From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

William looked at the letter in front of him and mentally complained, but the creature that had finished a box of owl food came over a few times and started gently biting his fingers.

"What's wrong? Not enough to eat?"

William asked with a smile, but the owl quickly pecked at the letter of appointment again.

He glanced at it again instinctively and then noticed that the appointment letter consisted of two tightly folded parchment sheets, with a signature required at the bottom among the seals of the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts.

"Send it back? Okay."

William picked up the quill pen on the table and signed his name in a bold manner. It wasn't very neat, but it was still legible.

He wrapped one copy of the employment letter in an envelope on the table, tied the letter to the owl's leg, and watched as the visitor spread his wings and flew into the sky.

[You are cursed. You have been granted a new treasure chest.]

???

William was completely stunned—how did he get cursed all of a sudden?

Can't this broken system provide a manual? Why does it keep releasing new features?

Hopefully, this time the cards will be powerful, ideally one that can directly remove curses.

With this expectation in mind, William opened the treasure chest directly.

On the purple wooden box, a huge eye suddenly opened, and then a purple mist flowed out of the eye, condensing in mid-air into three purple cards.

[Curse (Bone-Covering Affliction) Paralysis; You have been cursed by an evil and powerful enemy. As the curser's power recovers, you will encounter one accident after another. These accidents will not directly take your life, but you will eventually lose control of your body.]

Duration: Permanent, until the exterminator dies.

[Curse (Bone-Clinging Affliction) Loss of Mind; You have been cursed by an evil and powerful enemy. As the curser's power recovers, you will encounter one accident after another. These accidents will not directly take your life, but you will eventually lose all your memories.]

Duration: Permanent, until the exterminator dies.

[Curse (Bone-Clinging Ulcer) Death; You have been cursed by an evil and powerful enemy. As the curser's power recovers, you will encounter one accident after another. These accidents will not take your life the first time, but you will eventually fall under the curse.]

Duration: Permanent, until the exterminator dies.

Faced with a difficult choice of three options, William now has to choose between flat-cut noodles and wonton noodles.

Or, to put it another way, is it curry that tastes like shit or curry that tastes like shit?

The last card was a choice that could be ignored—after agonizing for a long time, William chose the first option with grief and indignation.

He immediately opened the warehouse to check the information about this type of card, hoping to get more information from the system.

The deed is done—if he had known beforehand, he would have preferred to serve his full year in Azkaban, but now that he's lost the gamble, he can only try to make amends.

Complaining and blaming others is useless; at this time, minimizing the losses is of utmost importance.

A deep-rooted carbuncle: extremely difficult to eliminate, it takes effect once a year, and is almost impossible to escape.

That's all, nothing more.

Extremely difficult and almost impossible—the latter is obviously more terrifying, but even just the former, extremely difficult, was something that Dumbledore, the first white wizard, could not remove in ten years.

There's only one option left. Try every possible way to escape the dead end of the first year, or at least minimize the losses—like leaving yourself crippled.

Then, before they are paralyzed, find a way to kill Voldemort in the shortest possible time!

Chapter Twenty-Two: Determination and Seclusion

"Calm down, you can do it. The situation is complicated, but it's much better than waking up in a completely unfamiliar prison."

William controlled his breathing, desperately trying to calm himself down.

He had already planned to leave Hogwarts, but now it seems he has to start all over again.

He doesn't know much about the entire magical world; his current understanding is limited to the general direction of Hogwarts in a certain year to come.

He couldn't confirm the exact date yet, but he clearly remembered that everything he knew would happen when the boy named Harry Potter participated in the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts.

At that time, the one who cast the curse he had just suffered—the one whose name must not be mentioned—will be resurrected from the magical ritual.

Without a doubt, the curse he suffers from will become most aggressive at that time, and if he doesn't want to take greater risks, he'd better find a way to restrain the curse before then, or simply kill the person whose name cannot be mentioned.

This meant that he had to stay at Hogwarts until the so-called Triwizard Tournament was about to begin, instead of deliberately causing an accident at the end of the year, spending a few months in the hospital, and then successfully leaving Hogwarts as he had previously planned.

He rushed to the bathroom, splashed cold water on himself to wake up, and then looked at his wet face in the mirror and said;

"You've already tried your best to come here. Those Dementors in Azkaban didn't break you, and the unusual rules of the prison didn't stump you. You spent half a year in that dark and hopeless place. You weren't released to be used as material for curses."

"You don't know much about the Harry Potter movies, but that's no reason for you to give up. You have the body of an adult in the wizarding world, enough magical reserves to make a living in the wizarding world, you have a prophecy about a certain year in the future, and you know who is the one who will defeat that guy."

“You even have a system that you acquired out of nowhere—you shouldn’t be afraid of it, you should be afraid of the people who cursed you.”

He quickly wiped his face clean, suppressing his fear of the mysterious man.

William had never seen the mysterious man, but in Azkaban, he had heard countless stories about the people imprisoned in the deepest parts of the prison.

Every prisoner in the light cell trembles at the mention of those guys deep inside the prison—most of those who call themselves Death Eaters, after nearly a decade in the depths of the prison, still manage to maintain mental stability under the oppression of Dementors.

William, who had dealt with those Dementors, knew all too well how terrifying this was, and those Death Eaters were merely followers of the Mystic.

"I started on hard mode, but then I accidentally changed it to hell mode. What can I do but keep playing? Who knows, I might just beat it."

He gave the guy in the mirror an ugly smile.

"I'm afraid I won't have time to work on potions anymore—at my current level, I might be able to earn enough to make a living for half a year, but if it goes on for too long, I'm afraid I won't even be able to teach students anymore."

Stepping out of the bathroom, with a completely different feeling than before, William directly pulled out the textbooks used by the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors over the years from the attachments to the letter.

Things like potions and making money can now be completely put aside.

For him right now, the most important task is to buy all these textbooks, then select the most suitable series of teaching materials from the professors' choices, and thoroughly master the most suitable materials in the time before going to Hogwarts.

The potions he studied most, the magical creatures that interested him most, and the vast history of magic—all of these things were kept at the bottom of his trunk. Since Hogwarts was short of a professor of wizarding self-defense magic, he would make all the preparations for such a position, fulfill his duties, and avoid any unforeseen events during his term.

-

The following days were dull and tedious. He politely declined the two orders that Old Tom offered him, and ordered his meals from inside the Leaky Cauldron every day. Apart from the one hour of exercise he was required to do each day, he spent all his time studying his textbooks.

For two whole weeks, William deliberately cut off all contact with the outside world, focusing all his attention on staying in the house. After roughly reading through the twenty books he had brought back, he carefully read through the entire set of first and second grade textbooks.

Fortunately, the magic taught in the lower grades is not difficult for adult wizards, and the wizard self-defense magic course that William forced the school to change its name does not take up a large proportion of the curriculum, which has greatly relieved his worries.

During this time, there was no news from Hogwarts. Old Tom understood after William presented the letter of appointment, and everything was peaceful. If there was any news from the outside world, it was that the owner of Flourish and Blotts sent William the money to buy all the books by owl while he was studying them, along with a bunch of newly published books on Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Without exception, these books are all the latest editions and cannot be found as secondhand copies.

After cursing the unscrupulous merchant in his heart, William stuffed the new books into the bottom of the box.

He has absolutely no confidence in whether he can become a qualified professor, and he's even thinking of going to the school to copy the previous professor's lesson plans. How could he possibly suddenly decide on a new textbook? Hogwarts wouldn't object to his behavior, but he's thinking of staying for a while longer.

On the seventeenth day of William's seclusion to study those books, there was a knock on his room.

"Little William, someone is looking for you."

Old Tom stood outside the door, his voice brimming with barely suppressed joy.

The bookstore owner didn't receive a reply, so he came to the store in person?

William paused for a moment, then immediately thought of the letter from a few days ago—he was so busy that he didn't even have time to reply, so he simply let the owl fly back empty.

He was not worried about any problems with not saying anything after receiving the textbooks, as he would have to choose from the books he bought.

Could it be that guy is really blinded by greed, coming here and pestering me to choose his new book as a teaching material?

William originally wanted to tell Old Tom that he had rejected the man, but after thinking about it, he decided to give Old Tom face—to make things clear and let the boss give up.

If you really mess with him, he'll just use the oldest and most published book as a textbook and see how many copies he can sell this time!

Chapter Twenty-Three: Dumbledore's Visit

Books are not cheap, especially textbooks. A slightly more professional textbook might make you wonder at checkout if the pages were printed with silver.

William could completely understand why the businessman had come to him, but given William's current state, following the established rules was already a good thing; choosing suitable teaching materials on his own was just asking for trouble.

He was prepared to tell the boss these things clearly: he had no intention of specifically choosing newly released books as textbooks, not even without the current crisis.

But when he opened the door with a stern face, he was startled by the person behind the door.

A deep voice came from behind old Tom:

"Good afternoon, Mr. William. I apologize for visiting without prior notice, but the matter is rather urgent, and I feel it is necessary for us to communicate in person."

Although he said this, the newcomer did not sound anxious. His tall and thin figure allowed his face to be fully revealed behind Old Tom, and the gentle smile on his face made it impossible to imagine that such a kind old man was the recognized strongest in the magical world.

"Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore. To be honest, I didn't expect you to come until I opened the door."

William forced himself not to show any eagerness—he couldn't help it, the man in front of him was just too generous.

William has already drawn more than twenty chests from the system, and compared to the other chests, Albus Dumbledore's Approval Chest alone is far superior to all the others.

While other people's chests are obtained by drawing cards from the gacha pool, Dumbledore's chests are obtained by spending a fortune on the gacha pool and then choosing one card from all the final rewards.

Moreover, considering his experience of getting a second chest from Mondon, William was certain that he could get at least one more chest from Dumbledore—essentially another card.

It was because of this issue that he resolutely chose to spend half a year at Hogwarts. Although it seems that he was tricked by his own choice, he couldn't just give up the benefits he had chosen.

"Perhaps that's just the old folks' stubbornness; they always like to do things their own way. By the way, won't you buy me a hot chocolate?"

"Professor, I regret to inform you that Old Tom doesn't really welcome desserts in his bar"—just as William was about to say this, Old Tom, standing at the door, was already smiling broadly at Dumbledore.

"Of course, I have the finest hot chocolate, with a touch of white wine mixed in. That's my specialty."

Old Tom eagerly stretched his hand out into the room. "Please sit down, Professor. The hot chocolate will be ready soon."

What happened to the rule that bars don't sell chocolate?

William sighed softly, then called out to old Tom, who was running downstairs, "I'll have one too!"

After doing all this, he went straight inside, sat down on the bed, and left the only chair for Dumbledore.

“The lighting is quite good,” Dumbledore said, glancing around the room before turning his attention to the pile of books on the table.

Beside the book was a thick stack of notes—it concerned life and death, and William approached these books with the same dedication he had during university exam week.

"The preparations were thorough. It seems we made the best choice. I bet even Minerva would be amazed if she saw these notes."

Dumbledore's expression grew increasingly amiable; clearly, the headmaster greatly appreciated a professor who had taken his studies so seriously.

"After all, I haven't received systematic training on these things. Although it's a bit late to catch up now, it's always better to do some preparation than nothing."