From Hogwarts to Sturhaven

“I’ve come to you to stop him.” Ivy sighed. Professor Celticburn was an old man nearing retirement, so he always did things according to his own interests. Although his sudden whims usually only hurt himself, they also interfered with the overall progress of the project to some extent.

"He and his Nifflers ransacked the place, but they didn't find a single thing of value." Ivy shrugged. "You know, the most likely magical creatures from the Forbidden Forest to be relocated to the 'Base' first are the Pegasus. Perhaps you could advise him to stop throwing a tantrum?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you..." Professor McGonagall shook her head. "I also dislike the attitude of those investigators from the Ministry of Magic. They're treating Hagrid like a criminal! Have you heard? Hagrid's cabin has been searched inside and out three times!"

Accompanying the construction team and building material suppliers was the Ministry of Magic's Chamber of Secrets Investigation Team. Although Dumbledore had granted them unrestricted access to the school, these "watchdogs," whose noses were not particularly sharp, still focused their attention on the "suspect," Hagrid, hoping to find a breakthrough from him.

The professors at Hogwarts all expressed their disdain for these uninvited guests, with Snape, the head of Slytherin, being particularly disdainful.

He even repeatedly described the members of the Chamber of Secrets investigation team in the faculty lounge as "harmless insects that only get paid" and "police dogs with their noses plugged." In his view, it was a disgrace to equate Hagrid, a half-giant, with the heirs of Slytherin.

Professor Celticburn's protest was essentially a strike, both overt and covert, because the Pegasus district he was in charge of was Fudge's most important project—changing the way British wizards traveled.

Look, which politician wouldn't love such a high-profile policy project?

But the prey became the hunter, and the project that attracted Fudge to invest in Hogwarts eventually became a weapon that restrained him. Who could have imagined this a few months ago?

In fact, Ivy also had her own way of getting revenge for Hagrid. The leader of the Chamber of Secrets investigation team fled Hogwarts on the second day after arriving there because Ivy used a dream spell to give her an incredibly realistic nightmare.

In the following period, whenever Ivy thought of this, she would perform another dream-like spell. Dolores Umbridge, who had gone to great lengths to get this job from Fudge, couldn't escape the nightmares even after returning to the Ministry of Magic. It's said she's now on leave from the Ministry to rest, but who knows when we'll hear the news of her death in her sleep.

“Fine.” Ivy finally shook her head. “Let him do whatever he wants. Anyway, I won’t be a professor at this school anymore soon.”

“Hogwarts really deserves a special contribution award for you,” Professor McGonagall said with a smile.

Chapter 142 Nicolas Flamel's Invitation

As dusk approached, Ivy pointed her wand at her throat and shouted across the construction site, "It's lunchtime!"

Many wizards emerged one after another from the various completed buildings. Most of them were employees of the Ministry of Magic, and a few were contractors hired by the Board of Governors. There might be one or two temporary workers mixed in among them; Ivy had seen some very shabby-clothed fellows among them.

The best thing about working at Hogwarts is the food; this is a consensus among the construction workers.

The dining venue remained the auditorium, but the long tables that originally belonged to the four colleges had been removed and replaced with a wider table.

Upon entering the Great Hall, there were facilities for dusting, including a mirror that pointed out where there was dust, many automatically waving feather dusters, and even a purple spray perfume bottle to serve people. Nobody knew where Dumbledore had gotten all these things from.

Not only that, Dumbledore even went so far as to temporarily alter the castle's structure, replacing the waiting room next to the Great Hall with a washroom, and providing separate tent toilets for the construction site.

Normally, only breakfast and dinner are held in the castle's Great Hall, while lunch is delivered to the construction site by house-elves. Although it was already midsummer, the temperature in the Scottish Highlands was still relatively stable, especially since Hogwarts is a castle built on a hill, not to mention that Dumbledore and Ivy took turns casting weather charms to bring clouds and shade for everyone.

Dinner was always plentiful, and Dumbledore had even arranged for three brooms to send plenty of butterbeer from Hogsmeade. There were no strong liquors like cannon whiskey, though, since Hogwarts was a school, and even though it was summer vacation and there were no students, it was still the same.

Therefore, the wizards, exhausted from a day's work, could enjoy delicious food and chat at the table.

Ivy and the other professors were still sitting at the faculty table, since the professors all had their own social circles.

A burst of laughter followed.

Ivy turned her head and saw Professor Sprout. She was in a good mood lately because, taking advantage of the construction boom at the "Foundation," she had also obtained permission from Professor McGonagall to build two more greenhouses. To this end, she ordered a lot of new seeds from the herbalist's shop in Diagon Alley and also pre-ordered a considerable amount of magical animal dung as fertilizer from Professor Celticburn.

After devouring several lamb chops, Ivy felt somewhat satisfied. Dumbledore hadn't appeared at the construction site today, nor had he been seen at the dinner table. I wondered what the old man had been up to.

Perhaps it was because Ivy confirmed his theory about Voldemort's Horcruxes that he tried to verify it through other channels?

This is a complex and lengthy task. The easiest part to start with is undoubtedly Voldemort's former classmates and teachers, but apart from Dumbledore himself, it's hard to say how many are still alive.

At least Ivy only knew one Horace—Sgrahorn, Voldemort's Potions professor and Head of Slytherin when he was studying at Hogwarts.

Sglahorn could be considered the head of an academic clique. Leveraging his connections from his time teaching at Hogwarts, he cultivated relationships with many influential figures in the wizarding world.

But right now, the British wizarding world is in a state of peace and prosperity, everyone is immersed in the peaceful scene after Voldemort's disappearance, and they have become accustomed to it. Sglahorn will not hand over his memories so easily.

In the original story, even under the pressure of Voldemort's resurrection, Harry only regained Sglahorn's memories with the help of Felix Felicis.

"Oh!" A gasp suddenly came from the construction workers' long table. Ivy followed the crowd's gaze and saw a silver shadow fly into the auditorium.

"It's a guardian spirit!" A sharp-eyed wizard recognized the true nature of the spell.

"And it's a phoenix Patronus! Professor Dumbledore's!" A Ministry of Magic employee took a sip of butterbeer and sighed contentedly. "It's so great to be on official business at Hogwarts. I never imagined I'd get to meet the only magical creature Patronus in the entire wizarding world!"

A silver phoenix flew across the hall and landed on the faculty and staff table, uttering a familiar voice: "Come to the principal's office after dinner, Professor Victor. Oh, and please bring me a butter ice cream while you're at it."

Using the Patronus spell to deliver messages is quite interesting; it's a unique invention of Dumbledore's.

Ivy bid farewell to the professors at his table, rose, and left the table, making no intention of waiting for dessert. He had already used teleportation to summon a house-elf to the headmaster's office.

Hogwarts Castle is great in every way, except there are too many stairs, and you can't use spells like Apparition, so Ivy had to use her third-circle flight spell to avoid climbing the stairs.

Upon seeing the dripping stone beast that had been squatting in front of the principal's office, Ivy uttered the command that the Phoenix Guardian had just sent: "Butter Ice Cream."

So the dripping stone beast jumped aside, and the wall behind it split in two, revealing a slowly ascending spiral staircase in front of Ivy.

He had been here many times before, and the furnishings in the principal's office had never changed much, but today was different.

Dumbledore, wrapped in a white napkin and holding a golden knife and fork, stared blankly at the feast before him. It seems the house-elves of Hogwarts are always particularly eager to serve the headmaster.

"I just asked you to bring me a butter ice cream, not a house-elf!" Dumbledore complained. Even as the headmaster of Hogwarts, he couldn't resist the enthusiasm of a house-elf. Perhaps that's why he tries to be in the Great Hall every day.

“I’ll take that as a thank you, Dumbledore.” Ivy didn’t sit down opposite Dumbledore, as it would be impolite to disturb someone’s meal.

"Dumbledore! Get this kid off me!" the Sorting Hat yelled at the current headmaster.

Ivy pulled his hand out of the Sorting Hat's belly; he had intended to try and pull Gryffindor's sword out of it.

“Don’t be so formal, hat.” Ivy put it back in its place. “Don’t you remember me? You were the one who assigned me, the transfer student, to Slytherin more than a hundred years ago.”

"Don't try to get close, kid! I don't know you!" the Sorting Hat shouted. "I treat every young wizard the same, especially those from Slytherin!"

Ivy shook her head: "When the four great masters created the Sorting Hat, didn't Gryffindor pour too much of their own ideas into it?"

“Forgive it, Ivy.” Dumbledore swallowed a piece of sausage. “That old hat only appears once a year, so it takes a whole year to polish the lyrics, and it gets particularly grumpy before the start of the school year, during the summer vacation.”

"Tsk tsk." Ivy sighed softly, "A guy who only works one day a year has so many problems?"

Ivy surveyed the entire headmaster's office, then regretfully discovered that she saw nothing that could be linked to the Gryffindor sword. Ever since acquiring the profession of Ancient Warrior, Ivy had been looking for other Ancient magical items.

Both the Sorting Hat and the Gryffindor Sword, being relics of the four great masters, should possess the qualities to become legendary magical artifacts. However, Ivy already has the Ravenclaw Crown on his head, so he couldn't properly equip the Sorting Hat, which has a mind of its own. Therefore, he set his sights on the Gryffindor Sword, which is a one-handed sword.

Based on information from the original work, the Gryffindor sword can absorb substances that enhance it. It was precisely because it absorbed the venom of the Basilisk that it became a weapon capable of destroying Horcruxes. This ability to grow perfectly aligns with the characteristics of a legendary warrior.

The only problem is that, as a die-hard Slytherin, Ivy has never seen the true face of that sword.

"So, what brings you here?" Ivy sat back down in her chair, watching Dumbledore eat.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Nico just wants to see you,” Dumbledore replied, wiping the sauce off his beard with a napkin.

“Nico?” There aren’t many people in the wizarding world named “Nico,” and the only well-known one is “Nico Flamel,” not to mention that Ivy had just swallowed someone else’s Philosopher’s Stone not long ago.

"Has he decided what kind of compensation he needs?" Ivy asked.

“The letter didn’t mention this.” Dumbledore poured himself a Butterbeer and chilled it with magic. “In any case, I believe that as the sinner who destroyed the greatest creation in the history of alchemy, you have a duty to apologize to its master in person.”

"Alright." Ivy sighed. She had only intended to study it, but who would have thought that she would eat the Philosopher's Stone directly.

As a wizard and alchemy master who has lived for over six hundred years, Nicolas Flamel must have collected a large number of precious magic books. Perhaps Ivy can even get one or two when she goes to see Nicolas Flamel this time.

"How do we get there? With Floo Powder?" Ivy asked. "I remember that you need to apply in advance to use Floo Powder for international travel."

“I’m sorry, Ivy, we can’t use Floo Powder.” Dumbledore’s blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “If you’re familiar with geography, you should know that there’s a sea between France and England! A Floo Powder network can’t be laid on the seabed.”

“Why not? Muggles even lay cables and tunnels on the seabed.” Apart from Diagon Alley, Ivy had hardly ever used this mode of travel that wizards were so familiar with. He had always thought that the Floop Powder Network was similar to the teleportation arrays in D&D, except that the exit was a fireplace filled with soot instead of a magic circle that glowed with magical light.

"What is a 'cable'?" Dumbledore asked, pausing his eating.

“Uh… it’s a kind of circuit that Muggles use to transmit energy. You can think of it as a water pipe, but the thing flowing through it is electricity. Muggles use it as an energy source to light up lights and all kinds of electrical appliances,” Ivy explained.

Dumbledore's eyes widened with interest, and he smiled, saying, "You know what? Ivy? As a wizard from over a hundred years ago, you know more about this world than I do, especially about the Muggle half. Where did you learn all this?"

“The Encyclopedia Britannica,” Ivy replied. “Hermione gave it to me for Christmas; she seemed to think that after sleeping for over a hundred years, I should try to learn as much as possible about this new world. I must say, it’s much more useful than I expected.”

“Reading is never a bad thing, even Muggle books.” Dumbledore was completely full, but there was still more than half of the feast prepared for him by the house-elves left.

“Nico has plenty of time.” Dumbledore rose from his desk, went to Fawkes’ golden perch, and gently touched the beautiful bird. “So we can choose our mode of travel freely: a flying broom, a Portkey, Apparition, or this magnificent bird?”

Fox turned its head toward Ivy, looked him over, let out a cry, and then a tail feather fell from its body.

"Oh, was that for me?" Ivy raised an eyebrow, which reminded him of when he was raising a phoenix at Hogwarts more than a hundred years ago. The phoenix he had rescued from the dark wizard often expressed its affection for him in this way.

But Dumbledore shook his head, turned around, and said, “I don’t think so. The natural shedding of its tail feathers proves that Fawkes is about to be reborn. Over the next few months, its feathers will gradually diminish until it becomes a ball of fire and then rises from the ashes. It seems we can’t let it take us to France.”

Dumbledore handed Ivy the tail feather that Fawkes had just shed; it was an exceptionally long and beautiful feather.

“Since Nicole Lemaître always seems to have plenty of time, why don’t we adopt the Muggle way of traveling?” Ivy took the feather and quickly changed the subject, feeling a little embarrassed by his earlier presumptuousness.

“Apparition isn’t suitable for international travel, Portkey and flying brooms aren’t very comfortable, and I’m getting old,” Dumbledore reasoned. “Besides, I’m really impatient dealing with the Ministry of Magic’s paperwork in this room. A short trip might just rejuvenate me.”

"Given that you know the Muggle world better than I do, the task of arranging the journey is entrusted to you, Ivy." Dumbledore winked at him and returned to his desk, where the half-eaten food had been cleared away at some point.

Dumbledore grabbed a hardcover book, found the page with the bookmark, and opened it. From the spine of the cover, he could see the title: "Wandering with Werewolves".

"Are you really not going to consider teaching for another year?" Dumbledore asked abruptly.

But Ivy's answer was firm: "No."

“Alas, finding a suitable Defense Against the Dark Arts professor before the start of each school year has become a difficult task for Hogwarts and for me.” Dumbledore turned his attention back to the book. “Please close the door when you go out, and if you have any suitable travel plans, you can let me know at any time. You know the password.”

Chapter 143 Farewell

The magic circle, composed of mercury and gemstone solution, was shimmering, and standing at the very center of the magic circle was Ivy's pet, Howling Flame.

Because Ivy was going to France with Dumbledore, she couldn't stay in the castle for a while.

In order to prevent the permanent effects of her Duncan's Private Chamber spell from being interrupted, Ivy plans to leave her pet statue there to cast the spell in her place.