Hogwarts: Even Voldemort Can't Stop Me From Studying

Chapter 1049: Chapter 136: Monsters and Madmen

”Experiment?” James froze for a moment, then burst into rage: ”You’re using my mother for experiments?!”

”What do you know!”

His sister Victoria slammed down her wine glass, the glass clashing with the table with a piercing sound.

Victoria rose abruptly, her face flushed unnaturally, and said angrily: ”Mother volunteered! And father, and I! We all volunteered!”

James said incredulously, raising his voice: ”You say mother volunteered, why didn’t I know? Why has no one ever told me?!”

”Haha, who doesn’t crave immortality, eternal youth? Only a fool like you would turn a blind eye to the truth of the world!”

Victoria’s chest heaved rapidly, her eyes looking down on her brother with disdain, and she said:

”James, if you weren’t so naïve, fragile, indulgent, and irresponsible... you would have joined our plan a long time ago!”

”Mother has spoiled you rotten! You hide under our wings, enjoy the best resources, yet you refuse to take any responsibility!”

”Do you think maintaining this family, maintaining everything we have now, is easy?”

Victoria became so agitated that she almost jabbed her finger in James’s nose, shouting with long-suppressed resentment:

”Father is almost eighty and still works late into the night every day! Jonathan and I work overtime every day, breaking our backs dealing with those adversaries eyeing us!”

”And you? You just paint as you please, drink heavily, indulge yourself, and fool around with unknown women! Yet you have the nerve to boast in front of us!”

She almost roared, letting out the most crucial secret:

”Precisely because you’re so stupid and incompetent that father can’t afford to grow old or weak, so we keep supporting the Prometheus plan!”

”Victoria!” Her husband Jonathan shouted sternly to stop her, but it was too late.

James was reprimanded until his face was pale, his expression wandering, speechless for a moment.

However, Elana, Victoria’s daughter, who had been coldly watching, calmly asked:

”Prometheus? What’s that? The god who stole fire from the heavens in mythology?”

Her gaze swept over her family: ”Grandfather, mom, dad, what on earth... are you hiding from us?”

Seeing his daughter question, Jonathan’s gaze softened a bit. He took a deep breath and said:

”It’s a project from the pharmaceutical research lab, aiming to break the human lifespan limit, a very grand scientific concept.”

Elana gave a cold laugh, crossed her arms, and looked directly at her father, uttering a cold verdict:

”Liar!”

Jonathan’s face stiffened.

At this moment, Richard spoke: ”Since you all want to know so much, I’ll tell you the truth...”

His voice carried a strange, dreamy ambiguity.

Upon hearing this, James and Elana both immediately looked over, even Sophie, who had been trying to remain inconspicuous, lifted her head.

”Father!” A warning alarm blared in Jonathan’s mind, and he hurriedly spoke to stop him.

But Richard raised his hand, using an indisputable gesture to silence him, and said slowly:

”No, Jonathan, it’s time they knew... the great enterprise we strive for! You are all Harringtons, the ones who will inherit my endeavors, you can’t always remain ignorant of this.”

Jonathan’s lips moved, feeling that he made sense, but deep inside, a stronger intuition screamed, warning him not to let the old man continue at such a moment!

Yet, years of obedience and awe, and the fact he only married the man’s daughter, prevented him from speaking.

An impulse suddenly surged in Jonathan’s heart—he wanted to pick up the ashtray on the table and smash it onto that domineering and willful old man’s head!

The man pinched his palm harshly, using the pain to suppress the sudden dangerous urge in his heart.

Richard looked as if he had switched on something, as words flowed uncontrollably:

”Children, do you know? In this world... magic really exists! Wizards are real! Those legendary things... the Philosopher’s Stone is real too!”

”But fate, fate hasn’t favored us. In my veins doesn’t flow the blood of a wizard. My children, nor do you... ”

With reluctance and resentment, his voice suddenly escalated:

”That’s why we need the Prometheus Plan! Magic, immortality, transcending mortal limits... this is the real power... we must seize it!”

Richard spoke with a somewhat unclear tone, his gaze filled with recollection, somewhat unfocused. At this moment, his appearance still seemed young, but completely like a seventy or eighty-year-old elderly.

He began from his childhood, when he first witnessed the powers of a wizard.

”Back then I was a little boy, the SS had taken my parents, and I hid behind a stone, witnessing it all...”

He trembled slightly, as if still immersed in the terror of that time, then was instead replaced by a strange excitement:

”Then... a wizard appeared. He just appeared out of nowhere, then just waved a little wooden stick in his hand, and everything burned... Later I found out that what he held was a magic wand...”

He described how that little boy grew up through hardships, helped by many, yet betrayed those who helped him for survival and interests, ultimately seizing opportunities to grow from a wanderer to a cold predator.

”Then those people found me,” Richard chuckled: ”They claimed a plan passed down for hundreds of years—a new plan to steal the fire of heaven, inviting me to join. We had a common goal...”

”Of course, I funded, as allies, they provided us a lot of help. Why do you think the family business developed so rapidly? It’s because many resources and information only circulated within our alliance!”

”We funded research, captured those creatures, analyzed their powers... In recent years, we even began truly mastering the power of time! Very soon, very soon we can...”

”Capture? Creatures?”

Sophie’s face became pale, linking with the previous ”experiment,” she instantly made some horrific connections, suddenly feeling nauseous.

She covered her mouth, murmuring softly: ”Oh God... what have you all done?”

James felt his world crumbling, he straightforwardly asked: ”Are you doing human experiments? Using those... those wizards?”

Speaking of wizards, he felt utterly ridiculous. He didn’t want to believe, yet he didn’t dare not to.

”What human experiments!” Richard angrily rebuked, his face full of reason: ”Those creatures may look like humans, but they are entirely different species from us!”

Victoria nodded: ”Pig and human genetic similarity is as high as ninety percent! Do you consider pigs your kin?”

After saying this, she seemed to find her metaphor clever, and even let out a laugh.

James trembled violently: ”So... so you really did it?”

He looked at his father, then at his sister, who seemed indifferent to such matters, and his brother-in-law Jonathan, whose expression was blank, consenting to everything.

Immense coldness swept through him, pointing at those he considered family, his voice changed due to fear and anger:

”You maniacs! You’re the real monsters!”