From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

In the village inn, Lu Pingan tried to soothe Sirius's emotions, but the smile on his lips just wouldn't fade.

"Exactly, the school hospital is top-notch."

William, with an undisguised smile on his lips, urged Sirius to calm down.

Moody didn't say anything, but his mutilated mouth twitched from time to time, showing his joy.

There's no way around it; students can't compete with adult wizards in either verbal or physical fights, and it's extremely rare to see Hogwarts' board members and professors engaging in highly personal verbal sparring in the hallways—of course, mainly because both sides are quite eloquent in their insults…

It was originally just a matter of the two sides exchanging sarcastic remarks, but Sirius Black insulted him and brought up Snape's potion, which caused the two sides to start drawing their wands. Professor McGonagall had to step in to stop the duel. Afterwards, Lupin used the excuse of the mysterious location that Sirius Black had discovered to persuade him to leave the school, and also dragged William and Moody into it.

Although it would be inhumane to leave Harry in the hospital before he woke up, Madam Pomfrey assured him that he was fine, and Sirius Black might be poisoned by Snape if he stayed in the castle any longer. So, they had no choice but to bring forward the adventure and leave Harry alone in the hospital.

"Alright, alright, I'm not afraid of that snotty-nosed guy..."

Sirius waved his arm. "Let's stay here for the night, and then we'll go explore that area tomorrow. It's so mysterious, it's like it's been cursed with something like a wizard-repelling spell."

"Okay, let's go tomorrow night then. We'll take care of things at the hotel tonight."

-

The next morning, everyone woke up early.

While the expedition was partly due to Sirius being taken away from school, the main reason was that the place Sirius described as a place to exorcise wizards was too mysterious—neither William, who had seen all sorts of strange and unorthodox magic in Azkaban, nor the well-informed Moody had ever heard of such magic.

After a quick breakfast, William and his group, led by Sirius Black, arrived at the area supposedly where wizards could be exorcised.

"It's pretty ordinary..."

William stood in what he considered a safe spot, having cast both the Bubble Charm and the Armor Charm, "but I can't see any difference."

He tried casting the spell several times, but still couldn't find anything wrong—the spell flew easily to its destination without encountering any obstacles.

"Let's test it again."

He randomly picked a stone and turned it into a goat, which then walked towards the location he designated.

With a flick of William's left hand, the goat easily climbed the cliff face, walked in the direction he had indicated, and then began to hop around at William's command.

"The spell's control remains unaffected, its direction hasn't shifted, and the spell's power hasn't felt weakened—"

He shook his head, canceled the polymorph spell, and turned the goat back into stone. "I can't sense any effect from the spell."

Moody stood on the other side, using a dozen or so detection spells that William had never heard of before, and even took out several magical instruments to check, but in the end he shook his head, indicating that he had not found any known spells.

"strangeness,"

He muttered something and cast a Soul Reaper spell directly on a lucky seabird that was passing by, but until the very end, his Soul Reaper spell did not go astray in the slightest.

"Are you sure you've found the right spot, Blake?"

Moody looked up and asked Sirius, who was talking to his Pokémon.

“There are no problems at all. The gold coin has been guarding this place all these days, and it has clearly indicated that it has not encountered anything strange. The danger zone we detected that day should remain unchanged!”

"That's it..."

William took a breath, then refreshed his protective magic again. After using Polymorph to test the area and confirm that there was no danger, he cautiously stepped into the trap.

'Was the fire inflicted with Felix Felicis properly controlled?'

Where are the students' test papers?

'Oh right, and Harry too. I almost forgot to ask him how that Dark Lord came to be—'

With this thought in mind, William immediately pulled out his flying broom, hopped on, and prepared to leave.

"Professor William!"

Shouts came from below, and William paused instantly. Looking at them, he remembered his earlier plan. He landed on the ground as if nothing was wrong, staring at the seemingly unaffected area in the distance with a hint of curiosity in his eyes.

That's strange—with so many safeguards, how could his thoughts still be diverted?

"I'll give it a try."

Moody watched William get off the broom, speaking with complete ease, but his wand showed no sign of stopping.

A gleaming, fully armored Moody quickly appeared in place. He nodded to William and the others, then stepped into the inner area.

Unfortunately, his protection didn't work very well. In less than a few hundred meters, Moody suddenly seemed to remember something urgent, and his wooden legs moved quickly as he ran towards William and the others.

"Did we check on Karkarov today?"

Before William and the others could ask any questions, Moody voiced his own.

"No, we've temporarily reduced some of our suspicions about him, but now I'm more concerned about what kind of spell it was."

The spell that even Moody fell victim to was clearly not a benevolent one. The four of them huddled together, their brows furrowed.

"It does indeed resemble a Muggle banishment curse."

"It's reminding wizards of something important—it feels like a variant of the Legilimency curse, mixed with other Muggle-expelling spells..."

"It should affect mental health, but my brain surgery didn't seem to have any effect..."

"Perhaps it was intentionally designed to bypass the range of Occlumency... after all, this kind of spell..."

The four of them quickly started discussing, and soon came up with several possible deductions.

"In short, it's best to strengthen mental preparedness..."

They quickly came to an agreement, and William concocted a temporary potion to enhance his ability to deal with Legilimency and Truth Potion, which he then took himself.

……

"This is it! I have a feeling that the defenses are being breached!"

He stood where the rocks met the sea, waving his left hand at the three of them. "The potion was a success. When I return, everyone check each other's effects!"

After being asked five questions, William confirmed that neither he nor Sirius nor the others had been affected, nor that it was a magical illusion. So, they all took the potion and headed toward their destination, leaving only Moody on the outermost perimeter as a guard.

With so many people present, the priority is to play it safe. Apart from Sirius, everyone else is extremely cautious and determined not to give any opportunity for an accident.

"Is this the place you said was wrong, Professor William?"

Sirius looked around at the ground but didn't find anything amiss.

"Dig up the ground and take a look. Take precautions and dig from a distance. Who knows what's down there?"

William surveyed the surrounding ground, selected an area, and then retreated to the back with the two fully armed men.

Then, as the ground was dug open, something faintly glowing white appeared inside the rock, which exploded as soon as it came into contact with air.

Unfortunately, Sirius, the closest star to the explosion's epicenter, was more than ten meters away. The powerful explosion didn't even crack the Ironclad Curse, let alone destroy it.

"What a vicious trap."

William exclaimed in admiration. Sirius and Lupin glanced at William, who was nearly thirty meters away from him, exchanged a look, and said nothing.

"I initially thought it was some kind of natural place with strange magic, but it turns out it was man-made."

William shook his head. "It seems the next steps aren't so difficult; there must be some hidden mechanism..."

"organ?"

Sirius glanced at the land beneath his feet, which was by no means small, and the hardships of digging intermittently over the past few days surfaced in his mind... How much longer will this search take?

However, when he regained his fighting spirit, he found that Professor William had begun to take out bottle after bottle of magic potions from his bag.

Lupin, on the other hand, gave Sirius a look of astonishment, leaving Sirius completely bewildered.

'What are you trying to do?'

Chapter 484 The Destroyed Mechanism

When Sirius saw the revealing potion falling from the sky, he realized that his previous stereotypes were too one-sided.

He had initially thought that Snape's corroboration of the strange potion was outrageous enough, but compared to that report, a whole rain of revealing potions was even more outrageous—he had only been in Azkaban for a short time, and now all the professors had become like this?

But seeing Lupin and Moody's calm expressions, he could only pretend to be clueless and remain silent—if he had known there was such a way to investigate, why would he have dragged Gold and Dobby, the two house-elves, to dig the pit for so long?

'As expected, they're not here…'

After controlling the formation of the rain, William, though not very skilled, certainly had a professional eye on his surroundings.

"No."

"no"

"No, not here either."

"Same here..."

The four quickly summarized their opinions and confirmed that the hidden location was not in an easy place to find—they were all experts at finding hidden mechanisms, so there was no way to hide it from them.

Sirius Black and Lupin aside, they thoroughly explored the secrets of Hogwarts Castle and even created the Marauder's Map. Moody, the top wizard in the wizarding world at tracking and searching, imprisoned half of Azkaban with his findings. As for William, although he was a bit lacking in practical skills, he had heard countless stories of treasure hunting adventures in the form of live lectures, making him the most knowledgeable of the bunch.

"On a cliff?"

As William asked the question, he quickly walked to the edge of the cliff—the rainwater mixed with the revealing potion had made the huge, bare rock very wet, but he stood firmly on the edge of the cliff and leaned his head down.

The stone has countless crevices, and judging from the marks on it, William thinks someone has walked by—hiding something here.

He shook his head in disappointment. This method was neither ingenious nor did it avoid people's blind spots. If it weren't for the magic that could repel wizards to make up for the lack of protection, it would be like a natural temptation—I have something hidden here, come and take a look!

"Is it on the other side of the cliff?"

Seeing William standing there, Moody hobbled over on his wooden legs, asking loudly as he did so.

“It seems so.” William said, directing the ropes to tie his arms together. “Hopefully, our adversaries won’t make such a clumsy mistake in such a well-concealed location. Honestly, nobody in Azkaban is surprised by the secret treasure hidden beneath the cliff…”

"It shouldn't be like that—it should at least be semi-hidden on an island or among rocks, with moonlight or something similar..."

Moody tapped his wand lightly on his pocket, and a flying broom flew out. He mounted it firmly and flew downwards.

Before long, William heard Moody's disappointed shout from below, "It's over here. Our adversary seems... well, he thinks the cliff is enough to stop anyone spying on what he's hiding..."

'Is that really true…'

William took a step forward, and the rope around him quickly clung to the cliff and loosened, pulling him down rapidly. Before long, he found the place Moody had mentioned—a rather wide crack, located near the bottom of the cliff, not far from the giant pebble, close to the cliff face.

"Natural caves..."

He couldn't help but complain—what was the person who hid the things thinking? Wouldn't an explorer be interested in a cave that might contain a sinkhole or something else?

This is like someone proudly telling others that a racing game's hidden secret has remained unsolved for decades simply because no one knows how to back up the car—if he were willing to pay any attention to other people's fields, he wouldn't make such a ridiculous deduction.