From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

"Um...I..."

Sirius suddenly felt his hands and feet grow cold, as if he were being watched by some natural enemy.

He couldn't help but take two steps back until his body was pressed against the wall before he straightened up.

'I graduated! I graduated over ten years ago!'

He suddenly realized this, but his hands and feet were still a little weak. If he hadn't just been talking to the young wizard in front of him, he would have even suspected that Professor McGonagall had drunk Polyjuice Potion and was waiting for him here.

"Well, no matter what, taking a classmate to the hospital on campus is going too far..."

His mouth acted before his brain, mimicking phrases he'd picked up from somewhere in his memory, speaking to Harry.

William nodded, then looked away and turned to Harry—"Starting tomorrow night, come to my office for solitary confinement after dinner. We'll discuss further arrangements tomorrow."

"Yes, Professor!"

Harry instinctively answered in his loudest voice, and William, expressionless, indicated that he had heard him before turning and leaving.

If he didn't leave soon, he couldn't control his urge to lock Sirius up with him—after all, he was a renowned graduate, and regardless of his reputation, locking him up would be going too far.

"Whoo~"

As William turned the corner, four exhalations came out almost simultaneously.

The four of them chuckled softly, dispelling any lingering fear William might have felt.

"Haha."

Sirius and the twins exchanged a glance and laughed heartily—Harry, though a little bewildered, joined in the laughter as a celebration of surviving a close call.

"My God, this professor..."

Sirius Black made an exaggerated expression—"I can't help but think of my professor from school. Which house was he from? Hufflepuff or Slytherin? Or perhaps, another outcast from Gryffindor?"

"An outcast of Gryffindor?"

Sirius's question went unanswered, so the twins and Harry asked their own questions first—the topic was too novel, and they all had a bold guess in mind.

"I didn't say anything."

Sirius decisively shook his head in denial. At this moment, he didn't seem like a man in his thirties, but rather like a seventh-grader pretending to be mysterious and senior.

However, the answer has been clearly shown to everyone present—sometimes not answering is also an answer.

So Harry and the twins tacitly moved on from this part.

"Professor William is a student of traditional wizarding education, the kind of teacher-student model."

The twins were worried that Sirius might have made a mistake, so they went out of their way to explain.

“Oh, that kind of thing,” Sirius nodded. “It was actually quite popular in our time. Back then, Voodoo, well, the Mystic was very powerful, and Dumbledore was openly opposed to him, so many families either sent their children to other magic schools or to other wizards for one-on-one tutoring.”

But those are so amateurish—are all wizards trained in traditional professions this serious? Did Professor McGonagall really not receive a traditional education?

The last half of the sentence was muttered to himself, in a very low voice.

-

Although Hogwarts has existed for thousands of years, this doesn't mean that all wizarding families are willing to send their children to that castle.

Discrimination is a persistent issue, and many pure-blood families employ a home-based teaching model to pass on their so-called glory from generation to generation. (Unverified.)

'This information was obtained from the ghosts…they are also following the secrecy laws…'

William spread his hands—although he had expected this, he was still a little frustrated when it actually happened.

There are too many spells that can work on ghosts. For example, Miss Myrtle, who earned her own cubicle last year for her meritorious service, was warned by the Ministry of Magic not to go near a male wizard.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the other ghosts, like Professor Binns, abide by the secrecy law.

He then flipped to another document and compared it with the others.

In certain exceptional years, when some wizarding families realized that Hogwarts was not so safe, they would decisively adopt traditional educational methods, and due to the political climate, Dark Magic would be an essential part of the curriculum.

[Adding to external factors, black magic often develops rapidly during that period, while content bound by secrecy laws also suffers due to the chaos in the management system...]

This document was provided by a ghost who was on good terms with William—although he couldn't violate the secrecy law, he still tried his best to tell William how to find the loophole.

'If it were in Azkaban, there might be even more... but you never know. With the secrecy laws, even a little bit of involvement could land you in the innermost part of Azkaban.'

'Thanks to the revision of the school history, I at least avoided one bad example—Grindelwald didn't even invade the British wizarding world at the height of his power... No wonder the Dark Lord has such a high reputation in magical history...'

Simply put, what he's looking for is either a British magic book from the time of the Dark Lord or a foreign magic book from the time of Grindelwald; otherwise, it's pointless.

'At least I'm starting to get a clue...'

As William spoke, he peeled a chocolate frog for himself.

Although it may be a bit tedious, having a goal is always better than being a headless fly.

-

"you're awake?"

This was the first thing Malfoy heard in the Hogwarts infirmary.

He desperately wanted to analyze whose words these were, but it was too late—his whole body was in pain.

It wasn't an exaggeration, it was reality. Every bone, every joint was complaining, creaking and groaning, like a door that hadn't been maintained with magic. He even wondered if he had been flying on a broomstick for three days and three nights.

'hiss…'

He tried to move his arm, but all that came out was a cry of pain.

'Damn it… I… right, it's Potter!'

He suddenly remembered—remembered that humiliating moment.

The three of them surrounded Potter, intending to humiliate him about that idiot Sirius—a letter had come from home a few days ago saying that Sirius was a pure-blood scoundrel, and that the Black family themselves had expelled him!

However, he never expected things to turn out this way. Potter casually took their wands off, his eyes still filled with that utter disdain...

And then, ...

"You remember now?"

Their dean stood there, his tone full of disappointment and frustration.

"Um"

"Three against one, and then he was brought to the hospital?"

Malfoy remained silent, bewildered as to why he had been defeated so quickly and why Potter's disarming spell was so powerful.

“I didn’t even have the face to stay with Professor McGonagall any longer!” Snape emphasized. “Three Slytherin students couldn’t beat a Gryffindor of the same year! She was practically just going through the motions with me; every expression she gave me seemed to be mocking me!”

"She even stood in front of the Academy Cup and apologized to me! We've lost it for two years!"

"You have brought shame upon the Academy, Draco..."

This was almost as harmless to Gryffindor as a breeze, but it was probably the harshest thing Headmaster Snape had ever said to Slytherin.

Such accusations made Malfoy instinctively want to refute them, but as he shifted his body slightly, every part of his body began to protest.

“You need special training! At the very least, you need to be able to beat Harry Potter, instead of continuing to be sent to the hospital with him, and then expecting some student to run to my office in a panic.”

After a long pause, Snape finally frowned and made a decision.

Tutoring?

Malfoy instinctively wanted to retort—if the Malfoy family were reduced to needing extra lessons, he would undoubtedly receive a scathing letter.

However, the soreness in his body made him give up the idea of ​​arguing with the professor.

Fine, I'll give him extra lessons. But does that mean he'll have to give way to Potter from now on? Are you kidding me—the Malfoy family will lose all face.

“Get some rest. You have to go to Potions class the day after tomorrow,” Snape said, standing up and looking at Malfoy. “And I hope you do well—I don’t want to hear anyone spreading rumors in the castle that Slytherin students are being beaten so badly by their classmates that they can’t go to class for three days.”

The dean left quickly, and Malfoy struggled to his feet to observe the patient in the next bed.

The beating happened to all three of them, and so did the hospitalization—why did the hospital director just criticize him?

Sure enough, Gore and Crabbe were receiving treatment on either side of each other, and both were in a deep sleep.

Mrs. Pomfrey was poking Goyle all over with her wand, and she didn't look very happy.

Looking at the wand poking around, Malfoy couldn't help but wonder—could his healing be like this too?

"What kind of spell have we been cast on?"

Seeing that Madam Pomfrey had turned to Crabbe again, Malfoy asked curiously.

Did Potter possess some kind of dark magic? What kind of spell was so powerful that it required Madam Pomfrey to go through all that trouble to heal him?

"It's a very simple spell; it's just that the students who sent you here are too stupid."

Mrs. Pomfrey was not pleased—if the transport procedures had been slightly more formal, she wouldn't have needed to go through all this trouble to complete these treatments.

"Most of your joints were loosened by magic. Although they were put back together, you will be exhausted for a long time. But the idiots who were sent later dragged you away and loosened your joints again, causing secondary damage."

Mrs. Pomfrey looked quite grim.

"In order to treat the condition and prevent any other complications, I disassembled each of your joints, examined them, and then reassembled them—that's why it took so long."

She had no reason not to be angry that an injury that would have healed in an hour or two had been deliberately aggravated like this.

-

"Thank goodness we got him to the hospital in time!"

In the Slytherin common room, the Quidditch team members secretly took out some alcohol to cheer themselves on.

Poor Draco is in the hospital, but even if he knew, he wouldn't say anything.

They went to the professor to complain, sent the man to the infirmary, and even secretly monitored Harry Potter's location to prepare for revenge. They did so much more than that!

"It would be best to ban that Potter from the competition. He must have sneakily attacked us with dark magic, otherwise how could the three of them have been slumped against the wall when we arrived?"

"Draco is a good boy. He's really hardworking in Quidditch and very generous—his family even donated the brooms for the house team."

"..."

As they were talking, a person came running in cheerfully.

“I’ve secretly checked the schedule and also found out when Potter will be in solitary confinement. We probably won’t have much time to make a move during this period—but their match against Ravenclaw is coming up soon, and I think we might be able to help Potter a little?”

The group chuckled – targeting Quidditch players was an old tradition, but the Gryffindors would never have imagined that Slytherin was planning to help Ravenclaw.