From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

“We have to do something,” Lockhart forced a smile. “I can’t just sit here and wait to die. Twenty days is enough for me, I’m a genius!”

-

What have I forgotten?

Ron was still trying to remember until he left Professor McGonagall's office, but William didn't expect the boy to remember anything.

Whether it's Ginny Weasley, the twins, or Hermione Granger, they all had to relearn the lessons from that period, and William didn't think Ron would be an exception.

However, if we look at it from another angle, Ron is indeed an exception—he has never worn that crown.

'This is so interesting! Those who didn't wear the crown have amnesia, those who did have amnesia, and more importantly, there's a whole bunch of people who wore it but didn't lose their memories.'

'Was the amnesia caused by the crown, or was it intentional?'

'If it was done by someone, then who did it? Could it be that the crown doesn't actually have amnesia-inducing properties, and we simply mistakenly believe its dark magic effect is amnesia?'

"No, we can't jump to conclusions. Amnesia is no small matter. Let's put aside the official matter for now and find out who Ron has been in contact with since he lost his memory."

Ron's amnesia was different from that of his brother and sister; he only lost a short period of memory. William spent a long time questioning him about whether he had any memory loss since he lost his memory.

"One instance of memory loss, one instance of memory confusion—clearly, it was deliberate."

After Ron left, William said firmly.

To be on the safe side, he checked whether Ron was under the influence of the Imperius Curse, and the result was no. If Ron had not lied from beginning to end, then there was no doubt that the murderer's timeline was limited to these two areas.

“As long as we can find other people to question, the murderer shouldn’t be Gryffindor,” Professor McGonagall breathed a sigh of relief. “They’ve long since learned to coordinate their stories, there’s no way they could have left so many loopholes.”

William couldn't help but wonder what the Gryffindors had been up to all these years...

“Professor William,” Professor McGonagall’s expression turned serious, “I hope you will not participate in the following investigation—”

"To avoid provoking the murderer?"

William paused for a moment, then immediately understood.

“Yes, as it stands, he’s at least capable of ambushing any student, but I don’t think the killer will be so ruthless as to personally attack before he’s exposed.” Professor McGonagall nodded. “Although that would increase the chances of catching him, we can’t take that risk—if you were to contact the students around Ron, it would be too obvious.”

Being wary of the consequences, in a school full of students, the most important thing is to prevent the murderer from feeling threatened and giving up.

With the basilisk trapped, it won't make any rash moves, but if someone is investigating, that's another story.

“Okay,” William nodded. “Then I’ll go to the library and frantically search for information about the basilisk to lull the killer into a false sense of security.”

“That’s great,” Professor McGonagall’s expression softened. “I think I’ll catch him before Albus does.”

-

"Ron, what does the professor want with you?"

When Ron returned to the common room, Harry curiously peeked over. Being called out by a professor in Gryffindor was no pleasant task, let alone being called out by the Headmaster and another professor.

“I…” Ron was about to tell the truth when he immediately remembered William’s instructions before he left.

“Remember to keep it a secret, Weasley—” Professor William smiled kindly, “not even your two best friends, and of course, not your brothers. This is a very confidential conversation. If you can keep quiet until the end of the semester, I’ll consider giving you a private reward, um, like, two hours to wear that crown?”

'Tell Harry?' 'Keep it a secret?'

These two choices clashed in Ron's mind, and finally he gave up. "Fine, just don't tell anyone that I—I was questioned about my memories."

'To hell with the crown!'

"You've lost your memory too?"

Harry was somewhat surprised, which made Ron purse his lips – he hadn't lost his memory for a month, so why was he being called "Ye"?

"What do you mean he also has amnesia?"

Hermione suddenly appeared, looking at the two of them with an unfriendly gaze—because she had lost her memory for a month and ranked second in the Christmas exams, she had heard countless speculations. Originally, the rumors had been suppressed after the Chamber of Secrets incident, but after Dumbledore found the location of the Chamber of Secrets, the rumors that had disappeared had returned.

Under the pressure of her aggressive gaze, Ron chose to explain the whole situation in its entirety.

Since the crown is gone anyway, might as well just explain it!

And so, one person's secret became three people's.

"what?"

Harry shouted out—Hermione's suggestion was too crazy to accept.

Three people went to investigate the memory loss, and their reasons were particularly convincing: the victims... more than half of the three people had lost their memories. Shouldn't they investigate?

Chapter 207 Preparing to Take Action

Although Hermione's suggestion sounded a bit scary, it didn't take long for the three of them to start discussing it as if they were doing homework.

“The first question is how the memory was lost,” Hermione said, pulling two massive books from her collection. “I’ve been researching this lately. I initially thought it was a matter of magic on the crown, but now it seems to be man-made.”

She opened the first book and pointed to one of the lines—

Memory is one of a wizard's most precious assets, and spells targeting memory have always been among the most difficult to master. Regardless of whether the spell focuses on offense or defense, even top wizards struggle to use these spells skillfully without sufficient talent.

“I’ve tried it myself, and I can barely cast similar spells. Even with a long period of practice, I’d probably only be able to master them,” Hermione said confidently. “So, I don’t think there are many people at Hogwarts who can master the relevant spells.”

"My God," Harry exclaimed, looking at the two books—books large enough to kill someone and with print so small it required careful reading—"You've been busy with this all this time?"

“Of course,” Hermione said, raising her head. “That’s a whole month’s worth of memories!”

“Well, it seems the scope of the investigation has been drastically narrowed,” Harry didn’t reply; of the three, he was the only one who hadn’t lost his memory. “But how do we investigate now?”

-

'The last few shifts I've been on duty have all been night shifts,' Lockhart thought to himself, looking at the duty roster. He had completely entered the mindset he had when he visited those reclusive wizards, and was starting to plan how to clear the last bit of suspicion from his body.

As one of the professors at Hogwarts, he was naturally on the list of professors guarding the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. However, there were always two colleagues on duty each time, and he had to take down his colleagues first before clearing himself of suspicion.

This means he only has one chance to act, and he should try to avoid doing it at night.

"It's relatively normal for students and professors to walk around campus during the day, but at night, things change drastically."

'The attacker must be approved by the school,' Lockhart reasoned. 'He needs to be qualified to ambush three professors. A complete stranger obviously couldn't do that; there aren't many students in the entire school who can simultaneously lower the guard of three professors…'

"Hmm, I still need to prepare some items for him that Dumbledore can trust," Lockhart pulled open a drawer, "Although this is a treasure, it's time to give it up."

Although he was reluctant to part with it, Lockhart's hands were as steady as if he were opening a fan letter when he started operating the device, without even a tremor.

'A necessary price,' he nodded—a lesson he had learned since his time at Hogwarts.

In his attempt to create a big news story, he nearly went bankrupt when he hired owls to deliver greeting cards to him—that required bribing hundreds of owls!

'That was all my savings back then,' he said, stroking the diary, 'and it was merely a stepping stone for me to advance further.'

The diary was suddenly opened.

"Lockhart, what are you doing?!"

The bold, large black lettering appeared on the diary at an unprecedented speed, making Lockhart laugh.

"Goodbye."

He waved his left hand and whispered, then raised his wand towards the diary—"Forget everything!"

His most confident and powerful spell worked as always.

The blank pages of the diary suddenly appeared with black characters, but the grammar and logic were not coherent. The characters kept jumping, recombining and disappearing, and then a new batch of letters emerged.

"That's all there is to it."

Lockhart put away his wand, quite satisfied with the effect of his spell.

Over the years, his memory spell has never failed—it has been true in the past, it is true now, and it will undoubtedly be true in the future.

'I wonder if this book would still remember Dumbledore if I opened it again now?'

Such a curious thought popped into his mind, but Lockhart gave up after thinking about it. He was pressed for time and needed to find a good tool to attract everyone's attention. He didn't have time to continue playing with this diary.

-

"I wonder how Professor McGonagall's investigation is going."

Inside the library, William was flipping through information about the basilisk, pretending to be quite serious.

“I was the one who called Ron out,” he said, opening his books and thinking to himself. “I was also the one who found the crown. If I were the murderer, of course I would have paid attention to William. It’s just a pity that there are too many people in the school, so there is no way to counter-surveillance.”

He turned another page of the book and glanced at it perfunctorily.

Parsleyan is one of the symbols of dark wizards—although not every dark wizard possesses Parsleyan, communicating with snakes has long been recognized as one of the symbols of dark wizards.

"Nonsense," William rolled his eyes, "Do you think just anyone can publish a book? Do you think you're some kind of encyclopedia that anyone can edit?"

Although he had never mastered Parseltongue, William did not believe that the language lacked dark magic effects; it was merely a unique language—Giants' language, troll language… The magical world had so many different languages ​​that it would take a lifetime to learn them all. How many of them were weaker than snakes?

Dementors can even communicate with humans. When it comes to dark magic, is there anything more like dark magic than communicating with Dementors?

'Wait!'

William suddenly realized something was wrong—was he communicating with the snake, or was he able to command it?

The language of communication is not magic, but commands are undoubtedly black magic.

But the book didn't go on to explain anything further, which made William roll his eyes—he flipped back to the cover and started looking at the title.

'A book about snakes—I mixed it up.'

He shook his head, then got up and went to Mrs. Pince's side—if the so-called Parsleyan was an order rather than something understood, he felt that how the murderer controlled the basilisk had been thoroughly exposed.

'It's a pity, if Parsley wasn't a command, I could have learned Parsley...'

He shook his head and continued his disguised study of the basilisk.

-

"The most commonly used memory protection spell is the Mind Control Spell. Although it is slightly easier to master than other spells, it is still incredibly difficult."

In the student lounge, Hermione was sharing knowledge with her friend.

"So does this have anything to do with how we investigate?"

Ron looked puzzled.

“Of course there are,” Hermione said seriously. “The more you understand memory magic, the more you realize how terrifying it is for memories to be controlled by others.”

“So,” she waved her hand forcefully, “everyone who is skilled in memory magic has an extraordinary level of skill in Occlumency.”

"I still don't understand."