Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 108 You can never wake someone who is pretending to be asleep

"Hmm? What do you have to explain?" Professor McGonagall crossed her arms. "Potter almost died down there!"

"But he's alright, isn't he?"

Professor McGonagall seemed speechless: Dumbledore's words made a lot of sense, but she felt that something was amiss.

"Harry still carries the magic of love left by his mother. With this magic, Quirrell can't hurt a hair on his head until he comes of age."

"But that magic is specifically for the mysterious person."

"Quirok is possessed by Voldemort. I'm sorry I haven't told you this before."

Professor McGonagall's breathing became heavier, clearly shocked by the information.

After listening to Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall's conversation, Rice immediately understood the source of Dumbledore's confidence: Harry had the magic of love left to him by his mother, and Quirrell, who had been parasitized by Voldemort, could not harm him.

"The magic of love has such amazing effects, it's incredible!" After hearing Dumbledore's explanation of the magic of love, even Rice couldn't help but marvel at the magic that Harry's mother had cast.

Although he had not witnessed this magic firsthand, he could understand the principles behind it.

The key to casting this kind of magic is not the wizard's strength, but pure love—a love that can sacrifice everything. With this emotional power, even a weak wizard can unleash terrifying spells—even allowing an infant to destroy the most powerful Dark Lord in the world, and the protective effect lasting until the infant reaches adulthood.

However, the spell wasn't as powerful as it appeared. Its current effect was purely due to the Dark Lord's arrogance and lack of clarity, which led to his swift defeat. Had he chosen to forgive and spare Harry's life, Harry wouldn't have ended up in this predicament.

Putting himself in Harry's shoes, Rice felt that he certainly wouldn't have made things difficult for him in that situation—at least not personally. But the Dark Lord was different; he cruelly rejected a mother's last request, not even sparing the infant in her arms, and ultimately received the consequences he desired.

He also gained another piece of information: the extremely evil being possessing Quirrell was none other than the infamous Voldemort. The name of this Dark Lord was legendary to Rice; all the books on contemporary magical history he had browsed since awakening mentioned this person's name—not even his real name, Voldemort, but rather referred to as "the Dark Lord," "the Mysterious Man," or "the one whose name must not be spoken."

This made Rice quite curious when he learned about this person. He wanted to know what kind of person could achieve such a feat, that everyone was afraid to even mention his name! He had never seen such a person before.

result……

That's it? The one who just fought me, or rather, the one I unilaterally beat up, is the Dark Lord, whose name the entire wizarding world doesn't even dare to mention? Isn't that a bit of dark humor? But looking at the reactions of the other wizards, their fear of him seems genuine, which is somewhat puzzling. Could it be that because he has lost all his power and can only possess others, he couldn't unleash his full strength when fighting me?

Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore remained silent for a long time, then she said in a low voice, "Albus, you've gone mad! You, Merlin! You actually let someone possessed by the Dark Lord into Hogwarts, and even taught the children Defense Against the Dark Arts for a year! Let the Dark Lord teach Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

She had unconditional trust in Dumbledore, but given the current situation, she needed him to explain things to her.

"His condition is very poor; he spends most of his time sleeping," Dumbledore said calmly. "I only later confirmed that what was on Quirrell was Voldemort, and that he was coming back."

Professor McGonagall's breathing was like a bellows.

Dumbledore pressed his advantage, continuing, "Children need experience. Those raised in a greenhouse can't handle Voldemort. Minerva, I'm almost 110 years old!"

Even amidst her intense emotional turmoil, Professor McGonagall had to admit that Dumbledore was right. Voldemort didn't even need to do anything; he could simply wait a few decades before making his comeback and easily outlive Dumbledore. By then, he would be too old to handle the situation, and if the younger generation couldn't step up, who would deal with Voldemort? Snape?

Perhaps Dumbledore could ask his friend Nicolas Flamel to concoct an elixir of immortality to prolong his life, but since he himself is not currently taking the elixir, it means he has his own reasons and considerations. He cannot use the excuse of the Mystic to force him to take the elixir—Dumbledore has already made enough sacrifices.

But then she suddenly remembered something else.

"And what about that girl, Greengrass? She didn't have any love magic; in the end, she was the one fighting Quirrell and that man. If she hadn't been lucky, she would have been dead!"

This time, it was Dumbledore's turn to remain silent.

"I miscalculated; too many unexpected things happened in the plan." He frankly admitted his mistake; it was truly unpredictable that Daphne had fire-retardant potion on her.

Even more fatal was that he was unable to accompany her throughout the entire process.

"Alright, Albus, you have your reasons—but why can't you follow these kids secretly? What they're doing is so dangerous; even if it's training, shouldn't there be some safety precautions?"

"Because there really was an unexpected event." Dumbledore told Professor McGonagall in detail how the seal had been broken and the monsters inside had run out and wreaked havoc in the area.

Rice, who was pretending to be asleep in his hospital bed, was taken aback. He never expected that the young wizards of later generations would be so capable of causing trouble! The sealing magic they had set up was not so easy to break even after a thousand years of wind and rain.

He immediately understood: those unsealing experts had mistaken the seal they left behind, intended for disposing of the corpses of Norse false gods, for a treasure trove. While it's true that divine corpses can be processed into various powerful magical artifacts, you don't have that kind of capability!

He really didn't know how to evaluate these unsealing experts. If he called them incompetent, they were able to break the seal he and his friends had set up together; if he called them clever and capable, they actually mistook that kind of seal for a relic...

Rice sensed something was wrong. He wasn't sure if the magic world today still had the ability to break the seal left over from their era—they didn't even know how to flow magic anymore!

He felt he needed to investigate this matter.

After hearing Dumbledore's explanation, Professor McGonagall reluctantly accepted his statement, and the two left the infirmary together.

No sooner had they left than Daphne slipped in.

"Hey, hey, Rice, wake up!" She nudged Rice, who was lying on the bed, hoping to wake him up. She felt that Rice was pretending to be asleep.

But clearly she hadn't heard the proverb: You can never wake someone who's pretending to be asleep.

Rice lay on the hospital bed, looking exactly like Harry and Ron, who were actually in a coma beside her.

After a moment's thought, Daphne decided to resort to some bolder methods.

Just as she was about to take action, Mrs. Pomfrey appeared in time and pulled her out.

"Get out! Don't disturb the patient's rest!"

"Please wait a moment—"

"No way!"

Les praised Mrs. Pomfrey's virtues.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Update delivered! I'll continue writing extra chapters!

Here's a little-known fact I came across.

Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series at The Elephant House in Edinburgh. Across the street from the café, in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Rowling saw two graves bearing the same name as a father and son, the deceased being named "Tom Riddell."

hmm~

(End of this chapter)