Hogwarts: Undercover Death Eater Replaces the Dark Lord

The stone beast jumped to the side with a "bang", and the wall behind it suddenly split in two, revealing a stone staircase that continued to rise, like a spiral escalator.

Snape waved his wand again and walked up the stairs carrying Quirrell's Christmas present. The wall snapped shut behind them.

They spiraled upward in small circles until they came to a gleaming oak door with a brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.

"Bang bang bang!"

Snape knocked three times loudly on the animal-shaped door knocker.

The door opened automatically, revealing the interior of the principal's office.

Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk, looking over papers in the light from the window.

He was wearing red pajamas and a white fluffy robe over them, looking like Santa Claus.

When he heard the door open, he raised his sharp blue eyes and gave Snape a wide smile.

"Ah, Merry Christmas, Severus," Dumbledore said warmly. "You said you'd come, so what are you bringing?"

"Well, I hope you didn't bring another book... I'd much rather someone gave me a pair of thick wool socks."

He spoke to himself while looking at the gift box floating behind Snape.

The next moment, the smile on Dumbledore's face faded.

"Did Quirrell give it to you?"

"Yes." Snape nodded slightly, waved his wand and made the gift box fly to Dumbledore's desk.

"I need you to help me check if there is anything bad hidden on it."

A large bird, the size of a swan, with golden and red feathers, was originally dozing on a perch. When it saw the gift, it opened its eyes curiously and looked over.

"It's all right, Fawkes, there's no curse on it." Dumbledore pushed the bird's head back onto its perch and reached out to untie the gift's ties.

Inside the gift box was a rather perfunctory set of tattered wizard chess pieces that had been passed down through the generations.

Of course, this set of chess pieces isn't the point; it's just a cover-up... The point is the piece of paper underneath the chessboard—

"Dear Severus, let's meet in the Forbidden Forest after Christmas dinner tonight."

Below the line of words, there is a strange pattern - a hideous skull spitting out a snake.

It is the Dark Mark unique to Death Eaters!

Dumbledore pulled out the parchment from under the chessboard and looked at its contents with a serious expression.

"What does Quirrell mean?" Snape also saw the particularly conspicuous mark, his brows knitted tightly together. "He just revealed his secret identity to me like that? I don't believe he has the courage to do that."

"I don't think Quirrell has such courage... but Voldemort might." Dumbledore stared at Snape with his sharp blue eyes through the half-moon lenses.

"It would not be surprising if Voldemort wanted to test your loyalty to him."

"But ever since you vouched for me at the Ministry of Magic, I have been completely marked by you all these years!" Snape suddenly became agitated and paced back and forth in the headmaster's office. "How could the Dark Lord still trust me?"

"Of course he doesn't trust you..." Dumbledore folded his hands and pondered, "But he can only bet that you still have a last shred of loyalty... This means that Voldemort has finally reached the end of his rope."

"It seems that it is time to give that thing to Harry..."

"What is it?" Snape asked with a frown, not hearing clearly.

"Nothing." Dumbledore shook his head.

He passed over the subject and instead looked deeply into Snape's eyes with an extremely deep gaze.

"Remember what I told you, Severus?"

“…What did you say?”

"You know what I'm going to say." Dumbledore sighed slowly, "The Dark Lord will come back, and when that happens, Harry Potter will be in terrible danger..."

"But why? Why should I risk facing the Dark Lord for him?" Snape paced even faster. "That child is just like his father, mediocre and arrogant, always breaking the rules, loving to be in the spotlight, attracting attention, and being impudent..."

"Because he's Lily's child."

Dumbledore's face was calm, and his voice was steady and powerful.

"If you love Lily Evans, if you truly love her, then the path before you is always clear."

Snape stopped moving, his expression was extremely complicated, and it was impossible to tell what it meant.

"So, Severus, go see Quirrell," Dumbledore said. "You have a whole day before Christmas dinner to think about how to explain it to Voldemort."

"Of course, I will help you, and we will create a perfect answer..."

……

While a very important conversation was taking place in the headmaster's office, Lycos was in the Slytherin common room, opening his gifts one by one.

In contrast to the solemn atmosphere over there, Lycos, the culprit who single-handedly orchestrated this incident, was in a very relaxed mood.

He held a pair of scissors in one hand and various gift boxes in the other. For a moment, it felt like he was unpacking a package...

"What Crabbe gave me was... a box of Chocolate Frogs. How perfunctory! What Goyle gave me was... Bibi Every Flavour Beans. Are they brothers?"

Lycos muttered casually as he opened the presents.

"Greengrass's is a heart-shaped cake. I wouldn't dare eat it. What if it's got love potion in it? Draco's is pretty good. He sent me a matching, seamless, stretchable snakeskin wallet..."

"Hey, who gave this to you? It looks like a book..."

He picked up an unsigned package and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Did you forget to write your name?" Lycos opened the package.

"This is……"

When he saw the book inside, the corner of his eye twitched.

There was a line of large characters written on the cover of the book:

"The Stories of Beedle the Bard"!

……

Chapter 60: When the Symbol of the Deathly Hallows Meets the Dark Mark

In Lycos's impression, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" has a very special significance.

Stories in this collection, such as "The Fountain of Good Luck", "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot", "Babidy Rabbit and Her Croaking Stump", etc., are in the wizarding world what "Snow White" and "Cinderella" are in the Muggle world, and can be regarded as household names.

However, the most valuable story among them, "The Story of the Three Brothers", is not as widely circulated as the others, but is often overlooked.

Even if some wizards of the older generation knew about it, they would just treat it as a fairy tale to scare children and say to them:

"If you don't obey, the god of death will come to catch you!"

Except for a very few, few wizards care about this story.

There are almost no wizards who would believe that the three Deathly Hallows really exist in this magical world...

There was no signature, so Lecos had no idea who sent the collection of stories, nor did he know whether there was anything dangerous in the book.

He was cautious and did not touch the book directly. Instead, he stood up and took two steps back, staying away from it.

The old indigo cover of The Tales of Beedle the Bard remained motionless, and it didn't look like it was under any kind of black magic or curse.

However, as a cautious undercover agent, Lecos still maintained the most basic professionalism, frowned, and looked around.

At this time, the Slytherin common room was empty except for Lycos. There were not even a few candles lit, and the green flame in the fireplace was faint. The various luxurious gems around it reflected a weak green light.

After Lycos confirmed that no one was around, he pulled out his wand from his pocket, drew a circle lightly, and said:

"Protego Diabolica (Fire Shield)."

A circle of faint black flames quietly rose around the book.

The flames were extremely dim, their colors were almost invisible, and they seemed to be about to go out at any moment. However, the temperature and destructive power contained in them caused the air to burn and distort.

Like Snape's Christmas present, Lycos's first reaction was to deal with the uncertainty.

The flames of the fire shield should be enough to deal with the counterattacks of most black magics. There is no need to worry about the book containing any curse that will only explode after it is burned.

But...what if there's some important information in it?

Lycos took a deep breath and decided to take a look at what was inside... Was there really some important secret, or was it just an ordinary Christmas gift that was forgotten to be signed?

He slowly used his left hand to take out another wand from his pocket -

"Wingardium Leviosa."

Although after several months of practice, Lycos can now cast the levitation spell easily, this is his first time to use a wand in his left hand to cast a spell...especially when he has to use the wand in his right hand to control the fire shield to protect himself.

Fortunately, the flame of the fire shield is similar to the fierce fire. After the spell is successfully cast, it will automatically devour any objects around it to strengthen itself, and there is no need for continuous casting.

Lycos just needs to devote some of his attention to preventing it from expanding too much, and it can still be controlled roughly.

The entry-level magic in the Charms class, the Levitation Spell, is also simple enough.

Then, as Lycos recited the spell of levitation, the book "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" was slowly opened.

Lycos quickly found the page number of "The Story of the Three Brothers" in the catalog.

There was a hint of curiosity in his eyes, but more of it was alertness and caution. He used the levitation spell to turn the story collection to the corresponding page -

At the top of the page, there was a bold and large title, "The Story of Three Brothers."

Below the title is a brief introduction:

"This is a story about three brothers who, after a chance encounter with the Grim Reaper, try to escape his clutches.

Once, the three brothers avoided death with their own abilities, and each of them received a gift from the god of death - a powerful magic wand, a stone that can resurrect others, and an invisibility cloak that can hide the body.

However, Death twisted every favor into a curse, and only the youngest and wisest brother survived thanks to the invisibility cloak and had a good end.

Below this introduction is a strange symbol - it looks like a triangular eye with a vertical line through the pupil.

"The symbol of the Deathly Hallows..." Lycos stared at the symbol and muttered to himself.

It looks ordinary, as if it was printed on paper in the most common way, and seems to be just an ordinary symbol.

There are no curses in the book, and nothing unusual occurs.

Lycos breathed a sigh of relief and waved his wand to retract the black flames surrounding "The Tales of Beedle the Bard".

"It seems someone really forgot to sign their name. Who is so careless?"