Chapter 66 Chapter 66
As expected, Evan was busy all summer.
On his first day back, he woke up at four in the morning. The house-elf hurried to Evan's house, as in the past at Hogwarts or at the Malfoy Manor, and began to do the household chores.
Mrs. Mason wakes up early to go to work and prepare breakfast. When she got up, the trash was already taken out, the floors, windows, furniture were all clean, even the lawn was neatly trimmed.
It was astonishing; he hurried to Evan's room and asked what was happening.
After discovering what was going on, Evan had to tell his mother it was magic.
It took him some time to convince her, but in the end, she still didn't fully believe him. She knew her son too well, she knew he wouldn't do household chores without being asked, especially early in the morning.
Seeing his mother's suspicious look made Evan smile bitterly.
When she left his room, he called Dobby and told him not to do it again, but it seems Dobby misunderstood.
Dobby's two huge eyes looked pitiful. In the end, Evan had to reassure Dobby.
Evan is trying to persuade a house-elf to reduce his workload; he is asking for failure.
Fortunately, the work at the newspaper is plentiful; otherwise, he wouldn't know how to deal with a work-addicted house-elf.
Surprisingly, the newspaper didn't sell less in the summer than at school.
Even without images and Lockhart's novels, the 'Me and the Basilisk' that Evan wrote aroused great interest.
In addition to young wizards, many adult wizards subscribed to the newspaper. At first, they wanted to know about the Chamber of Secrets and the basilisk, but then they were drawn to the rest of the newspaper that most people found interesting.
This is mainly because Nearly Headless Nick and all the ghosts help throughout the United Kingdom; they are the main news source for the newspaper. Since they don't sleep at night, they can give Evan many interesting stories and mysteries.
In the following days, the success of the newspaper caused a large number of owls to fly to his home, which frightened Mrs. Mason. To not scare her to death, Evan changed his address to Hogwarts and arranged for her to only receive his mail after it had accumulated for a whole day.
Due to the enthusiasm of the readers and the ghosts, the editing and manuscript auditing work became increasingly heavy.
The Weasley family were going to help, but they had won the Annual Galleon Prize from the Daily Prophet and had gone on a trip to Egypt in the first two weeks of summer vacation. They were visiting their eldest son Bill and waiting for summer to come to an end.
Hermione followed her parents to France; although none of her articles were short, the rest of the work was left in Evan's hands.
Harry and Colin came to help him a few times, but it wasn't very useful.
They tended to talk about Quidditch, summer jobs, or Sirius Black's escape. They only visited Evan during the first few days of summer.
Shortly after, Colin went to his home in the countryside with his father and brother for the summer.
Harry was in a lot of trouble since Ron called the Dursleys on the fifth day of summer vacation; Harry had been confined and kept in his room.
Evan visited the house personally, but they didn't let him in.
Just as Evan was about to rescue Harry, Harry managed to have Hedwig send him a letter. Harry told him he had to be kind to them so they would sign a permission form to visit Hogsmeade.
Since then, Evan sent food to Harry so that the Dursleys would not let him starve to death.
Although there are many manuscripts to be edited, Evan could manage the workload by himself for now.
In his spare time,
A wand is needed to cast a spell to defend oneself against curses; for now, he could not practice it, so after learning the spell theory, Evan's focus shifted to Occlumency and potions.
Occlumency seals off the mind from intrusion, preventing people from accessing thoughts or influencing them.
The trick to casting this spell is to empty the mind so that no one can extract memories from it through magic. Skilled users like Snape can even fabricate a false memory to deceive others.
Evan couldn't do that; in fact, he struggled to start, finding it difficult to clear his mind.
There were always strange ideas in his head, or he unconsciously started studying a magical problem. After trying for a while, he had to make Occlumency practice a long-term goal, hoping to master it before the school year began.
In addition to Occlumency and curse protection, Evan's potion was not what he originally thought. This potion does not help a wizard permanently increase their magical power but significantly boosts it for a period.
Evan thought it was a waste of a potion that would help him improve his endurance in battle.
After finishing all the magic books he had bought, he finally decided to use it to aid him in becoming an Animagus.
An Animagus is a complex Transfiguration spell that can turn a wizard into an animal, and for most wizards, even adult wizards, this spell is extremely intricate and dangerous, let alone for a wizard barely twelve years old like Evan.
Becoming an Animagus can easily lead the practitioner to distraction due to various reasons, which can cause the transformation to fail or even death.
As a result, the Ministry of Magic requires all Animagi to register with the Ministry of Magic. But throughout the twentieth century, only seven people have registered.
Of course, these are not all Animagi.
Evan knew many Animagi, such as Peter Pettigrew, who had been lurking around him, and Sirius Black, who was about to make his debut. All of them were Animagi during their school years, and with that in mind, Evan, with the potion to assist him, decided to complete his Animagus form this summer.
He carefully studied Transfiguration theory to have a solid foundation but also needed a lot of magical support.
Theoretical knowledge was not an issue; when Evan had the diary, he consulted Tom about Animagus transformations and received a lot of help from it. Voldemort might not be a good character, but his magical knowledge can be comparable to Dumbledore's.
The problem in the first transformation process requires consuming a lot of magical energy to turn people into animals. When an adult wizard tries, they succeed only one out of five times, which is why most witches and wizards fail to complete the transformation process.
Many magical potions are usually purchased for practice.
Although the price of these potions is high, their effects are unparalleled.
Therefore, with the help of these potions, he would have no trouble transforming and becoming an Animagus.
He practiced many times and gradually mastered the techniques, and after a month of preparations and at the beginning of the fifth week of summer vacation, Evan locked himself in his room to prepare for his first attempt to become an Animagus. During this process, he did not allow anyone to enter his room without his consent.