Inside the Headmaster's Office, Phineas's harsh "reminder" quickly dispelled the brief trace of distraction and recollection in Dumbledore's eyes.
He moved his teacup aside and gently waved away the remaining steam in front of him.
His bright blue eyes met Lucien's dark green ones without anything obscuring them.
Dumbledore watched Lucien quietly, waiting for his answer.
"You want to learn the Dark Arts to save someone?"
Meeting his gaze, Lucien replied in a calm and honest tone,
"I believe that to treat a curse, you first have to understand what it is and how it works. There's no avoiding that."
Dumbledore did not immediately comment on the seemingly reasonable answer. Instead, he continued to press gently,
"Do you truly believe the Dark Arts can be used to save people?"
Lucien did not hesitate.
"I think I can try. Besides, you won't know unless you try, will you?"
Dumbledore fell silent for a moment. His hands slowly clasped together in front of him, his gaze resting on Lucien's face as though he were observing him or pondering something.
The Dark Arts could torture, control, and kill...
But save someone?
Seeing Dumbledore's silence, Lucien scratched his cheek with his index finger. He could more or less guess what Dumbledore was worried about, but he had no intention of beating around the bush. Since the conversation had already reached this point, he might as well be even more honest.
"Actually..." Lucien paused. "Besides wanting to learn the Dark Arts to treat the curse, I do also intend to use this opportunity to study the Dark Arts myself."
Dumbledore looked up at him.
Lucien continued, "The Dark Arts are a vast field of knowledge. It's difficult for me to completely ignore their existence."
The Dark Arts were indeed vast and boundless.
Unlike fields such as Transfiguration, Potions, and Alchemy, where the definitions were relatively clear and the boundaries distinct, the Dark Arts were different.
Anything considered "against the natural order" was simply thrown into the category of the "Dark Arts."
Manipulating souls, altering bodies, bloody slaughter, the erosion of curses... there were countless varieties, covering nearly everything imaginable.
Calling the field vast and boundless was no exaggeration at all.
After listening, Dumbledore instinctively raised a hand and tried to push up the bridge of his nose with his index finger, only for his finger to touch bare skin.
Only then did he remember that he wasn't wearing his half-moon spectacles tonight.
Instead, Dumbledore rubbed his brow.
Lucien's words reminded him of Grindelwald once again.
But after thinking about it more carefully, Lucien and Grindelwald were very different.
Grindelwald used magic and knowledge to achieve his ideals, while Lucien was more focused on the knowledge itself, driven purely by the desire to explore the unknown.
Yet it was precisely because of this honesty that Dumbledore trusted Lucien even more.
Without saying anything further, Dumbledore simply gave a slight wave of his hand.
Several books on the shelves seemed to be pulled by an invisible force. They floated down and landed steadily on the table in front of Lucien.
"Read through these first," Dumbledore said. "Later, you can borrow some related books from the library."
"You may begin by studying the theory behind curses, but do not attempt to practise them on your own. Come to me during our usual weekly teatime, and I will guide you."
After a moment's thought, Dumbledore pulled out a piece of parchment and picked up a quill, quickly writing several lines.
They were the titles of several magical books concerning curses, followed by his magical imprint and signature.
Although Dumbledore had previously given Lucien special permission to borrow books from the Restricted Section, books that clearly dealt with the Dark Arts required this new permission slip as a "pass" for Madam Pince.
Lucien solemnly accepted the magical books and the permission slip, carefully put them away, then stood and bowed slightly to Dumbledore.
"Thank you, Headmaster."
Dumbledore nodded and took a sip of the tea, which had already cooled slightly.
He looked at the joy in Lucien's eyes, but another thought crossed his mind.
Regarding Nagini's curse, before she had left all those years ago, Dumbledore, Newt, and the others had in fact searched for a solution.
Unfortunately, they had ultimately failed.
The Blood Curse had eroded her too deeply. They had tried everything they could think of, yet had still been powerless to stop it.
And now this young man said he wanted to try.
Dumbledore did not know whether Lucien could succeed. He and the others had walked that path before, so he knew just how difficult it was.
But at the same time, another thought flashed through Dumbledore's mind.
In truth, he also wanted to see just how great Lucien's talent for the Dark Arts really was.
What would happen when this young man truly stepped into that field?
...
After Lucien left the Headmaster's Office and the door closed behind him, the Headmaster portraits that were still awake immediately erupted into a cacophony.
"Albus, aren't you being a little too indulgent with that boy?" The first to speak was a wizard whose beard trembled with every word.
"Since I began teaching, there has never been a precedent for Hogwarts teaching students the Dark Arts!" another witch chimed in, her pointed hat swaying slightly with her agitation.
"Do you want Azkaban to gain a few more prisoners? Or perhaps you'd rather build another prison as famous as Azkaban and Nurmengard?"
"He's only twelve! A twelve-year-old child says he wants to learn curses from the Dark Arts, and you're actually considering teaching him? What happens later?"
"Albus..."
The portraits spoke one after another, their voices growing louder and louder until the once quiet Headmaster's Office became as noisy as the Leaky Cauldron at night.
Phineas stroked his goatee and waited until the others had quieted down slightly before speaking in his characteristic high-pitched voice.
"If that boy truly goes astray, can you stop him?"
The moment those words were spoken, the Headmaster's Office fell briefly silent.
Because that question carried considerable weight.
It was almost an admission that once Lucien mastered more powerful and profound magic and fully matured, he might possess strength equal to, or perhaps even greater than, Dumbledore's.
When that time came, if he truly wanted to do something, who would be able to stop him?
There had already been one Tom Riddle, one Voldemort. Wasn't that enough?
Just then, a cool female voice came from the other end of the wall of portraits.
"But a true Ravenclaw would never turn a blind eye to knowledge."
Along with the voice appeared a beautiful woman wearing silver-rimmed glasses.
Sharon Wendirian, a former Ravenclaw Headmistress. At some point, she had appeared before the rows of bookshelves in her portrait, as though she had been standing there all along and simply hadn't been noticed.
At the sound of Sharon's voice, Phineas, who had been shouting so loudly moments before, immediately fell silent.
He subconsciously glanced toward Sharon's portrait, his gaze sweeping over her hands.
They were empty.
She wasn't holding that book as thick as a castle wall.
Phineas felt slightly relieved, though his fingers still tightened around his goatee.
Dumbledore finally spoke, his voice carrying a trace of weariness while remaining gentle.
"Blindly forbidding something is not as effective as providing proper guidance. It is better for me to watch over him than to let him secretly fumble around and experiment on his own."
He paused and looked toward the portraits.
"That would be far more dangerous, wouldn't it?"
The portraits fell silent.
Indeed, allowing an extraordinarily gifted boy to study the Dark Arts entirely on his own without any guidance...
If someone mediocre went astray while studying the Dark Arts, they might merely get themselves killed. But if a genius went astray, they could take an entire crowd with them.
If things went badly enough, Hogwarts might be blown up before the boy even graduated.
Sharon nodded and pushed her silver-rimmed glasses higher on the bridge of her nose.
"The more intelligent someone is, the less willing they are to tolerate ignorance."
"As for my book, Curses and Counter-Curses, Albus, remember to give him the original edition, not the revised one."
To make it suitable for ordinary wizards to read and study, the revised edition had removed much of the material involving the Dark Arts.
Dumbledore nodded slightly.
"I've already given it to him."
Hearing this, Sharon said nothing further.
Her words amounted to a tacit endorsement of Lucien.
If Lucien truly harboured malicious intentions, he could simply have waited until after graduation, when he was safely away from Hogwarts and Dumbledore, before travelling the world and exploring the Dark Arts.
No one would know, and no one would be able to stop him.
Wasn't that exactly what Voldemort had done?
But Lucien hadn't.
Instead, he had chosen to be honest with Dumbledore, openly admitting that he wanted to study curses from the Dark Arts.
That honesty was itself a statement of intent.
Dumbledore sat quietly in his chair, his gaze resting on the teacup before him. The tea had long since been finished, leaving only a faint stain at the bottom.
Moonlight streamed diagonally through the window, perfectly filling the empty cup.
Dumbledore's thoughts drifted, and a sudden idea occurred to him.
Should he visit Nurmengard again?
Perhaps he could ask him a few more questions.
About curses... about resisting the influence of the Dark Arts on the mind...
Dumbledore's eyes flickered slightly.
And Lucien had also been particularly interested in fire-related magic lately.
Fire...
________
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