From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

We can't wrongly accuse a student if the culprit hasn't been found, can we?

William glanced at the students watching the commotion and abandoned the idea of ​​using the Summoning Charm—dropping someone from this height and then having students watch would be a double blow to Filch.

Considering that these students would also join in the fun if he tried to disperse them, William could only sigh and pull out a cloth belt.

'It's urgent, so what if I lose face a little…'

He ran a few steps, cast a levitation spell on himself to reduce his weight, and then quickly threw the cloth strip towards the top of the window at the bottom of the castle. One end of the cloth strip stuck firmly to it, and with a forceful pull, he rushed towards the other end of the cloth strip.

As he approached, William stepped on the windowsill, cast a levitation spell on himself, and the cloth strip in his hand contracted and swung out, pulling him to the next floor. After several leaps, he was close to the floor where Filch was.

A spell of armor was cast on Filch, a magic spell shattered the window, and William leaped in, with Filch floating in after him as he waved his wand.

"I'm still not very skilled at using the Summoning Spell—otherwise I could have used it right here under the castle."

William muttered to himself, evaluating his own actions, trying hard not to recall his embarrassing window-jumping performance.

This is a skill of using a rope to pull a flying broom, honed on Black Lake—there's no other way; you can't learn to fly, but you have to practice.

But while people can be dried after being soaked in water, a flying broom is not a problem that can be solved by a simple magic trick. If it is not maintained, the broom borrowed from the school will break very quickly.

Moreover, soaking the broom in water would significantly affect subsequent practice, so he simply combined it with Transfiguration to practice this technique—if he couldn't control the broom and fell, he could use the strap to stick the broom in place. And if the rescue was quick enough, he wouldn't even need to soak the person in the Black Lake.

'It's kind of ugly, no matter how you look at it—'

William at least has some basic aesthetic sense; he's seen tons of martial arts movies—his use of a cloth strap is uglier than wire work…

'I can't slack off on practicing basic magic either. If I could control it precisely under the castle, would I need to do this?'

After catching his breath, William pointed his wand at Filch and began to examine the spell cast on him—not dark magic, just a common petrification charm.

"Fortunately, the perpetrator probably only intended to imitate and not surpass it, otherwise today's trouble would have been much greater."

With a wave of the wand, the petrification spell was applied, and Filch's roar exploded almost instantly.

"Damn it! Fire him! Fire him! Fire him!"

"Of course, he should be expelled."

William had no objections. At least the twins were under control, but this perpetrator was clearly an imitator—if they can imitate something like this, what's the point of having school rules if they're not expelled?

“If you think it’s alright, we’ll go find Professor McGonagall now. The headmaster isn’t here today—” William looked at Filch, who was still lying down, assessing whether he was injured. “But, who attacked you, Filch?”

“I don’t know,” Filch said, calming down a bit. He sat down on the floor and began to recall, “Mrs. Lorris told me that there was movement in the secret passage on the fourth floor, so I rushed over there. However, as soon as I entered the passage, I was attacked from behind!”

"This was a premeditated attack, a murder!"

Filch's voice was incredibly irritable, but William felt he could completely understand the administrator's feelings.

"Of course, it was a premeditated attack. They would lure you in with sound, then ambush you with magic, and finally—carry out an extremely dangerous operation that had been planned long ago."

Taking into account the emotions of the person involved, William carefully chose to use less provocative words.

“We need to find Professor McGonagall, gather the students together, and then investigate the clues from the attack sites,” William said, extending his hand to Filch, who was sitting on the ground. “If there are no problems, we’ll go together. This is no longer a prank; such imitators must be expelled.”

-

William knocked on the door of Professor McGonagall's office.

"Please come in."

Professor McGonagall, engrossed in her work, looked up from the pile of documents. "Professor William, has Harry remembered something again?"

'Harry?'

William paused, realizing he seemed to have left his students in an empty classroom.

But it's not a big problem. This is still on campus, after all. Besides, if something bad happens if the professors aren't watching, then Hogwarts might as well be renamed Hogwarts Prison—even Azkaban wasn't this outrageous…

“It’s not Harry, it’s Filch…” William strode in, with the irritable Filch following behind.

"What's wrong, Mr. Filch?"

“Murder!” Filch gritted his teeth. “A premeditated murder, Professor!”

His face turned purplish-red with anger. "A student set a trap to attack me and then hung me on the outer wall of the castle, just like last time!"

"Exactly the same?"

Professor McGonagall's eyes turned cold. "They set a trap, and then did it the same way as last time?"

The quill pen held by Professor McGonagall made a clicking sound, and the absorbed ink covered Professor McGonagall's right hand.

Who did it?

The professor spoke calmly, but the air around him suddenly seemed to drop several degrees.

“It’s not certain yet, Professor—” Filch said with a hint of grievance, “I only know that I was attacked in the secret passage on the fourth floor.”

"Very good, very good, you've even learned how to set traps."

Professor McGonagall's tone was devoid of emotion. She waved her right hand, and the ink stains vanished instantly before she drew her wand.

With a wave of her wand, a transparent tabby cat landed lightly on the table and then quickly ran towards the door.

“Professor William, Mr. Filch, you go to the scene to investigate first. I will have the portrait artists come over to assist you,” Professor McGonagall said, glancing at the oil painting in her office. “Please go and call the prefects over. All the prefects, and tell them to have all the students who are not in class return to the common room.”

Seeing that Professor McGonagall had entered a frenzied mode, William didn't even bother to ask any questions and simply excused himself and Filch—catching the person was the priority, and besides, the office was indeed a bit cold…

Chapter 184 Me, the Living Legend!

"Hey students over there, stop right there!"

In the corridor, Filch's rough voice rang out, and the student being scolded stood there like a quail, listening to the administrator's nagging.

"Filch is too irritable right now..."

In the corridor, the twins put on harmless expressions and communicated with each other through their eyes.

"Don't make a sound, Filch hates us now!"

George returned the look.

The two of them even held their breath, afraid of angering Filch, the administrator who was now almost insane.

Having finally managed to escape the corridor while the unfortunate scapegoat was being scolded, the two of them breathed a long sigh of relief.

"They survived—"

"Yes, Fred."

The two leaned against the wall. "I think Filch is going crazy! He's working day and night now, and Jordan almost got caught last night—doesn't Filch ever get any sleep?"

"Who knows? He does have a cat to help him after all—but if this continues, one of them, the man or the cat, will eventually break down."

"Who on earth is so bold as to hang Filch on the windowsill? And hasn't it been discovered yet?"

"Who knows? Luckily, we were dealing with dragon dung and were being monitored the whole time, otherwise I think we definitely wouldn't have escaped—if they don't catch the real culprit, Filch might be satisfied with just firing us?"

"That's hard to say."

George replied with a smile, "Time to go, I still have to stay in jail today."

“We’re practically using the Christmas holiday for solitary confinement,” Fred muttered. “But we have to thank the holiday. There’s still a month of confinement left, and I’d go crazy without these two weeks of vacation.”

"Then, shall we go see Bill?"

"Of course I'll stay on campus—this is a rare opportunity for campus life without being locked up!"

Fred responded in an exaggerated voice.

"You want to investigate?"

George suddenly asked a question.

"You don't want to investigate?"

"Of course I want to—Professor William is really generous. The seventh-year students said that whoever catches the culprit will get a letter of recommendation from Dumbledore from Professor William!"

George thought about it for a moment, still a little uncertain. "The reward is indeed tempting, but it's only for seventh graders."

“We’ve already worn the crown, do you think we’ll renege on our promise once we catch that guy? Think about it, with that letter of recommendation, Mom won’t nag us about researching weird things all day long for at least three years.”

"sounds good."

George raised his hand and shook hands with Fred.

-

"The Christmas holidays are coming up, William, relax!"

In the faculty lounge, Adams was handing out candied fruit while calling out to William, who was huddled at a corner table.

'Theoretically, it should be relaxing, the Christmas long weekend—' William forced a smile, 'Okay!'

'But I always feel it's similar to Ginny killing the rooster!'

In a recent investigation, although Professor McGonagall mobilized all the oil paintings, gathered the idle students, and arranged for professors to investigate the two incident sites, she ultimately found nothing.

Even if Filch got Dumbledore's consent to fire the murderer if he caught him, it wouldn't have mattered—because there was no one to be found.

'The same complete disappearance, the same inability to be traced—is it really okay?'

As William pondered this, he casually popped a piece of candied fruit into his mouth.

"But we've checked all the students who wore the crown; none of them had the opportunity to commit the crime, and they all have alibis."

"Even those professors who had worn the crowns, under my suspicion and after Headmaster Dumbledore's investigation, found that no one had had time to hang Filch on the city wall."

'It's definitely Ginny who killed the chicken; we even saw her near Hagrid's house, and she didn't have the opportunity to do it this time!'

'Who is it? What does he want? Is the chicken blood a ritual—or is hanging Filch? The Hanged Man?'

'Ugh, ptooey—it's so bitter!'

William subconsciously spat out the candied fruit in his mouth—"Are you crazy? You can make candied fruit out of bitter melon?"

-

“Filch has gone mad.”

"Poor Professor Lockhart, is your so-called method for getting administrator attention so crudely copied from others?"

"Never mind him, he's really going crazy right now, searching for students who might have done this."

Lockhart wrote calmly in his diary.