The Return to Hogwarts

As night fell, Amostella stood in the doorway of a classroom on the third floor that had not been used for many years. This room was Professor McGonagall's office, and also his bedroom during his time working at Hogwarts.

The house-elves had kept the place spotless, and the air was filled with a pleasant musky scent, without a trace of decay or rot.

The room was not furnished in a complicated way. Most of the space was empty and nothing was placed there. Only near the back was a bed, a desk, a bookshelf, and a wardrobe. Considering that the cold weather would continue for another two or three months, the elves had thoughtfully added a fireplace there.

Amosta casually closed the door and stepped into the warm room. The carved windows directly opposite faced Hagrid's Hut and the Forbidden Forest, and you could also vaguely see the Quidditch pitch.

The candlesticks on the desk emitted a steady glow. Amusta stepped forward, took out the quill pen, ink, and other supplies, and arranged them neatly. He then placed a photo of himself and his grandmother, Ferrena, in the upper right corner of the desk. Amusta looked much younger in the photo; it was taken with Ferrena at a photo studio across from the orphanage during the summer vacation of his fourth grade, before the start of his fifth grade.

No one expected that this would be their last photo together.

Chapter 26 Memory and Horcruxes

On a clear night, countless stars twinkle, like numerous glittering silver beads, densely embedded in the deep black night sky.

Strangely, the moonlight, which should have been bright and clear, had a delicate and gentle quality. In the hazy light, there was an unnatural red tinge, as if a bloodstained hand had gently brushed across the moonlight.

A gentle breeze rushed from the vast Forbidden Forest toward the castle, softly pushing open the windows of Amosta, allowing the crimson moonlight to slip in and paint a rosy halo on the dark brown floor of the dormitory.

The stone box on the desk had been opened halfway. The box seemed to have a magical power to devour light; the light from the candlestick shone inside but did not escape. Therefore, the other half of the box remained completely dark, and it was impossible to see what was inside.

Amosta leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on a thumb-sized glass bottle he held between his fingers. Inside, wisps of silvery mist swirled slowly, like a rotating galaxy.

This is a bottle of stripped memories, the memories belonging to Amosta, but he doesn't know exactly when he left them behind.

This morning, when Professor McGonagall encountered Harry Potter, a message automatically popped into his mind, telling him that he had hidden something very important under the floorboards of his dormitory, and that he must retrieve it immediately once his memory returned. The condition for triggering the message was to see Harry Potter in person.

Why did I set such conditions back then?

Amosta gazed at the dazzling silver mist, pondering the question, when suddenly his heart began to race as a possibility came to mind.

"Could it be that the memories here are related to the Harry Potter storyline? The reason why I haven't been able to recall my past life's Harry Potter storyline all these years is because I personally stripped away this memory?"

Amostah murmured, but then he shook his head, rejecting his earlier guess.

The biggest advantage of time travelers is simply knowing the plot in advance.

Knowing the plot means being able to avoid all dangers in advance and to benefit oneself. No matter what happens, Amosta believes he will not give up such a huge advantage.

In fact, Amosta could have directly integrated into this memory, which would have answered his questions, but he was cautious and dared not try it lightly.

Memory represents a person's past and experiences, and to some extent it can even change a person's personality. Amosta wasn't even sure whether the information in his mind was something he had left behind back then, or something that had been forcibly implanted into him by someone else using memory magic.

If it's the latter, then the spellcaster would inevitably anticipate that after seeing that information, they would retrieve it and integrate it into their memory. However, if they were to implant false information into their memory to deliberately mislead their actions...

Of course, someone capable of forcibly extracting and modifying his memories wouldn't need to go through all this trouble; perhaps controlling his actions directly with magic would be much simpler.

But Amosta still couldn't ignore this possibility. Back when he was still in school, he wasn't as powerful as he is today, so it wasn't impossible for someone to sabotage him.

After hesitating for a long time, Amosta decided to temporarily give up on merging with the memories. His skill in memory magic was not outstanding. If the memories in the bottle had been modified by a master who specialized in memory magic, he might not have the insight to detect it. Rather than taking the risk, a more appropriate approach would be to find a memory master to help him make an assessment.

Are there any masters of memory magic at Hogwarts?

Amosta pondered that Dumbledore was certainly one, but unless he downed two large bowls of Felix Felicis, he wouldn't make such a foolish choice.

After carefully putting the memory bottle away, Amosta stood up and pulled off the half-covered stone lid. He stared quietly at the contents of the box, the flickering candlelight casting an inscrutable glow on his face.

The treasure, representing the two fine qualities of calmness and wisdom, lies quietly at the bottom of the box. It was a cherished possession of Rowena Ravenclaw, one of the four founders of Hogwarts a thousand years ago and the founder of Ravenclaw House.

However, this treasure is now just a piece of junk, its surface covered with black, dried scabs and cracked in two.

Ravenclaw's tiara had been lost for a thousand years. Amostall didn't know how much effort Voldemort had put in to find it, but he was extremely indignant at Voldemort's act of turning such a treasure into a Horcrux.

Amostella could imagine the uproar this thing would cause if it appeared in the underworld. Countless ancient wizards from schools whose magical powers shared the same origin as the four great wizards would probably be willing to exchange all their wealth for it, or even go so far as to massacre the Malfoy family, the wealthiest family in the wizarding world, just to raise enough Galleons to buy it.

Amosta felt a tightness in his chest when he thought about how he was so close to achieving financial freedom, yet he had to destroy that opportunity with his own hands.

The question of destroying a crown with one's own hands is another one worth pondering.

Amostella clearly remembers how she discovered the crown and can feel the lingering fiery aura on it permeating her magic. However, her memory of destroying the crown is hazy. As for why this is the case, the answer probably lies in that small bottle of memories from earlier.

"Recover as before!"

Amosta pointed his wand at the crowns, and the two old, faded crowns lying in his palm trembled for a moment before returning to calm.

This is not surprising. Although the powerful dark magic attached to the crown by the Horcrux has been melted away by Amosta's Fiendfire, the crown itself still contains strange magic. Restoring a legendary magical item with powerful magic is not a simple matter.

"Is the crown truly as rumored, possessing the wondrous magic to grant its holder unimaginable wisdom?" Amosta wondered.

At least Voldemort must not have discovered the power of the diadem itself back then, otherwise he wouldn't have done such a wasteful thing.

“I’ll keep it for now,” Amosta said to himself. “I’ll try to glue the crown back on with adhesive another day. Maybe those slightly eccentric sorcerers won’t be able to tell!”

The cold air outside and the warm air inside created a thermal convection, and the strong wind slammed the open window shut with a loud bang. Amosta walked to the window and closed it. With his good eyesight, he unexpectedly saw an oil lamp swaying and drifting out of the Forbidden Forest, bumping and swaying as it floated toward Hagrid's hut.

"--Hermione Granger must have told Hagrid about my return to Hogwarts as an investigator, but she probably misrepresented it, thinking it was the Ministry of Magic. Something's not right."

Amosta suddenly frowned, carefully recalling the scene from their meeting that morning.

Hagrid seemed very nervous about the news, but that was strange. What was there to be nervous about? Did he think that the Ministry of Magic had instructed me to return to Hogwarts to cause trouble for Dumbledore?

Or perhaps he actually knew something about Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, or even had a direct connection to it?

Amosta pursed her lips, gazing intently at Hagrid's cabin with a deep look in her eyes.

After a moment of contemplation, Amosta looked at the room in the tower not far away, still lit by candlelight, and shook his head. Just as Professor Snape had said, Dumbledore might not be as noble as people thought, but he certainly wouldn't allow anyone to harm the students in the school. The trust he showed in Hagrid was enough to prove that Hagrid was innocent.

"The headmaster should be collecting the Dark Lord's Horcruxes by now, right?"

Amostra drew the curtains and muttered as she walked back, "If he's willing to take back the damaged Horcruxes, I can give him a fair price out of respect for Professor Snape!"

Chapter 27 Skynet

School days are always peaceful and comfortable, unlike working outside, where you're like a tightly wound puppet, constantly struggling to make a living. Before Amosta realized it, two weeks had flown by, and tomorrow would be the first day of the second semester.

Generally speaking, Hogwarts only holds an opening dinner on the eve of the new school year to celebrate the young wizards' enrollment and the start of the new school year.

There are usually no celebrations at the start of the second semester, but this year is different. Because of the terrorist attacks that occurred last semester, which caused widespread panic, Dumbledore decided to hold a banquet in the Great Hall that evening to boost morale.

Snape strode down the third-floor corridor, and the young wizards nearby quickly scurried aside at the sight of this cold-faced and menacing potions professor, as if trying to avoid him at all costs.

Snape himself was used to this scene. He didn't even glance at the students, quickly walked around a few corners, and stopped in front of a classroom that hadn't been used for years.

"Please come in, Professor Snape."

The sudden sound from inside the classroom made Snape, who was about to knock on the door, pause. He pushed the door open as instructed and saw Amosta standing in the center of the classroom with his arms crossed, smiling at a wall.

"Dumbledore invited me to dinner?"

Snape entered the room and closed the door behind him, sneering, "Looks like you're almost omniscient, just like our great headmaster, Amosta?"

“I saw you come out of Headmaster Dumbledore’s office and come straight here without going anywhere else, so I guessed what was going on.”

Amosta raised his eyebrows, pointed to the wall, and proudly showed off his work.

"Take a look at the results, Professor Snape. I stayed up for several nights without sleep, running around the castle under the Illusion Charm, and finally finished all the graphics adjustments the day before school started. If I had to give it my own evaluation, the results are excellent!"

Snape ignored Amostella's self-praise and turned to look at the wall, which was divided into hundreds of small squares, each of which flashed with an image. After looking at it carefully for a few moments, even he, who had experienced many storms, couldn't help but change his expression slightly.

In those scenes, Harry and Ron are walking out of the school hospital. They are going to inform Hermione that there will be a party that night and ask her if she wants to attend.

Crabbe and Goyle were standing in the owl shed waiting for Draco Malfoy to go in. A moment later, Malfoy, with owl feathers stuck all over his head, came out cursing. He was holding a letter in his left hand and throwing an owl onto the roof beam with his right. This made Crabbe and Goyle laugh out loud, and Malfoy became smug.

On the fourth-floor corridor, near the hunchbacked witch statue, a thin, dark-skinned boy with curly hair was keeping watch for someone. He whispered something to the statue, and then the witch's hunchback opened, revealing two identical red-haired boys who climbed out one after the other. They cheerfully high-fived their friend and showed off the butterbeer they had bought from the Three Broomsticks pub.

Filch had just caught two first-year wizards throwing dung balls into the washroom. He grabbed them by the collar and headed toward his office. On the way, he ran into Percy scolding Sallyn Box for secretly using a leg-locking charm on Padma Pettier, causing Pettier to fall into a puddle outside the second-floor washroom.

So, Filch grabbed her by the collar and dragged her to the office.

Neville, carrying the bubble branch given to him by Uncle Algi, entered Professor Sprout's office. Professor McGonagall stood at her office door, her face tense as she watched a wizard in a turquoise robe, with flowing blond hair and a bright smile, leave.

A series of flashing images clearly showed what was happening at Hogwarts to Snape. He stared at the people in the images, watching them walk around or talk loudly. Finally, when he looked at the smiling Amostella, his expression changed.

Indeed, on the night Amosta returned to school, he told himself what he was going to do.

But Snape had to admit that he hadn't paid much attention to the outlandish idea his star pupil had come up with at the time. It wasn't until Hogwarts was so clearly presented in front of him that Snape realized how brilliant it was.

"how did you do that?"

Snape instinctively lowered his voice, his eyes even showing a hint of fear, "I know you've placed a lot of little things in the castle... How did you manage to keep them from being discovered?"

“It’s very simple,” Amosta said with a relaxed expression. “I’ve cast illusion spells and some powerful anti-damage spells on all the panoramic telescopes. The junior wizards definitely won’t be able to detect it, and even the professors won’t be able to find it unless they search for it specifically.”

Indeed, it was undetectable. Unlike the spying of wizards, this thing did not give people any strange feeling at all. Snape considered himself a vigilant person, but along the way, he did not feel that he was being watched at all.

"...Actually, the principle behind this thing is very simple. It's the same as WWN (Wizard Radio Network), both of which transmit signals through a magical magnetic field. However, my system transmits images, while radio transmits sound."

Amostah shrugged, seemingly unfazed that he had simply brewed a potion to treat a boil that even a first-year wizard could manage, and there was no need to be too surprised. He explained to Professor Snape in a casual tone,

"The biggest difficulty I encountered was that the magical magnetic field inside Hogwarts was too chaotic and too powerful, which interfered with the stability of signal transmission. For this reason, I spent an afternoon modifying the interference charm and adjusting the telescopes according to the strength of the magical magnetic field in different locations in the castle... This really exhausted me. Seriously, next time I see Dumbledore, could you help me ask if you could give me some overtime pay?"

"Speaking of Dumbledore—"

Snape's face was ashen, his expression shifting between light and shadow. "Does he know about this whole thing you've got your hands on, Amostall?"

Amosta did not answer the question because he saw Percy Weasley, with the Weasley family crest of red hair, sneaking into the Ravenclaw Tower basement during a patrol, acting very suspiciously.

He immediately went to the wall and searched carefully. He found the corresponding picture in the corner of the wall near the window. In the picture, Percy was embracing and passionately kissing a beautiful girl with long brown curly hair.

"Tsk tsk!"