HP: The Root of Everything - The Magician

While invisibly invisible using the Disillusionment Charm, Dumbledore stood a short distance away in the corridor, watching what Venus and Nek were doing.

Nek was a cautious man and prevented Wiener from killing the chosen young wizard to silence him after using up the Polyjuice Potion.

Little did they know that his intervention saved their lives; otherwise, Dumbledore, to ensure the safety of his students, would have intervened and humanely destroyed the two unruly wizards.

Viner and Nek, transformed into Ravenclaw students using Polyjuice Potion, joined the rest of the group of students who had gotten up and headed to class.

This morning's magic class was a joint session between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor schools, which is how they met Hermione Granger, the 'evil little witch' featured in the prophetic newspaper.

Not only that, Hermione was sitting in the row in front of them.

How could Viagra and Hermione possibly let such a good opportunity to make contact slip by? After all, the fact that Hermione was the master of the Griffin was now common knowledge throughout the British wizarding world.

After observing for a while from the back seat, Wiener imitated the childish mannerisms of the young wizards and said, "Um... Miss Granger..."

Hermione heard someone greet her from behind and turned around: "Hello..."

Since Hermione became Teach Carr's apprentice in magic, she has devoted most of her time and energy to studying magic and spells, completely ignoring her relationships with her classmates. Therefore, Hermione had no recollection of Venus transforming into a little wizard.

For a moment, the two who had just greeted each other didn't know what to say.

When Wiener turned to Hermione, who was looking at him, his mind went blank.

How to approach Hermione, how to get the location of the griffin out of her—this dark wizard who had spent years in the shadows had no experience dealing with little kids.

Fortunately, Lake is good at dealing with people.

Nek's magical specialty is treasure hunting, which requires certain conditions to be met, so he has developed excellent oratory skills over the years.

Lake pushed Wiener aside from his seat in class, took over the conversation, and then said in a sneaky tone, "Miss Granger, do you know what's going on outside? They're saying you're some kind of evil witch, that you're unworthy to be the master of the mythical griffin."

To avoid suspicion, Lake took out a newspaper from his pocket and then added, "This newspaper was sent to me by my father using the family owl."

“My father told me to… to stay away from you, you evil witch.”

After listening, Hermione scrutinized Lake and Vina, who had transformed using the Polyjuice Potion, before taking the newspaper and reading it. A sudden realization dawned on her: [No wonder...]

No wonder all my classmates looked at me with a hint of fear this morning, as if I were going to eat them alive.

So, according to what's in this newspaper, I'm being ostracized by all the silly little wizards at Hogwarts? Ha~ How childish.

Hermione thought the little wizard who believed everything he heard was incredibly naive.

Under the tutelage of her teacher Teach, Hermione has learned to distinguish between good and evil, falsehood and truth, deception and pretense on her own.

Hermione folded the newspaper, looked at Lake with a half-smile, and asked, "And then?"

"With the propaganda in this newspaper, aren't you and your taciturn friend approaching me? Aren't you afraid that I, this evil witch, will kill you?"

Under Hermione's playful intimidation, Lake immediately feigned a panicked and fearful expression and movements, but driven by curiosity, he timidly explained, "No... don't be afraid, newspapers, you know, a lot of them are lies."

"These contents are like woven stories, just like when I was little, my mother would use fairy tales to lull me to sleep."

"But stories, when they're woven, always need to be based on facts, so..."

At this point, Lake asked with great excitement, "So, that mythical griffin—is it real? And it's right here at Hogwarts? And you're its owner?"

The afternoon Griffin evolved from a hippogriff into a griffin was Hagrid's class.

The young wizards in the class were Gryffindor and Slytherin students, so the young wizards from the other two houses were unaware of the specifics of this matter.

They only heard about it from their classmates; some believed it, while others thought that mythical creatures like griffins couldn't possibly exist.

Hermione looked at Lake and Venus, her innocent yet intelligent eyes darting around before she nodded with a knowing smile, saying, "Yes, Griffin is at Hogwarts, and I'm its owner."

"Would you like to go and see for yourselves the mythical figure of Griffin?"

"If you want, wait for me at the Quidditch practice square at midnight tonight."

After Hermione finished speaking, the bell rang to signal the end of get out of class.

As Wiener watched Hermione leave him and Nek with her books in her arms, a sense of unease lingered in his mind. He had a vague feeling that something was amiss, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

So, as they left the classroom, Venere asked Nek, "So, did your treasure-hunting magic get any clues from that little witch Hermione?"

Nek waved his wand in front of him, then shook his head and said, "No, you know, my treasure-hunting magic requires two conditions to be met in order to find what I want."

"First, the parties involved, or those related to the incident, must personally acknowledge the authenticity of the events and objects."

"Secondly, I will use my unique magic to infiltrate and extract information from their past interactions with things."

"The little witch named Hermione acknowledged the griffin's reality, thus fulfilling the first condition, but the second condition..."

After thinking for a moment, Lake explained to Viner, "The second condition is that when I released magic to affect Hermione, it seemed to be blocked by a wall or something within a barrier."

"The magic was blocked, preventing me from extracting the information about her past with the griffin."

Lake's treasure-hunting magic can actually be successfully activated as long as the first condition is met.

For example, you confidently tell Lake that a golden apple truly exists in this world.

Then Lake's magic can use this "spoken information" to tell Lake in a unique way which direction the Golden Apple is and which direction he should go to find it.

Even if this golden apple doesn't exist in this world, but only in another world, or perhaps in the world of gods, this magic can still guide Lake.

However, this first condition only lets Lake know the direction of the Golden Apple, but it cannot tell Lake the specific location of the Golden Apple.

Therefore, the second condition, the information about the person's contact with the thing, was developed by Lake.

Using magic to invisibly extract this information, Lake's treasure-hunting magic can accurately find what he wants.

In the art of treasure hunting, Lake surpassed his teacher with the second condition he developed on his own.

This is also the source of his confidence that allowed him to betray his master and leave after learning only this one treasure-hunting magic.