At night, Lyla tossed and turned in her bed.
'Although Miss Lovegood put forward a very good idea... would Dumbledore be willing to accept it?'
'Memories are very private things. Although I'm not curious at all about how Dumbledore defeated Lord Grindelwald... well, not at all.'
'I'm really not curious!'
'But... Dumbledore might not think that way. He harbors countless dark secrets, perhaps even memories from his classes that are too embarrassing to share.'
'Moreover, how should I even ask Dumbledore?'
Lyla hadn't forgotten her true relationship with Dumbledore; he was her enemy! He was a man destined to be defeated by her for the greater good.
'How could I possibly ask him for help again... even though I seem to have asked him for help countless times already...'
'However, as a loyal member of the Wizarding Supremacist Party, I must have backbone! That's right! Backbone!'
Her pointed ears twitched beneath her hair.
But the thought of her promise to Professor McGonagall, and the fact that the Durmstrang method was clearly unsuitable for young Hogwarts wizards, deeply troubled Lyla.
"Maybe..." She pursed her lips and looked at the black diary resting on her table.
"Mr. Riddle, can you do me a favor?" she wrote on the blank pages. "I want to use your memories."
"No." Riddle rejected Lyla almost immediately. "My memories are all bound within this book. If you were to extract them..."
"I would disappear."
'I see...' Seeing Riddle's firm refusal, Lyla wasn't too surprised.
She had just suddenly remembered that Mr. Riddle, as a former genius student of Hogwarts, should also have excellent memories of his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes.
'It seems I'll have to ask—no, I mean, use Dumbledore.'
Just then, Lyla, who had just put away her quill, suddenly remembered something else and quickly wrote in the diary again. "Mr. Riddle, about the secret chamber you mentioned before..."
'I've been so focused on attending classes and surviving these past few days that I almost forgot about the important academic matters at hand!'
She needed to find the Chamber of Secrets with the ancient runes that Mr. Riddle had promised her.
"..."
Riddle remained silent for a long time before finally replying. "Don't worry, I will take you there."
"But not right now," he wrote in his elegant, ornate handwriting. "I want to silently relive my time at Hogwarts for a bit longer."
'Mr. Riddle is such a strange man... can he really reminisce about the past while trapped inside a diary lying in my office?'
'And he doesn't seem to ever want to see Dumbledore... That's normal, no one would willingly want to see Dumbledore, right?'
'Wait... does that mean I'm going to see Dumbledore later?'
'Ah... that's... that's for the greater good.'
Soon enough, Lyla arrived at the entrance to the Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts. Looking at the stone gargoyle in front of her, Lyla pursed her lips and said softly, "Sherbet Lemon."
This simple password lock couldn't fool her Magic Array knowledge.
As the spiral staircase slowly appeared before her, Lyla pursed her lips and took a deep, steadying breath.
'That's right, I came here to gain Dumbledore's trust and let him know how much I care about Hogwarts' education... asking him for help is just a way to use him!'
'He is nothing more than a tool... Yes, a tool.'
After successfully convincing herself once again, Lyla felt much more relaxed.
'Hmph... he's nothing more than a tool I'm using...'
"Miss Hamilton?"
"Ah!" Upon hearing the sudden voice right behind her, Lyla instinctively let out a terrified scream and reflexively shrank behind the stone gargoyle.
"Dum... Dum-Dumbledore!"
"Good evening, Miss Hamilton." Dumbledore smiled warmly at the flustered girl shrinking away from him. "Is there something you need from me?"
"Ah... yes..." Lyla looked at Dumbledore awkwardly. She never expected that Dumbledore wouldn't actually be inside the Headmaster's Office.
She definitely hadn't expected to run into him returning from the corridors right at the entrance.
"I... I didn't come here to steal... steal anything..." Lyla felt she desperately needed to explain herself, but her stammering, panicked manner really made her look exactly like a thief!
"Of course not," Dumbledore seemed completely unsuspecting, and he asked with a light laugh. "I suppose it's regarding something else, isn't it?"
He walked up to Lyla, and his tall figure easily cast a looming shadow over her small frame.
"Ah... it's about... about class..." Lyla said, nervously poking her two index fingers together. "I want to borrow your... memories."
"My memories?" Dumbledore paused. A hint of genuine surprise flashed in his bright blue eyes.
"Mm... mm!" Lyla took a deep breath and stammered, "Professor McGonagall spoke with me... she felt that Durmstrang's courses weren't quite right... right for Hogwarts students."
"So you've decided to adopt Hogwarts' curriculum?"
"Y-yes..."
"And I heard... you... you are Hogwarts's most... most outstanding... Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor." Lyla said, her eyes darting nervously to the tips of her boots.
Saying nice things to flatter Dumbledore made her feel far more ashamed than she had ever imagined.
"Hahahahaha." Her reluctant words made Dumbledore laugh out loud. He shook his head and said, "Miss Hamilton, I just happened to have taught Defense Against the Dark Arts for a few short years."
"And that was a very long time ago," Dumbledore paused, his eyes twinkling. "I probably don't remember much of it anymore."
This slightly dismissive reply made Lyla look up anxiously. She really didn't know how to properly plead with Dumbledore... her clumsy mouth was bound to say something incredibly stupid!
Lyla had a fairly deep and accurate understanding of her own social limits.
Seeing Lyla's hesitant, despairing expression, Dumbledore smiled again.
"Of course, Miss Hamilton," he said suddenly. "If you really need it... I might be able to recall a lesson or two."
'Is this enough?'
'Not enough... definitely not enough...' Lyla had secretly hoped that Dumbledore would hand over all his memories of every Defense Against the Dark Arts class he had ever taught, and ideally, accidentally include memories of Lord Grindelwald's current location and the wicked schemes he had used against him.
'But... something is better than nothing, right?'
'Moreover, after Miss Lovegood's words, I actually have many other options... Besides Dumbledore, there are many other Professors at Hogwarts. They may not have been Defense Against the Dark Arts Professors, but they must have taken the classes as students, right?'
'For example, Professor McGonagall... she should support her own ideas and share her memories, right?'
'And Hagrid... He's a bit scary, but he's also a gentle person, and he can definitely help me too.'
'Oh, and Snape too...'
'Forget about it... He'll kill me, he definitely will!'
'Perhaps Mr. Lockhart could also...'
"Miss Hamilton?"
"Ah! Sorry... I... I was daydreaming again." Dumbledore's gentle call pulled Lyla back from her catastrophic thoughts.
"Shall we begin now?" Dumbledore said, stepping onto the spiral stairs. "It's already quite late."
"The elderly should rest early."
"Ah... that is... of course," Lyla said, pulling two metal headbands from the Spatial Storage Book hidden in her robes.
One was used to safely extract and implant memories; the other was used by the students to view them.
Holding the two runic headbands carefully, she followed Dumbledore step by step into the Headmaster's Office.
It looked exactly the same as before, except... there was a bird.
"Eek!" Lyla shrank back in horror as she looked at the fiery red bird perched on a golden shelf. "It... it's on fire!"
"That's Fawkes," Dumbledore said with a fond shrug. "A phoenix."
'Ah... so it's a phoenix?' Lyla's knowledge of magical creatures mainly came from Mr. Scamander's book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but even so, she hadn't read it very carefully.
She had never actually seen a living phoenix before. Lyla looked at the magnificent bird with a bit of embarrassment, but the burning flames made her subconsciously a little worried for it.
'Doesn't it hurt if your body is constantly on fire?'