Hogwarts: This professor is too Muggle.

Chapter 381 The Dream of Horcruxes
It was late at night.

In the winding alleyways where Diagon Alley and Flip-Over Alley meet, two figures gradually emerged from the shadows and walked under the streetlights of Diagon Alley, revealing themselves to be a teacher and student.

The young professor was handsome, and the student, who was only fourteen or fifteen years old, was thin and delicate. They walked along the gradually widening and flat stone path toward the bar.

The soon-to-be fourth-year student asked with some confusion, "Professor, I've heard of Horcruxes many times. Dumbledore mentioned them when we were first year, and you and Sirius were talking about them too. Regulus died because of them. What exactly are they?"

You can think of it as a kind of talisman.

"The kind my mother left me?"

“Completely different magic, but they are indeed somewhat similar.”

Melvin explained in detail: "Voldemort permanently separated a part of his soul and attached it to objects that had special significance to him, making these objects indestructible and impossible to destroy with conventional magic. On the other hand, as long as the Horcruxes existed, Voldemort could not be completely killed."

"So even if he fails, he can become a ghost, wandering and hiding, manipulating wizards like Quirrell, waiting for a chance to be resurrected."

"Yes."

"Just how many Horcruxes did Voldemort create?"

“Six or seven items, I suppose. We haven’t found the exact number yet.” Melvin paused. “We’ve found some so far, including his student diary, the Gaunt family ring, the Ravenclaw tiara, the Hufflepuff cup, the Slytherin locket, and…”

Harry was shocked to discover that there were so many Horcruxes, and that they had all ended up in the hands of the professor and the headmaster without him even realizing it.

"And what?"

Harry tilted his head slightly, not understanding why the professor had stopped, and met the professor's dark, deep eyes, which held something indescribable.

Melvin looked up at the brightly lit tavern in front of him: "We've arrived. It's getting late. Let's go back to our rooms and rest."

"..."

This is the perfunctory attitude of an adult wizard.

Harry gave a silent "oh," said goodbye to the professor, and then quietly slipped into the pub. The Leaky Cauldron was still noisy, with fans arguing about Krum's performance and beer glasses clattering on the table.

Without disturbing the owner and customers who were enjoying their drinks, he went upstairs to his room alone. Two hours had passed since he went out with the professor, and Hedwig was still wandering around; owls are nocturnal creatures.

Perhaps because he had just slept for too long, Harry felt no drowsiness at all. He opened the window of his second-floor guest room and looked out, but Professor Levent's figure had already disappeared.

If it weren't for escorting him back to the tavern, Professor Levent would have already used Apparition to leave in Knockturn Alley. With the professor's superb magical skills, he could minimize the noise of teleportation and not alert anyone.

The doubts in my mind did not decrease, but rather increased.

Why did Professor Levent visit the printing workshop in Knockturn Alley late at night? Is Mr. Burke still alive? How many Horcruxes does Voldemort actually have? What Horcrux was the one the professor didn't finish explaining?
After some time, the party downstairs ended, and Sirius Black came upstairs. He paused for a moment as he passed the door and knocked twice, seemingly to check if Sirius was asleep.

Harry didn't answer. He wrapped the thin blanket around himself and curled up on the sofa by the window. His consciousness gradually faded, and he vaguely heard Sirius's footsteps lingering outside the door.

The footsteps were sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, seemingly creaking on the old, dilapidated wooden corridor. Harry closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift away, thinking of the Leaky Cauldron's old tables, chairs, and windows, and wondered what was going on.

Is it that old?

The old houses are hidden on the mountainside, in a quiet little village under the moonlight. In the distance, there are abandoned churches and cemeteries. The villagers have turned off their lights, and only the tavern is still dimly lit.

Harry was puzzled, wondering how he could see such a scene, so real and detailed, as if he had witnessed it himself, or even been there in person.

His consciousness plummeted, landing in the roadside bushes. The lush, overgrown grass and branches obscured his vision, but Harry, with his agile and strong body, traversed the mountains and forests at a speed faster than the centaurs, and soon arrived at an abandoned old house.

The house is located on a hillside, and looking back, you can see the entire village. As you approach the old house, you will find that several windows are sealed off, the roof tiles are broken and incomplete, and ivy and vines have taken over the entire house without restraint.

It must have been abandoned for a long time, but the structure of the old house can still be seen. Decades ago, it must have been a very beautiful mansion, or even the most spacious and magnificent building within miles. Now, however, it has become damp and desolate due to years of being uninhabited.

This was his destination, Harry knew it perfectly well.

For reasons unknown, he did not enter the old house through the main gate, but instead climbed up the wall covered with vines. His agile body allowed him to grasp every gap and not miss any place to use as leverage. He could easily wade over walls that were perpendicular to the ground or even at a negative angle.

Looking back, below was a desolate garden, overgrown with weeds and unknown plants, and a dark, cave-like kitchen. Looking up, only a single window on the upper floor shone with a faint light.

That's it...

Harry shook off his scales, feeling inexplicably pleased and at ease. He flicked his tongue and slowly approached.

It was a large, straight-lattice window, its glass shattered by stones thrown by mischievous children. Firelight and candlelight shone through the window, slowly approaching, and one could hear a witch's voice coming from inside the room, a voice that was delicate and timid, yet filled with fear.

"My esteemed master, there's still some left in the bottle. If you're still hungry, please have a little more."

Harry felt the voice was familiar, but couldn't quite place where he had heard it before, and a feeling of disgust arose within him.

"Wait a moment."

A male voice answered, its tone strangely high-pitched, like several voices overlapping each other, including an old male voice and the hissing sound of snakes, as piercing as the cold wind of the dead of winter, sending chills down one's spine.

Harry frowned, wondering why he found the voice so reassuring.

"Move me to the fireside, Umbridge."

Then came a series of sounds as the witch placed the bottle on the table and dragged the heavy chair toward the fireplace, its legs scraping against the floor with a screeching sound.

Through the window, Harry glimpsed a short, stout witch wearing a long black cloak, the kind often used to conceal her identity.

"Where did the insect tail go?" the cold voice asked.

“I don’t know the specifics either, Master…” Umbridge’s voice trembled slightly. “When he left, he said he was going to Knockturn Alley to gather information and buy some things.”

“He wasn’t this enthusiastic before, but now… there’s nowhere left for him in the magical world, so he has no choice but to serve me wholeheartedly.”

The wizard chuckled coldly, "Before we go to sleep, squeeze some more poison from Nagini. I need to eat another meal tonight; this body is too weak."

"Leave it to me."

Umbridge immediately flattered, "Please, Master, stay a little longer. The Quidditch World Cup has just ended, and the Ministry of Magic is everywhere, standing guard and repeatedly checking everyone's identity. We must be careful." "I have plenty of patience, as long as I get Harry Potter."

"!?"

Harry was startled, not understanding why the wizard wanted him, what all this had to do with him, and who Nagini was.

The witch inside the house was exceptionally considerate and asked the question on his behalf: "I don't understand, Master, why does it have to be Harry Potter? Wizards all over the world are gathered in Britain right now. If we use another wizard, regardless of age or gender, as long as Wormtail disguises himself as a mouse, we can find a very suitable candidate in a day or two."

The second time Harry heard the name, Wormtail, who could disguise himself as a rat, it felt very familiar. The face and the full name were in his mind, but he couldn't remember who it was for a moment.

"enough!"

Instead of answering her question, the male wizard reprimanded her in a low voice.

For some reason, Harry seemed to be able to understand the wizard's thoughts. The two of them were very close, as if they were one, and Harry could clearly sense that the wizard was now angry.

Umbridge and Wormtail dared to question themselves and the decisions made by the Dark Lord.

"It has to be Harry Potter, it can only be Harry Potter. I have my reasons for using that boy, and I didn't just choose anyone else."

The wizard's tone became calm, but this calmness was all the more frightening: "I have waited for thirteen years, a few more months won't matter. As for the boy's tight protection, our plan will work."

Umbridge said tremblingly, "We need to speed things up. Once the Ministry of Magic finishes its busy summer vacation, our whereabouts might be discovered."

"Don't rush. You've brought us intelligence and Bertha Jorkins, both of which are valuable. She's a stupid but pitiful idiot witch, the perfect disguise for us to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic."

The wizard let out a harsh sneer: "Umbridge, Wormtail, if you were a little smarter and braver, perhaps I wouldn't have had to go through all this trouble, using my painstakingly accumulated magic to alter her memories... There are risks involved; if you encounter a powerful wizard, the forgetting spell won't work."

“There is no such person in the Ministry of Magic, Jorgins has already confirmed this before.”

Harry felt a chill in his heart. A witch named Joggins had fallen into their hands and seemed to have been controlled, about to become their puppet.

"Oh, I hear Nagini's voice."

The wizard suddenly spoke, and Harry, who was lying outside the window, felt inexplicably happy. He flicked his tongue and went through the window, hissing as he approached.

Harry suddenly realized that he was Nagini.

Wormtail found Voldemort, and they got mixed up with Umbridge!
That's how dreams are. When you're not sure of your own identity, everything is fine. But once you develop self-awareness, everything around you begins to crumble, your vision becomes blurry, and your voices start to fade into the distance.

With his last shred of lucidity, Harry looked up at the figure in the chair.
It was a sticky, ugly thing, shaped like a curled-up baby, with thin, soft arms but no hair, scales growing on its body, and dark red skin, like tender flesh newly grown after a burn.

The most horrifying thing was the face, not the face of a living person.

Instead, it was a flat snake face with a pair of scarlet vertical pupils!
……

Two hundred miles away, Harry's consciousness seemed to be swallowed by those snake eyes. His whole body suddenly trembled, as if he had fallen into the mouth of a snake. His body generated tremendous strength, and he stood up abruptly.

"Hiss..." Sirius's cry of pain brought Harry back to his senses.

Sirius Black was holding his nose and gasping for breath. The cacophony of sounds, the vivid scenery, and the stinging pain from his scars instantly overwhelmed his senses. Memories of the dream were slipping through his fingers like water. Harry immediately closed his eyes and desperately tried to recall.

"Voldemort is back, Wormtail is back, and they're all entangled with a nasty witch!"

"There's another wizard in their hands. Voldemort plans to control her and infiltrate the Ministry of Magic...infiltrate Hogwarts?"

Harry couldn't remember the details of the dream anymore; he couldn't even recall the witch's name, and the stinging pain from the scar on his forehead was quickly subsiding.

Sirius Black stared in disbelief at his godchild's whispered words.

……

Summer vacation in 1994 is over.

The Department of International Cooperation, five levels below the Ministry of Magic in London.

The haggard-looking middle-aged wizard slumped in his chair, staring blankly at the table lamp. A house-elf stood beside him.

It was already past closing time, and the entire Ministry of Magic base was quiet. After a busy day, the staff relaxed and headed to the elevator side by side, discussing where to go for a drink later, creating a peaceful and happy atmosphere.

Barty Crouch started working here after graduation, but not in the International Affairs Division, but in the Executive Division. He was once a more promising candidate for minister than Fudge and Burns, but was transferred here after being implicated in the Wizarding Wars.

The International Affairs Department is busy but doesn't involve core powers, so it's not a good department.

The main issue is dealing with disputes with the magic ministries of other countries.

At the International Wizarding Federation conference, the Magical Congress of the United States insisted that they had violated the Secrecy Act; during the World Cup, the Bulgarian minister wanted all the good seats; when discussing the import of foreign magical items, Indian wizards insisted on selling the flying carpet to Britain…

Crouch hates dealing with idiots, but he has worked diligently and meticulously for fourteen years. It seems that as long as he is busy, he can get rid of his troubles and escape reality.

"I knew when I was young that there are no secrets that last forever."

“Legacy of Mind, Imperishable Charm, Truth Potion, Memory Charm… there are countless spells that can uncover secrets.”

Crouch murmured to the servant beside him, "So when she offered to trade herself for Barty, I was vehemently opposed. This secret would drag our family into the abyss. But I finally agreed. She was seriously ill at the time, and it was her last request."

Shan Shan couldn't help but cry: "Sir...it's not your fault, nor is it Madam's fault."

"Then who should be blamed?"

Crouch's question went unanswered. He stopped talking and instead began tidying up the documents on his desk, organizing the scattered pen holders, and finally wiping his face with a tissue to cover up any traces of his actions.

"Let's go find Dumbledore and confess. I wonder which cell Azkaban will assign me to. If it's the one Barty and her were in, I'll thank them."

Shan Shan wiped her face and followed behind.

(End of this chapter)