Chapter 187: Chap.184 - Stuck

On Sunday morning, Rigel was staring intently at his plate as he poked at a piece of pancake with his fork, he looked thoughtful, his brow slightly furrowed.

Around him, life at Hogwarts continued, most had even forgotten about Rigel. Even a rumor like Rigel being the son of Death Eaters, and possibly one himself, lost its meaning when you saw the person acting like a normal boy all day long.

It didn't exactly return to the starting point, but at least the staring had practically ceased to exist.

However, that wasn't what Rigel was worried about, rather, he was thinking about how to strengthen his soul from his previous experiment.

He had already picked up the Ritual books from home the previous day, even finding rituals that involved the soul, but only three of them involved something like strengthening it, even then, two of them were practically a guarantee of certain death, and the last one had extreme side effects.

He was wondering if he should practice the last one, a ritual that 'consumed' ghosts to strengthen his own, but it had a series of consequences such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, hallucinations, etc...

Even with the coffin, Rigel wasn't sure if he wanted to try. After all, the ghosts holds memories, and the coffin had no direct effect on them. So, could the coffin completely cure Rigel, or would there be lasting effects?

Sure, the chance was very low, it was more likely that Rigel would simply retain the memories without anything else, but this ritual practically screamed about merging souls to make the soul stronger. Most likely, even if Rigel managed to do this, either the new soul would be considered part of him and kept, which would be a problem, or the external soul would be directly purged.

In the end, problems and more problems.

Rigel let out a heavy sigh, it wasn't the first time he'd sighed like that, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

"Are you ok? What's wrong with you?" Hermione, sitting to his right while Neville was to his left, looked at Rigel with an expression of anguish and confusion.

Rigel lifted his head, slightly dazed, but quickly shook it and gave a wry smile. "Nothing, I was just thinking about a problem, I can't find a solution."

"A problem? About what?" Hermione asked curiously.

Rigel opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say. Should he tell her that he was trying to create an extremely powerful chimera through the Animagus ritual, but was having trouble dealing with the strengthened Animagus spirit?

Or should he say that he was studying Dark magic rituals to strengthen his soul?

Rigel slowly closed his mouth, giving Hermione an apologetic look. "Sorry, Hermione, it's a side project I'm working on. Don't worry, it's nothing dangerous, I just prefer to keep it to myself."

Hermione looked clearly annoyed, she let out a soft snort, but didn't continue, returning to eating her fruit salad.

Neville, standing beside him, glanced at Rigel. He spent more time with Rigel than Hermione did, so he knew Rigel had been even more elusive in recent days, practically disappearing early in the morning. Neville couldn't even find him in his bed!

Sure, Rigel was there, but inside the coffin, so Neville couldn't find him. He always closes the curtain, but a worried Neville opened it and saw that Rigel wasn't there. Rigel, deep in the dream, was unaware of any of this.

Rigel noticed Neville's look and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Rigel decided to stop thinking about it for now, it wouldn't lead anywhere. He was in too much of a hurry, but there was no need for such haste.

He also decided to stop trying to transform into the ultimate chimera for the time being, instead, he would focus purely on the Animagus transformation, using the transformation only with the incantation and trying to transform without the spirit, as well as researching spirit-related incantations for a while.

In any case, while he couldn't transform his anaconda into a magical creature, he would work to improve his own transmutation abilities, making the process much easier in the future.

Rigel even had the idea of attempting a partial transformation after the Animagus ritual, with the spirit already formed within him, it should be possible to use the spirit as a means for a partial transformation, right?

However, judging by his partial transformation into snake form, it would probably go wrong, his spirit wouldn't be able to adapt to the snake's senses, but if he tries hard enough, could he keep both spirits active at the same time?

That is to say, they are already active at the same time, but what he meant is to keep the two spirits parallel to each other, instead of one on top of the other.

This meant more work.

Rigel had to admit, he was more excited about it before, before the idea of using the monster vitamin, because he could only advance one step at a time.

However, now that he knew he could easily achieve an extremely powerful transformation, he felt frustrated.

It was like ordering something you really want, but it will take a month to arrive. If you hadn't ordered it, you could easily ignore it, but after ordering, the anxiety grows accordingly.

After breakfast, Dean showed up and invited them to play soccer with him and Seamus. Rigel, who was still in a daze, wanted to refuse, he wanted to go back to his room and continue studying, but to his surprise, Neville spoke up.

"We're going." Neville agreed, practically dragging the shocked Rigel along with him.

Rigel looked at Neville strangely. Is this still Neville? Is someone using Polyjuice Potion? Did Barty appear earlier because Voldemort felt too ashamed of him and wanted to get rid of him?

Neville had a serious expression, he sensed that Rigel had been very isolated these days. He thought it might be because of what had happened before, Rigel must be suffering because people were talking badly about him behind his back, right?

He just wanted to show Rigel that he still had friends.

Although Rigel was still a little confused, he didn't refuse anymore, it was only a matter of losing a few hours, it didn't make much difference.

Hermione smiled, she didn't follow suit, simply returning to her breakfast. She hoped Rigel would return to normal as well, so she supported Neville's attitude.

Later, while they were playing, Harry and Ron also appeared, joining the game, however, Rigel seemed to notice that Harry appeared to want to talk to him, although he seemed a little hesitant.

Ron, standing beside him, clearly seemed unhappy with the situation, but apparently he couldn't help but convince Harry.

It was only after the game that Harry awkwardly approached Rigel.

"Hey, Rigel, do you know who Nicholas Flamel is?" he asked.