From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Forget about anything else; those books are definitely not open to the public.

Even so, he still felt he had benefited greatly—in today's magical world where casting speed is paramount, it's rare to find places that still preserve and improve complete rituals, since adding rituals to magic is currently too inefficient.

“We weren’t really expected to handle the negotiations anyway; things should be left to the professionals,” Adams replied, yawning as well, but with a rather cheerful smile—the quill pen hadn’t missed his turn while working hard, having copied down all the dozen or so books he wanted.

“Indeed, without those staff, we would be exhausted. Besides, Professor William, you received some extra income this time,” Professor Corey said cheerfully. “It’s not too much to ask three brooms to buy us a drink, is it?”

"Of course, this is a celebration of the successful conclusion of our operation."

Although William preferred the drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, he couldn't very well travel all the way to Diagon Alley to drink them, could he?

"Keep your voice down, Professor William," Professor Corey gave crucial advice with a smile. "If you're too loud, Professor McGonagall won't be able to pretend she can't hear you."

-

"Oh ho! Release the thief, George!"

On the Quidditch pitch, Fred shouted happily, as if he knew nothing and no one had secretly slipped the original survey form into Professor McGonagall's office.

After learning that Lupin was one of the four mentors, the two were dejected for a long time, but eventually they began to search frantically in the secret passage based on this clue.

The logic is simple: since the Marauder's Map clearly marks the school's secret passages, those passages must be one of the things the perpetrator was most proud of.

They succeeded—Although Peeves is good at causing trouble, most of the time he's so bad that even students can't handle him. Therefore, they found the original document that Peeves hadn't hidden in a secluded secret passage.

After some discussion, the two finally decided to hand over the original document.

If Professor McGonagall gets angry about this, but finds nothing out, they'll accept it—even without Peeves, they'd both be punished anyway.

If the professor discovers anything from the original documents, then don't blame them for pushing the old guard aside and helping the professor find the real culprit.

"Of course, we can't go crazy for more than a few days, but my dear brother, are you sure you won't use a stick to whack the thief out of there?"

George grumbled as he released the thief from its restraints. The little guy with golden wings flapped its wings and flew slowly to celebrate its freedom before disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"Cool!" Fred took the lead, riding Harry's Firebolt, followed by Harry and Ron, who rode the twins' Nimbus 2000.

"Let's make a bet, Harry. If you catch the Snitch, George and I will tell you ten secret passages!"

"However, if I get caught, you'll have to take the blame for me and George."

"of course can!"

As a professional Seeker, Harry agreed without hesitation.

"what about me?"

Ron asked, slightly displeased.

"If you win, the conditions are the same; if you lose, you have to wash socks for a month."

Fred answered without hesitation.

-

“My dear Professor Baker,” Karkaroff said as he returned to his school after seeing off the negotiating team at Durmstrang’s castle, “how are the private exchanges going?”

“I think it couldn’t be better, Principal.”

Professor Baker answered, squinting.

"The students are happy, the Hogwarts professors are happy, it's a win-win situation."

“Very good—a win-win situation, we won twice.” Karkaroff tapped his desk with his wand, and wine and glassware appeared on it. He slowly opened the bottle and poured a glass for himself and Professor Baker in front of him.

"What I wished for came true: the three-way battle—if we win, there will be even less opposition."

"Although we have been trying our best to maintain it, the freshmen at the school still can't improve. They never think about where wizards can learn dark magic after leaving Durmstrang?"

“You are right, Principal.”

As someone assisting in the management of the school, Beck DeWitt was well aware of how shrewd this former Death Eater headmaster was—a former prisoner who had held the position of headmaster at Durmstrang for over a decade; anyone who thought it was just luck was truly hopeless.

Winning over professors, disciplining students, currying favor with the former president, and securing sufficient support from the board of trustees—none of these tasks were easy, but the person in front of them accomplished them all.

'Sirius Black is nothing compared to Headmaster Karkaroff! The most capable Death Eater is clearly Principal Karkaroff!'

He had read the Daily Prophet from England—a newspaper that had fooled the Ministry of Magic like a pig for over a decade, a newspaper with no vision that only knew how to throw around random titles. Sirius Black as number one? What a joke!

That wrongly accused fool spent over a decade in Azkaban, while the headmaster in front of us, who should have been sentenced to life imprisonment, decisively chose to get himself out—isn't it clear who has the ability?

"Also, we're not going to reveal anything about the Triwizard Tournament for now. Viktor's World Championship is coming up soon, and we can't let anything overshadow it."

"Yes, Principal."

"By the way, how's that pure-blooded family that I asked you to find, which is actually a bit down on its luck?"

"There seems to be an old, pure-blooded family in Austria that's secretly selling magical items, but we're still verifying it."

"Yes, remember, make contact secretly, don't let outsiders find out—we don't need open praise, we just need them to express their admiration for the power of dark magic at the right time, so that people will think that those Muggle-born wizards have no ability to access this real magic."

"Yes, Principal, I'll take care of it right away."

"By the way, didn't Hogwarts send that professor this time—the one who teaches self-defense, the one named William? What do you think of him? Can he turn around Hogwarts' weakness in the dark arts? If I remember correctly, Hogwarts' OWLS results this year were the talk of the town."

“Yes, Principal,” Professor Baker hesitated for a moment, “how should I put it, he seems to be better at teaching than I thought—my personal suggestion is that, if possible, we could actually hire him to come here at a high salary.”

"High salary?" Karkaroff's interest was piqued, his usually somewhat aloof eyes now filled with enthusiasm. "Even you say so, Baker?"

“Yes, Headmaster—” Professor Baker nodded, “He is a professor who is quite responsible for teaching. Because of a student’s question, I specifically spoke with Professor McGonagall of Hogwarts, trying to buy some of Hogwarts’ exam papers.”

"But when I went to inquire about buying eight sets of practice papers," Professor Baker said with an enigmatic smile, "the professor asked me what kind of questions I needed."

"Question type?"

"Hmm, is it a systematic exam, a comprehensive exam, or a phased exam? Subjective or objective? Normal difficulty or increased difficulty..."

Some of the terms are too complicated to pronounce in English, and even Professor Baker doesn't quite understand them yet.

"What did you finally buy?"

Karkarov became interested.

"I plan to compare the comprehensive exam questions for all seven grades and a systematic exam question for fifth grade with our students' scores at the end of the semester—I've reviewed those papers, and they're of very high quality and very deceptive. Basically, students can't get any points without mastering the relevant magic."

"So you have such a high opinion of Professor William?"

Karkaroff laughed. "It seems he certainly deserves a high salary—but I'm afraid we won't be able to hire him."

"With Hogwarts' salary, this shouldn't be difficult, right? I remember that professor didn't graduate from Hogwarts, so logically he shouldn't have such a deep affection for it."

Professor Baker was somewhat puzzled.

“I also investigated during the summer—” Karkaroff shook his head and downed the rest of his drink. “It won’t work. Dumbledore brought that Professor William out of Azkaban. I know what kind of place that is. That professor will never leave.”

-

"Finally back."

William lay on the bed in the break room of his office, arranging himself in the shape of a giant Chinese character.

He found the formal immigration procedures so troublesome that he even considered smuggling himself into the country, but unfortunately, that was no longer an option.

"School starts in two days, I need to rest for a couple of days before I start organizing all the copied material—I'm yawning," he rolled over, "I'm so sleep-deprived these past two days..."

However, just as he was getting ready to rest, there was a knock on his office door.

'I just got back, who timed this so accurately?'

Although he was unwilling and even planned to pretend to fall asleep, his sense of responsibility made him hide in the shadows, take out his wand, and open the door.

It's Harry.

"Excuse me, Professor, I'm bothering you now."

Harry looked completely distracted.

"what happened?"

William sat in his chair and casually made two cups of hot chocolate—since he couldn't sleep anyway, he might as well treat himself a little better.

"Um...I..."

Harry hesitated for a moment, then finally lowered his head—even though he was a veteran Seeker, the difference between Nimbus 2000 and Firebolt was too great…

"Yes, Professor, I asked George and the others to copy some information from Professor Binns..."

Compared to the other option the twins offered—taking the blame for Professor McGonagall's office—he chickened out.

"Copying documents?"

"It's that file, the record of Sirius and the others' violations... I'm very curious..."

Harry struggled to weave a lie and convince himself that he really had it—that the twins really did share Sirius's detention records.

This kind of anxiety wasn't too difficult to act out. Sirius's record of solitary confinement was almost like that of twins, and he was starting to doubt his father's—although he hadn't been given the twins, judging from the relationship Sirius described between the two, he didn't think there would be any exceptions.

'hiss…'

William gasped – if he were Sirius Black, he would probably be on his way to another country under an assumed name right now.

If you die from this kind of confinement record, it will only hurt the hearts of the living, but if you live, you will wish you were dead.

Why are you looking into this?

William covered his face, both amused and exasperated. "Alright, it seems we need to have a brief chat about some common sense about getting along."

Although William disliked giving students pep talks, he felt it was necessary to provide some guidance since it was threatening to affect his family relationships.

-

"Given a choice between the two, which would Harry choose?"

“He had no choice—Harry didn’t have the courage to face Professor McGonagall’s wrath; we were the only ones in all of Hogwarts who had that courage.”

Fred said something that wasn't worth being proud of, with a smug look on his face.

"Perhaps we should add one more thing—I think our predecessor had even more courage than we did."

George added.

"Well, this is a little prank we gave him—he started it."

Fred grinned mischievously, then glanced outside again. "When do you think Professor McGonagall will open the letter and come looking for us?"

"Hmm, I think the professor should be able to find Sirius, but it's hard to say."

“Indeed…but in any case, we need to have a formal meeting with Mr. Blake—I don’t think the hospital is a suitable place to meet.”