Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 325 Snape: Of course I... choose to be loyal to my master!

"—We can report them for damaging the castle!"

Harry racked his brains and came up with an excuse based on the last thing he saw: the destroyed underwater bridge.

Upon hearing this, Draco revealed a mocking smile: "Naive Muggle thinking, Potter. That little bit of damage can be fixed with just a few repair spells. They will be restored to their pre-damage state under the power of magic, leaving no trace!"

""

'

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Harry was dumbfounded, realizing for the first time how nauseating magic could be.

After a long silence, he grew increasingly frustrated: "This won't work, that won't work, are we just going to do nothing?"

Distracted, Harry didn't notice that, because of tonight's events, he wasn't as hostile towards Draco as before.

Despite his harsh tone, he was subconsciously discussing countermeasures with the other party.

Draco seemed oblivious to the change. After a moment of thought, he looked up, his eyes sparkling. "How could that be? We have a lot to do, Potter. For example, the most crucial thing right now is to find out who that strange wizard Dad brought is and what their purpose is."

Upon hearing this, Harry rolled his eyes in annoyance.

He hadn't even considered the "investigation" option because—

"How are we supposed to investigate? We can't even leave the castle!"

"I have a way," Draco said, reverting to his previous arrogant demeanor as he raised his head and forced a condescending view of Harry. "I must say, Potter, getting Fruit Tea's help gave me a lot of inspiration."

Huh? What do you mean?

The question had just popped into Harry's mind when he suddenly remembered something and his eyes widened: "Wait, where's the fruit tea?"

Didn't she come back with us?

Draco only noticed him after hearing his scream.

The two looked back at the deep labyrinth behind them and exchanged bewildered glances.

Deep within the maze, Fruit Tea curiously raised her paws, but her eyes could see nothing.

The claws became transparent.

In its other, equally transparent paw, lay a glass bottle. Reflected in the shimmering light of the distant lake, the bottle's label read:

[Invisible Potion]

-

This was the first time Guoguocha had used this advanced potion. She found that as the potion took effect, her body not only became transparent but also began to feel light and agile.

It wasn't an illusion; she seemed to have dissolved into the air, or become a ghost, floating in mid-air as if nothing were there.

Moments ago, the whirlwind Snape had stirred up had no effect on her.

The wind passed right through her body.

Guoguocha couldn't understand how this was done. She always found wizarding things difficult to understand, especially when the person who brewed this kind of potion was her master.

After glancing at it curiously for a few moments, Guoguocha stopped paying attention and looked at Snape and the others not far away.

Because she heard someone say a name she had heard from her master before: "DeSantis!"

The giant cat floating in mid-air twitched its ears, and its amber pupils gradually became misty white.

"DeSantis!"

For Snape, the name felt as distant as a past life, almost unreal, because he had never met the person the name represented.

But he knew it was dangerous!

After returning from North America, Dumbledore showed Snape his and Vaughn's memories of searching for "De Santis," and how they eventually found a "clearing"—

Located in the bustling city center of Muggle, amidst towering buildings lining the streets, it stands out abruptly, as if cut from a painting, a blank space "carved" out of reality!

On either side were bustling apartments, sandwiching a patch of pure white, so white that even color had been lost—

But the Muggles living around it, and even the wizards stationed nearby, turned a blind eye to its existence.

It seems that when the building was "picked" away from reality, it also disappeared from their memories and understanding.

Such incredible magic was beyond Snape's knowledge and imagination, and it made him realize just how terrifying those "DeSantis" were.

For a moment, he was at a loss for how to respond.

Across from him, hidden in the darkness, "DeSantis" chuckled with amusement: "It seems Mr. Snape has heard of this name. Was it Vaughn Weasley who told you, or Dumbledore?"

Snape tucked his wand into the wide sleeves of his robe, his long face tense and expressionless, and he did not answer.

DeSantis seemed unfazed by his silence, merely smiling before turning to Lucius Malfoy and saying, "My dear Lucius, why not continue your interrupted conversation? I imagine Mr. Snape would love to know who activated the mark on your wrist."

Lucius, who had been hunched over with his face hidden in the shadows, raised his head slightly upon hearing this, glanced at Snape who was staring at him with icy eyes, and then lowered his head again, replying, "Yes, Your Excellency—Severus, it was my master who activated my mark. He ordered me to obey Lord DeSantis's commands."

Snape's lips moved slightly.

Before he could finish speaking, Lucius continued, "Yes, my master is indeed dead, but the esteemed Lord De Santis has found his—afterimage—my master, please forgive this servant's disrespect—"

He whispered fearfully, as if the person whose name he couldn't speak was right in front of him.

He murmured these words several times before his voice regained its composure: "My master told me that he has decided to cooperate with North America, represented by Mr. DeSantis."

"—What kind of cooperation?"

"resurrection!"

Lucius's throat tightened. "Mr. DeSantis promised to help his master resurrect, but of course, there are some problems at the moment—"

"What's the problem?"

"I—I can't say—"

Lucius's previously calm expression turned fearful again.

"Alright, don't make things difficult for Lucius, because what follows is confidential; even I don't know it."

Across the broken covered bridge, DeSantis gently interrupted Lucius, "So, Mr. Snape, what's your decision now? Will you remain loyal to your former master and join us, or will you betray your past?"

Snape stared into the darkness for a long time before asking softly, "Did I have a choice?"

"Hmm—I don't think so, hahaha!"

DeSantis laughed. "It's quite interesting. It seems that both you and dear Lucius have a little problem with your loyalty to Mr. Voldemort. However, I can understand that, since Mr. Voldemort doesn't trust you either, much less me."

"I searched for him for months in the Black Forest of Albania. He always tried to avoid me. It wasn't until he found a Blood Curse Orc that was under the Blood Demon's curse and got rid of that pathetic afterimage that he dared to show himself and talk to me—poor fellow."

DeSantis's tone was full of teasing and mockery, which made Lucius bury his head deeply, as if he wanted to gouge his own ears out.

Only Snape remained cold and silent.

"De Santis" was unfazed by his silent resistance. "He did the same to you. He didn't even dare to appear before Lucius and you—he sent some messages to Lucius through the mark, but he was afraid that Lucius would betray him, so I had to come to England myself to cast an unbreakable oath spell on Lucius."

72

"Lucius can only receive the message in the mark if he is under an unbreakable oath. Of course, if you are willing to return to your master's service, you will also have to be enchanted by me. That is why I risked entering Hogwarts and had Lucius lead you here."

An unbreakable vow —

Snape's lips twitched, and a flicker of emotion crossed his dark eyes.

His revered and awe-inspiring master had never before scorned this kind of contract magic. In his master's mind, a contract was a choice for the weak to compromise with each other, while the strong believed in suppressing everything with power!

Under the influence of Occlumency, countless thoughts churned like raging waves in his mind, which manifested in reality as Snape's increasingly cold expression.

He silently watched the trembling Lucius, and the broken underwater bridge that seemed to be restored to its original state as time flowed backward with the chanting of a spell from the opposite side.

Then, a dark shadow slowly emerged from the darkness on the other side.

Yes, shadows.

A humanoid shadow, as if smeared with ink, walked from the other side of the covered bridge into the range of Snape's glow spell.

The ball of light, radiating intense light and floating in mid-air, could not dispel the shadow in the slightest. It was like a black hole, swallowing the light as it approached.

Finally standing before Snape, she raised her head slightly and said in a light tone, "As I said before, I don't care whether you are loyal to Voldemort or not. I think Voldemort himself probably doesn't care either. It's just a transaction between him and me, between him and you, and even between us."

"Does this make it easier for you to accept, Mr. Snape?"

Snape lowered his eyes, stared at the humanoid shadow for a moment, then slowly looked away, glancing at Lucius, who was secretly looking up and watching them.

Both of them were waiting for his response, but he remained expressionless, and no one knew what was going on in his cold mind.

After an unknown amount of time, Snape slowly stretched out his hand, and in the cold, dim light of the lake's bottom, he answered in a dry, emotionless tone, "Of course—I choose to serve my master!"

When Guoguocha regained consciousness, she had already left the dungeon.

Although she didn't know what she had just experienced, the situation was not unfamiliar to her.

Ever since her master developed the magic called "Personality Armor" and implanted it into her brain, she has frequently experienced similar things—suddenly losing consciousness for a moment, only to find herself in another place when she regains consciousness, with a blank space in her memory that she cannot recall.

If it were a person, they would probably be terrified of such an experience.

But Guoguocha is a pet cat. She trusts her owner, and as long as her owner doesn't make her eat dirty things like mice while she's unconscious, she doesn't mind lending her body to her owner for a while—or more accurately, to her owner's memory magic.

Meow~

Guoguocha let out a soft cry and determined its location.

What reassured her was that she was still in Hogwarts Castle. Although the corridor she was in smelled a little unfamiliar and there were no marks she had left, the surrounding decor was all too familiar.

The tapestry with its somber pattern, the brazier burning with blue demonic fire, and the smooth armor reflecting the firelight, standing like guards in the recesses of the wall.

Suddenly, Guoguocha's ears twitched. She heard a familiar voice coming from deep in the corridor.

"Meow!"

The giant cat raised its tail and quickly ran towards the direction from which the sound came. Soon, in the faint light provided by the blue magic fire, it saw a half-open door, through which orange-yellow light shone.

Faintly, a familiar voice could be heard: "Professor, you should go back and rest. I still have some things to take care of here."

"Alright, it is getting late—you should get some rest too, research can't be rushed."

As the voices were heard, the half-closed door was pushed open, and an old wizard with a face full of hideous scars came out. He waved to the inside of the door and left with a limp.

Guoguocha's attention was not on the departing old wizard. She stared excitedly at the door, her straight tail swaying gently as she ran towards it.

But the moment it stepped through the door, the impetuous cat was met with a devastating blow—

The orange-yellow lights she had seen before suddenly seemed to come alive, desperately trying to penetrate her eyes, followed by vast expanses of abstract scenes that were completely incomprehensible.

Dark clouds, thunder, silken threads stretching and moving within the clouds, light transmitted like lightning.

Her vision flickered, and she felt as if she had plunged into the shimmering, lightning-filled clouds, where countless "pits" slowly emerged from the "clouds."

The openings of the pits rolled and writhed, like pores or gaping mouths of thirst. Strange-shaped things fell into the holes and were swallowed up.

Then, a contradictory, faint yet “intense” light erupted before my eyes and deep within my mind!

The feeling is like facing a flood of sand. A single grain of sand is insignificant, but when they gather in a swarm, no dam can stop their power.

Guoguocha's consciousness was instantly plunged into a blinding white, and her thoughts seemed to freeze.

Just then, a figure came to her and gently covered her eyes. After a silent incantation, Guoguocha's stagnant thoughts suddenly started to function again.

"Meow!"

The giant cat's fur stood on end, and it instinctively assumed an attack stance, but the next moment, its ears folded up.

Because in her clear vision, she saw her master, who reached out to stroke her. Along with that came the voice of her master, whom she had missed for several days: "Little rascal, didn't I tell you not to come looking for me lately? The experiments I'm conducting right now are very dangerous. I could accidentally hurt you like I did just now. That knowledge you can't understand is poisonous."

Watching Guoguocha slump like a blanket under his touch, Vaughn, who had been doing experiments all day, couldn't help but smile.

Meow~

Fruit Tea made a coquettish sound.

Vaughn's smile faded slightly: "Hmm? Did the Persona suit bring you here?"

"Meow!"

'

'

After listening quietly to Guoguocha finish "speaking," Vaughn's brows gradually furrowed. He pondered for a moment, then walked to the center of the room under Guoguocha's curious gaze, stopped the ritual, waved his wand and conjured a blanket to cover the flesh-and-blood, strangely structured polyhedron.

Then, he returned to the Fruit Tea Noodles shop, lightly tapped her forehead with his wand, and drew out a thread composed of white mist.

Thick mist billowed from his body, spreading and dispersing. Vaughn picked up a strand of thread, threw it into the mist, and closed his eyes slightly.

A memory is absorbed, filtered, and stored by the personality entity, and soon it falls into the memory archive deep in his heart.

The busy personifications around him extracted the memories that were being archived and handed them over to Vaughn.

The moment Vaughn opened the file, it was as if he had fallen into a basin of water. The light and shadow around him swayed, and countless colors mixed together, like ink falling into water, spreading, diffusing, and then cascading down like a waterfall, reassembling scene after scene at the bottom.

In these reconstructed scenes, Vaughn sees Harry and Draco find the fruit tea and sees them secretly following Lucius Malfoy.

We also see Professor Snape summoning a gust of wind to drive the two away.

And then, the underwater covered bridge shattered, and from the darkness on the other side, that name echoed.

"DeSantis————"

The name, which had been absent for several months, made Vaughn frown.

In August, he and Dumbledore tracked down "De Santis," but they were too late. By the time the group had already broken away, he had already anticipated that he would one day come into contact with the name again—which was normal. The "De Santis" group had gathered such a powerful force that they couldn't possibly stay confined to North America forever. Whatever their purpose, they would eventually make contact with the international community.

He just didn't expect that his prediction would come true so quickly.

Then, he heard the news that DeSantis was working with Voldemort!

"The plot has changed—is it the butterfly effect?"

Vaughn pondered.

He didn't expect the "plot" in his memory to remain unchanged forever, because that was simply impossible. He had transmigrated to a real world, and everything in the real world is dynamic and changing.

In particular, his existence means that the more he participates in the world's progress, the more events he influences, and naturally, the greater the "plot (history) deviation" will be.

From a certain perspective, disrupting the "plot" is actually in line with his development strategy and interests. After all, if the "plot" is not changed, Harry will be the "protagonist" of this world, and his existence will become meaningless!

Of course, no change should be made blindly.

This is also one of the reasons why he chose to cooperate with Dumbledore after enrolling last year. As a legendary wizard, Dumbledore was the safety net he found for changing the plot.

"It seems we need to bring Old Deng back—"

When Harry opened his eyes in the early morning, he found that it was snowing heavily outside the window again.

Every winter in the Scottish Highlands, cold air masses blowing in from the North Sea, along with large clumps of moisture, blanket the mountains and forests in silver.