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chapter 159 part 2
Without borrowing from the library, William, by virtue of being the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, managed to research most of the publicly available information about that individual from the relevant collection. After all, when it came to dark magic, modern books simply couldn't bypass him.
'As expected, no one has investigated it until now—the Dark Lord's power base was pure-bloods, so many pure-blood families are probably secretly blocking any related information from surfacing.'
'Or perhaps, the Dark Lord also placed a curse on his own background information, but while the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is overt, the curse on any investigation is covert?'
'It's hard to say—after all, if he can create one curse, he can create a second. Given the Dark Lord's mindset, creating another curse would be perfectly in character.'
William theorized boldly: if the curse on the position was real, then the curse on investigation should also be real.
'A direct investigation probably won't be much use. I'd better start with the Death Eaters. The system card mentioned there were Death Eaters at school when Professor Snape enrolled, so I'll start by investigating the records from that time.'
'Got it, Professor Snape's violation record—' William happily dug out what he wanted from the pile of documents.
'I have Professor Lockhart to thank. His autobiography mentioned his enrollment date, and he told me about Professor Snape on the first day of school. That made it easy enough to figure out, didn't it?'
William rubbed his hands gleefully—at the very least, he'd get to see Professor Snape's sordid past, which was truly delightful.
'Fighting over a cursed position, then discriminating when you can't get it—' William opened the record. 'Now there's no escaping his dark history, right?'
'James Potter?'
'That surname sounds a bit familiar, but it's not one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight...'
In the relatively tame anecdotes about pure-blood nobles in Azkaban, they would always use pure-blood identities to make the stories seem more realistic. Thanks to this, William remembered the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight very clearly.
'That's right, Harry Potter! James Potter is Harry Potter's father, that's why it's familiar! Many books that mention Harry casually bring up the history of the Potter family.'
'The fighting back then was truly fierce—but now the child is in someone else's hands.'
William shook his head, disregarding the grievances between those two generations—the son pays for the father's debts, what more was there to say?
'I need to find the enrollment lists from the years around when Professor Snape attended, ignore the other Houses, and focus only on Slytherin—after all, the vast majority of Death Eaters came from that House.'
Although it was a bit discriminatory, doing so allowed William to quickly gather the lists for those few years.
"Interesting, interesting," William found those who had committed misdeeds with Professor Snape, and then searched through the violation records using the list—finally, he discovered a name that appeared with particularly high frequency.
Horace Slughorn.
The Head of Slytherin House and former Potions Professor—at the same time, William also found a stack of order records where this professor had purchased alcohol for the kitchens under his personal name.
'Mr. Filch is really something else; the caretaker's archives really do have everything!'
William was very familiar with these orders—the house-elves had mentioned them when he was hosting a feast, but he had forgone alcohol because most students were underage.
'There's also a club application form—the Slug Club.'
'A club feast? Interesting, interesting. Everyone close to Professor Snape was in this club—could it be the precursor to the Death Eaters?'
William speculated boldly. 'Unfortunately, the school doesn't register club member lists; otherwise, it would be much easier to track.'
'I haven't met that professor yet—but it's easy enough to guess that Professor Snape was his star pupil.' William looked up at the ceiling. 'Could he and Professor Snape be cut from the same cloth?'
William wasn't just making wild guesses. There were existing examples within the school: for instance, the old professor retired this year, and all the professors privately believed that Hagrid had been specially recommended by him—their personalities did have some similarities, after all.
'I'll check Horace Slughorn's advanced class student lists from previous years. The Slug Club recruits students favored by that professor, so they shouldn't have failed to get into the advanced classes.'
William confirmed his new direction of investigation.
"Ding, you have been cursed. Received Treasure Chest x1."
The system suddenly made an untimely sound—only then did William look up toward the sky outside.
'It's already dark?'
He had only found a little—one could even say he had only investigated the easiest parts.
'There's still too much information, and I can't afford to miss anything irrelevant.'
'Progress won't be this rapid from now on. During the next detention, I'll have to work those kids hard, or I won't have an excuse to get new records.'
William silently made a decision that would bring suffering to those troublemakers.
'The investigation went much smoother than expected—and I'm on the right track.'
'The system proves it. The Dark Lord really is petty, placing a curse on the teaching position, and another curse on biographical investigations.'
Since he already carried one curse, William wasn't worried anymore—it was common knowledge in dark magic that curses of the same effect and origin would be severely weakened or simply wouldn't stack when superimposed.
For example, Ron wouldn't vomit double the slugs if he were hit by the Slug-Vomiting Charm twice.
A similar principle applied to protective spells; like the Shield Charm, casting it repeatedly would only refresh it. Stacking was impossible. Otherwise, wizards would just frantically stack charms before a duel—ding, ding, ding, ding, like cheating in a game.
This silent curse was convenient to use and likely wouldn't be changed. William already carried one curse, so cursing him again would have no effect.
He casually tapped open the purple box—sure enough.
[Curse (Clinging Gangrene): Paralysis; ...]
[Curse (Clinging Gangrene): Loss of Mind; ...]
[Curse (Clinging Gangrene): Fated Death; ...]
Three identical cards appeared before William. Subsequently, the first card William had chosen began to shake violently, its surface cracking and shattering, finally transforming into a yellow ticket.
[Meal Coupon: You can use this to offset the cost of one card use.]
???
That can happen?
William swallowed his complaints, very happily accepting that duplicate curse cards could turn into meal coupons.
'William, you must stay calm. Don't get ahead of yourself. You need to know that silent curses like this are quite normal. Other hidden curses might not necessarily be this delayed, wide-area type!'
Having accepted the meal coupon, William began to warn himself not to push his luck.
(end of chapter)
Without borrowing from the library, William, by virtue of being the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, managed to research most of the publicly available information about that individual from the relevant collection. After all, when it came to dark magic, modern books simply couldn't bypass him.
'As expected, no one has investigated it until now—the Dark Lord's power base was pure-bloods, so many pure-blood families are probably secretly blocking any related information from surfacing.'
'Or perhaps, the Dark Lord also placed a curse on his own background information, but while the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is overt, the curse on any investigation is covert?'
'It's hard to say—after all, if he can create one curse, he can create a second. Given the Dark Lord's mindset, creating another curse would be perfectly in character.'
William theorized boldly: if the curse on the position was real, then the curse on investigation should also be real.
'A direct investigation probably won't be much use. I'd better start with the Death Eaters. The system card mentioned there were Death Eaters at school when Professor Snape enrolled, so I'll start by investigating the records from that time.'
'Got it, Professor Snape's violation record—' William happily dug out what he wanted from the pile of documents.
'I have Professor Lockhart to thank. His autobiography mentioned his enrollment date, and he told me about Professor Snape on the first day of school. That made it easy enough to figure out, didn't it?'
William rubbed his hands gleefully—at the very least, he'd get to see Professor Snape's sordid past, which was truly delightful.
'Fighting over a cursed position, then discriminating when you can't get it—' William opened the record. 'Now there's no escaping his dark history, right?'
'James Potter?'
'That surname sounds a bit familiar, but it's not one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight...'
In the relatively tame anecdotes about pure-blood nobles in Azkaban, they would always use pure-blood identities to make the stories seem more realistic. Thanks to this, William remembered the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight very clearly.
'That's right, Harry Potter! James Potter is Harry Potter's father, that's why it's familiar! Many books that mention Harry casually bring up the history of the Potter family.'
'The fighting back then was truly fierce—but now the child is in someone else's hands.'
William shook his head, disregarding the grievances between those two generations—the son pays for the father's debts, what more was there to say?
'I need to find the enrollment lists from the years around when Professor Snape attended, ignore the other Houses, and focus only on Slytherin—after all, the vast majority of Death Eaters came from that House.'
Although it was a bit discriminatory, doing so allowed William to quickly gather the lists for those few years.
"Interesting, interesting," William found those who had committed misdeeds with Professor Snape, and then searched through the violation records using the list—finally, he discovered a name that appeared with particularly high frequency.
Horace Slughorn.
The Head of Slytherin House and former Potions Professor—at the same time, William also found a stack of order records where this professor had purchased alcohol for the kitchens under his personal name.
'Mr. Filch is really something else; the caretaker's archives really do have everything!'
William was very familiar with these orders—the house-elves had mentioned them when he was hosting a feast, but he had forgone alcohol because most students were underage.
'There's also a club application form—the Slug Club.'
'A club feast? Interesting, interesting. Everyone close to Professor Snape was in this club—could it be the precursor to the Death Eaters?'
William speculated boldly. 'Unfortunately, the school doesn't register club member lists; otherwise, it would be much easier to track.'
'I haven't met that professor yet—but it's easy enough to guess that Professor Snape was his star pupil.' William looked up at the ceiling. 'Could he and Professor Snape be cut from the same cloth?'
William wasn't just making wild guesses. There were existing examples within the school: for instance, the old professor retired this year, and all the professors privately believed that Hagrid had been specially recommended by him—their personalities did have some similarities, after all.
'I'll check Horace Slughorn's advanced class student lists from previous years. The Slug Club recruits students favored by that professor, so they shouldn't have failed to get into the advanced classes.'
William confirmed his new direction of investigation.
"Ding, you have been cursed. Received Treasure Chest x1."
The system suddenly made an untimely sound—only then did William look up toward the sky outside.
'It's already dark?'
He had only found a little—one could even say he had only investigated the easiest parts.
'There's still too much information, and I can't afford to miss anything irrelevant.'
'Progress won't be this rapid from now on. During the next detention, I'll have to work those kids hard, or I won't have an excuse to get new records.'
William silently made a decision that would bring suffering to those troublemakers.
'The investigation went much smoother than expected—and I'm on the right track.'
'The system proves it. The Dark Lord really is petty, placing a curse on the teaching position, and another curse on biographical investigations.'
Since he already carried one curse, William wasn't worried anymore—it was common knowledge in dark magic that curses of the same effect and origin would be severely weakened or simply wouldn't stack when superimposed.
For example, Ron wouldn't vomit double the slugs if he were hit by the Slug-Vomiting Charm twice.
A similar principle applied to protective spells; like the Shield Charm, casting it repeatedly would only refresh it. Stacking was impossible. Otherwise, wizards would just frantically stack charms before a duel—ding, ding, ding, ding, like cheating in a game.
This silent curse was convenient to use and likely wouldn't be changed. William already carried one curse, so cursing him again would have no effect.
He casually tapped open the purple box—sure enough.
[Curse (Clinging Gangrene): Paralysis; ...]
[Curse (Clinging Gangrene): Loss of Mind; ...]
[Curse (Clinging Gangrene): Fated Death; ...]
Three identical cards appeared before William. Subsequently, the first card William had chosen began to shake violently, its surface cracking and shattering, finally transforming into a yellow ticket.
[Meal Coupon: You can use this to offset the cost of one card use.]
???
That can happen?
William swallowed his complaints, very happily accepting that duplicate curse cards could turn into meal coupons.
'William, you must stay calm. Don't get ahead of yourself. You need to know that silent curses like this are quite normal. Other hidden curses might not necessarily be this delayed, wide-area type!'
Having accepted the meal coupon, William began to warn himself not to push his luck.
(end of chapter)
