After the meeting ended...
"Professor, they crossed the line." Harris Raymons followed behind the old man, his voice full of indignation.
"It's all right, Harris," the old man said softly. "You've dealt with Leonard William before. You should know what he's capable of."
"But Raichel is too dangerous..." Harris Raymons said worriedly.
Raichel had turned disaster into fortune in that experiment and gained the abilities of dozens of magical creatures. Combined together, those abilities made Raichel extremely troublesome to deal with.
"That is precisely why you can rest easy. Don't forget, that is Albus's territory. No matter how strong Raichel is, he still cannot compare to Albus," the old man said.
"But..." Harris Raymons frowned and was about to say more when the old man cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"If you're really worried, you can always give young Mr. William a warning," the old man said with a smile. "If he's prepared, I imagine he won't be afraid of Raichel."
"You want me to leak information?" Harris Raymons was stunned. "But I just swore an oath."
Teacher, are you messing with me?
"You can just pass the message through Sirius Black, can't you?" the old man said cheerfully.
"That works too?" Harris Raymons could not help saying. "Doing that under the witness of an oath... that doesn't seem very appropriate. And Leonard William may not believe me to begin with, let alone a wanted criminal."
"It's enough if the message reaches him. It doesn't necessarily have to be useful," the old man said with a smile. "Besides, whether Raichel can even make it to Hogwarts is still an open question."
"Professor, what do you mean by that?" Harris Raymons gave the old man a strange look. "You're not planning to step in personally, are you?"
"Of course not." The old man put on a mysterious air. "You'll understand when the time comes. This year will be the most heavily guarded Hogwarts has ever been."
"No matter how tight the defenses are, they still won't stop Raichel. He has the bloodline of a Demiguise, some degree of foresight, and the natural gift of invisibility," Harris Raymons said, shaking his head.
"But he can't avoid Dementors," the old man said.
"Dementors? Where would Dementors come from... wait..." Harris Raymons sucked in a sharp breath. "Has the Ministry gone mad?"
"I'd like to know that too." The old man shook his head. "A ridiculous blunder. Those greedy fools have no idea what rules even are."
...
Whooo...
With the sound of the whistle, the Hogwarts Express slowly pulled out of the station.
Leonard, carrying a bag on his back, walked down the corridor, occasionally looking up at the dark, cloud-covered sky.
The weather was terrible today. It looked like there would be a heavy storm, perfect conditions for Dementors to show up.
It seemed that the train being attacked by Dementors this trip was simply destined to happen. Although Leonard very much wanted to catch one and study it, Dementors were still Ministry employees, after all. They probably even had serial numbers carved on their foreheads. Taking one away casually would definitely cause trouble.
But if one happened to be accidentally killed while attacking someone else... then there ought to be a bit of experimental material left over, right?
Leonard passed one compartment after another. When he saw a hooded figure sleeping alone, he paused slightly, then pretended he had seen nothing and walked past naturally.
Remus Lupin. This year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Midgard had already told Leonard about his coming to Hogwarts to teach.
But because Leonard had given Midgard advance warning, Lupin had not had much contact with the werewolves, so there was no need to worry.
Really, Lupin ought to be thanking him. If Leonard had not warned Midgard to be careful ahead of time, someone with Lupin's abilities would probably have come into contact with a fair amount of important internal information about the werewolves.
If that had happened, he likely would not have gotten out of the werewolf side so easily and gone to a sensitive place like Hogwarts to serve as a professor.
Midgard probably would have taken him out the moment he stepped outside.
Leonard did not disturb Lupin. After all, Lupin was a werewolf, and his nose was exceptionally sharp. No matter how careful Leonard usually was, he could not guarantee that Lupin would not notice something and discover his identity.
Besides, according to the plot, Harry would probably end up in the same compartment as Lupin, and Leonard wanted some time to himself.
After searching for quite a while, Leonard finally found an empty compartment. He casually shut the door, then used a Confundus Charm to conceal it.
Once he had created an undisturbed environment, Leonard opened the utterly ordinary-looking bag he carried and pulled out an RPG.
"Ah, wrong one."
Leonard quickly stuffed the RPG back inside, rummaged around in the bag, and finally pulled out a pistol along with more than a dozen gleaming silver bullets.
This was a bag expanded with an Undetectable Extension Charm and stuffed full of weapons and ammunition. Everything inside had been provided by Lehende out of the kindness of his heart.
Once Lehende found out how absurdly useful Muggle weapons were, he went half-mad trying to acquire as much of them as possible through every channel he could.
But a wizard's friends were, at the end of the day, still just friends. Even if there were one or two wizards from Muggle families among them, they were usually from ordinary households and had nothing to do with military arms.
So Lehende had gotten some crooked ideas and "picked up" a huge amount of weapons from some unknown armory.
Just how huge a haul was it?
Leonard estimated that it was enough to have the Muggle responsible for that warehouse executed hundreds of times over.
...
After Leonard refused, Lehende took away most of the weapons, and Leonard only kept a small portion.
But even that "small portion" would have been enough to arm a small warlord squad in Africa. In his previous life, Leonard had never fought with this kind of wealth.
Still, he had not brought these weapons to Hogwarts for fun. He had come to Hogwarts to study, not to stake out a mountain and declare himself king.
The main reason he brought these weapons was to experiment with magical modifications.
For example, the infinite-ammunition idea Leonard had thought of at the beginning was actually fairly easy to achieve. After all, it only required a Doubling Charm.
Later, Leonard came up with another enhancement method, adding some extra tricks to the bullets themselves.
The dozen or so silver bullets he had taken out were examples of that.
Brass was an extremely important metal in the Muggle world. But for wizards, silver and gold were more useful.
Their magical conductivity was better than that of ordinary metals.
So Leonard had found a way to make a dozen or so silver bullets. Once he made more progress in practical ancient magic, he intended to try engraving runes on them and experiment.
Aside from those solid silver bullets, Leonard had also specially made a few hollow-tipped rounds.
Leonard picked up one bullet and gave it a gentle squeeze. The tip opened, revealing a hollow cavity. Inside sat a vivid green, vicious-looking seed covered in barbs and feelers.
This was another bullet carrying a "special little gift."