Hogwarts: From Little Wizard to White Lord

"Good evening, Lu Wei."

Dumbledore greeted it.

Unfortunately, the three-headed dog didn't buy it. Its three heads growled, and one of them opened its mouth and bit.

Dumbledore wasn't nervous at all. He even said to Vaughn with interest, "Compared to those cruel little creatures raised by Sylvanus, Fluffy is much safer. Moreover, he has trained this big guy with a unique hobby."

As he spoke, he clapped his hands and magic played music.

The three-headed dog that was biting at them stopped immediately, its six ears stood up, and its three ferocious faces quickly became obsessed and sleepy in the sound of music.

Soon, it yawned, twisted its huge body a few times in the room, making the floor and ceiling creak, and then fell into a deep sleep.

Dumbledore blinked. "How do you like this as the first stage of Harry's trial?"

Vaughan curled his lips. "Not very good. It can only fool children, or fool desperate Quirrell and Tom."

"Oh—Vaughn, don't be so mean. At least before we knew about its weakness of being easily hypnotized by music, it was still quite intimidating. A dog with three heads is not that easy to deal with."

"A killing curse will solve it."

"No, the Killing Curse requires a lot of magic power, especially if you want to kill such a huge creature. Quirinus probably can't provide that much magic power... Come on, let's go to the next level."

Dumbledore used magic to move Fluffy away, revealing a trapdoor underneath it.

He opened it and floated down with Vaughn.

The passage under the trapdoor was pitch black, and in the darkness, something was rustling and wriggling.

This level was even more boring. Even without relying on his memories from his previous life, he knew what it was just by smelling the dampness in the air and its unique movement trajectory.

"Oh, Devil's Snare, a harmless little thing."

Vaughn summoned flames, and a large magical fireball hung above the two men.

The moment the light and heat bloomed, the darkness was dispelled, and the snake-like vines that were originally hidden in the darkness and coiled towards the two people from all directions suddenly retreated into the cracks in the wall with screams.

Dumbledore clapped his hands vigorously. "Excellent, Vaughan. Pomona would be proud of you. I must say that when it comes to plants, being able to apply what you've learned from books is quite enough."

Vaughn smiled, "Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not Harry."

"To be honest with you, this level was added later. I didn't actually expect Harry and Ron to know how to solve it. On the contrary, it is more suitable for Miss Granger."

Speaking of this, Dumbledore had a headache. Although he didn't expect Harry to be as good at studying as his parents, he was still quite upset that Harry became a poor student.

Vaughn was also somewhat dissatisfied: "You secretly included my girlfriend in the trial. Shouldn't you consult my opinion?"

"Oh, sorry, I promise there's no danger. The only one who can face Tom in the end is Harry."

Dumbledore apologized as usual, then looked at Vaughan with a strange expression, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

"What did you want to say, Albus?"

"...Although I'm happy to see you find love, you're still young after all. Shouldn't you restrain yourself in front of me? I'm the principal, remember?"

"Oh, then Albus, are there any rules at Hogwarts against dating?"

"..." Dumbledore's beard twitched, and he began to consider whether to add some school rules.

But think about it, if he banned students from dating, he would probably immediately replace Phileas Black and become the most unpopular headmaster in Hogwarts history.

Chapter 94: Boring Levels and Rearrangements

With fireballs floating above their heads, the two men passed through a corridor filled with devil's nets and arrived at the third level.

There are a sky full of winged keys and a flying broom next to them. It is obvious that this level was set up based on Harry's flying skills after he showed his talent for Quidditch.

Vaughn didn't even have the desire to comment on this level, and just uttered an interjection:

"Tsk!"

In the later chessboard levels, he didn't even have any interjections.

Dumbledore was eager to hear the "users'" feedback: "Vaughn, what do you think of these two levels? I've been thinking for a long time about how to balance the strengths of Harry and the others with the power of the levels themselves."

"For the flying key level, I asked Phoenix (Professor Flitwick) to cast the 'Ten Thousand Arrows' spell on those keys. If you don't follow the rules and use your flying broom to grab the right key, you'll be attacked."

"This giant chessboard formation originates from an ancient spell called 'Stone Pillars'. It's Minerva's favorite and can temporarily bring these giant stone sculptures to life. I invited Minerva to set up an endgame, which is sure to satisfy Ron."

"There are two more levels to go. One involves a troll, which will test Harry and Miss Granger's fighting abilities. The other involves potions, which will test their logical thinking and courage."

After saying this, Dumbledore looked at Vaughan with a smile, as if waiting for his admiration.

But what he waited for was Vaughn's expressionless face. Vaughn looked at his head covered with a soft hat, as if trying to guess what was inside.

He commented "euphemistically": "Honestly, Albus, these levels are boring!"

Dumbledore's smile froze, and he couldn't help but explain, "You mean they're not difficult enough? Vaughn, you have to understand, they're not meant to guard against anyone. They're just a test for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They're only 12 or 13-year-old wizards. It's too difficult..."

"No!" Vaughan interrupted him. "It has nothing to do with whether it's difficult or not. It's just not interesting enough, not vivid enough. Take the flying key, for example. What are you testing? Harry's flying skills? Wasn't his performance in Quidditch good enough?"

"And there's the Devil's Snare ahead. Besides Hermione, what do you expect Harry and Ron to learn? Remember for the rest of their lives that the Devil's Snare is afraid of fire? How many times in their lives will they encounter the Devil's Snare?"

"The same goes for the chessboard. Harry and Hermione are both terrible at chess. They can't help at all. Ron is basically the only one who can help at this level. Are you trying to urge Harry and Hermione to study wizard chess well in the future? Or are you trying to use the final deadlock to play a sentimental trick?"

"The giant monster level is even more speechless. I guess it was set up by Quirrell? It has basically no value in existence."

Vaughn looked at Dumbledore and said mercilessly, "Albus, haven't you noticed? Although you did notice the characteristics of each of the three of them, when you designed each level, you focused too much on one of them and ignored the other two..."

"You're not testing Harry, Ron, or Hermione individually, you're testing the whole team. What's the point of these so-called levels, other than letting them show off their well-known strengths? Testing should not only validate their strengths, but also their weaknesses and the problems they have with each other, so they can learn to grow."

These words left Dumbledore speechless.

He was originally very proud of his design, but after Vaughn's series of questions, he looked back and felt that it was indeed meaningless.

Dumbledore fell into deep thought. After a moment, he didn't say much. He just took Vaughn through the "worthless" troll level and the potion level surrounded by magic fire.

It wasn't until the potion level that Vaughn offered a somewhat positive review. "It's quite interesting, a logical deduction question, but I bet only Hermione could come up with the correct answer. The potion leading to the next level, however, is only two sips long, which makes it quite challenging."

"Did the professor cast a spell so that it would always only have enough for two people?"

Finally hearing a positive comment, Dumbledore replied cheerfully, "It's not Severus, it's me who set the rules here. Only two people are allowed to pass through the firewall. The method is to find the correct potion and drink it. Other than that, no other methods are allowed. And the amount of potion is only enough for two people."

"This is to ensure that only Harry faces Quirinus alone, and also to prevent Quirinus from destroying the potion when he passes through. According to the rules, even if he destroys it, the potion will be restored and wait for the last person."

Vaughn had some impression of this kind of magic that was similar to setting rules.

Of course not in this life, he is not yet exposed to such advanced magic.

It is the memory of the original work in the previous life.

It was a similar magic that Voldemort used to hide Slytherin's locket in the caves he visited as a child.

He placed the locket in a glass container and then filled the container with a potion that would make life worse than death. Anyone who wanted to get the locket had to drink all the potion inside. It would be useless to pour it out or take it directly.

Vaughn felt that this was the most interesting part of all the levels he had seen tonight.

Moreover, their target tonight was also cast under this spell by Dumbledore.

The two drank the potion, walked through the purple wall of fire, and came to the last room. There was nothing in the empty room except a mirror standing in the middle of the room.

Vaughn glanced around. "This is the abandoned classroom where the Mirror of Erised used to be... I remember it was originally on the fifth floor. Did you move the entire classroom here?"

Dumbledore smiled playfully: "Yes, this is a small privilege of being the headmaster. Remember I said that Hogwarts would not refuse some trivial requests of the headmaster. Its staircases can be moved around, and of course the rooms can be moved around too."

Damn it!

Let Lao Deng pretend to be successful.

Vaughan admitted that he was a little envious. This castle that had existed for a thousand years was the greatest wealth and secret of the entire Hogwarts, and the privileges of the Hogwarts headmaster were more numerous and important than he had imagined.

Dumbledore ignored Vaughn's sour expression as he walked over to the Mirror of Erised and stared into it.

A moment later, Vaughan saw with his own eyes a piece of blood-red stone, as translucent as crystal, fall out of thin air into Dumbledore's slightly open palm.

He glanced at the Mirror of Erised again with a complicated look, and before it completed the constraints of the rule magic and resumed its function, Dumbledore pulled down the dust cloth to cover it.

He turned around and handed the blood-red stone in his hand to Vaughn.

"It can be loaned to you for a week. Now, Vaughn, it's your turn to fulfill your end of the bargain."

Taking the magical alchemical artifact, Vaughn ignored the message that popped up on the system panel. He curled his lips and replied, "You've made a fortune, Albus. I'm going to redesign all the levels!"

Dumbledore's eyes lit up slightly: "Oh, can I hear your thoughts?"

"Don't worry, we can talk slowly. I believe you will be very satisfied with my idea. Of course, since my magical ability is far inferior to yours, you have to help me."

"No problem," Dumbledore replied simply.

But looking at Vaughn's smile, he suddenly had a bad feeling.

Harry and Ron felt like they were being driven crazy.

Ever since Vaughan came back and started to review for extra classes, Hermione has burst out with great enthusiasm for reviewing. The blank pages of her diary which records her review plan are rapidly becoming thinner, while the part filled with handwriting is visibly thickening.

Even more terrifying was that one day, as time entered mid-March, Hermione suddenly said in horror, "There are only 3 weeks left until the exams!"

Not only did she push herself even harder, she also started making review plans for Harry and Ron!

It's not like the two of them didn't protest, but when faced with Hermione's argument, they said, "You don't want to fail the exam and repeat the year, do you?"

At the youthful age, even if he is a poor student, he still has to save face. No little boy wants to be embarrassed like that.

So, night after night, they could only bury themselves in heavy homework and terrifying review plans.

Fortunately, Hermione didn't always have time to supervise them; she would spend two hours a day with Vaughn.

That was the only chance Harry and Ron had to breathe a sigh of relief and give their wound-up brains a break.

As for Vaughan, he became mysterious again.

No one knew what he was doing. Every day, people could only see him in class, and he would disappear after class.

Harry thought Vaughan might be developing a new potion again.

Because his current condition is exactly the same as when he was developing the wolfsbane potion last year.

Ron disagreed. "Don't be silly, Harry. That guy isn't that hardworking. He only spent two months developing the Vaughn beauty line, and then played around with it for a full six months!"

Then, that afternoon, Peeves, who had been away for a long time, set his sights on Ron again.

"Poor, stupid Weatherby, why do you always say bad things about the Big Devil behind his back? Of course, Peeves loves it. Tell me more, Uncle Peeves still has a lot of tricks he hasn't used yet, hehe!"

Peeves, his mouth wide open and wide, hurled some kind of paint at Ron, sending him scurrying off in panic while doing somersaults across the classroom.

It now loves working for Vaughn, because when Vaughn orders it to do something, no other ghost will stop it. Even the Bloody Baron, whom it fears the most, turns a blind eye to its pranks.