From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

It was just a few words, nothing more than the daily greetings of Azkaban prisoners.

William didn't even think of comforting himself with the thought that Professor Snape had been bitten by a dog or that he would be beaten by students in the future—a mistake is a mistake, learn seriously, don't make the same mistake again, and broaden your scope of magic. Being petty won't help you survive.

Besides, the professors present didn't care about that—after all, William was a young professor, and even if he made a mistake due to inexperience, he could still be forgiven.

"The effect of the crown?"

Dumbledore pondered for a moment, then easily unwrapped the bandages on the chair.

“Professor Kettleburn, could you please describe again what it felt like to wear the crown?”

“It’s great. It feels like all the things I’ve forgotten over the years have suddenly come back to me. My mind is even sharper than when I was younger. I even had two or three brilliant ideas all at once—” The old professor chuckled as he moved his remaining hand and half a leg without a hint of complaint. “Even when I was young, I didn’t have this many ideas.”

“Please do not carry out this,” Professor McGonagall said seriously, without a hint of joking. “You are nearing retirement, and if you insist on conducting any illegal experiments, then the theatrical performance scheduled for Halloween will have to be canceled.”

Theatrical performance?

Wasn't it said that ever since the incident in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, all forms of theatrical performances have been strictly prohibited?

William couldn't help but gasp – what promises had the old professor made to get Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall to approve the Halloween play?

"Don't worry, Minerva," the professor waved her hand dismissively. "I remember my promise clearly. I won't be thinking about cultivating any new species on campus before I retire. Those interesting ideas can be left to the next professor. Consider it a test I'm leaving for my successor."

“That would be wonderful,” Professor McGonagall said, her eyes filled with distrust, but the old professor ignored her. He hopped over to William on his wooden leg and put his only arm around William’s shoulder.

“Little William, come, let’s see what kind of twisted memory made you fail—” the old professor said kindly, and began searching through the fragments of memory in the basin.

After being processed by Professor Snape's magic, all sorts of memories were played out at slightly faster or slower speeds, which could be dazzling if one was not careful. But this did not stump the original owners of the memories. "Tsk tsk, I went through my past memories in such a short time? What an amazing creation."

“Little William, look at this,” the old professor said, taking out his wand and gently tapping it. The fragment of memory expanded dozens of times, becoming a barely legible image. “I must say, that crown is truly remarkable. It makes searching through memories so easy.”

The professor muttered to himself as he pointed to the figures in the picture and introduced them to William, “Look here, Minerva and Albus were young back then. Albus wasn’t the principal yet. The principal was that guy—look, Armando. He was the one who banned the play from being performed again, but he’s managed to overturn it now!”

“Cough cough,” a rather obvious cough came from above, and William then noticed that at the very top of the principal’s office was a pile of oil paintings.

“Professor Kettleburn,” a painting that looked exactly like the person the old professor was introducing stared at the Pensieve, “why don’t you explain to them why we canceled the theater back then?”

The old professor blushed, a rare occurrence for him. "Hmph, I can't be bothered with you. Armando, little William, look here."

The old professor pointed to a memory: Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and a group of new students. "Here, this is it. This is Armando's memory before his expulsion. Terrible things happened at the castle then, those Slytherins—"

"Professor Kettleburn!"

Dumbledore, who had been silent for a long time, became serious, which made the old professor quickly recall the images in his memory.

"Alright, don't rush Albus," the old professor's tone softened unusually, as if he had been caught out of his pain.

"Don't rush, William, I have a Pensieve over there. I'll show you the dog that bit Snape later."

……

William noticed Professor Snape's face contort slightly—but there was nothing that could be done about it. Everyone in the school knew that Snape favored his own students, but the old professor, being a Hufflepuff, didn't have much affection for Slytherin to begin with, let alone a professor like Professor Snape who was so biased towards Slytherin students.

"Albus, have you found any problems yet?" the old professor asked, seemingly unconcerned.

“I’m afraid we’re in trouble—” Dumbledore’s face was full of curiosity, an expression that shouldn’t have been on his face. “I don’t know who cast the spells up there, but the spells that were combined were more sophisticated than I thought. In my examination, it didn’t activate the bewitching power it had before, but I have no doubt about its existence.”

"Could it be that Professor Kettleburn is too powerful, causing it to hesitate to control him, fearing it might damage itself?"

William boldly offered a guess—if it's wrong, it's wrong. Even guessing which guess is wrong is valuable knowledge, especially when it comes to ancient artifacts. Aside from the setup in the headmaster's office, everywhere else people talk about Ravenclaw's tiara, speculating whether it's made of gold or silver.

“Unlikely,” Dumbledore readily dismissed William’s guess. “Although I still don’t know how those spells were hidden, I’m afraid I couldn’t withstand those spells under my examination.”

"You can't withstand it?" William was a little skeptical. "Even a dead Dark Lord wouldn't have this kind of power, would he?"

“Thank you for your trust, Professor William, but as far as the achievements in Dark Magic are concerned, I’m afraid—” Dumbledore said modestly, but then stopped. “William, do you remember what Lady Helena said when she gave you the crown?”

“Of course I remember, Professor. She once gave the crown to Tom, and now that it’s back here, she’s going to give it to me—that should be it, Professor.”

“Minerva, could you please find the student enrollment list for the last hundred years?” Dumbledore quickly instructed. “Professor Kettleburn, could you please use the Pensieve to help me recall that incident from before, yes, the one when Horace was still in school, when we took classes together.”

“By the way, Professor William, I’m sorry, I was hoping to have a proper talk, but now we old folks are going to settle some old matters,” Dumbledore said with a gentle smile, then took a bundle of feathers from his drawer.

"Fox is shedding a lot of feathers—the bonus needs to be approved by the board of trustees, but I think you should prefer these things over those gallons."

Chapter 150 The more you come into contact with things, the more unknowns you discover.

'The feeling of being unable to intervene is really not a happy thing at all—'

Holding Dumbledore's gift casually in his hand, William began to consider his weaknesses and areas where he could improve quickly.

Although William knew perfectly well that even with more training, he wouldn't be able to make any significant contribution in the situation he'd just been in—'But we can't stay like this, completely unable to participate in the secrets of the castle, can we?'

Since it was a matter of life and death, William didn't want to be as unprepared as he was now when the curse took effect.

'Research into magical items has intensified; we might even forgo learning how to assess their effects and focus solely on detecting whether they are cursed.'

'Yes, memory protection is also important—it's okay if you can't recognize the accelerated memories, as long as they can't be easily retrieved. I remember truth serum has a similar effect; you could focus on training your ability to recognize truth serum.'

'But that stuff is colorless and odorless, right? Or is it about controlling your drink?'

With a jumble of plans in his mind, which he kept revising, William began walking toward his office.

"Hey, William!"

Adams greeted them from a distance.

"Hey Adams, all done with the greenhouse work?"

“Yes, that’s right,” Adams strode closer, looking mysterious. “William, have you heard? The Ravenclaw tiara has been discovered!”

Dear Adams, is there oxygen on Mars? Is it possible to cast spells normally?

However, Adams clearly didn't understand William's look. He muttered under his breath, "You have no idea how disappointed those students looked when I was teaching this morning—they were all hoping to get the crown and pass the exam!"

"I heard the diadem is with Dumbledore right now. I wonder when we'll be able to go see it—Singed will probably see it soon, he's a master alchemist, Dumbledore will definitely... Wait, William, what's that in your hand?"

Adams, who had been rambling on and on, suddenly became startled and pointed at the thing in William's left hand, unable to speak.

What?

William glanced at his hands and then froze.

That was something Dumbledore had given him—a small, messy tuft of hair, not neatly arranged, with varying lengths and some fine downy hairs mixed in—clearly, the original owner hadn't taken good care of it.

"My God, William, what have you done!"

Adams expressed his shock in a very small but rather rapid voice.

"You should know what this is!"

"Of course I knew, I just didn't expect it to be this."

William responded in a completely irrelevant way—he was truly astonished.

Only now did he truly understand how precious the crown that Helena had casually given him was, so precious that he couldn't even imagine its value.

Dumbledore gave him a whole bunch of phoenix feathers, fresh, magically radiant phoenix feathers.

William immediately thought of several medicinal formulas that needed to be added to it—all of which required more than six months of simmering.

Another common feature of these potions is that they give the feeling of drinking gold when consumed.

Not to mention that this handful of feathers also contains several tail feathers—that's the finest wand material. If William remembers correctly, the old professor mentioned his phoenix feather-core wand. (Note: Official information.)

This single phoenix feather is a top-tier material that William never dared to dream of before, and Dumbledore easily gave it away—so just how precious is that crown that Dumbledore values ​​so much?

“You know Adams,” William asked Adams naively, then continued without waiting for an answer, “I once heard a joke about an emperor who used a golden hoe to till the land…”

"What emperor! William, wake up—why did you pluck Fox's feathers?"

"Plucking hair?" William didn't quite understand. "Why pluck hair?"

"Dumbledore's phoenix—you've gone too far with this joke! Even if it's shedding its feathers, you can't treat it like this!"

"I didn't. These were gifts from Dumbledore," William shook his head in denial, refusing to take the blame.

"A gift?" Adams was taken aback, then slapped his forehead. "Right, how come I didn't think of that? If I had just used the excuse of making a potion to ask for phoenix feathers, I could have seen the crown!"

“See you later, William,” Adams said excitedly. “If you need any ingredients for your potions, come find me. I have most of the herbs for potions. I’m going to ask about the crown now. See you at lunchtime!”

Adams left without looking back.

William stood frozen in place, the phoenix feather in his hand suddenly losing its initial impact.

Have I been underestimating the benefits professors receive?

Since entering the university, William has been striving to become a good professor, and so far he feels that he has done a pretty good job.

But at this moment, he realized that he still didn't seem to be doing enough.

'If it weren't for that curse, someone like me, practically a magic freshman without a certificate, probably wouldn't even have passed the initial interview, right?'

"You need to step up your game, William. Stop thinking you can just coast through with endless practice problems. You need to work twice as hard on your studies!"

-

'Hmm, this schedule should be fine.'

After pondering for nearly an hour, William finally came up with a new schedule.

'Thank goodness for Professor Lockhart, otherwise, I'm afraid I would have already given up on the seventh-grade course. How could I possibly maintain my level while attending classes?'

William once again thanked his colleagues in his heart—for sharing the curse, sharing the teaching burden, and sharing the dissatisfaction with the classes (if Professor Lockhart's teaching ability hadn't been so poor, the sixth and seventh graders wouldn't have been so happy in class).

'The curses that were shared are more likely to target me, but even if Professor Lockhart doesn't come, I still have to carry them,' William comforted himself, and began to pack up his manuscripts, preparing to go to the restaurant.

"Professor William, are you there?"

A rather enthusiastic voice came from outside the door, causing William to suppress all his complaints—speak of the devil, and he appears! Professor Lockhart is here!

"Please come in, Professor Lockhart."

“That’s wonderful,” the door opened, revealing a set of pearly white teeth and a distinctive smile to William.

Professor Lockhart, who had just entered, looked eager, but his eyes kept darting around, which made William have some bad thoughts.

Could it be because of the crown again?

Professor Lockhart is a standard Ravenclaw graduate and a great adventurer—does this combination mean he'll have to make another trip to Dumbledore's office?

'I should refuse if I can. At least I can learn something from being ridiculed by Professor Snape. Professor Lockhart certainly has substance, but he doesn't show it when he's not writing. I haven't even had lunch yet; I can't let him brag all afternoon!'

Chapter 151 A Change of Perception about Professor Lockhart