Chapter 224: A Test with Many Problems
The Cockrells are a relatively well-known family in the wizarding world of Country D. It is said that Professor Cockrell was the heir of the Cockrell family when he was young. He was deprived of his status as heir only after Grindelwald was defeated and he was imprisoned. However, his family still spent a lot of effort to get him out and gave him freedom within the restriction order.
In recent years, it was Professor Cockrell who, with his status as a senior member of the Society of Black Magic, remotely helped the gradually declining Cockrell family. Della asked Karkaroff for some information about Professor Cockrell's background.
Della also investigated the past of Lytia Abate, a, um... in general, a Death Eater who had a close relationship with Voldemort. To be honest, it was quite unexpected for her because Lytia Abate had no trace of the past at all.
It should be said that there is no shadow of Voldemort at all, no fear, no respect, let alone no nostalgia or even love.
"Have you thought about how to play?" Lytia, who was dressed eye-catchingly and heavily made up, leaned on the luxurious sofa, holding a booklet in her hand, looked up at Della and asked.
"I'll have a day to myself after the exam, Professor." Professor Cockrell arranged Della's trip to Country D very well. As soon as they arrived in Country D, the Cockrell family of Country D took Della and Lydia to the high-end hotel closest to the Ministry of Magic of Country D, and provided a list of attractions with detailed instructions from the journey to the time. Unfortunately, Della had no interest in sightseeing, as she kept thinking about Legilimency.
Lytia was ready to play. She waved her hand, summoned a feather pen, and began to write and draw on the book. "I plan to play for a few more days."
Della had long suspected that Cockrell arranged for Lytia to come and guide her just to make it easier for Lytia to go out and play, because apart from the first twelve papers, Lytia had not given her any guidance. However, this was not something worth worrying about, as Della had always been confident in the exams.
"Are there any subjects that you are not satisfied with?" Lydia looked at Della again, as if she had heard her thoughts. "I can spare a day for you."
"I'm not particularly worried," Della said at first, then she realized that she was being arrogant, so she added, "I'm just not sure about mystic divination, so I don't plan to take the exam."
"It's okay to chat for an hour. After all, you have eleven exams to take - I think you can get Os in all of them," Lydia flipped a page of the booklet lightly, "and just chatting for an hour may help you get all the grades, which will only be better for you."
Take one more step and reach one level further.
Della liked the meaning behind Lytia's words, so she agreed, "I understand, Professor. I will go and chat after I dress up properly."
"Oh," Lytia laughed twice, "You are finally getting on the right track."
Just like that, while Lytia was enjoying her paid vacation, Della was rushing around taking one test after another. She wasn't that tired, but she was a little numb from taking the tests.
It was just a formal place to verify the knowledge she possessed. At present, Della did not need this kind of official examination to prove her ability, but since her professor asked her to do so, she could only take some time to do it well.
Everything went smoothly until the seventh day, but Della suffered a small setback during the Transfiguration exam.
It wasn't that the Transfiguration level test was difficult, but that there was a problem with Della's wand. The dragon nerve inside was exposed. She discovered this before casting the spell, and because she knew how uncontrollable an unstable wand would be, she could only barely use wandless magic to deal with the test, putting the originally certain O at risk of being downgraded to E.
But the reason the wand had problems was that Della had tampered with it on her own during the Christmas holidays.
There were a lot of materials left over from Sadolin's body transformation. Della, who was good at hands-on work and had a spirit of curiosity, added a small piece of basilisk nerve to her cherry wood and dragon nerve wand. The wand, which originally felt mediocre, immediately became easier to use. However, something went wrong during the exam.
And her exams for today are far from over. She has four advanced level exams scheduled for today. In the morning, they are Transfiguration and Arithmancy, and in the afternoon, they are Black Magic Studies and Occult Divination.
As for the dark magic, it's not that you can't do it without a wand, but without a wand to guide it, there will always be some risk of it being out of control, and uncontrolled dark magic can have a considerable range of damage.
For the sake of her own safety and that of the invigilator, Della handed in her Arithmancy paper early and borrowed a vacant meeting room in the Ministry of Magic to repair her wand on the spot.
Della had not systematically learned the knowledge of making magic wands. She only roughly read one or two related books, but she extracted what she thought was the key concept from them - the channel, which could allow the wizard's scattered magic power to gather and release it through a single path.
Does it sound familiar? Della did something similar when she made the doll, and it was even more complicated because she was striving for perfection at the time, and the passages in the doll were interconnected.
At that time, with the mentality that she could replace a wand at will even if it cost 700 Galleons, Della did not hesitate to create an extra basilisk nerve pathway in her wand, and the power of the wand directly increased by a level.
And this time the dragon nerve was exposed...ah, after taking apart the wand, Della discovered that the two nerves that were originally only slightly touching had been tightly entangled together unknowingly, and the exposed dragon nerve was the excess part that was squeezed out.
The two passages merged into one and became one passage?
Obviously this process did not happen all at once, but Della did not feel anything unusual when she used the wand before, except that she felt more comfortable with it.
Ok……
After removing the excess dragon nerves and preparing to assemble the wand, Della had some other inspiration. She carefully cut off a small piece of the two entangled nerves, cast a protective spell with her bare hands, and put it in her pocket.
The lunch hour passed while she was repairing her wand. Della only had time to take two bites of bread before she hurried to the examination room for the Advanced Dark Magic Studies course to take both written and practical exams.
The written exam was normal in format, consisting of some standard principle-based questions. The practical exam was more interesting, requiring one to use a killing curse to make half of the flowers wither, and one had three chances to do so.
Della achieved her goal the second time. The bearded teacher in charge of the exam was amazed at her perfect flower that was precisely half withered, and said on the spot that even if Della got a zero in the theoretical exam, she would still get an O in this course.
In response to the excessive compliments from a stranger in such a solitary environment, Della usually behaved modestly and politely. She chatted with him for a while longer without noticing, and finally trotted to the examination room for advanced mystic divination.
The day before yesterday, the elementary divination test was tea stain divination. Della pointed at the strange black shadow at the bottom of the cup and predicted that the pale-skinned male examiner wearing thick-bottomed glasses would encounter a water disaster in the coming week. The Muggle weather forecast said that there would be heavy rain in the next seven days. Della hoped that the male examiner would get caught in the rain at least once, so that maybe she could get an O for free.
Today's test was about crystal ball divination. Della had never seen anything other than a blurry reflection in the prophetic crystal ball, but one thing was certain - she would blame the water disaster on herself this time.
Della, who had prepared a draft of her future in her mind long ago, sat down under the gaze of the female professor with strange oil paint on her face. She looked calmly at the crystal ball dragged on the pillow, but the moment her eyes looked over, she felt a suction she had never felt before.
Someone's fate came to Della.