Chapter 151: gatron Vs. All (Bonus)
(300 PS bonus)
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After kicking Gryffindor off the pitch, the Slytherin team was riding high.
They soared through the air on brand-new Nimbus brooms, pulling off flashy stunts as a warm-up before getting into their real training.
And Slytherin’s warm-up was just the beginning—because their next training was sothing no other house would dare to do: full-contact combat.
Except for Malfoy, every Slytherin player was big and broad-shouldered, so Tom had given them a little suggestion.
"You know Mamba ntality? Use those big arms, those elbows—make them afraid of you. Break their will. Destroy them! Go! Go! Go!"
That one sentence was like unlocking a whole new skill tree for Flint. Elbows were perfect—small movents, hard to spot, but if you caught one, you’d be sore for ages.
From that day on, Flint had a lot more respect for Tom, even invited him to join the Quidditch team. But Tom turned him down flat.
Quidditch was boring, and it ate up too much ti. He’d rather spend it telling Daphne the next part of his story.
They were on Kung Fu Panda now. And honestly, sharing these stories made Tom want to start his own magical animation studio—not to make money, but just to bring movies like this back to life.
...
Next, Tom took the girls and left the Quidditch pitch.
They wandered to a wide clearing on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hermione, curious as always, asked, "Yesterday you said you had sothing new to show us. Can we see it now?"
She’d been wondering all night. He’d said it couldn’t be used in the Room of Requirent, that it had to be outdoors, and—mysteriously—that it might make them cry.
Daphne and Astoria were both looking at him expectantly.
"Prepare to be amazed," Tom said smugly, folding his arms. "This is my masterpiece from the whole holiday. I guarantee you’ll love it."
"Isn’t your ’masterpiece’ supposed to be that notebook?" Daphne tilted her head.
Tom waved her off. "The notebook is just work. This—this is life. Watch closely."
From the seemingly bottomless pockets of his robe, he pulled out a box made of dragonhide and dragonbone. The girls leaned in as he flipped it open.
"Is that... a fighter jet?" Hermione blurted out before Daphne and Astoria had finished puzzling over it.
"Ohhh," Astoria said, realization dawning. "No wonder this toy looks like the Muggle planes I’ve seen—only prettier."
"And?" Hermione pressed. "Your big project isn’t just a model, is it?"
Tom tossed the model into the air. Halfway up, it began to grow, until it was about a third the size of a real fighter jet.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
Before their stunned eyes, the jet went through a complex series of transformations, parts folding and shifting until a towering tal figure—nearly two ters tall—slamd into the ground, sending up a spray of dust.
"Opt... Optimus Pri?" Hermione stamred, finally realizing what Tom had made. He’d built a Transforr?
But Tom looked mildly offended. "Optimus Pri? Please. This is gatron—Optimus’s arch-nesis."
Hermione just stared. Honestly, to her they all looked like giant walking tin boxes.
"gatron? My gatron?!"
Hermione: "..."
The girls turned to see a group of students hurrying over. The fastest among them was Justin Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff—who just shouted.
Justin circled gatron several tis in awe, running a hand over the cold, solid tal.
"This is insane—it’s so much better than the toys in the shops! Riddle, I saw him transform in mid-air just now. Did you really make this?"
"Yup. And the transformation chanism was a nightmare to get right. Took
half a month to figure it out," Tom said, pleased that soone appreciated his art.
More and more Muggle-born students gathered, buzzing with excitent. The pure-bloods looked confused—until Tom transford it again, and even they started to see the appeal.
"Riddle, what else can gatron do besides transform?" a Ravenclaw asked, eyeing the intricate magical runes etched into its plating.
"Transforrs are made for battle," Tom said. He tapped his wand against gatron’s head, and two golden lights flared to life in its hollow eyes, making several students jump back.
"Alright, everyone—if you want to watch, stand well back. Don’t get in the way of our training."
The crowd obediently stepped back. Tom pulled Astoria to a safe distance, leaving Hermione and Daphne standing awkwardly in the open.
"Hermione, Daphne—attack him with spells. That’ll activate gatron. He’s on the lowest safety setting, but he will fight back. If you can’t keep up, just drop your wand. He’ll recognize it as surrender and stop."
"Got it?"
"Got it!" they said together.
"Flipendo."
Hermione raised her wand and fired a Knockback Jinx.
gatron instantly raised both arms to block before charging straight at them.
"Split up!" Hermione yelled, darting left while Daphne ran the other way.
The spectators leaned forward, wondering which girl gatron would target.
He chose Hermione, chasing after her while flinging a Knockback Jinx at Daphne with his free hand.
Luckily, Daphne had spent a year under Tom’s training—throwing up a Shield Charm was second nature. The jinx hit her barrier and rippled harmlessly away.
"He can cast spells?" Hermione gasped. She’d fought plenty of enchanted dummies in the Room of Requirent—stationary targets, armored knights with swords—but never one that could actually duel like a wizard.
"Expelliarmus!" she cast a Disarming Charm, half hoping a wand would fly out of gatron’s chest.
But the tal giant was more agile than he looked, twisting aside to let the scarlet beam flash past.
"Daphne, stop standing there!" Hermione called as she flung another string of spells. But gatron either dodged them or absorbed them with his armor, and the gap between them was closing fast.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daphne just... watching. Like she was part of the audience now. Hermione’s heart sank.
Co on, princess, rember whose side you’re on—you’re not here to watch.
"Huh? Oh—right!"
Snapping out of her daze, Daphne finally whipped out her wand and fired an Impedint Jinx, slowing the golem’s advance.
With numbers on their side, Hermione kept gatron’s attention while Daphne, now focused, cast spell after spell—only occasionally having to block a counterattack.
They’d already figured out the pattern: gatron seed to have a cooldown on his magic. He never fired off two spells in rapid succession.
Unfortunately, his defenses were another matter entirely—utterly unbreakable.
Hermione even tried a Transfiguration spell to alter his armor, but a built-in anti-transfiguration enchantnt shut her down cold.
More and more students gathered to watch. Hagrid, who had been weeding slugs out of the vegetable patch, assud so kids were sneaking into the Forbidden Forest. He dropped the bucket of slugs and hurried over. Thanks to his towering height, he could see everything even from the back of the crowd.
One look, and he was hooked—so much so that he didn’t notice the slugs wriggling out of the bucket and returning to devastate his garden.
"Tom, you’re not trying to wear us down to exhaustion, are you?" Daphne called over her shoulder, starting to look bored.
"Guess we’ll just have to turn it up a notch."
Tom smiled, sending a beam of light straight into gatron. The golem froze for a split second; then the golden light in its eyes shifted to an ominous red.
Both of gatron’s arms ca up, and after a brief charge—two spells blasted out at once.
CRACK! CRACK!
The Shield Charms on both witches shattered. Before, gatron had needed three or four spells to break Daphne’s shield; now the power was on a whole other level.
Tom’s voice drifted lazily into their ears. "The earlier mode was the lowest energy setting. Every spell was triggered by absorbing stray magic from you two. Now it’s on normal mode. Be careful."
"That is so cool—it’s just like the real gatron!" Justin Finch-Fletchley yelled. A bunch of Muggle-borns nodded enthusiastically.
After all, these were peak years for sci-fi films, and gatron’s futuristic design and attacks made them forget they were in the middle of the wizarding world.
"Riddle, does gatron have any other modes besides those two?" a curious Ravenclaw called out.
Tom’s grin widened. "There’s also Elite Mode and War Mode. Each jump is... significant."
When he told Hermione this was his magnum opus, he wasn’t exaggerating. "Budget cuts" might apply to his other projects, but for gatron, he’d gone all in—no corners cut, no expenses spared.
gatron could absorb ambient magical energy from young wizards just like Hogwarts Castle or Nicolas Flal’s manor, store magic in a Philosopher’s Stone (empty core), and its armor—mithril mixed with magically black steel—was covered in defensive and offensive runes. Over ninety percent of its body was forged from self-repairing tal.
When Flal saw the material list, he’d stared at it for a long mont, genuinely wondering if Dumbledore had sent Tom to financially ruin him.
If they made a few hundred of these things, Flal would be bankrupt. The only part that really impressed him was the transformation feature; the rest was just high-level craftsmanship—proof of Tom’s skill.
Back on the field, Hermione and Daphne were barely holding on. In normal mode, gatron moved faster, drawing on its own magic to cast spells. The repertoire escalated from Knockbacks and Stunners to Blasting Curses, Firestorms, and General Counter-Spells.
One Counter-Spell broke through Hermione’s hastily raised shield, and the flas that followed nearly singed her hair. She stumbled back, heart pounding, and dropped her wand.
Sure enough, gatron imdiately switched targets to Daphne.
Daphne’s transfiguration was sharper than Hermione’s, and she had a lot more magic. She conjured thick earthen walls, which gatron’s spells blasted into cratered ruins. She kept repairing them—until the golem simply charged and smashed the whole thing apart with its fists.
She froze for half a heartbeat—then tossed her wand aside with a loud, dramatic, "I’m done! Tom, you cheat! No wizard fights with their fists! That’s bullying!"
"Pffft—"
Astoria snorted with laughter, and soon the whole crowd was in stitches.
"Hey, that’s not on ," Tom said innocently, then he said to the study space. "Bla my teacher. Right, Andros?"
Daphne stomped over and started pumling him with her tiny fists.
"Ahem..."
"Riddle, can I have a go? I’ve always wanted to fight gatron," Justin asked eagerly. Dozens of others looked just as hopeful.
"Fine," Tom said after a pause. "Five at a ti. Help
test gatron’s limits. Finch-Fletchley, pick your team. Everyone else, line up."
"Got it!" Justin pumped a fist and was instantly mobbed by volunteers. He chose two from his own house and two Ravenclaws, and together they stepped up to face gatron.
Up in the tower, Dumbledore stood at the window, watching the lively scene on the lawn with a faint smile.
"Nice."
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