Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 267 Vaughn and Dumbledore: Flexible Bottom Lines

He first glanced at Banban, who was fast asleep in the cage by Ron's bedside, but unlike the previous times, he didn't check Banban's memories first.

Instead, he went to Harry's bedside, gently pressed his wand against Harry's forehead, and after a moment, a wisp of white mist was pulled out.

The moment Harry's personality suit was pulled out, an aged voice came from behind Vaughn: "Your memory magic is becoming more and more refined, child."

Vaughn was not surprised; thick white mist emerged from his sleeves and seeped into the white thread that was being pulled from Harry's forehead.

Many images flashed through his eyes.

As he examined it, he replied, "As long as you don't report me to the Ministry of Magic, it can continue to be refined."

"Oh—abuse is not a good habit—"

"Did you come with me to criticize my way of practicing magic?" Vaughn interrupted Dumbledore. "If you're really that bored, I think you should be more concerned about your savior. I sent you a message; his soul may have undergone some changes due to some unknown interference."

Behind him, Dumbledore, dressed in a pink and purple nightgown, emerged from the darkness and said with a smile, "As we've said before, the best way to care for him is to refrain from interfering for now. With your and my magical abilities, the more we get involved, the greater the turmoil in fate will become, until ultimately, fate banishes us from the game!"

"Besides, isn't Harry's transformation a good thing? According to you, he's taking initiative and trying to solve problems on his own, and Ron, well, I think we've all underestimated his intelligence."

"The premise of subjective initiative is having a clear understanding of things and a clear plan, rather than blindly trying out various clues like a headless fly."

Vaughn continued reading the information transmitted from Harry's personality suit, a flood of memories and abstract impressions of random thoughts, which cascaded through his eyes like a waterfall.

He saw Harry's struggles, hesitations, and indecision these past few days.

Regret, pain, and the determination to turn things around.

Of course, Harry also had concerns about Ron's "relationship problems" —

Vaughn's expression was somewhat strange, partly due to his speechlessness at Harry, and partly due to Dumbledore's antics:

E

Don't tell me you're planning to use the notebook as a tool to motivate Harry's growth, just like you did last semester.

1

Old Deng looked surprised: "Honey, are you a tapeworm in my stomach?"

Vaughn rolled his eyes at him.

Dumbledore laughed heartily. The room had already been swept clean by Vaughn's Stunning Charm, so he didn't have to worry about waking anyone.

After laughing nervously for a while, Old Deng said cheerfully, "Yes, yes, I do have that plan. Do you think it's inappropriate?"

"You're playing with fire, Albus!"

"Oh—you're worried about Harry, aren't you? That's wonderful. It seems you really consider this poor child a friend. You're worried about his safety, Vaughn. How beautiful!"

Dumbledore touched the corner of his eye with emotion.

The old man's clumsy performance did not affect Vaughn. Vaughn methodically discerned, filtered, and summarized the information conveyed by the persona.

His expression remained calm throughout, only uttering a sarcastic remark when he sent the white mist threads back into Harry's mind: "I'm worried you've gone too far. If Mr. Riddle were to resurrect and return, it wouldn't matter if you died, but if Hogwarts were to fall and we could no longer borrow those millennia-old treasures from the library, it would be a great pity for me."

Having heard too much sarcasm, Dumbledore was immune to it all. Touched, he changed the subject: "Thank you for your concern, son—how is Harry's mental state?"

"No abnormalities have been found so far."

"See, I told you, you're just worried and confused—"

Vaughn interrupted him: "No, that's exactly the problem. A few days ago, Harry's mind was indeed affected by some unknown external force, triggering the underlying defenses he built based on his own moral compass. He himself was unaware of it, but the persona attached to his inner world wouldn't ignore it, nor would it send out false warnings!"

Seeing his serious expression, Dumbledore stopped pretending to be crazy and nodded: "Alright, you can screen him carefully. Do you need my help?"

"Of course, I'll make a copy for you later."

"—Darling, I was just being polite."

Vaughn, too lazy to bother with this frivolous old man, said, "You sneaked up on me and followed me to the Gryffindor dorms, surely not to spy on me examining Harry's memories?"

"What do you mean by sneaking around, spying? Don't use such harsh words—" The shameless old wizard protested halfway through, then changed the subject: "How about you do something with me?"

"What are you doing?"

"Go see what Mr. Notebook is up to—the castle tells me that evil forces are stirring in the shadows tonight!"

Late at night, Filch, with a book tucked under his arm, limped through the quiet, dark castle.

He's on night patrol!

He had just finished patrolling the fourth floor. This wasn't a place he usually patrolled, but today, the dueling club, which hadn't even started yet, was holding a membership application event on this floor. That damned Pikachu had made a mess of the corridor.

Filch spent a long time cleaning up the water stains in the cracks of the wall and inside the armor. Even at night, he was still worried, suspiciously guarding against the possibility of a little wizard coming in the middle of the night to imitate Peeves and cause trouble.

Despite being the least popular student among the young wizards at Hogwarts, Filch actually loves Hogwarts very much.

Working at the castle was his life, and everything to him.

-

For no other reason than that only in this way could he be with magic at all times, even if it was the professors or young wizards casting the spells, not him.

What can you expect from a dud?

But Filch did not completely give up his ideals. He left the fourth floor and went down to the third floor through the stairwell. Filch did not immediately begin patrolling this floor.

The stairwell was the only lit place in the castle at night, with flickering braziers rising and falling in the courtyard surrounded by the stairs. He stopped to rest and opened the book in his hand by the light.

The book cover features several large characters that shimmer with captivating, dazzling colors:

"Rapid Spellcasting: A Correspondence Course for Beginners in Magic"

Filch treated it like a treasure, turning the pages as gently as possible, as if he were holding his future, everything in his life.

Do you find yourself falling behind the pace of modern magic? Do you find excuses in your life to avoid performing any simple spells? Are you troubled by your stagnant magic, unable to respond to your calls or perform even a crude trick? Quick incantations, a beginner's guide to magic—the answer to your problems is here!

The sight of the silver, cursive lettering made Filch's breath quicken. Although he had the book for several days and had read the inscription on the title page many times, he still couldn't suppress his emotions.

Just as he was about to continue reading, a noise suddenly came from downstairs.

The sound was muffled and indistinct due to the echoes in the deep courtyard, but Filch heard a cat meowing in the muffled sound!

Mrs. Lorris!

Are there little wizards who roam at night?

audacious in the extreme!

Filch, angrily interrupted from his studies, slammed his book shut, tucked it away, and then, with remarkable agility, limped downstairs.

Running up to the second-floor corridor, the sounds became clearer. Filch heard Mrs. Lorris screaming in pain!

"Who is it!"

He roared, his heart filled with anxiety, and he even tripped and fell because he was running too fast.

The corridor was pitch black, the light from the courtyard couldn't reach it. Filch, who had fallen to the ground, couldn't see anything. He could only stare anxiously into the deep darkness ahead, and from the depths of that darkness came the sounds of thrashing, tearing, and Mrs. Lorris's increasingly shrill screams.

Damn it! Damn it!

"Who is it! Get out of the way! Don't hurt Mrs. Lorice!" he shouted, his voice trembling.

Then, something came in from the doorway behind him, passing by him lightly and swiftly. Filch only saw a pair of huge, will-o'-the-wisps of green eyes rushing into the dark corridor.

The sounds of fighting grew increasingly intense.

But he still couldn't see anything. The darkness obscured his vision like a thick fog, and his worry turned into fear, gripping Filch's heart tightly.

Just as he was panicking and struggling to get up, wanting to rush in as well.

Another sound came from behind, a faint incantation:

"Lumo!"

Filch saw a bright light, like a hurricane, "blowing" into the corridor from behind him!

Brightness shines forth.

Filch wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but he saw distorted shadows melting in the light in the corridor, and darkness rushing back against the intense light like a tide, only to be defeated again and again.

Countless sounds entered his ears: rustling whispers, frenzied hallucinations, seductive murmurs, and vicious curses.

Filch felt his mind sway violently in the wind amidst the countless overlapping voices, as if it would go out at any moment.

But a hand landed on his shoulder from behind, and that hand brought a warm light that enveloped him.

His consciousness, like the space before him, vanished into blankness.

When he came to his senses again, the darkness had vanished, and the brazier in the corridor was ablaze with celestial fire, its blue flames flickering and illuminating everything ahead.

"No--"

The moment Filch saw what was happening in the corridor, he cried out in panic. He saw Mrs. Lorris lying about 20 feet away, her hair matted and her body covered in wounds.

Bright red blood flowed across the corridor floor, surrounded by cat hair, scratches, and signs of a struggle.

"No! Mrs. Lorice!"

Filch stumbled over, wanting to pick up Mrs. Lorris, but seeing his beloved companion covered in wounds, he dared not move rashly.

For a moment, they were at a loss.

At that moment, the faint voice that had been chanting earlier came again: "Don't worry, Filch, Mrs. Lorris is not in mortal danger."

Filch turned around and saw Vaughn standing where he had fallen earlier, a much softer glow hovering above his head, but with a brighter light flickering faintly, as if—guarding against something.

"Mr. Weasley————"

If there's anyone in Hogwarts Castle who could win over the "bad-natured" Filch, besides Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, it would only be Vaughn Weasley.

It's not that the two have any particularly close relationship.

Instead, it was Vaughn Weasley's enormous cat, Fruit Tea, who was Mrs. Lorris's playmate. Mrs. Lorris got a lot of cat food and dried fish from Vaughn, and Vaughn would sometimes give her some pet supplements.

Filch believed Vaughn's words; snot and tears streamed down his ugly nose, and his eyes shone with anticipation: "Really—really? Mr. Weasley?"

"Yes, Argus."

This time, it wasn't Vaughn who answered. Filch was surprised to see Dumbledore, dressed in pink and purple pajamas, also coming in from the corridor doorway.

"I just informed Mrs. Pomfrey that you should get Lorice to the school hospital as soon as possible; she will be healed."

Filch had no idea why Vaughn and Dumbledore would be here so late at night. His mind was in turmoil. He instinctively obeyed their orders, carefully picking up Mrs. Lorris and preparing to take her to the school hospital.

Just before leaving, his cheeks puffed out, he asked angrily, "Mr. Weasley, Mr. Headmaster, who was so vicious as to attack my cat?"

He did not receive an answer.

Dumbledore simply comforted him, "We'll find out. Argus, go to the hospital and take good care of Mrs. Lorris."

Filch left, sobbing, not even noticing that the book he had been carrying under his arm had fallen to the ground and been picked up by Vaughn.

When Dumbledore returned after seeing Filch off, he saw Vaughn flipping through the book.

"Argus is a Squib, but he has never given up on his dream of learning magic." Dumbledore clearly knew his appointed doorkeeper very well.

"But he was working in the wrong direction; the entire book was fake." Vaughn only flipped through a few pages of "Quick Spell Recitation" before concluding that the whole book was a hoax targeting Squibs.

Dumbledore shrugged: "When people are desperate, they often fall into a vicious cycle of thought, bound by their resentment and yearning for miracles in a seemingly bright web, even if they know it's fake—like Tom, who did come here anyway."

The two looked toward the floor next to where Mrs. Lorris had been lying injured, where there was a door.

Behind the door lies the abandoned baptismal chamber, the entrance to the secret room.

Not long ago in Harry and Ron's bedroom, Dumbledore asked Vaughn to help him with something: to stop the person who had just hurt Mrs. Norris from entering the Chamber of Secrets.

Saving Lady Lorice was, in fact, a matter of chance.

To be honest, Vaughn is starting to get a little PD-ish about words like "chance" and "coincidence" these days.

He shook his head, shaking off the vague irritation in his mind, and looked at the half-closed door of the bathroom, saying, "After I told you the information last time, I thought you would try to seal it up during the days you disappeared."

“A lockdown isn’t a good solution,” Dumbledore shook his head. “I did consider it, and I even went to the library to check the castle’s repair records over the years—and I must thank you here, Vaughn, for your borrowing records from the library last year, which saved me a lot of time. The castle has been around for so long, and the records are so complicated.”

These words were both a joke and a subtle probe. Vaughn smiled and replied, "I'm glad I could help. Did you discover anything?"

"Of course not. Just as you said and what we found, this is the only remaining entrance to the secret chamber. During the pipe renovation that affected the entire castle in the 18th century, Corvinus Gaunt may have eliminated all the other entrances. I just lament that if we had considered the Gaunt family factor when Myrtle was murdered more than 40 years ago, we probably would have found the secret chamber long ago."

Dumbledore shook his head slightly.

In 1943, Moaning Myrtle died, marking the first time since the founding of Hogwarts that there was concrete evidence to support the existence of the Chamber of Secrets.

Before that, although the legend of the Chamber of Secrets had been around for a long time, almost no one in the English wizarding world took it seriously. In the early days of the legend, several headmasters and some legendary wizards with superb magic tried to find Slytherin's "legacy" based on the legend, but they found no clues at all.

Hundreds of years have passed, and by the time more than 40 years ago, when Dumbledore was the professor of Transfiguration, people had already formed a habit of thinking that even though they had searched the castle for a while because of Myrtle's death, they never thought of looking for clues in old documents.

He stepped forward and pushed open the door to the washroom. The firelight from the corridor spilled in, revealing a dilapidated, dusty washroom to the two of them.

Vaughn discovered that Myrtle, who had been staying in the bathroom and crying all the time, was not there today.

He looked at Dumbledore.

As if knowing what he was thinking, Dumbledore blinked: "A few days ago, I tricked poor Myrtle away so that she wouldn't tell those who shouldn't know what I was going to do."

As he spoke, he walked into the bathroom and came to the sink.

Although the washroom is abandoned, it was only because a murder occurred there decades ago. For safety reasons, the board of directors and school management at the time decided to abandon it. Its plumbing system is still in good working order.

The faucet in the sink will naturally also dispense water.

Dumbledore's gaze fell on one of the row of brass faucets in the sink. He walked over and reached out to turn the switch.

There was no movement.

"—If it weren't for your intelligence, I probably would never have imagined that Kovinus Gaunt would hide the entrance in this faucet."

As he spoke, Dumbledore touched the side of the faucet, where a small, blurry mark was etched, barely recognizable as the shape of a snake.

As he stroked it, he said to Vaughn, "Of course, you can't blame us for being negligent. This mark was too difficult to find, and we didn't expect that Slytherin and his descendant Corvinus Gaunt would set the 'code' at the entrance in Parsleyan."

"This magical language is so rare that no one even knows its origin. Historical records of it are extremely scarce, especially after the extinction of the Gaunt family, when Parsleyan has never appeared again. When you told me about the entrance, I was troubled for a long time. Where could I find a Parsleyan to open this place?"

Vaughn acted as a good listener without saying a word.

Dumbledore didn't mind and continued, "When I had no other choice, I even set my sights on people from thousands of years ago—during the few days I was away, I went to the Balkans, you know, a paradise for dark wizards. The only other Parsleyan with clear historical records, the despicable Helpo, was a Greek."

Greece is also a country located in the Balkan Peninsula.

"But thousands of years is too long." He sighed. "All traces of that most famous dark wizard have been washed away by time. I have not found any clues that he is still alive, let alone his descendants. Prophecy magic is useless—until, in my frustration, I thought of last semester."

His deep tone suddenly turned cheerful as he looked into Vaughn's bright blue eyes, which shone like jewels: "Remember how you modified a Muggle tape recorder and gave it to Miss Granger, saving her, Harry, and Ron from the Harpy's attack? That gave me the inspiration!"

Before he could finish speaking...

A subtle magical fluctuation vibrated the air. In Vaughn's magically enhanced vision, he saw the brass faucet engraved with the snake mark burst forth with a dim yet highly noticeable aura as Dumbledore's hand caressed it.

The faucet seemed to melt instantly, and a strange bubble bulged out where the snake mark was.

It looks like bubbles expanding in swampy silt.

It swelled and swelled until it was bigger than the faucet itself, and then, pop, it broke!

A roughly 10-inch, rather antique-looking music box fell into the sink as the "bubble" burst.

"Before returning to the castle, I went to Nico's place and borrowed this music box from him. It's a powerful magical item that can record a spell and reproduce it completely—no matter how complex the conditions for that spell are, or how demanding the emotions and magic required!"

Hearing this, Vaughn knew what he was going to do without Dumbledore needing to say anything more.

Similarly, he understood why Dumbledore hadn't sealed off the baptismal chamber—

The old man hoped to use the laptop—or the host controlled by the laptop—to come to the bathroom and recite the language that would open the secret room.

Then record that magic into the music box!

Sure enough, as Dumbledore opened the box, it emitted a sinister hissing sound, and the moment the sound rang out, the faucet emitted a dazzling white light and then spun rapidly.

Immediately afterwards, the entire bathroom shook, and the sink slowly parted to the sides, revealing a large water pipe!

Dumbledore leaned closer to the tube, peered inside like a mouse that had just stolen cheese: "Phew—all good, boy!"

He said happily.

Vaughn, however, remained indifferent and watched.

In fact, Dumbledore had considered this method last year. A few months ago, when he was training Harry on Occlumency, he did quite a bit of sneaking around.

When Harry was implanted with a personality implant and controlled by him, and lost consciousness, he tried to record Parsley's speech using a tape recorder that Fred and George had modified—the tape recorder given to Hermione was leftover from that experiment.

However, at that time he underestimated the complexity of Parsleyan and overestimated Fred and George's alchemy skills.

The experiment ultimately failed, with more than a dozen tape recorders burning out.