Hogwarts: From Little Wizard to White Lord

Dumbledore winked playfully. "I checked beforehand, and Tom is still asleep. I have you to thank, Vaughn. Without unicorn blood, he has to hibernate frequently to avoid sucking Quirinus to death."

As he spoke, his expression looked a little sad.

Quirinus was originally a student he had high hopes for. In his original plan, he was going to let Quirinus teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts course for a year, and after the term was up, he would arrange for him to join the Ministry of Magic or the International Confederation of Wizards.

Unfortunately, things are unpredictable.

Dumbledore couldn't tell whether it was Voldemort's curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts class that caused all this, or the disturbance in Voldemort and Harry's fate.

But no matter which point, he cannot escape blame.

If he hadn't found Quirinus last year, all this...

As if sensing his guilt, Vaughn couldn't help but sneer, "Albus, have you noticed that you're always on guard against Slytherin, but in fact, the most problems are in another house?"

Dumbledore: "?"

Vaughn counted on his fingers. "Qurinus Quirrell, Ravenclaw; Rita Skeeter, Ravenclaw."

Dumbledore's beard twitched, and he said stubbornly, "It's just a coincidence!"

Vaughn smiled. He had one more thing he hadn't said. When Gilderoy Lockhart came to Hogwarts next year, he really wanted to ask Dumbledore again, was it a coincidence?

The two of them looked at the memory for a while. Perhaps to change the subject, Dumbledore greatly appreciated Vaughn's memory processing, and thought that the memory he constructed was very clear and full, so clear that it could be mistaken for the real thing.

Especially Miss Granger, her every frown and smile is lifelike and very touching.

Vaughn rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond to his teasing. As he left, he asked him, "When are you going to guide Quirrell to crack the other mechanisms?"

Dumbledore smiled and said, "I was just about to tell you about this. What do you think of those magical mechanisms?"

Vaughan didn't answer, but his expression said enough about what he was thinking—it was almost like a child playing house.

"Do you want to make things more difficult for Quirinus and Tom?"

"Ok?"

Chapter 92: The Web of Fate and the Road to Legend

Vaughn, who was about to leave, turned back and looked at Dumbledore strangely.

Old Deng smiled back at him.

After a pause, Vaughn said with a hint of sarcasm, "I thought you wouldn't let me participate in the house game you prepared for the Savior."

He is self-aware of this. Although he is now working closely with Deng, that is only because he has not shown any dangerous behavior.

In fact, the way Vaughan and Dumbledore have been getting along has always been one of mutual trust and mutual vigilance.

Due to the difference in concepts, it is difficult for them to truly accept each other.

Vaughan is too "obsessed" with power. Whether it is his pursuit of fame and reputation or his desire for knowledge, it is essentially a pursuit of power.

Dumbledore is too "divine". He has seen too many complexities and treacherous human hearts and hopes that everyone can be as simple as possible.

Of course, up to now, both of them have remained restrained in their opinions on each other, and even tacitly agreed not to secretly interfere in the other's concerns, but to put everything out in the open.

So Dumbledore clearly guessed that Barty Crouch Jr. might still be alive, and Vaughan relied on this to win over Crouch, but he did not pursue it further.

Every time Vaughan came into contact with Harry, he would show Dumbledore his memories of their time together, because he knew that Dumbledore was afraid that his ideas would influence Harry.

Keeping distance from each other, not touching each other's weaknesses, and limiting cooperation - this is the basis for their relatively fragile trust to be maintained until now.

Harry is Dumbledore's weak spot!

Hearing Vaughn's ridicule, Dumbledore just smiled slightly. His eyes were blank for a moment, as if he was thinking about something, and then he asked a seemingly irrelevant question: "Vaughn, what do you think of fate?"

Vaughn frowned slightly. He couldn't observe what fate would be like yet, and he never liked to comment on things he didn't understand.

Dumbledore didn't seem to expect an answer. He continued, "A few months ago, you told me a line from a Muggle movie about how human nature is the sum of divinity and animality. It deeply touched me. In the past few months, I've been studying Muggle philosophy and literature whenever I have free time."

"One playwright's opinion particularly interested me. He believed that tragedies in literary works are generally divided into three types. One is caused by the villain in the play, one is due to coincidence, or what Muggles call 'fate', and the last type, which is the most common and realistic, is the tragedy caused by social relationships and the character's class."

"What I write about is not the consequences, nor the retribution, but the cruelty between heaven and earth, and in the human world..."

Muttering these words, Dumbledore was lost in thought for a moment before he stood up and extended his hand to Vaughan:

"Hold my hand, child."

Vaughan didn't understand what Dumbledore was going to do, but he did it anyway. He stepped forward and grabbed Dumbledore's old, skinny hand.

Dumbledore waved his wand.

He rarely recited a spell, and the pronunciation sounded like runes, or Rune. It was only after Vaughan entered Hogwarts that he came into contact with this ancient language, which had become extinct in Muggle society and even ordinary wizard families.

But his self-study results were mediocre (Runes was an elective course for third-year students), because learning this language had nothing to do with a person's intelligence, but rather depended on whether one had a talent for divination - Runes had always appeared as proverbs.

The talent for divination was something Vaughn was most reluctant to mention.

But after more than half a year of study, Vaughn has gained some experience.

"It requires chanting the spell in Runic. Is this a prophetic magic?" Vaughn was a little confused. As far as he knew, there had never been a fortune teller in the Dumbledore family.

He did not resist, but just observed silently, feeling the huge magical fluctuations like a mountain emanating from Dumbledore who was waving his wand beside him.

In Vaughn's perception, the old man beside him was like a terrifying radiation source at this moment. Circles of invisible ripples spread out from his body, extending to 3 or 4 meters away, and suddenly disappeared when approaching the wall.

It seemed that it could only spread so far, but that didn't mean it was weak. In fact, within the range of the ripples, the air was affected by the terrifying force in it, becoming so heavy that it was almost solidified.

For a moment, Vaughan felt like a bug trapped in pine resin. He could clearly feel that he had absolutely no ability to resist Dumbledore.

He has always been aware that he was able to negotiate with Dumbledore only because he took advantage of Dumbledore being a "gentleman". Just as Dumbledore trusted his rationality, he also trusted that Dumbledore would not do anything bad to him.

As Dumbledore's voice became more and more passionate as he chanted the spell, the frequency of the terrifying magic power spreading became faster and faster, and the impact on the surroundings became stronger and stronger!

At a certain moment, Vaughn's pupils dilated, and he saw that the colors in the world before him were rapidly disappearing - that was not some kind of illusion.

Under the spell's influence, the ripples of magical power surging from Dumbledore were so strong that they were visible to the naked eye. Vaughn could clearly see them sweeping across the two men's bodies, across the tassels draped in the headmaster's office, across the desk, the carpet, the dessert cabinet, the candy, the Pensieve...

With each ripple, a color is stripped from these objects.

It was as if an invisible hand was peeling off the gorgeous outer layer of the world, revealing its true nature, just like peeling off the glaze layer applied on an oil painting to enrich its colors!

Even though the range was less than 4 meters, it was enough to shock Vaughn!

He watched as everything the ripples touched quickly turned into outlines of black, gray, and white, and watched as transparent, spider-silk-like threads emerged from the surfaces of those objects.

Only at this moment did Dumbledore finally stop his magic. He seemed to be very exhausted, and from the unique perspective at this moment, his face was so pale that it was almost transparent.

"Hoo—" Dumbledore took a few quick breaths before finally easing his breath. His voice became hoarse, and he said to Vaughan self-deprecatingly, "I'm really getting old. Decades ago, when I used this magic to observe the Web of Fate, it wasn't as strenuous as it is now."

"The web of fate?"

Vaughan observed the strange scene before him. The space with a radius of about 3 meters, centered on him and Dumbledore, had completely lost all color (in hue, black, white and gray all represent no color or no hue).

Outside the border, the walls covered with portraits still look normal, as if a black, white and gray ball has suddenly been embedded in reality.

Inside the sphere, spider-like threads appeared on the surface of all objects except him and Dumbledore. They extended out, intertwined and woven with each other, like... a web, extending to the edge of the spherical space and eventually disappearing without a trace.

“…This is the web of fate!”

Vaughan repeated Dumbledore's words again, but this time, with certainty.

"Yes, this is the true face of fate. It is also what the playwright said, the cruelty between heaven and earth, and the human world!"

Looking at the crisscrossing threads in space, Dumbledore sighed and said, "It penetrates deeply into all things. It is both the origin and the end of all things. Nothing can escape these threads. Of course, Muggles cannot see this. What they think of as coincidence and chance in fate are merely part of true destiny. But even so, they still understand some of the essence of fate."

"Like its ruthlessness and cruelty!"

Dumbledore sheathed his wand, raised his free hand, and called out, "Fawkes!"

Fawkes, who had been hiding somewhere since Vaughn's arrival, reluctantly appeared on Dumbledore's arm.

Fawkes spread his wings, and with a crackling sound, he Apparated with the two of them to a corridor in Hogwarts and appeared outside a door.

Vaughan, who had lived in Hogwarts for several months, was already quite familiar with the castle. He knew that behind the door was Quirinus Quirrell's office.

The spherical space surrounding the two of them still existed, and it seemed that maintaining it was not difficult at all. Dumbledore even had enough energy to wave his hand and cast invisibility and soundproofing spells.

He pushed open the door as if he was returning home and walked into the office with Vaughn without encountering any obstacles.

"This is just a small privilege I have as the headmaster. Hogwarts will not refuse the headmaster's request." Dumbledore winked at Vaughan and said.

Vaughn paid no attention to the old man's playfulness. He just looked at Quirrell sleeping soundly on the sofa in the office.

As he got closer, the black, white and gray spherical space took in Quirrell's body. Then, the colors on his body quickly peeled away, and like the objects next to him, dense silk threads emerged from his body surface.

The difference is that the silk threads on his body are clearly divided into two parts.

Some of them are thinner and almost invisible. They extend from all parts of Quirrell's body and are distributed more evenly.

The other part was mainly concentrated behind Quirrell's head. It was dense and thick, like the tail feathers of a white peacock spreading out, extending from behind Quirrell in all directions and sinking into the boundary of the spherical space.

"...Is that Tom's fate?"

Vaughan ignored Quirrell's own delicate fate.

Looking at a thread extending from the back of Quirrell's head and passing in front of his eyes.

He held out his hand and looked towards Dumbledore, who nodded before he tentatively touched it.

But he didn't touch anything, his fingers passed directly through the thread.

Dumbledore sighed, "This is what has baffled and frustrated many great wizards throughout history. Fate can only be observed and predicted, but cannot be interfered with or changed."

Dumbledore was lost in thought as he stared at the back of Quirrell's head. Vaughn followed his gaze and saw the thickest thread there. It looked different. The other threads, no matter how thick or thin they were, were all smooth threads.

Only it has a thread-like shape, as if it is made of two silk threads twisted together.

Vaughan had some guesses. Noticing his gaze, Dumbledore, who read his thoughts, said, "Yes. That is the intertwined fates of Tom and Harry, their bond... You should also know the prophecy, right? The prophecy about the Dark Lord creating his own mortal enemy."

"I know a little." Vaughn nodded.

Logically, this should be confidential, but after a few months of getting along, Dumbledore had become accustomed to Vaughn's well-informedness, although he was very curious about how Vaughn knew those secrets.

He continued, "This is the wonder of the world. There is no one in the wizarding world who doesn't believe in fate, but most people, like Muggles, have a somewhat narrow understanding of fate, including the Dark Lord."

"When he began to slaughter children born in July according to the prophecy, he did not know that the act of slaughter he had learned of his own fate was also part of his destiny."

"You haven't seen Voldemort in his prime, Vaughn. He's not an old man like me. He's at the peak of his powers. His magic has far surpassed a certain limit, perhaps even surpassing me and..."

He paused, and ultimately did not pronounce the name. He just mumbled it and said, "Even as powerful as Voldemort was, he still couldn't fight against fate. So a miracle happened—a legendary wizard who delved into the dark arts was killed by the rebound of his most skilled and proud dark magic!"

"Sometimes when I think about it, it's really absurd and terrifying..."

Dumbledore's beard trembled slightly, and he gently closed his eyes: "...The prophecy reveals that the two people whose fates are entangled are the only ones who can kill each other!"