"Maybe you could search the whole world and still only find one of those. Even with a million Galleons, you wouldn't be able to buy information about it."
Dylan paused, then added,
"Of course, if you really had a million, you might still be able to buy something."
At that, Harry's eyes flickered thoughtfully.
"Come to think of it, those people didn't take a single Galleon when they hit Gringotts."
Ron still did not get it and pressed Dylan, "So what is that thing?"
Dylan curled his lip. "Even if it were a lump of dog crap, I wouldn't know."
He gave Ron another "good suggestion."
"If you're that desperate to find out, why don't you go ask Professor Dumbledore? Wasn't he the one who sent Hagrid to fetch it? He's bound to know."
Ron: …
"Are you trying to get me killed?"
He shook his head hard and made a shushing gesture at Dylan, sneaking a glance up at the staff table.
"How are we supposed to ask? Tell Professor Dumbledore we snuck into the forbidden corridor last night? Merlin, he'd throw us out of Hogwarts on the spot!"
Harry shook his head just as hard, like a rattling toy drum.
"We can't tell any professor about this!"
Dylan rolled his eyes inwardly.
He already knew what Coalball had done the night before.
If not for Coalball, Harry and the others might well have been driven toward the forbidden area by Filch.
But Coalball had lured Mrs. Norris and Filch away halfway there.
And Harry's group had still ended up in the fourth-floor right-hand corridor,
had seen, and entered, that room.
Ron's version was that Peeves had chased them there.
But Peeves, who had been at Hogwarts since its founding and given every caretaker a headache,
was just a poltergeist. Strictly speaking, he was not even really a ghost.
Would he actually drive students into a place that dangerous?
In the Battle of Hogwarts, Peeves had shown absolute loyalty to the school.
He had even fought Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
Someone like that might love a prank, but would he really push a handful of first-years straight into a life-or-death situation?
Dylan casually glanced at Dumbledore, who was eating slowly at the staff table.
He thought of a spell—created by Voldemort, then modified by Dylan's System—that could intimidate spirits and dark beings to some extent: Corpse Resurgence.
If a spell could inherently frighten spirits,
then among the countless spells in the world, might there not be one that could directly drive—or even control—spirits?
And as the greatest wizard of the twentieth century—old Dumbledore—
would he, by any chance, know such a spell?
If a later Dark Lord like Voldemort could come up with Corpse Resurgence,
then given that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were contemporaries,
and that Dumbledore had hardly been ignorant of Grindelwald's Dark Arts when they were young together,
it was not as if the Headmaster were some stiff, hidebound old man.
Voldemort might look terrifying now,
but if Dumbledore had truly devoted himself to studying the Dark Arts,
it was anyone's guess whether Voldemort could even stand toe to toe with him.
"Well, whether this was old Dumbledore's doing or not, Harry and the others aren't going to die. Why should I worry about it?"
After breakfast, they all headed to class.
Thanks to Dylan's example, Harry, Ron, and Neville had all been swept up in his enthusiasm for learning.
They no longer tried to hide in the back rows. Instead, they all sat with Dylan in the very front.
Naturally, this was not because they had realized that, when professors asked questions in class, having Dylan nearby somehow made the teachers' attitudes a bit kinder—
or because Dylan sometimes slipped them hints that helped them get through those questions and quizzes.
They just genuinely wanted to sit in the front and pay attention.
Friday's class was History of Magic.
Hogwarts' only ghost professor droned lifelessly through the material on his notes.
After they finally endured the entire day,
Dylan's drowsy brain cleared a little.
"Time to go get my extra lesson."
He hurriedly packed up.
Today he had an appointment with Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, to explore the famed "stellar tides" often mentioned in the magical world.
Dylan was very interested in that.
Astronomy might not seem important, but the fact it was a required course for first-years already said a lot.
And after studying it for a while, Dylan had noticed that many wizarding names came from astronomical phenomena and celestial bodies.
For example, Astronomy professor Aurora Sinistra.
Aurora could mean dawn or the northern lights.
Sinistra was the name of a star in Ophiuchus.
Then there was the very straightforward Sirius Black.
And Draco Malfoy.
Draco referred to the constellation Draco.
That showed that pure-blood families took constellations and celestial bodies very seriously.
Which, to some extent, suggested that a wizard's power was absolutely linked to the stars above.
Even putting that aside, if he wanted to study Divination,
he would have to know which star was which in the sky.
Dylan had not dived deeply into Divination yet precisely because he had not fully absorbed Astronomy.
Time flew by in the blink of an eye.
During this stretch, Dylan's life had been extremely full.
He rose very early for his morning routine, and in the evenings he went for extra lessons with professors.
Even on Saturdays and Sundays, Harry and the others almost never saw Dylan in the dorm during the day.
Meanwhile, Hermione's relationship with Harry and the rest had grown much warmer.
After all, they had been through danger together.
They had broken school rules together and narrowly escaped with their lives—almost a kind of "battlefield bond."
Even if they had not liked each other much at first, after going through all that, it would have been hard not to end up as friends.
Dylan was busy, but Harry was hardly idle either.
Wood now treated him as the true "Savior"—of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
He was dragged out for brutal training.
He did not get up at four or five like Dylan,
but he still had to be on his feet by seven every day.
Often, Dylan would run into Harry on his way back to the dorm after a tutoring session.
During this short time, Dylan had rapidly absorbed a great deal of magical knowledge.
He had even lit up several new achievements.
His stash of Galleons and his magical talent both grew noticeably.
But Dylan's pressure also slowly built up,
as he went around ticking every box in his schedule like a machine.
Until…
(End of Chapter)
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