A certain Hogwarts professor of runes.

"puff!"

"Cough, cough, cough!"

"cough!"

“Professor, what did you say?” Harry was incredulous. He would pay any price to rid himself of Parsleyan speech. But now, someone was actually learning Parsleyan on their own initiative?

Chapter 51 Persuasion and Research

"Prejudice in people's hearts is a mountain, Harry."

……

As Harry stumbled out of the Ancient Runes office, Professor Hyp's words were still echoing in his mind.

Two hours earlier, he had tried to dissuade the professor from his "horrible" idea, but two hours later, he was holding a magic scroll and beginning to think about how to translate the evil language of "Parsleyan".

He even believed he was benefiting the entire magical world.

“Harry, I think Professor Hyp’s point is right. A person’s talent is not important; what matters is the kind of person they choose to become!” Ron quoted Professor Hyp, having overheard the entire conversation.

"What's more—Professor Hyp's gift was also very generous," Ron added, looking enviously at a magical puppet in Harry's hand, a magical puppet with ice-blue hair.

This was also the price Professor Hyp paid for the entire transaction—one of the most advanced magical puppets in his private collection, which, according to Professor Hyp, could “easily defeat a seventh-year graduate.”

Harry's memory flashes back two hours...

“Harry, we always so easily label others and things we don’t understand, but once you get to know them a little, you’ll find that this approach is quite one-sided. Take Headmaster Armando Dippert, for example. He did a lot of good things during his tenure, but all people remember are some absurd rumors, which have been distorted by those with ulterior motives…”

Professor Hep summoned the book "Armando Dippet: Master or Idiot?" from the table, and the book flipped to the middle page, revealing its contents to the three of them.

"Headmaster Depp improved Hogwarts' rules, abolishing most corporal punishment... At the same time, he also refused the Dark Lord's job offer, protecting Hogwarts students from his influence—this is the common perception, but is it really true? Driven by a desire to uncover the truth, I discovered a completely different logic: a hidden, dusty history, rife with political filth..."

Felix said calmly, "This book, full of lies and distorted facts, has been on the bestseller list for a long time."

Harry felt a deep aversion to the woman named Rita Skeeter, while also empathizing with Headmaster Deppet's plight—they were both misunderstood, except that Harry was misunderstood because of Parsley.

Driven by a sense of shared indignation, he quickly agreed to Professor Hyp's suggestion. So Professor Hyp handed him a dictionary and asked him to translate it.

Ron and Hermione watched curiously from the sidelines. After the initial shock, they became intensely interested in the event itself. In Ron's words, "This is the unveiling of Parsleyan! We're witnessing history!"

But the process was not easy. Harry opened the first page of the dictionary, struggled for a long time, and still couldn't utter a single word.

"Professor, I can't do it."

Felix thought for a moment, “Your Parsleyan isn’t very fluent, perhaps because you lack direct stimulation.” He waved his wand and cast a detection-feedback spell on the magic dictionary.

The effect is that when someone is reading this book, they will feel as if they are facing the face of a snake.

Harry quickly got into character, and after skipping the first and second useless words, he let out a hoarse, sinister voice that startled Ron and Hermione beside him.

"That voice is so evil." Ron shuddered, his whole body turning ice-cold.

“This is serious magical research, Ron.” Hermione was also quite frightened.

“Which word?” Felix asked.

Harry pointed to the third word in the dictionary, "It's this one, [away from]."

How many sounds can you pronounce on this page?

Harry tried again, moving his finger across the dictionary so the other three could gauge his progress.

However, Harry either remained silent with a blank expression or uttered normal English words. Ron reminded him more than once, "Harry, you're speaking human language," and "Harry, we can understand you."

Finally, on the last word of the page, Harry uttered it in Parsley, “The word is ‘eat,’” he said excitedly. “I know that word well; I heard it on Halloween.”

Felix rested his chin on his fingers. "In other words, out of 23 words on one page, or more precisely, two pages, only two can be translated into snake language."

“Professor, what does this mean?” Harry asked.

"Ah, animal languages ​​are never as rich as human languages, and they are often quite vague. For example, we have more than a dozen words with similar meanings for the concept of 'eating,' which is very rare in the languages ​​of other intelligent beings."

Felix thought for a moment, "Let's pause for now. I need to make some changes to the dictionary."

The three followed Professor Hep to the workbench, which was a very large U-shaped table with a smooth wooden surface and was waxed.

From Harry's perspective, Professor Hyp tapped on the dictionary with his wand, the tip of which emitted various colors of light. The professor was sometimes silent, sometimes muttering to himself, and it wasn't until ten minutes later that he stopped.

"Professor?" Harry was about to ask him what he had done when he opened his mouth wide.

The words in the dictionary suddenly "came to life".

It was exactly what it sounded like from the words; ripples spread across the pale yellow pages, and the titles of each entry began to writhe, as if they had hands and feet. Then they struggled to break free from the dictionary and appeared in the three-dimensional world.

The dictionary then flipped through its pages with a whoosh, flung out one "title word" after another, landing on the workbench surface, their black, perforated lines swaying and bouncing. In less than a minute, the number had reached several thousand.

This scene was extremely shocking; something from a two-dimensional plane suddenly came into the real world.

"Professor, am I dreaming?" Harry asked, dumbfounded.

“This is magic,” Felix said calmly.

Hermione's eyes lit up with a strong light. This was magic... She had always thought that magic was something concrete, like spells, potions, or moving images, but Professor Hyp showed her with his actions that magic could do far more than that.

Magic is unknown, it is full of possibilities.

Felix glanced with satisfaction at the army of "words" before him, which had been temporarily brought to life. He flicked his wand, and the briefcase in the corner burst open with a "bang," from which parchment flew out.

Felix raised his wand and drew a circle, connecting the parchments end to end, and the parchments stuck together under the power of magic.

Then, Felix tapped his wand on the table, and the army of "words" on the workbench merged into the parchment, where they emerged as individual characters, arranged in a clear and orderly fashion.

When all this was over, the long parchment, or rather the parchment scroll, rolled itself up and became a magic scroll.

"Clap!"

It landed on the workbench.

“Here you go, Harry. Luckily, I know quite a bit of obscure magic.” Felix smiled.

"How do I use this, Professor?"

"It can store your Parseltongue pronunciations—of course, you need to tap the corresponding content with your wand before using it. Also, I've removed some English words. You know, there are tens of thousands of words in the dictionary, but a lot of them are completely useless."

So, for the rest of the time, Harry unfolded the scroll and translated it word by word—this time the translation progressed much faster.

Every few tens of seconds, a hoarse, sinister voice would echo throughout the office.

Ron and Hermione went from initial discomfort to getting used to it, and then to numbness, all in less than an hour.

At nine o'clock, Professor Hyp saw the three of them out. "Harry, you can find a secluded place to take notes at any time. If you encounter any problems, feel free to come to me."

He then told Hermione, "Tomorrow's runes class is temporarily canceled; I have something urgent to attend to."

"I'm going to see someone," the professor said.

Chapter 52 Lies and Truth

The next day, a weekend morning.

Harry and Ron staggered out of their dormitory and saw Hermione already sitting in a chair in the common room.

The two had just sat down next to her when they saw Hermione slam a newspaper on the table with a "thud".

"I knew it!" the little witch said angrily.

Harry and Ron snapped out of their daze. They exchanged a glance, and Harry asked, "What happened, Hermione?"

“Do you remember the book the professor showed us? The one about Headmaster Depp. Back then, there was a copy of the Daily Prophet on Professor Hyp’s desk, and I felt something was off. This morning I found the newspapers from the last few days… That woman, Rita Skeeter! She dared to slander Headmaster Dumbledore…” Hermione was trembling with anger.

Harry quickly picked up the newspaper, and Ron plopped down next to him, leaning his head over.

That was yesterday's Daily Prophet. The most striking image was of Dumbledore looking up with a full head of white hair. Judging from the photograph, he looked both old and sinister. The headline on the front page was "Dumbledore's Big Mistake".

Harry sensed something was wrong and quickly began to read—

"Our special correspondent Rita Skeeter reports that Albus Dumbledore, the eccentric headmaster of Hogwarts, has always been a highly controversial wizard."

"As the recognized greatest wizard of his time, Dumbledore has been hiding in Hogwarts Castle ever since he defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, rarely appearing in the public eye."

"Everyone praises him highly, believing that he is protecting the hope of the British magical world and continuously supplying the magical world with all kinds of magical talents, but is this really the truth?"

"I recently received letters from some parents saying that horrific attacks had occurred at schools and the perpetrators have not yet been found. Mrs. Ferrian from Top Hill wrote: 'My child lives in constant fear at school, and the professors are helpless and do nothing about it! I have to send my child home for Christmas.'"

"I found this concerned parent with a feeling of indignation and interviewed her. The situation was far more serious than I had imagined—this wasn't the first attack; an attack had occurred more than a month ago. The victim that time was a cat, but the news was strictly suppressed!"

"In order to mitigate the impact and avoid being discovered and attacked by the outside world, the headmaster did not hesitate to fabricate a sensational lie - he attributed it all to the thousand-year-old legend of Hogwarts, the Chamber of Secrets in Slytherin."

"The irony is that he did something similar fifty years ago when the headmaster was a Transfiguration professor. During that time, a poor Ravenclaw witch tragically lost her life. Hogwarts apprehended the suspect, but Dumbledore had a huge influence on the then headmaster, Armando Dippet, and through his intervention, the matter was eventually dropped, and the suspect was merely expelled from the school."

"Three days before I wrote this, two weeks had passed since the second student attack, yet the outside world knew nothing about it, and the perpetrators remained at large. We cannot help but worry about this; has the all-powerful Dumbledore truly grown old?"

"I will follow up on this matter and reveal the truth to everyone. In the next issue, we will start with the work of this headmaster and unveil a more authentic image of Dumbledore."

That concludes the main text. However, at the bottom of the page, there is a small line of text that previews the content of the next report, which reads:

Dumbledore has always been willing to hire controversial instructors, such as Gilderoy Lockhart and Felix Heap this year, but are these two really suitable? Let's wait and see (insider information is welcome, contact: Rita Skeeter, editor-in-chief of The Daily Prophet, author of twelve best-selling books, and best-selling record holder).

“How could she say that about Dumbledore!” Harry exclaimed angrily. “And the Chamber of Secrets—we saw it with our own eyes, how could it be a lie!”

“You can’t believe a word Rita Skeeter says. She’s always making up rumors and gossip about celebrities,” Ron said knowledgeably. “A few years ago, her feud with Lockhart in the newspapers caused quite a stir, and my mother really disliked her.”

“It seems we now know what kind of woman this is,” Hermione said sarcastically.

Ron picked up the newspaper. "Have you noticed? This woman is planning a series of reports. The next one is about Professor Lockhart and Professor Hyp. How will she portray them?"

Hermione said helplessly, "She portrayed Headmaster Dumbledore as a schemer, and I doubt the two professors will escape the same fate."

"I don't care about Lockhart; he's all show and no substance. Do you think Professor Hyp might storm into the Daily Prophet building and unleash a bat curse on that woman?"

"Ron! That's illegal! How could the professor do that!"

The three discussed the matter and ultimately came to a rather pessimistic conclusion.

Harry pointed to a sentence in the newspaper, "She said a suspect was caught fifty years ago. Who was she referring to?"

"Come on, Harry, you still believe that woman's nonsense?"

“Of course I don’t believe it, but—” Harry’s eyes were fixed on Hermione.

Her face turned pale instantly. "Fifty years ago, he was expelled... The suspect was Hagrid?"