Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 403 Moros and Pandora's Box

Rice soon received Helga's letter.

Helga didn't say much in the letter, it can be summed up in one sentence: "Quack, Salazar, save me!"

Although the situation wasn't as dire as Helga described, she had gone to her own private classroom to ward off the curse, so she wasn't exaggerating too much.

Helga wasn't afraid of the minor troubles brought by the curse; what she was worried about was implicating others or causing irreversible damage to the castle.

More importantly, if the situation is described as more serious, it might lure Slytherin over. Even if the curse can't be resolved, they could at least make some doll parts for her, right?

Rice, upon seeing Helga's letter, naturally guessed this, but he still decided to go to Hogwarts. The reason was simple: Helga had written in her letter, "Only you can help me."

Since she had said so, Rice no longer hesitated and set off for Hogwarts.

Rice might have to work hard all summer, but she didn't care. Her friend needed her help, and that was enough.

Moreover, he had an unexpected bonus on this trip: Helga granted him permission to enter Helga's dungeon.

That was Helga's private classroom. Rice had never been inside since Hogwarts was founded, and didn't even know where it was located.

This wasn't Helga's privilege; his Slytherin private classroom was the same. All four of them tacitly agreed not to inquire about the location of each other's private classrooms, respecting each other's privacy.

Everyone needs some private space to indulge their hobbies. Like Rice, who kept a snake in a secluded room, and no one else questioned it.

Now, in order to invite him to break the curse, Helga has granted him the right to enter Helga's private classroom and explore Helga's dungeon.

It's hard not to be tempted by this!

The fireplace in the Greengrass house leads directly to Hogsmeade Village, so Rice arrived at Hogwarts without much effort.

During the summer holidays, Hogwarts will be closed and students will not be allowed to stay on campus.

In the beginning, Hogwarts allowed students to live at the school all year round. There was no clear concept of holidays at that time. They would only take a three-month break at a specific time to allow young wizards to return to their hometowns to reunite with their families or to fulfill their obligations as vassals of their lords, including paying tribute and participating in wars to defend the borders.

Later, because Hogwarts relaxed its supervision of students much during long holidays, these hot-blooded young people often caused trouble in the castle, so Hogwarts banned students from staying at school.

But Rice was no ordinary student. Countless restrictions seemed to vanish before him as he walked straight into the campus and arrived at the Hufflepuff lounge.

Following Hufflepuff's directions, he entered Helga's private classroom.

"Amazing!" Rice exclaimed the moment he entered Helga's dungeon.

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Helga truly lives up to her reputation as a legendary wizard with the power of earth; the size of her dungeon seems to be even larger than the area of ​​Hogwarts Castle.

This vast space was confined to a rather small area by her spatial magic, resulting in a stark difference between the inner and outer spaces. Even Rice was amazed by this extraordinary spell.

At the same time, he could also feel the rejection he felt from this space.

Rice silently warned himself not to provoke Helga here, or he would really be in deep trouble.

Helga sensed Rice's presence the moment he entered. In fact, Rice was let in by Helga herself.

With a thought, a clay figure appeared in front of Rice.

"Salazar, you've finally arrived." The clay figure's head twisted, revealing Helga's features, and her voice came from its mouth.

"Of course, I can't miss the chance to observe your private classroom." Rice replied while looking around Helga's dungeon.

"This place is really grand. By comparison, my private classroom is as shabby as a bathroom, and Rowena's is even worse."

"You flatter me." Helga was quite pleased to receive such direct praise from her old friend. It wasn't easy to gain Salazar's approval.

"How are you? Is the curse still bothering you?" After a few casual words, Rice noticed that Helga was in good spirits, so he cut straight to the point and asked about the curse.

"It's much better now. You have no idea how unlucky I was before!" Helga poured out her grievances to Rice, recounting her ordeal in detail, which shocked Rice greatly.

This curse is too powerful! How could even Helga be affected so strongly? If it's true, as the legends say, that the curse was cast by Voldemort, then this guy has truly impressed Rice.

Rice felt that the curse was related to the strength of the person afflicted, meaning it grew stronger against stronger opponents. Otherwise, how could the previous professors of Defense Against the Dark Arts have survived if Helga had consistently faced the same level of strength?

However, Rice noticed a detail: the curse's power subsided after Helga entered her private classroom. That was quite interesting.

"It seems that although the curse is powerful, it won't have any effect as long as there is a domain to protect it." Rice came to a conclusion and urged Helga to activate the domain and try it on the ground.

Helga thought Rice made sense, so she activated her domain and went up there for a while. Surprisingly, she wasn't affected at all.

"See, the problem is solved. You just need to keep the domain active to resist the effects of the curse," Rice said with a smile.

Helga: ...

She refuses.

While it's not impossible for her to keep her domain active indefinitely, is that really a solution? Does this mean that future Defense Against Dark Magic spells will all need to come with their own domains?

This behavior is as absurd as when a main road is blocked by a huge rock, and the person in charge, instead of trying to clear the road, suggests that people can take a side road to bypass the blockage.

After being rejected by Helga, Rice also fell silent.

He actually had an idea: to have the current Defense Against the Dark Arts professor resign, then change his name and reapply for the position, to see if he could circumvent the curse.

Because, in his understanding, it is difficult for a curse to be both powerful and widespread at the same time.

This kind of curse, which can even affect Helga, likely has a long list of restrictions in front of it, and it's actually quite easy to bypass.

Based on the information currently available, the curse requires two conditions to be triggered: first, the professor must be a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and second, the professor's term of office must exceed one year.

It seems they could circumvent the curse in two ways. One is to rename the course "Defense Against the Dark Arts" to something like "Duel Studies" or "Self-Defense." The other is to change the professor every year, perhaps by having the professor change the name, to see if they can circumvent the curse's restrictions.

You're cursing Smith White, what does it have to do with me, White Smith?

But now it seems neither of these methods will work, because Helga clearly wants to eradicate the curse once and for all.

After thinking it over for a while, Rice felt he should support Helga's idea.

How could Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff possibly back down in the face of a mere curse? If word got out, they might even be branded as having "Voldemort's curse that even Slytherin and Hufflepuff together couldn't break," which he couldn't accept.

"My gut feeling tells me that this curse is no simple matter."

Helga rolled her eyes: Anyone would know that this is not simple.

"Can you sense where the spell is coming from?" Rice decided to use the process of elimination to investigate the state of the curse on Helga.

Salazar's question stumped Helga. She carefully recalled her experience and then stated with certainty that she had not sensed any trace of a spell or the flow of magic.

"I guessed so. I'll prepare a bottle of exorcism potion for you." After ruling out the possibility of a curse, Rice decided to try to exorcise Helga and remove the negative status from her.

"Okay." A hint of joy flashed in Helga's eyes.

The process of making this exorcising potion is quite complicated and takes several weeks to complete. It is estimated that no one in the world except Salazar could make it.

Since Salazar's help was needed, Helga naturally had to prepare good enough conditions for him.

So she directly mobilized the resources of the dedicated classroom to build a spacious and comfortable little house for Rice.

Rice settled in the hut and began making potions for Helga.

In the blink of an eye, a month has passed.

Rice handed Helga the carefully crafted exorcism potion, and also prepared a bottle of luck-changing potion for her—not as magical as Felix Felicis, but still able to dispel bad luck.

"Thank you." Helga took the two bottles of potion, drank them in one gulp, and then left her dungeon.

Not long after, Helga returned looking disheveled.

"No, it's completely ineffective. I'm still unlucky." Helga looked a little frustrated.

She had no doubt about Salazar's potion quality, for he was one of the world's top potion masters. If even he couldn't make a good potion, then no one else could.

"That's most likely not due to your own fault." Rice's eyes became quite deep.

Come to think of it, who is Helga? How could Voldemort possibly have managed to curse her without her noticing?

Besides, Voldemort has been out of power for quite some time now...

"Then there's only one possibility." Helga understood Salazar's meaning.

"The laws," Rice said solemnly.

Laws are the principles governing the operation of things; they are the rules of nature. Just like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, and things falling from high places to low places, these are all laws, which are very advanced concepts.

The "curse" that Helga encountered was a power at the level of laws.

The reason why a domain can isolate curses is because it contains its own laws. Within a domain, in addition to the basic laws of nature, the wizard has the highest authority, and the laws that apply curses are rejected.

"Drink this. It will greatly enhance your senses." Rice took out another small bottle of potion and handed it to Helga.

He had considered this possibility long before he started preparing the potion for good fortune and the potion for exorcising evil spirits, so he naturally made the third preparation.

Voldemort clearly couldn't comprehend the power of laws. If he had that ability, why didn't he simply kill Dumbledore or curse him? Therefore, he most likely hid something akin to divine remains within Hogwarts Castle and used the laws emanating from that object to curse the instructors of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Then all they need to do is find it.

After taking his specially made potion, Helga's perception will be greatly enhanced, and she must find the source of that strange law as soon as possible.

Only he or Helga could do this. Their souls were strong enough to defy the laws of nature. Anyone else who recklessly consumed this potion would be committing suicide. At best, they would suffer mental breakdown; at worst, they would die instantly.

"I understand." Helga took the potion and walked out of the dungeon under the cover of her domain.

Rice wasn't entirely comfortable with her, so she followed her out.

Helga walked to the entrance of the Great Hall and then drank the potion.

The next second, the veins on her forehead bulged, her eyes rolled upwards, leaving only the whites of her eyes exposed.

A few seconds later, Helga's body began to tremble. Rice understood that she was trying to unravel the ubiquitous and intricate laws governing the environment and attempting to find the abnormal law within them.

Helga made a discovery very quickly.

Her hand ran over her body as if picking up a loose thread.

Helga raised her head, her eyes, with only the whites showing, staring intently at the top of the castle.

She located the position of the anomaly law.

Without any hesitation, Helga flew out of the window and, driven by magic, sped to the eighth floor of the castle, landing in front of a tapestry.

In an instant, the tapestry changed, and a very smooth door appeared on it.

Helga turned the doorknob and rushed inside.

Behind the door was a room crammed full of all sorts of odds and ends. Rice, who was following closely behind Helga, didn't pay much attention to these things.

He glanced at it briefly and followed Helga into the depths of the junkyard.

Helga's face was flushed; her powerful senses were putting immense pressure on her, but thankfully, it would all be over soon.

After navigating through mountains of garbage, Helga finally stopped in front of a pile of discarded school desks.

As she raised her hand, an antique-looking box floated out of the desk drawer.

Seeing that Helga had found the source of the curse, Rice quickly poured the sense-blocking potion into her mouth.

As soon as the medicine entered his mouth, Helga sat down on the ground, beads of sweat the size of soybeans appearing on his forehead.

The dust has settled.

Rice examined the box in front of him, and after confirming that there were no defensive spells on its surface, he took the box in his hand.

Before he could examine the box further, a voice came from inside it.

"Lucky one, make a pact with me, and I can grant you one wish."

"It's Ancient Greek," Rice recognized the language of the voice.

"Who are you? Why are you locked in a box? What is the origin of this box?" Rice replied in Ancient Greek.

"I am Moros, and I am temporarily residing in Pandora's Box," the voice inside the box answered honestly.

Rice: ...

Good heavens! Since it's a combination of these two, it's not surprising that they can cast a curse at the level of laws on a wizard of Helga's caliber.

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, goodnight~

(End of this chapter)