Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 227 Dumbledore's Forced Smile

Pandora was reluctant, but the dilemma Vaughn described did indeed exist.

In the end, she could only acquiesce, sighed, and asked, "When will the official announcement be released?"

"The start of the school year is not far off, and the announcement should be made in the next day or two. After all, the school still needs to issue a supplementary notice and a textbook purchase order, so they need to allow some extra time."

The two walked to the grapevines deep in the orchard, and while drinking tea, Vaughn spoke.

His judgment was correct.

The next day, Pandora, who was conducting magical experiments in the basement, heard a pecking sound coming from her front door.

A short while later, Luna came skipping into the basement with a piece of parchment in her hand, holding it up to her mother: "Mama, the Hogwarts acceptance letter and shopping list!"

Pandora accepted it.

The notice was nothing special; it just routinely mentioned that Hogwarts had hired a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and then introduced the new professor, Isabella Rozier's, resume.

Looking at the last page of the letter, with its vibrant photograph of Isabella, Pandora felt a throbbing headache.

When she saw the textbook purchase list requested by the other party, her headache worsened.

"Merlin—has the new professor gone mad?"

At the Burrow, early in the morning, owls swept across the kitchen like bombers, dropping letters from the Weasley children and Harry. The silence didn't last long before Molly's exclamation broke the stillness once again.

"My African Journey," by Isabella Rozier, let me see the price—good heavens, 2...

Galleons?

"And this one, *In Egypt: With the Dream Messenger*, by Isabella Rozier, priced at 1 Galleon and 4 Silver Sickles —"

"North America: The Magical Congress's Conspiracy — Hmm, as expected, Isabella Rozier, price — Merlin! 3 Galleons?"

Molly's exclamation rose again, her shrill voice echoing throughout the Burrow.

Arthur, sitting in the dining room, didn't read the newspaper today either. Instead, he read the supplementary notices and purchasing lists from Hogwarts, just like Molly.

Seeing his wife on the verge of collapse, Arthur quickly comforted her: "Alright, darling, didn't Vaughn say that Lady Isabella Rozier has revived the Hogwarts tradition and taken a traditional graduation trip like the wizards of a hundred years ago? Her book records all her experiences on the trip, and it's very meaningful."

"Since you're not in charge of the money, you can certainly make sarcastic remarks."

Molly looked distressed.

Mr. Arthur Weasley, who wasn't responsible for managing the money but for contributing his salary to the household, should shut his mouth.

But not long after, his eyes widened.

"Molly! Darling!"

"What is it now?" Molly asked impatiently as she calculated how much more money the new shopping list would cost for the five children.

"Look, look at those two textbooks at the end of the purchase order!"

"Um?"

Molly's gaze quickly shifted to the bottom of the shopping list, where two lines of books caught her eye:

WAC (War of the Americas), by Elizabeth Rozier and Vaughn Weasley, priced at 2 Galleons.

"The Essential Papers on the Vaughn Weasley Method of Extracting Magic," by Vaughn Weasley, priced at 2 Galleons.

Upon seeing her son's name on the professor's textbook purchase list, Molly, who had just been grumbling about the cost and complaining about Isabella, instantly forgot her heartache and perked up.

At the same time.

In Ron's bedroom, Harry, who had also received a notice, looked enviously at Vaughn's name printed on the book list.

Of course, his expression at that moment was more one of confusion.

A notebook lay open beside him.

Harry quickly glanced at the supplementary purchase order, then picked up his quill and continued asking questions in his notebook:

"Are you sure nothing happened that night? I vaguely remember we were talking about someone—"

——】

The ink blots blurred and disappeared on the parchment.

Soon, a line of text appeared:

Nothing happened, dear Harry Potter.

【are you sure?】

No matter how many times you ask, my answer will remain the same, child. You should put aside your doubts and think about other things, such as—have you finished your summer homework?

As the last line of text slowly appeared, Harry held the quill pen above the notebook, cold sweat beading on his temples.

Yes, given that he has "returned from his studies" at Hogwarts and finally mastered the magic that the Dursleys feared most, he is no longer the helpless little boy he once was.

He spent most of the summer fighting with his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Penny, so he didn't touch his summer homework at all.

""

"Merlin, oh Merlin!"

As soon as Ron walked in, he saw Harry hunched over, lying on the bed and wailing in despair.

Then soon, he joined the wailing.

That's right, he hasn't even touched his homework either.

Molly's emotions fluctuated wildly several times today.

First, Hogwarts sent a confirmation from the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, along with a supplementary purchase order, which made the already tight family budget even worse.

Then, upon discovering that the new professor seemed to be an admirer of her son Vaughn, the fat witch happily and proudly forgave his act of abusing his position for personal gain.

But her joy was short-lived. When she called Ron and Harry to dinner, she caught the two troublemakers doing their summer homework—

"incredible!"

Molly's roar echoed throughout the Burrow, "Each subject's paper must be over ten feet long, and you haven't written a single letter all summer! Ronald—you're hopeless! I don't want to say anything more, but Harry, you—"

Molly lowered her voice, making it sound hurtful: "Darling, why are you copying Ron?"

Ron: "?"

Harry blushed with embarrassment and didn't dare to look up for the entire dinner. After quickly finishing his meal, he hurriedly hid in Ron's bedroom.

Molly's concern and disappointment made him feel so ashamed that he even temporarily forgot about asking about the notebook.

Late into the night, when everyone else in the Weasley family had gone to sleep, Ron, who had been doing his summer homework with him, yawned and climbed into bed.

He, too, couldn't stay awake any longer. After finishing his thesis and preparing to rest, he noticed the notebook that had been open and unclosed all along.

Looking at the notebook, Harry's eyes flashed with confusion and doubt.

Harry may have some of the naiveté and silliness of a primary school student.

But he's not stupid.

Or rather, any young wizard who has experienced Vaughn's "devilish training" last semester, no matter how lacking in magical experience, should have learned a lesson.

At least he knew that there were things in the magical world that could affect a person's mind.

If his earlier discovery that the notebook could communicate with him, and his subsequent decision to hide its existence, stemmed from a child's instinctive curiosity and possessiveness, then...

So, ever since he vaguely noticed that there were parts of his memory that were blurry, Harry became wary and began to have some doubts about it.

Of course, a 12-year-old boy isn't that wary. At least Harry has never considered telling Vaughn about the notebook—he hasn't even told his best friend Ron about its existence yet!

Harry never showed it, but he was actually very jealous of Ron.

Although Ron was always insecure, thinking the Burrow was dilapidated and ugly, and that his bedroom was small and old, on the day Harry was first brought to the Burrow by Arthur, he even considered letting Harry stay in Vaughn's bedroom, afraid that his best friend would see his embarrassing side.

Ron didn't know that the things he felt inferior about were things Harry could only dream of owning. The Burrow was indeed dilapidated and ugly, like a set of building blocks casually put together by a child, but the people living in this ugly house had very noble character and enthusiasm.

On the contrary, the Dursleys' house was well-organized and clean, but the people living there were, in Harry's mind, the worst kind of people.

Ron's bedroom was indeed small and old, but in Harry's eyes, it was much more spacious than the storage cabinet under the stairs and the attic in the Dursleys' house.

Not to mention, Ron could do whatever he wanted with this small space. He even plastered his bedroom with posters of Charlie Artillery without worrying about anyone yelling at him or asking him to tear them down.

Ron, who complains all day long, has many things that Harry has never had.

So, after getting the notebook, Harry never told Ron—it was the only thing he had that Ron didn't!

"—What are you?"

Lying in bed, with his vision blurred after taking off his glasses, Harry stared at his notebook, pondering the other person's composition while remaining hesitant.

He was a complete novice in magic, but during his special training last semester, Vaughn had warned him that many things in the magical world, especially magical objects with thoughts and wills, were usually not friendly.

It's very simple logic.

Good wizards are mostly law-abiding and generally do not create magical items with intelligence. After all, no one can guarantee that magical items will not enter Muggle society. Once they do, intelligent magical items would obviously violate the Law of Secrecy.

Only those who disregard the "Secrecy Law" would act so recklessly.

"However, perhaps it's not as terrible as Vaughn makes it out to be?"

Harry thought.

These past two days, while working with his laptop, he deliberately used his not-so-perfect brain-blocking technique.

While patiently repeating the same questions to the notebook, he also used the Occupational technique to probe whether the notebook was attempting to invade his mind.

After two days, he found nothing.

The notebook is very patient, kind, and humorous—it even reminded him today that he hadn't done his summer homework.

This gave Harry a reason to convince himself.

Perhaps it's not the kind of bad thing Vaughn warned about?

Squeak!

The door opened.

As Harry was lost in thought, he glanced instinctively towards the doorway, far from the window. In the dense darkness where the dim starlight couldn't reach, two pale green spots of light appeared as the door opened.

But Harry wasn't scared.

After staying in the shabby place for a few days, he already knew that it was fruit tea.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, Guoguocha's burly body emerged from the darkness and came to his bedside.

"Hi!"

Harry greeted him quietly.

Guoguocha remained indifferent as always, squatting by the bedside, her pale green eyes fixed on him.

Harry stared at it for a moment, then awkwardly looked away, trying to communicate with it: "Hasn't Vaughn come back?"

'

Fruit Tea: Aloof.jpg

"—Could you look somewhere else? I'm a little scared—"

Fruit Tea: Stare—

"Phew, whatever, I'm going to sleep. You can look around as you like, but don't come onto my bed, you're too big!"

"Meow!"

Fruit Tea finally made a call.

Whether it was a misperception or not, Harry sensed a disdainful and contemptuous tone in the shout.

Did a cat reject you?

Harry felt a little embarrassed.

However, if he could see the white mist filling Guoguocha's huge cat eyes, and the other party's inner world filled with white mist, then the visual signals reflected, recorded, stored, and analyzed would be...

Then he would understand why Guoguocha disliked him—

A thick plume of black smoke was billowing out of the laptop, like ink spewed out by a squid in the sea—viscous and slippery—enveloping Harry completely.

The multicolored aura emanating from Harry was being dissolved and extracted by the black mist.

A hotel owned by Wissengamo near Downing Street in London.

Vaughn leaned against the window, his fingers gently twitching, and a small, strange sphere appeared at his fingertips.

A wisp of light mist drifted over from the other end of the strange sphere, landed on Vaughn's finger, and disappeared like snowflakes falling into water.

A flash of white appeared in Vaughn's pupils as he read the information from Guoguocha's perspective.

"Harry's spiritual light is being continuously absorbed through his interaction with the notebook—"

This is a very dangerous situation.

However, Vaughn was not in a hurry. Instead, he silently read the visual information conveyed by the fruit tea and calmly observed Harry's spiritual light being absorbed by the fragments of Voldemort's soul in the notebook.

The reason he observed this was not to find out the secret of the Horcruxes, but rather—to indirectly understand the logic of fate by observing the interaction between Harry and the fragments of Voldemort's soul.

Long ago, Vaughn pondered a question—does destiny possess its own consciousness?

This relates to whether it is a law of inertia.

Or something even more beyond common sense.

He had pondered and observed this problem for a long time, but had not reached a definite conclusion. Moreover, this unknown was not only a problem he faced personally, but also something that the magical world and Muggle science had not reached a conclusion on.

In his previous life, Vaughn studied Muggle science most deeply, which included a divergence between determinism and indeterminism.

Scientists like Einstein used a very vivid analogy to describe determinism: the world is like a clock, and things move like the hands. Whether or not a person, as the subject, observes them, the trajectory of everything is within the clock face, from 12 o'clock to 0 o'clock, and everything is predictable.

In contrast, there are scholars from the Copenhagen School, such as Bohr and Heisenberg, who are the founders of quantum mechanics and believe that the microscopic world exists in an uncertain state of chaos.

This idea was criticized by Einstein as "God playing dice," and in a letter to Bohr, he said, "You believe in a God who plays dice, but I believe in perfect laws and order!"

The two groups of scientists are discussing the inherent logic of things. In the universe, whether macroscopic or microscopic, and no matter how chaotic they appear, does an objective law of mutual correlation exist within them?

But if we set aside the terminology, what they are really arguing about is "whether there is fate".

If materialism is already so divided, the magical world of idealism is even more divided.

Cognition and agnosticism (which can be compared to determinism and indeterminism) are locked in a fierce battle across various fields of magic.

Proponents of epistemology use prophecy as a weapon, believing that prophecy exists and that everything is like the hands of a clock, always moving along a predetermined path, whether in the past or the future.

Agnosticism then invokes the time-twister, which is a magical artifact created by ancient wizards to refute the "cult" of agnosticism.

The time converter's rules such as "the past cannot be changed" and "you cannot meet your past self" are not because they are impossible, but because such behavior is too dangerous and could potentially lead to unpredictable consequences, hence the restrictions.

Essentially, the past can be changed, but often such changes make things worse!

Even the Golden Soul School, which has dominated the theoretical ground of the magical world for the past few centuries, shares the same divergent views on destiny.

As is widely known, the core of the Golden Soul theory is ether, where there are no concepts of time and space.

The invisible spacetime within the ether is not a continuous dynamic of things, but rather a disordered, random, and detached independent element peeled off from things.

So, from the perspective of ether—

What is fate like?

Historical inertia that exists outside of time and space?

The magic of a highly intelligent life form?

Or, like Muggle science, is the development of things predetermined from the very moment the universe was born?

No one can answer these questions.

Even Dumbledore, a world-renowned legendary wizard and alchemist, was ambiguous in his attitude and dared not express his own opinion when he took Vaughn to observe "Fate" a few months ago.

Instead, it likens "fate" to a capricious and mischievous god.

With a divination talent of only 2, Vaughn cannot see what fate is like, so he naturally does not know the extent to which the so-called twins of fate, Harry and Tom, will be bound by their unchangeable destiny when they meet and become entangled.

If someone interferes, how will fate respond?

Is that response mechanical, or intelligent and strategic?

That's why he chose to interfere with Harry's communication with the notebook!

"Dumbledore once said that fate does not generally pursue a definite outcome. It is like a mischievous god who throws its chosen children onto the stage and watches them fight and kill each other. If fate must be given an outcome, then it is naturally the meeting of two chosen children."

"I'm interfering with this outcome right now," I'm simultaneously bringing them together and preventing them from determining a winner—fate, how will you treat me?

Thinking about it, Vaughn turned around and looked at the banquet hall behind him.

The hall was resplendent in gold, with magical candles floating in the air. Beneath the shimmering, flickering lights, old wizards in strange costumes clinked glasses and chatted.

Dumbledore was among them.

Old Deng held a glass of his favorite sherry, surrounded by a group of old wizards with snow-white hair and beards. He seemed to sense something.

When Vaughn looked over, he was looking back at him.

Their eyes met briefly, and then Dumbledore smiled apologetically at the person next to him, said a few words, and walked over with his wine glass.

"You should move around more, darling. This is a banquet I went to great lengths to organize for you. You should interact with them more, instead of hiding by the window and dumping everything on me."

As he approached, Dumbledore complained.

Vaughn ignored his complaints, his eyes misting over: "I think observing Harry's condition is more important than communicating with them."

"Ah—" Noticing his strange behavior, Dumbledore glanced again at the strange sphere by the window, paused, and asked, "A dimensional portal? It can transmit information?"

"Of course, information is also the other side of matter. Like matter, it can be distorted by the strange rings of dimensional gates—never mind, you wouldn't understand anyway, so let me say something you can understand. Tom's notebook is draining Harry's life force."

"Is it serious?"

Dumbledore asked calmly.

Vaughn replied, "The absorption isn't too fast. Currently, the damage is roughly equivalent to not getting enough rest for a few days. After all, a person's vitality is dynamic; it's not a water bucket where you can just absorb as much as you need."

In the realm of magic, life force is not a quantifiable entity with a fixed value.

It is an abstract concept, a magical expression of the active cycle of life, and in magical vision, it is also one of the many auras that surround the human body.

If someone has that kind of spiritual light, it means they are alive; if they don't, it means they are dead!

There is no concept of thickness or quantity.

Because it is constantly being generated dynamically, as long as the human body is still functioning and the cells are still active, it will continue to be produced.

Of course, if too much is lost at once, it will definitely affect the organism.

Dumbledore, of course, understood this and immediately asked, "The trend in the intensity of absorption?"

"It's hard to say." Vaughn shook his head slightly. "Tom's notebook fell into Lucius's hands. He hasn't seen a living person in over ten years. It's very weak now, after all, the medium is just a stack of parchment with no mystery whatsoever—"

Before Dumbledore could catch his breath, he abruptly changed the subject: "However, as Harry continues to communicate with Tom's remnant soul in the notebook, and as the Horcrux's power gradually recovers, its draining of Harry's life force will certainly accelerate—until Harry is completely drained!"

"————"

Upon hearing this answer, Dumbledore took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, and after a long while, sighed: "Are you sure the notebook's draining of life force is the result of Harry's communication with it?"

"Of course, I've made a backup of the changes in Harry's life aura over the past two days. Would you like to take a look?"

'

"—Isn't this a matter of privacy? Isn't it unethical to back up data so casually?"

Vaughn glanced at him: "Tch, forget it!"

"I'm just expressing my personal moral opinion—come to my office after the semester starts; I have professional equipment there."

The old wizard blinked, still quite optimistic.

But Vaughn knew that this was just Dumbledore putting on a brave face out of desperation.