What surprised Helga was that not even five minutes after she'd sent the message, Dumbledore pushed open the door to her office.
"Professor White, I heard our Professor Trelawney has made a rather fascinating prophecy?" Dumbledore's expression was as calm as ever, but the speed at which he had arrived already spoke volumes.
"Yes." Helga described everything she had just witnessed in the West Tower.
"Do you have time now? I'd like to discuss this with you in the Headmaster's Office—what do you think?" After hearing her account, Dumbledore decided to bring her to the Headmaster's Office so they could use the Pensieve to revisit the memory scene together.
Of course, if Professor White preferred not to come, Dumbledore was also willing to simply extract the memory from her.
The Pensieve was a rare magical artifact that allowed wizards to extract memories from their minds and place them in a basin to re-experience past events as if they were happening again.
Normally, such a deeply personal magical item would be buried alongside its owner, just like a wand—but the Hogwarts Pensieve was an exception.
Ever since it had been unearthed by the founders of Hogwarts, it had been passed down from one generation to the next alongside the Sorting Hat, considered one of the school's most precious heirlooms.
Yes—the Pensieve in the Headmaster's Office had been dug up from the ground by Salazar and the others when they built Hogwarts.
Helga had originally intended to simply hand over her memory after finishing her account, but upon hearing Dumbledore's invitation, she immediately changed her mind. After all, what founder could resist the temptation of visiting the Headmaster's Office a thousand years into the future?
Back in their time, the Headmaster's Office was more like a storage room.
The founders would pile up magical artifacts they'd acquired by chance—items they found no personal use for but were too bulky to keep in their personal spaces—such as the Pensieve. Normally, each of them preferred to work in their own offices.
Once, Godric had gotten drunk and spent the night in the Headmaster's Office, only to be respectfully addressed as "Headmaster" by the other three—led, of course, by Salazar—the next morning.
Ever since then, Godric refused to spend another night in the Headmaster's Office, even if students had to carry him back to his own quarters.
With such a precedent, the others naturally kept their distance from the room as well.
No one wanted to suffer the same fate as Gryffindor, much to Godric's lasting frustration: Working in the Headmaster's Office is a privilege! Why won't any of you stay here?!
I wonder what the Headmaster's Office looks like now.
That thought, once it arose, quickly spread like wildfire in Helga's heart. Without hesitation, she accepted Dumbledore's invitation. However, she was also a bit puzzled—why would Dumbledore care so much about an ordinary Dark wizard?
"Professor Dumbledore, you seem to care a great deal about this 'Voldemort'?" On their way to the Headmaster's Office, she couldn't help but ask the question.
Hearing this, Dumbledore glanced at her, then slowly began recounting the story of Voldemort.
"Professor White, you didn't live through that era, so you can't understand how terrifying he truly was."
"About twenty years ago, he gathered a group of witches and wizards and named them the 'Death Eaters.' Among them, some supported Voldemort's desire to rule over Muggles and Muggle-borns, some sought power from him, and others simply followed him out of fear. In Voldemort's eyes, the Death Eaters were neither friends nor family—only servants. They freely used the Unforgivable Curses, killed indiscriminately, and took pleasure in tormenting others. The entire wizarding world was shrouded in his shadow."
Helga Hufflepuff nodded: judging by his behavior, he certainly sounded like a textbook Dark wizard—but was there anything truly exceptional about him? Was it his unusually cruel methods?
"During the wizarding war, he recruited a great number of werewolves and giants to fight for him. Some suspect that goblins were also involved, though there is no conclusive proof. That alone was terrifying," Dumbledore continued, elaborating on Voldemort's horrors for Professor White.
Helga: ?
It still didn't seem all that special to her…
"Hundreds of wizards died because of him. The entire magical community in Britain lived in constant fear," Dumbledore concluded his introduction to Voldemort. He hoped that through this explanation, Professor White would fully understand how dangerous Voldemort was and begin to treat him as a serious threat.
"So his influence is limited to Britain?"
Dumbledore nodded again. Voldemort's reach abroad was relatively weak, and most of his Death Eaters were wizards born on the British Isles.
Helga: That's…
She didn't know what to say.
"Well then… hmm, killing over a hundred people with his followers is indeed quite excessive. Was that his total body count over a lifetime, or just during a particular period?"
Dumbledore: ???
What do you mean by that?
Helga Hufflepuff didn't mean anything else by it—she just genuinely felt that Voldemort didn't seem all that impressive.
A Dark wizard with limited influence who fell in such an abstract way… she couldn't understand why Headmaster Dumbledore was so concerned about him.
The two of them arrived together at the 7th floor of the castle, stopping in front of an enormous, hideous stone gargoyle.
"Chilled grape juice!" Dumbledore spoke the password, and the gargoyle immediately sprang to life, leaping aside. The wall behind it split open, revealing a spiraling staircase slowly rising upward.
As they stepped onto it, the staircase carried them up automatically, bringing them to a gleaming oak door.
"Not having to climb stairs is really wonderful," Helga said from the heart. The other staircases in the castle were nowhere near this convenient, and standing on this one, she suddenly had the urge to turn every staircase in the school into an escalator.
"Consider it a little perk for us old bones," Dumbledore said with a wink. Even with an urgent matter at hand, he didn't forget to slip in a bit of humor.
He stepped off the spiral staircase, gave a slight tug on the brass knocker shaped like a griffin on the door, and the door silently swung open, revealing the spacious and beautiful headmaster's office behind it.
On the desk were many peculiar silver instruments, all spinning continuously and occasionally puffing out little clouds of smoke.
The wall directly facing the door was covered with portraits of former headmasters and headmistresses, each of them snoozing in their respective frames.
What drew Helga Hufflepuff's attention the most was the shabby, wrinkled Sorting Hat sitting on a shelf.
She raised an eyebrow at the filthy hat. She had wanted to ask this during the Sorting Ceremony already—had this hat never been washed?
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