— The dim candlelight flickered against the hallway walls, casting Severus Snape’s shadow long and thin.
He had just come out of the Headmaster’s office, his black robes billowing around him, surrounded by an intimidatingly low aura.
With those tightly pursed, thin lips and those gloomy eyes, it was abundantly clear to Ian that the conversation between the two had been far from pleasant.
Concealed beneath his Disillusionment Charm, Ian looked at Snape standing in the middle of the corridor, feeling somewhat exasperated.
The castle certainly seems quite lively tonight!
Suddenly, Snape—who had been on the verge of leaving—came to a abrupt halt.
His nostrils flared slightly, as though he had caught scent of something.
Slowly, he turned his head, his sharp gaze sweeping across every corner of the corridor like a cold probe.
Seeing this, Ian knew immediately that he had been exposed.
That was the flaw of the Disillusionment Charm: it couldn’t make a person disappear completely, only reduce others’ notice of them.
Not to mention Snape, a Potions Master whose sense of smell was exceptionally sensitive to herbs.
“Good evening, Professor Snape.” No longer hiding, Ian allowed his figure to slowly materialize out of thin air, his tone as relaxed as if they were casually bumping into each other in an afternoon garden.
“You?” Seeing Ian suddenly appear, Snape first looked astonished.
The next second, a sneer crept onto his face.
“Look who we have here.
The new teaching assistant, wandering around the castle in the middle of the night under a Disillusionment Charm instead of sleeping.” “I’m sure Dumbledore would be delighted to have a chat with you.” “Teaching Assistant Ian Evans.” Snape’s signature drawl sounded distinctly eerie in the dark corridor, particularly the words “teaching assistant,” which he bit down on with heavy emphasis, as if making a point.
Ian, however, acted completely unbothered.
The calm smile remained on his face, as though this were merely a chance encounter between old friends.
Strictly speaking, this was the first time Ian and Snape had met one-on-one since he took up his post.
Compared to his student days, Snape now carried a deeper gloom between his brows, looking considerably more mature.
Yet compared to Ian, who still looked as young as ever, that “maturity” could easily be framed another way.
“Snape, you’ve aged quite a bit!” Ian’s very first words instantly broke through Snape’s defense.
The sneer on Snape’s face froze entirely.
He wanted desperately to retort, but looking at Ian’s face—which still belonged to an eighteen-year-old—he had to force down the curses rising in his throat, his complexion darkening even further.
Who said men didn’t care about their age?
After a long silence, Snape took a step forward, the hem of his black robes silently brushing across the stone floor.
“Evans,” Snape’s voice dropped even lower, carrying a snake-like hiss.
“I don’t know why you’ve chosen to show up at Hogwarts, even going so far as to take on the role of a teaching assistant.” He stared intently into Ian’s emerald-green eyes, his own gaze dazed for a fraction of a second before he quickly recovered.
“I will be watching you.
Always watching you!” With that, Snape gave Ian no chance to respond.
He whipped around sharply, his black robes snapping violently and nearly slapping Ian across the face.
Ian had good reason to suspect that final gesture was entirely intentional on Snape’s part.
Yet amid the billowing black robes, Snape’s back was already disappearing around the corner of the corridor.
Ian stood quietly in place, the smile on his face fading completely as his brows furrowed tightly.
“Legilimency?” Ian murmured silently to himself.
He pressed his fingertips lightly against his brow, where a faint golden pentagram briefly surfaced before vanishing in the blink of an eye.
The moment he had locked eyes with Snape just now, he had felt an intrusion into his mind.
This subtle fluctuation at the mental level was far more covert than ordinary magic.
Had he not been exceptionally sensitive to such things, he might not have noticed it at all.
Ian hadn’t expected Snape’s talent in magic to be so outstanding either; in just eleven years, he had actually mastered a high-level mind magic like Legilimency.
Wandless, nonverbal spellcasting—and with a spell as extraordinarily difficult as Legilimency—even Ian couldn’t help but be impressed by Snape’s natural gift for magic.
“Watching me?” Ian repeated Snape’s warning in a low voice, the corners of his mouth curving slightly into a mirthless arc.
Ian cast one last, deep look in the direction Snape had vanished before turning to head toward his destination.
Ten minutes later, Ian’s figure appeared across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being beaten by trolls.
Before him stood a expanse of smooth, blank wall, but Ian knew that the purpose of his journey lay just behind it.
I need a room to hide something…
I need a room to…
I need…
Reciting the request three times in his mind, Ian walked back and forth along the wall.
He stopped in his tracks and looked at the wall once more.
By now, the wall had undergone a transformation, revealing a smooth, polished door.
Turning the handle, Ian strolled right inside.
What Ian didn’t know was that just after he vanished behind the door, a figure slowly emerged.
The newcomer stood on the very spot Ian had just occupied, bright eyes behind half-moon spectacles examining the wall before him with thoughtful consideration.
“A hidden room?” the newcomer murmured softly under his breath before turning to leave.
On the other side, Ian stood amid mountains of clutter, the air thick with dust and the smell of ancient relics, a look of utter speechlessness on his face.
The tip of his wand lit up with a faint, fluorescent glow, illuminating a small area around him.
Toppled cabinets, broken broomsticks, rusted suits of armor, and even several thick, ancient books with faded covers lay scattered messily across the floor.
“Just how much stuff is hidden in here?” Ian had never expected that this legendary room would be known to so many people.
By the looks of it, Hogwarts students over the past thousand years had certainly dumped no small amount of junk in here.
“Though it really is a great place to hide things—provided you can actually find what you hid,” Ian joked to himself, his gaze sweeping over the dust-covered objects.
He walked forward, his boots stepping on a piece of parchment from an unknown era, making a faint cracking sound.
The room seemed virtually endless, its upper reaches swallowed by darkness.
Ian was certain that the Extension Charm cast here was far more advanced than his own.
Now that he was here, Ian was in no hurry to search for the tiara; instead, he began to wander around with great interest.
Suddenly, Ian paused and bent down to pick up a scroll of parchment from the ground.
The parchment seemed quite old; even though Ian was extremely careful, it still tore slightly as he handled it.
Fortunately, it didn’t affect his ability to read the text written upon it.
Yet after reading just the opening lines, Ian raised an eyebrow.
“This looks like a treatise on Ancient Runes?” Instantly intrigued, Ian used the dim light at his wand tip to carefully decipher the faded handwriting.
The edges of the parchment had grown brittle, crumbling at the slightest touch.
To preserve it, Ian had no choice but to cast a Levitation Charm, allowing the parchment to unroll in midair.
“The binding and utilization of Ancient Runic power: through a certain ritual, the forces represented by the runes are bound together to be summoned when needed.
The ritual is as follows…” Having read up to this point, Ian let out a wry chuckle and shook his head.
Isn’t this just a Magic Card?
Compared to Clow Reed, however, the author of this parchment had kept things far too simple.
Sure enough, as Ian read to the end, the recorded result was a clear failure.
Ian wasn’t surprised by this at all.
It might look as though Clow Reed had simply sealed various elemental powers into small cards, but even with access to part of Clow Reed’s manuscripts, Ian himself couldn’t replicate the process.
The knowledge involved was far too complex.
It required not only a profound understanding of Ancient Runes, but also absolute mastery over spellcasting and an innate affinity for the elements.
One could say that even without the Clow Cards, Clow Reed was a supreme grandmaster of magic; in Ian’s estimation, Clow Reed was vastly more formidable than even Dumbledore.
Perhaps only a being like Gandalf—a Wizard in name, but a Maiar in truth—could compare to him.
And if the Clow Reed Ian had met was indeed the time-distorting entity from his memories, that would be even more terrifying.
The creator of this parchment naturally fell far short of Clow Reed—otherwise, Ian would have surely heard of them—but even so, the hypothesis presented here was still commendable.
Ian lightly tapped his wand against the parchment, coating it in a protective film.
Rolling the parchment back up, he tucked it away.
He continued forward, weaving through the “canyons” formed by heaps of discarded items.
To Ian, these “mountains” no longer looked like mere trash, but rather rare treasures.
He paused every now and then to pick up a slip of paper, sometimes shaking his head before moving on.
However, the place was simply too vast.
Even after walking for an hour, Ian still couldn’t see the end of the room.
Suddenly, Ian stopped and turned his gaze toward a specific direction.
“Is it over there?” Ian stood in place, carefully sensing a murky, dark aura emanating from that direction.
It was a cold, subtly seductive magical presence—similar to the “chill” unique to Dark artifacts, yet far more ancient and obscure.
Faint, barely perceptible whispers echoed in Ian’s ears, dripping with temptation.
“Come find me!
Come find me!” “I can grant you immense power!” “I can help you rise to the highest heights, to be worshipped by all!” “I can…” “Hmph!” Ian let out a cold snort as a golden light flashed between his brows, walling off the whispers entirely.
Following the trail of that dark aura and navigating past mounds of broken chairs, Ian finally came to a halt in front of a battered statue.
The statue’s face had long since worn away, but Ian’s eyes were not on the stone figure itself—rather, they were fixed on an unassuming tiara resting atop its head.
He didn’t recklessly touch it with his hands, merely narrowing his eyes as he studied it.
It was a tarnished, lusterless tiara crafted from a dark silver metal.
Its design was ancient and delicate, reminiscent of a queen’s crown.
Engraved along the front of the tiara was a line of tiny text, nearly illegible due to wear and oxidation.
Ian leaned closer to inspect it, barely piecing together the words: “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.” “Heh.” Staring at the inscription carved in Latin, Ian let out a soft, meaningful laugh.
He waved his wand, causing a piece of rubble on the ground to twist and transform into a rope, which coiled around the tiara like a tentacle.
A few minutes later, a section of the wall in the eighth-floor corridor rippled like water once again.
A doorway materialized shortly after, and Ian stepped out from within.
“Good evening, Mr.
Evans!” The moment Ian stepped through the doorway, an aged voice called out to him.
Looking toward the sound, Ian didn’t seem surprised in the least.
“Good evening, Headmaster Dumbledore!”