"Cool! Look at that!"
Charlie Weasley was pointing his wand, his face flushed with exertion, at his puppet.
Guided by his magic, the puppet's stiff fingers suddenly spread open, and the runes at its fingertips flashed with light.
Whoosh!
Several lifelike fire serpents surged from the fingertips, spiraling and dancing in the air. Although they weren't particularly powerful, they were controlled with exquisite precision.
The young wizards watched this scene with excitement, letting out gasps of amazement.
"A very creative idea, and the power of the runes is quite stable." William nodded approvingly. "Five points to Gryffindor."
As the students left the classroom in twos and threes, excitedly discussing what cool functions to add to their own puppets as they walked, William also tossed his textbook to his puppet, preparing to head back.
Seeing that most of the students had gone, Tonks, who had been deliberately dawdling at the very back, finally approached with a blushing face, fidgeting awkwardly.
"Professor... I'm sorry." Tonks hung her head, staring at her toes. "I shouldn't have forgotten to ask for leave before going to training. It was my negligence."
Looking at the dejected brown head before him, William had already made up his mind.
In fact, at Hogwarts, skipping class without reason—especially a core subject like Defense Against the Dark Arts—was considered a relatively serious disciplinary offense.
However, considering Professor Sprout's earlier plea for leniency and the excellent O.W.L. results he had seen in Tonks' file, William decided to let her off the hook this once.
"Just this once, Miss Tonks," William said gently. "Since you want to be an Auror, discipline comes first. Go on now, don't get caught by Filch before curfew."
"Thank you, Professor!" Tonks felt as if she had been granted amnesty. Dragging her alchemical puppet along, she fled the classroom as if escaping for her life.
Back in the warm and cozy Hufflepuff common room, Tonks dropped her puppet on the floor and collapsed into a soft armchair.
She didn't feel relieved at being forgiven; instead, the more she thought about it, the more depressed she became.
Looking back on the day, it had been disastrous: mistaking the new professor for an older student, forgetting her schedule and getting lost, being scolded by Professor Sprout for acting without thinking, and getting chewed out by Mad-Eye Moody during the day...
"Stealth! Stealth! You call that stealth? You charged into a china shop like a rhino!" Every time Tonks closed her eyes, Moody's ferocious face appeared in her mind.
Meanwhile, curious little badgers occasionally passed by, crowding around the humanoid puppet standing like a bodyguard beside Tonks and asking questions with great interest.
Facing the inquiries from her juniors, Tonks, preoccupied with her thoughts, could only perfunctorily mutter "mhm" and "aha."
Late at night, the common room gradually emptied, leaving only the occasional crack of firewood bursting in the fireplace.
Tonks sighed and was about to get up to go to her dormitory when her gaze inadvertently swept over the silent alchemical puppet beside her. Suddenly, a light bulb seemed to switch on in her mind.
"Wait..."
She sat up abruptly.
Since the alchemical puppet could move autonomously, launch attacks, and even breathe fire like the one Charlie made... then why did the wizard have to risk sneaking around personally?
"If I let the puppet carry out the raid instead of the wizard..." Tonks' eyes grew brighter and brighter. "It doesn't breathe, has no heartbeat, and won't kick over flowerpots because of nervousness."
"It won't cause casualties on our side anyway. If it successfully assassinates the target, great; even if it fails, the worst case is losing a puppet. I won't even risk exposure!"
"This is the perfect stealth plan!"
Thinking of this, Tonks' drowsiness vanished completely. She had always been a witch of strong execution.
Confirming no one was around, she drew her wand and gestured at the puppet's chest.
"Professor Shafiq said runic circuits are the key..."
She didn't have a file, so she simply used the tip of her wand, carefully outputting magic to carve runic circuits onto the puppet's surface.
She chose a runic circuit representing "Explosion."
Half an hour later, Tonks straightened up with satisfaction, wiping sweat from her forehead. Looking at the crooked but barely recognizable circuit on the puppet's chest, she felt it wasn't bad.
To carve it like this on the first try was already impressive.
To test the effect, she waved her wand, moving all the tables, chairs, and decorations near the opposite wall aside to clear a large open space.
Then, she transfigured a wooden chair meant for resting into a wooden dummy with simple limbs, standing it in the corner as the "Dark Wizard" for this afternoon's test.
"Target acquired."
Tonks took a deep breath and retreated behind the wall on the other side, peeking out with only half her head.
"Listen, big guy. Sneak over there, and then—boom!"
She whispered instructions to the puppet.
Under her control, the alchemical puppet moved with slightly stiff steps. Surprisingly, it made almost no sound as it approached the wooden dummy step by step.
Tonks' heart was in her throat. She remembered William's warning in class: "Runic effects are crude; do not inject too much magic."
"Don't worry, Professor, I value my life," Tonks muttered to herself. "I only injected a tiny bit of magic. At most, it'll have the effect of a large firecracker."
She was confident. With her current magical level, even if she blew the dummy to pieces or scorched the floor, a simple Reparo would fix everything.
Tomorrow, she would take this great invention to show Moody and tell that crazy old man what new-era Auror tactics looked like.
You're behind the times, old man. The wizarding world needs bolder young people to push it forward.
The puppet finally reached the wooden dummy.
Tonks gripped her wand tightly, eyes shining with anticipation, and activated the explosive rune.
"Blast it!"
Guided by her magic, the rough explosion rune on the puppet's chest suddenly lit up.
A blinding red light flashed, followed instantly by a heart-palpitating fluctuation of energy.
This would be the last time Tonks underestimated the power of ancient magic.
Tonight, Hogwarts was as peaceful as usual. The night breeze brushed gently over the spires of the towers, and the surface of the Black Lake shimmered with ripples of light.
Young wizards lay in their warm four-poster beds, indulging in various bedtime fantasies. Some imagined catching the Golden Snitch, others getting straight 'O's on their O.W.L.s, and still others imagined themselves under the mistletoe...
Just as these fantasies were gradually turning into deep dreams within their blurring consciousness, in a boys' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower, Lee Jordan suddenly sprang up from his bed as if electrocuted.
"What happened? Did the ground just shake?" He rubbed his eyes groggily, looking around.
In the next bed, George Weasley rolled over, pulling the quilt over his head, and mumbled, "Probably a minor earthquake... or Peeves knocked over the Vanishing Cabinet."
"Don't make a fuss, Lee," Fred chimed in with his eyes closed, his voice thick with sleep. "This castle is a thousand years old; it's sturdy enough not to collapse. Go back to sleep."
The situation in Ravenclaw Tower was similar. Although the young eagles keenly felt an unnatural tremor, after pricking up their ears and hearing no follow-up noise, they rationally judged the threat level as "low," turned over, and went back to sleep.
But human joys and sorrows are not interlinked, and the same applies to young wizards in the same school.
For example, the students of Hufflepuff and Slytherin, whose dormitories were located underground, did not think so at this moment.