hogwarts would be full of birds and beasts wandering the corridors.

“Excellent. Ravenclaw, ten points.”

Professor Sprout asked next about Mandrake dangers. When she received a correct answer, she awarded Hufflepuff ten points as well. She clapped her hands.

“Good. Everyone take a pair of earmuffs.”

The moment she spoke, the students hurried to the bench where the earmuffs were laid out.

No one dared to be slow.

After all, nobody wanted to be the last one standing with the pink pair.