Chapter 179: Chap.176 - The power of the Animagus

Calypso was a little confused by what Rigel meant at that moment, to her, the beetle seemed purely like that, a beetle, and that was easy to understand.

However bad the effects of the Animagus form were, only allowing transformation into an ordinary animal, the fact is that there were great advantages in other aspects, for example, concealment, or rather, the ability to transform perfectly.

The transformation was so perfect that it left no magical trace, even if there were one, it would be incredibly difficult to detect. Even creatures like Dementors could ignore the existence of the transformed Animagus, suggesting that the change reached the level of the soul.

Peter spent years in rat form following Ron around, the rat itself had been Percy’s pet before Ron, yet Dumbledore never noticed anything amiss.

The only artifact that ever ‘noticed’ something wrong was the Marauder’s Map, that is, if you considered that the map could point to Peter as himself. Personally, Rigel believed there were two likely possibilities for this, first, as members of the Marauders, the “boys'” Animagus forms were recorded on the map by themselves, thus Peter would appear on the map even transformed into a rat.

The second theory was that the map connected to Hogwarts, and Hogwarts was able to determine that the rat was Peter. That castle held many mysteries surrounding it, how it could judge who was who was difficult for Rigel to understand. Could it be something like the Sorting Hat? Possessing a certain level of mental magic that could tell who was who through a person’s own consciousness? Could it be like the quill that was responsible for discovering little wizards in British territory? It was hard to say.

Rigel doubted that the quill was connected to any kind of public ministry registry, or it wouldn’t be able to identify Muggle-born wizards, so how did the quill write a name? Did a wizard’s name have enough power to be magical in itself? Or did it depend on the wizard’s own consciousness?

For example, if someone’s real name was James Fawley, but he had lost his parents and been raised in an orphanage under the name Ryan Hills, what name would the pen write?

Rigel believed it was based on the wizard’s own subconscious, something the wizard considered to be his name, so Ryan Hills would be a more likely option, however, there was no way to know for sure.

If that were really the case, a child who awakened his magic and was raised like Tarzan, alongside wild animals, without ever receiving a proper name, what would the quill do? Would there be some kind of bug? Would the quill write nothing, or would it simply write some onomatopoeia for the way the wild animals addressed the young wizard?

Knowing that the wild animals of this world could communicate, having discovered this by talking to snakes, Rigel had no doubt that the second option was quite possible.

It’s a really interesting topic, but in the end, it didn’t matter much at that moment.

The important thing was that even with Rita in front of Calypso, the witch/goddess couldn’t sense anything wrong, to her, that beetle was just that, a beetle.

So Calypso stared at the beetle for a few more moments, then looked at Rigel, then at the beetle, then at Rigel…

Rigel rolled his eyes and said; “Remember what I told you about a certain reporter?”

Calypso’s eyes widened, this time, her gaze at the beetle was much sharper. She immediately put the potion aside, turning off the heat without worrying about wasting the ingredients, and walked around the table, approaching the beetle with curiosity.

“Is it an Animagus?” She picked up the jar and looked closer, curiosity slowly giving way to a cold malice. Rita, in Beetle form, stayed as far away from Calypso’s face as possible upon seeing this, she was terrified at that moment.

“Ah, that little brat who talks too much, you really made a great discovery this time, Rigel, how did you catch her?” Calypso asked, looking at Rigel, her malice giving way to curiosity once more.

“Good luck.” Rigel smiled brightly.

“Luck?” Calypso raised an eyebrow, and Rigel shrugged, explaining how he saw a beetle following the minister at the Three Broomsticks and thought it might be her.

“Well, how do you know it’s her?” Calypso asked, confused, turning her gaze back to the glass jar. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see anything different about the beetle.

If she still possessed her divine power, she might be able to find something, but purely through her magic, she couldn’t sense anything.

Rigel wouldn’t show Felix Felicis to Calypso, not because he distrusted her and didn’t want to share it, but because he had no way to explain it. He could say he found it in the castle, but he would continue taking random things in the future, could he continue saying he collected them haphazardly?

Calypso wasn’t that stupid, since he didn’t want to deign to lie, he simply shrugged and offered a more plausible explanation. “A beetle flying perfectly behind the Minister? Even more so, a beetle flying so calmly in winter?”

Calypso’s eyes gleamed, yes, it was already extremely cold, yet instead of digging a hole to hide, this beetle was actually flying calmly around? And following the minister, no less? Calypso was already certain it was her.

Rita, who was being watched, couldn’t quite understand what Calypso and Rigel were saying, the glass isolated most of the sound, but that didn’t stop the growing fear inside her.

She couldn’t understand why she’d been captured. Was Rigel some kind of insect collector? Seeing that cauldron of potion, she became even more afraid. Would they treat her like a real beetle? Like a potion ingredient?

Rita was completely terrified this time, but she was soon surprised that the boy had actually opened the lid. Without thinking twice, she took flight and frantically tried to fly away.

However, in the next moment, Rita realized with shock that her body had begun to transform back into human form!

Before Rita could understand what was happening, she fell to the ground with a thud, a cry of pain escaped her lips, she hit her head as she fell, leaving her disoriented, when she finally managed to realize what was happening, she saw Rigel and Calypso pointing their wands at her with cold faces.

Rita’s lips trembled with fear, her eyes widened, she crawled across the floor trying to get away from them, but soon she felt her body become completely frozen.

It was Rigel who directly petrified her.

Rigel had a ‘happy’ smile as he bent down to look at her, if Rita had been able to move, she would have wet herself from fear by then.

“What do we do with her, darling?” Calypso asked curiously, her smile as ‘gentle’ as Rigel’s.

Rigel’s smile slowly faded, giving way to a cold expression with eyes like a sinister abyss. This only increased Rita’s fear, she was already crying inside. How on earth had she gotten herself into this situation?!