Witt looked at himself, then at Snape.
So I was the clown all along.
In that instant, Witt felt as though every last ounce of energy had been sucked out of him.
“You’ve said your piece.
You can go now.” Witt collapsed across the long table, wearing an expression that suggested life had lost all meaning.
Just then, Lily came over.
Seeing Witt slumped over the table, utterly listless, she asked worriedly, “Witt, are you ill?” “No.” “It’s just that, for one brief moment, I became acutely aware of how unfair this world is, and I lost all hope in it.” Why do people even bother living?
The young Snape stepped forward and called out somewhat nervously, “Lily.” “Hello, Severus.” Lily gave him a simple greeting, then sat down beside Witt and took his hand.
A faint blush coloured her cheeks as she tried to encourage him.
“You promised you’d take care of me.” Witt himself didn’t feel much of anything at those words.
Young Snape, standing beside them, looked as though he had just suffered a devastating blow.
He weakly collapsed onto the table.
At that moment, he too became acutely aware of how unfair the world was.
Ah, life.
Bleak as snow.
Sitting between them, Lily looked from one side to the other at the two people who appeared thoroughly crushed and bereft of all hope.
She had absolutely no idea what to do.
Fortunately, Witt was mentally resilient and soon recovered.
“Come on, Lily.
I’ll take you to make some money.” “Make money?” Lily pulled a small pouch from her pocket and handed it to him, speaking softly.
“Yesterday, I found Professor Snape’s family heirloom.
He insisted on giving me some money as a reward.
If you need it, you can use this first.” Faced with the pouch Lily was offering him, Witt took it and gently opened the mouth.
Shhk.
The dazzling golden gleam almost blinded him.
Galleons.
Every single coin inside was a gold Galleon.
Even at a rough count, there had to be several dozen of them.
Was finding something and returning it really worth this much money?
Witt sank into deep confusion.
He clearly remembered the Professor Snape he had encountered in the dungeon.
The man had spent the entire time with a gloomy expression, and his tone had been especially unpleasant.
He’d practically radiated stay away from me.
Could that have simply been a discrepancy caused by the dungeon?
Perhaps the real Professor Snape was actually a good person.
And not merely a good person, but the sort of ridiculously generous good person who had more money than sense.
It wasn’t impossible.
Reality and a dungeon were two different things, after all.
Witt decided that he needed to reassess Professor Snape.
He couldn’t keep judging the man in the real world based on his impressions from the dungeon.
After struggling with himself for a moment, Witt reluctantly closed the pouch and handed it back to Lily.
Witt had nothing against the idea of being supported by a rich girl, but Lily obviously wasn’t rich.
This was very clearly all the money she had.
His skin wasn’t quite thick enough to take it.
“No need.
I’ve got a way to earn money.
Keep this for yourself, Lily.
Buy whatever you like with it.” After leaving the Great Hall, Witt quietly sighed.
Bragging was easy.
Actually doing it was another matter entirely.
He might possess Master-level Forging now, but he had nowhere to use it.
Hogwarts didn’t seem to have anywhere suitable for forging things.
As for going outside and looking for work, who in their right mind would believe that an eleven year old wizard was a master smith?
After thinking it over from every angle, Witt realised there was only one viable option.
Sell the Sword of Gryffindor Blueprint.
Professor Dumbledore should be interested in that.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The next day, during Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Quirrell limped into the classroom.
He felt absolutely dreadful.
His health had already been poor ever since Voldemort had attached himself to him like a parasite.
Voldemort’s soul was causing irreversible damage to his body.
By Quirrell’s rough estimate, his body would last another year at most.
Then, while applying for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, he had run into a wizard who was absurdly powerful, so powerful that even Voldemort had been forced to admit the man was no weaker than himself.
Quirrell had been extremely worried at the time.
The gap between the two candidates was simply too great.
There was a very real chance that Dumbledore wouldn’t choose him.
Fortunately, Dumbledore had chosen Quirrell in the end.
Unfortunately, Dumbledore’s decision had infuriated the other wizard.
As though lashing out in humiliation, the man had struck Quirrell with a curse that had left him half crippled.
Quirrell had suffered a completely undeserved catastrophe.
And because of Voldemort, he hadn’t dared seek proper medical treatment for fear that someone would discover what was wrong with him.
He could only slowly recuperate on his own.
More than a month had passed, and he still hadn’t fully recovered.
The moment he entered the classroom, Quirrell spotted someone who stood out spectacularly from everyone else.
Witt had decided to wear his beloved helmet to class today.
A magnificent lion had been engraved into the red metal, with decorative mane like details surrounding it.
A beautiful ruby was set into the top.
The helmet wasn’t merely comfortable to wear.
It also possessed excellent defensive capabilities and could even block a portion of mind probing magic.
Despite being Witt’s very first practice piece, it was still an exceptionally well made piece of equipment.
Walking around with the helmet on, Witt felt his sense of security increase considerably.
“M-Mr C-Cress…” Quirrell stammered, “Why are y-you wearing a h-helmet in class?” Witt replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Isn’t it common sense to wear a helmet to class?
You’re wearing a turban too, Professor.” Quirrell stared at Witt blankly.
Since when had that become common sense in the wizarding world?
Then, because Witt had specifically mentioned his turban, Quirrell immediately fell silent.
“V-Very well.
N-Now, open your textbooks.” After stumbling his way through half a lesson, Quirrell finally assigned the class some written work.
While the students were busy with their assignments, Voldemort, hidden at the back of Quirrell’s head, began communicating with him.
Through Quirrell’s eyes, he saw the young Lily and Snape.
Voldemort remembered both Snape and Lily extremely well.
The former had been a Death Eater whom he had held in particularly high regard.
The latter was Harry Potter’s mother.
It would have been rather difficult not to remember them.
That was precisely why, when Voldemort had seen the young Snape and Lily during the Sorting Ceremony, his shock had been no less intense than Snape’s own.
Over the past two days, Voldemort had also been investigating the matter alongside Snape.
So far, he had only managed to form a vague suspicion that Witt might somehow be involved.
Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape were all paying an unusual amount of attention to this boy named Witt Cress.
Especially Snape.
When Snape had used the Disillusionment Charm to secretly observe Lily, Voldemort had been controlling Quirrell at the time and watching him from a distance.
Ever since his previous encounter with Grindelwald, Voldemort had become considerably more wary.
He had sensed an endless multitude of vengeful spirits surrounding Grindelwald.
Too many.
There were simply too many to count.
Compared with Grindelwald, Voldemort almost felt like a positively kind hearted wizard.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the sheer amount of dark magical power surrounding Grindelwald.
It was considerably stronger than Voldemort’s had been even at the height of his power.
His earlier claim that the two of them were evenly matched had been nothing more than an attempt to reassure Quirrell.
Voldemort knew perfectly well that he could not defeat that Dark wizard shrouded in an endless sea of vengeful spirits.
And whenever he remembered that such a terrifyingly powerful wizard still existed in the magical world.
And, worse still, that the man clearly knew Dumbledore and shared no ordinary relationship with him— it was as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over Voldemort’s arrogance.
The chill went straight through him.
Knowing that, even after his resurrection, there would still be someone he needed to treat with extreme caution had made Voldemort far more careful in everything he did.