"I got a bunch of copies from Mr. Filch for students to transcribe, and I never thought I'd use them myself one day."
William couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the thick stacks of historical records piled in the corner of the room.
However, he wasn't in a hurry to find the information he needed from this daunting pile of documents. Instead, he locked the door and headed straight for Dumbledore's office—he had read too many stories where someone found a clue, started investigating, and then got killed. Now that it was happening to him, he didn't want to tempt fate.
"First, tell Dumbledore my suspicions, and then go confirm them—" William gripped his wand with one hand, walking towards Dumbledore's office with extreme caution.
This was no small matter like the dead rooster from last time. When it came to the Dark Lord, going to the Headmaster was definitely the right choice.
—
"Headmaster, are you there?"
William cautiously knocked on the door. Although, theoretically, this office was the safest place in the entire magical world, countless people had fallen just before victory.
Fortunately, when the door opened, Dumbledore's face appeared.
"Professor William?"
The First White Wizard showed a puzzled smile. "You've come too?"
What did he mean, "too"?
When William curiously glanced inside the door, he immediately understood the situation—the office was packed with professors.
There weren't enough chairs in the Headmaster's office, and many professors were simply standing. As William looked inside, these professors also stared out at him.
"Right, Adams pushed all those professors curious about the diadem to Dumbledore!"
William immediately recalled his earlier conversation with Adams—undoubtedly, Adams had done a pretty good job.
But now, the problem that had seemingly been resolved was very likely to become a source of pressure again. A room full of professors waiting here certainly wasn't just to catch up with the Headmaster—especially since some of them didn't even teach classes and probably wouldn't care much even if the Headmaster changed, let alone catching up.
"Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore, regarding my personal salary, I'd like to discuss it with you."
Seeing a room full of professors, William instinctively lied through his teeth—he really couldn't handle Dumbledore kicking this ball back to him.
The matter of personal salary was confidential enough that others wouldn't have any desire to interfere. As long as Dumbledore wasn't dead set on kicking the ball back, there would be enough excuses for a private chat.
"Salary?" Dumbledore looked surprised, but quickly composed himself. "Alright, but I'm afraid I don't have much time."
"It's alright, Professor, just a moment will do."
The two left the Headmaster's office one after the other and stopped in the corridor.
"This should be enough—if a conversation with Dumbledore at Hogwarts can also be overheard, then I'll accept it."
"Um, Professor, I had a very interesting thought just now." William stopped and whispered his conjecture, "Do you think that Tom, the Tom Miss Helena mentioned, could be related to the Dark Lord?"
"A very interesting conjecture," Dumbledore looked at William, his tone light. "Although it's just a guess, I can tell you, Professor William, you are very close to the truth."
"But—" Dumbledore's tone suddenly became serious. "You shouldn't investigate those things, Professor William. You are still young, and he is far more cunning than you imagine. Ever since Voldemort rose to prominence, countless wizards have tried to trace his past, but every single one of them died."
"Died?" William frowned.
"He even placed a curse on his own name. When he was at the height of his power, too many people in the magical world could only refer to him as the Mysterious One." Dumbledore looked at William seriously. "Although spreading such news would cause panic, I must tell you now that he did not die back then."
"Similarly, the Ministry of Magic's pursuit operation more than ten years ago was not entirely successful. Too many of his admirers are lurking in the magical world," Dumbledore's tone held no trace of lightness. "Becoming his enemy will bring far more difficulties than you can imagine."
"However, there are still old fellows like me in the magical world. I think I am trustworthy, right?"
Although the words were spoken in a joking tone, Dumbledore's eyes were full of seriousness.
This was not a threat, but protection—William knew this very well.
"You are right, Professor."
William nodded in agreement.
"Then it's settled, Professor William. Hmm, I think this year's OWLs results should be excellent—" Dumbledore's expression softened. "This is a shared understanding between Minerva and me."
—
"Did Dumbledore figure it out?"
William speculated in his office—although he had verbally agreed with Dumbledore, he hadn't completely abandoned his own plans.
His life was at stake. While Dumbledore was completely trustworthy, doing absolutely no investigation and just waiting wasn't William's style.
"But Dumbledore's warning must be remembered. Dumbledore can conduct all sorts of investigations, target people in various ways, and even boldly present his ideas to give others confidence, but he is Dumbledore."
"I probably can't openly search for information or ask other professors. Death Eaters…"
William had heard the most terrifying rumors about Death Eaters in Azkaban—the chief who could flatten a street with a single spell was a legend even there.
"To maintain self-awareness under the Dementors' noses for 24 hours, not even allowed fresh air… are there still such beings outside?"
However, William could answer this question himself—in his few memories, there was indeed such a person, that Death Eater who infiltrated Hogwarts and single-handedly orchestrated the resurrection of the Dark Lord.
"Serves you right for being distracted by movies!" William wanted to slap himself twice. "Everyone else was watching the movie, but you were busy looking at people, you didn't even remember the plot, let alone all those messy names!"
"The castle might not be safe. Who knows how many Death Eaters have infiltrated?"
"Wait, Professor Snape!"
William remembered the card he had drawn. "Is the system implying that he is a Death Eater?"
"Can't jump to conclusions. Dumbledore trusts Professor Snape, otherwise he wouldn't make him Head of House—but I can be sure that when Professor Snape was a student, there were definitely Death Eaters in the school."
"I need to be careful with my investigation. I can't tell anyone—fortunately, my collaboration with Professor Binns on compiling the school history has already been established, so my own research won't arouse suspicion."
"I'll have to do it myself—although it's repetitive work, it will bring peace of mind. I'll just squeeze out time from my relaxation hours, to avoid big changes in my routine that might attract attention."
Having formulated this plan, William began to erase all his records related to his conjectures.
—
"Tom's enrollment year is unknown—age unknown—in fact, if Dumbledore hadn't told me that Tom was the Dark Lord, I wouldn't even be able to confirm this point."
Without going to the library, William, relying solely on his position as a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, managed to find most of the publicly available information on the Dark Lord from relevant books—after all, when it came to Dark Arts, modern books simply couldn't bypass him.
"Sure enough, hardly anyone has investigated him until now—the Dark Lord's base of support is pure-bloods, so many pure-blood families are probably secretly suppressing the appearance of relevant information."
"Or perhaps, the Dark Lord also placed a curse on his own origins, only the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse is overt, and the investigation curse is hidden?"
"Hard to say—after all, if one curse can be made, so can a second. Given the Dark Lord's mindset, another curse would be perfectly reasonable."
William boldly speculated. Since the curse on the position was real, then the curse on investigation should also be real.
"Direct investigation is probably useless. I'll start with the Death Eaters. The system card mentioned that there were Death Eaters in the school the year Professor Snape enrolled, so I'll start by checking the records from that time."
"Got it, Professor Snape's disciplinary records—" William gleefully pulled out what he wanted from the pile of documents.
"I have to thank Professor Lockhart. His autobiography mentioned his enrollment time, and he told me about Professor Snape on the first day of school. Isn't this easy to sort out?"
William rubbed his hands gleefully—at the very least, he'd get to see Professor Snape's dark past, which was quite satisfying.
"Even a cursed position was fought over, and if they couldn't get it, they discriminated—" William opened the records. "Now his dark past can't escape, can it?"
"James Potter?"
"This surname, it sounds a bit familiar, but it's not one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight pure-blood families…"
In the relatively harmonious short stories about pure-blood nobles in Azkaban, to make those stories seem realistic, they would always put on a pure-blood veneer. Thanks to this, William remembered the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight pure-bloods very clearly.
"That's right, Harry Potter. James Potter is Harry Potter's father, that's why I'm familiar with it! Many books mentioning Harry would casually mention the history of the Potter family."
"The battle back then was truly lively—but now the child is in someone else's hands."
William shook his head, ignoring the grievances between those two generations—the son pays for the father's debts, what's there to say?
"I need to find the enrollment lists from before and after Professor Snape's time. I'll ignore other houses and just look for Slytherin—after all, most Death Eaters came from that house."
Although it was a bit discriminatory, doing so allowed William to quickly gather the lists for those years.
"Interesting, interesting," William picked out those who had gotten into trouble with Professor Snape, and then searched through the disciplinary records against the names on the list—finally, he found a name that appeared with particularly high frequency.
Horace Slughorn.
Head of Slytherin, former Potions Master—at the same time, William also found a stack of order records for alcohol purchased by this professor for the kitchens in his personal name.
"Mr. Filch is truly excellent, the caretaker's archives really have everything!"
William was very familiar with these orders—the house-elves had mentioned it when he was planning a banquet, but he had given up on alcohol because most students were underage.
"There's also a club application form—the Slug Club."
"A club banquet? Interesting, interesting. Everyone close to Professor Snape is in this club—could it be the precursor to the Death Eaters?"
William boldly speculated, "Too bad the school doesn't register member lists, otherwise it would be much easier to trace."
"I haven't met that professor—but a little guess tells me Professor Snape is his star pupil." William looked up at the sky. "Could it be that he has the same personality as Professor Snape, cut from the same mold?"
William wasn't guessing wildly. There were existing examples in the school, for instance, the old professor retired this year, and all the professors privately believed that Hagrid was specially recommended by the old professor—their personalities actually had some similarities.
"I'll check Horace Slughorn's advanced class student lists over the years. That Slug Club recruits students the professor likes, so they shouldn't have failed to get into the advanced class."
William determined a new direction for his investigation.
"Ding, you have been cursed, received Treasure Chest x1."
The system suddenly made an untimely sound—only then did William look up at the sky outside.
"It's already dark?"
He had only found a tiny bit—in fact, he had only found the easiest things to investigate.
"Still too much data, and I can't miss invalid content."
"Progress won't be this fast from now on. Next time I'm in detention, I'll have to squeeze those kids, otherwise I won't have an excuse to get new information."
William silently made a decision that would bring misery to those troublemakers.
"The investigation is going much smoother than expected—and I'm on the right track."
"The system confirms it, the Dark Lord is indeed petty, cursing the teaching profession and cursing investigations into his life."
Since he was already burdened with one curse, William wasn't worried now—when curses of the same effect and origin stack, they are severely weakened or simply don't stack at all. This was basic Dark Arts knowledge.
For example, if Ron was hit by the slug-vomiting curse again, he wouldn't vomit double the slugs.
A similar principle applied to protective spells, like the Shield Charm. Repeated casting would only refresh it; stacking shields didn't exist. Otherwise, wizards would just stack shields madly before duels—ding, ding, ding, ding, like cheating in a game.
This kind of silent curse was convenient to use, and most likely wouldn't be changed. William already had one curse, so cursing him again would have no effect.
He casually clicked on the purple box—and sure enough.
[Curse (Bone-Deep Ulcer) Paralysis;…
[Curse (Bone-Deep Ulcer) Mind-Loss;…
[Curse (Bone-Deep Ulcer) Demise;…
Three identical cards appeared before William. Then, the first card William had chosen began to shake violently, its surface cracking and shattering, finally turning into a yellow voucher.
[Meal Ticket; You can use it to offset the cost of one card usage]
???
It can do that?
William swallowed his complaints and happily accepted the setting where duplicate curse cards turned into meal tickets.
"William, you need to calm down, don't be so easily surprised. You need to know that such silent curses are very normal; other hidden curses might not be this kind of group-delayed one!"
Having received the meal ticket, William began to advise himself not to court death.
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