From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

The two pretended to be pitiful.

Although it was obvious that he was faking it, William still softened—although it wasn't his fault and the crown was a reward, the fact that the two of them had lost their memories was undeniable.

"Alright, I'll go talk to Professor McGonagall and see if I can stall for time."

His tone softened, and he waved his hand, "Remember to study on your own, don't fall behind as soon as school starts. This is already equivalent to missing a month's worth of classes..."

-

“Mrs. Pomfrey, could you please take Miss Granger to a quiet ward? I’m going to visit Mr. Filch.”

After settling the twins' hospitalization, William entrusted Granger directly to the head nurse.

The Weasley brothers still have a lot of loose ends to clean up, especially with the warden. They need to be appeased first—ultimately, the warden being hung on the castle wall was all the twins' fault.

"Mr. Filch, how are you feeling now?"

"much better."

The administrator lay in his hospital bed, complaining, "I could actually go back to work, but I've been kept being advised to stay in the hospital for observation, which is completely unnecessary."

"It's better to stay a little longer, since I'm injured. To be honest, it's my fault; I used the Flying Spell too forcefully."

William took the blame voluntarily.

"Why blame you? If it weren't for your Summoning Charm, I might still be hanging on the castle. By the way, what happened to Weasley?"

William couldn't stop talking about Weasley—it gave him a bit of a headache, but he could understand it when he thought about it.

“They were controlled by the Crown,” William said, quickly adding the second half of the sentence, “but I put them in solitary confinement for two months, one of which was spent scrubbing toilets under your supervision.”

Filch's expression immediately darkened—clearly, a two-month confinement was not in line with his plans.

“Look on the bright side,” William coaxed and lied. “How can you get revenge for firing them? A month’s worth of toilet cleaning, instead of magic, you can use detergent. You can order the amount in advance. You can scold them for being lazy, but can you see that if you fire them?”

"Besides, there's another month of detention. Send them to Professor Snape's place and let them handle potion ingredients. Think about it, what good treatment would Professor Snape give the two Gryffindors? Let them pile up dragon dung in the greenhouse, or feed animals in the Magical Creatures class—basically, send them to do whatever they can't do. Isn't that much better than expelling them?"

"Think about it, Mr. Filch. Can those two troublemakers never make a mistake? Of course not. Keep a close eye on those two brats. Their solitary confinement won't just be one or two months, it'll be countless two-month periods. They're still a long way from graduation. We can punish them with any solitary confinement methods we can think of. We can do it whenever we have a new idea. Expelling them would be the end of it all, don't you think?"

William's words weren't particularly eloquent, but Filch's expression began to change.

Finally, he sighed, "Well, they're under control after all, but their confinement is in my hands, right?"

"That's right, without a doubt."

"Alright, those two little bastards will remember these two months!"

Filch's face was somewhat contorted, which made William feel a pang of sympathy for the two men—but there was nothing he could do; they were under control, and hanging the administrator up was going too far…

"Alright, Professor William, thank you for letting me know. I need some time to think about the confinement of those two guys."

William got up to take his leave—expulsion and confinement are far apart, and the administrator should be given some time to accept it.

-

"May I come inside?"

"Of course, Professor."

The voice of the last student came from inside the door.

William calmly opened the door, entered the small house, and found a chair to sit down.

"Still can't remember anything?"

"Yes, Professor, I can't remember anything. The only thing I can remember is being in my office, waiting to receive that crown, and at that time I was thinking about how amazing its effects would be."

"It's too amazing, and it's not going in the direction we hoped for." William gave a helpless smile—there were quite a few students involved in the experiment, and he just hoped that no other students would get into trouble, otherwise things would become increasingly difficult.

"What month is it now, Professor?"

"Yes, it's the end of October, almost a month has passed."

"Not only did I not get any help from it, but I also forgot about a month's worth of lessons..."

Hermione's face showed considerable regret—for a top student, wasting a month's worth of hard work is no small matter.

However, instead of comforting her, William stabbed her in the back.

“I’m sorry, it’s not just that, child.”

William crossed his arms and lowered his head slightly. "Although the school has already told the other students that you were under control when you attacked your classmates, this matter obviously cannot end here—you attacked almost half of your classmates, and considering their friendships, you should offend the entire grade, regardless of gender."

"It's nothing, we weren't really in a position to speak anyway."

Granger gave a disdainful smile—it was clear that she didn't get along well with her classmates.

Unfortunately, she didn't think things through enough.

“This time is different from before. Hanging someone on the toilet will offend people to death, especially since you almost escaped punishment. They will retaliate against you, child.”

"Then come on!"

"Relax, kid," William wasn't angry. With this kid's temper, if he hadn't been targeted, he could go a month without eating chocolate.

In other words, as a top student, she was well protected by Professor McGonagall. If she hadn't been number one, she probably would have lost all her books and notes.

“School bullying isn’t just about ignoring you, not playing with you, or talking badly about you behind your back. They can go much worse than you think.” William said, handing over a piece of chocolate. “Have something to eat and calm down.”

"Fortunately, you have two good enough friends, but they may not be able to help you all the time. After all, they are two boys, and there are some places that are inconvenient for them to go in and out of."

William spoke in a gentle tone.

Do you have any close female friends?

"No."

A stiff answer—clearly, the person giving the answer didn't like it either.

“Then find Ginny Weasley, your friend, Ron’s sister.”

William crossed his arms. "She's just been discharged from the hospital and has almost no memory of life at Hogwarts. You two are somewhat connected, so you can help her get acquainted with the school and maybe even tutor her a little. It'll be a good complement to each other."

"Complementary?"

"At least in the dorm or elsewhere, she can stall for time until you can pull out your wand, preventing something worse from happening—you don't want to be ambushed by a petrification charm somewhere and then surrounded by onlookers, do you?"

William carefully chose his words, trying not to upset the child in front of him.

He had heard of similar incidents in Azkaban, where someone was ambushed while using the toilet and then floated out of the classroom to be displayed. Although the perpetrator was severely punished, the victim would have been expelled from school long ago if he hadn't been shameless.

"I won't!"

Miss Granger has a terrible temper.

"I believe you're a good fighter, kid. Not everyone can easily take down a student half a grade higher. But there are times when you can't pull out your magic wand, not to mention the matter of sleeping at night."

"So I suggest you take a detention order, clean the hallway, make sure everyone can see you've been punished, and apologize to everyone in the lounge after you're discharged—a top student like you, who's willing to humble yourself, will usually be forgiven."

"Time will help you clear away some of the hatred, and then you can probably return to your previous peaceful life—"

William rambled on, "Of course, this is just a professor's insignificant suggestion, but it's the best method I can think of."

I don't want to apologize.

“So this is just a suggestion.” William smiled, pulled a handful of chocolates from his pocket, and placed them on the table beside the hospital bed.

"You always need to bring something when visiting a patient, but I don't have time to go shopping."

"In any case, I hope you can be discharged from the hospital and resume your school life."

William waved goodbye.

After closing the door, he finally breathed a sigh of relief—he had done his best to make up for the aftereffects of that crown, and hoped that everything would get better...

Chapter 176 Halloween Eve

The last day of October, Halloween Eve.

The news about the crown, after a brief period of fermentation, had spread thoroughly throughout the castle, its momentum overwhelming and unstoppable.

The sudden attack that day was embellished in countless versions that circulated among the students, each more or less touching the truth, but all of them were exaggerated—it seems the students put all their excellent imaginations into them.

Even as William walked down the corridor, he could hear passing students discussing what had happened that day. They talked excitedly about the magical crown, Filch being attacked, and the Weasley brothers who had performed such a great act.

Under such a topic, the story of a second-year student knocking down a classmate loses its sensationalism—not to mention the subsequent apology in the common room, which makes the story even less newsworthy.

'Surprisingly, the child actually listened,' William thought as he walked. 'The remaining problems don't seem like a big deal.'

Compared to the unfortunate Ginny Weasley, the three victims of this crown incident were not as severely injured—although they lost a lot of their memories, they were not physically damaged, which is a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

After Miss Granger publicly apologized in the lounge, Filch was the most severely affected by this incident.

Amidst all sorts of rumors, his image was severely damaged. Students dared to pin anything on this administrator—the weakest school official, being hung on the wall and scared to death, having nightmares in the school hospital because of fear… In short, the administrator never had a positive image in those stories.

'Looks like those twins are in for some trouble. Just based on those stories, they'll have to scrub twice as many toilets.'

The sounds of discussion about that legendary story from that day reached his ears again, and William couldn't help but feel sorry for the administrator—"Halt! Which college are you from? If I hear you spreading rumors in the corridor again, I'll deduct points from your college!"

Under William's intimidation, the students who had been chatting happily stood obediently, accepted the criticism and education, and then slunk away.

But it's useless; it only treats the symptoms, not the root cause.

Points cannot be deducted—not only is there no such rule in the school regulations, but if points were deducted, William would have to reduce the entire school's total score to zero…

"Filch, no offense, but you're even less popular than Professor Snape. At least Professor Snape had Slytherin's help. How can you not talk badly about others?"

Just as William was pondering this, they arrived at the library.

'The crown,' he sighed, looking at Mrs. Pince.

"Please, Mrs. Pince, do you still have the description of the crown that I asked you to find yesterday?"

“Aside from the ones you took yesterday, the rest of the more reliable books are all here,” Mrs. Pince pointed to a small stack of books beside her. “Professor William, those are, after all, very old things, and they haven’t been passed down over the years. You won’t find many books about them, let alone in the Hogwarts library, or even if you searched through all the books in a pure-blood family’s collection, let alone anything about that crown.”

“We should always give it a try,” William replied with a smile, picking up the stack of books. “Even conjectures are valuable. The most precious treasure of a wizard is the knowledge left by his predecessors, isn’t it?”

“I don’t disagree with that, Professor,” Mrs. Pince smiled. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t love this library so much.”

-

On his way back to his office with the book in his arms, William saw Filch again. This hot-tempered administrator had obviously heard about him from somewhere and was like a powder keg ready to explode at the slightest spark.

"Slander, is it! You two, come to my office!"

Filch threatened the students menacingly, and the two unfortunate kids, who spoke without regard for their surroundings, trembled like quails.