Quirrell’s class was boring.
At least, that was what Witt thought right up until the lesson ended.
As the students were leaving, Quirrell called him back.
“Please, wait a moment.” He took out a rather battered looking notebook and handed it to Witt.
“If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can come to my office and ask me.” Witt found that rather strange.
Why had Quirrell suddenly stopped stuttering?
But Quirrell gave him no opportunity to ask.
As soon as he handed over the notebook, he walked straight out of the classroom without lingering for even a moment.
There was a spot on the battered cover where something had been scratched out.
It looked as though the original owner’s name had once been written there.
Witt opened the notebook.
Inside were notes covering the material taught during the first and second years.
Compared with the brief explanations in their textbooks, the owner of this notebook had clearly put far more thought into the subject.
It contained numerous tricks for applying magic in practical situations and even covered knowledge that wasn’t taught in the standard curriculum.
The ideas recorded inside were highly unconventional, yet astonishingly practical.
Some of them were just a little… cruel.
Whoever had written this notebook had been a genius.
Could these be Professor Quirrell’s notes?
It didn’t seem likely.
Even putting aside Quirrell’s stutter and the overpowering smell of garlic that followed him everywhere, his lessons consisted almost entirely of reading straight from the textbook.
There wasn’t a trace of originality in them.
The person who had written these notes, on the other hand, practically screamed rebellious teenager.
Witt couldn’t see the slightest resemblance between the writer and Quirrell.
The problem was, if the notebook wasn’t Quirrell’s, how could he have so confidently told Witt to come to his office if there was anything he didn’t understand?
Witt stared down at the notebook, completely unable to make sense of the situation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Inside the Potions office, the older and younger Snapes were exchanging information.
“Quirrell gave Witt a notebook of his own accord.” “Yes.” “Troublesome.” A dangerous gleam flashed through the older Snape’s eyes.
Quirrell’s true situation was hardly a secret as far as Dumbledore was concerned.
Judging from when Dumbledore had sent Hagrid to retrieve the Philosopher’s Stone, it was obvious that he already knew Voldemort was very likely possessing Quirrell.
The problem was that Voldemort had Horcruxes.
Simply killing him would accomplish nothing and would only alert him that they were onto him.
But now Voldemort had set his sights on Witt, and Snape most certainly did not want anything to happen to the boy.
By this point, he was certain Lily’s arrival had something to do with Witt.
If something happened to Witt, there was a very real possibility that Lily would be sent back as well.
Even if it was only a possibility, Snape refused to take that risk.
This was the second chance fate had given him.
Snape could not bear to lose Lily a second time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ At dinner, Snape passed by the Great Hall and saw Witt, Lily, Harry and Ron sitting together, talking and laughing.
The sight made him extremely uncomfortable.
As for Witt, Snape still hadn’t worked out exactly how the boy was connected to Lily’s arrival, so he didn’t dare act rashly.
Harry, however, irritated him simply by existing.
The boy looked as though he had been carved straight from his father’s mould.
And now he was sitting beside Lily as well.
The scene before him dragged some exceedingly unpleasant memories back to the surface.
It had been exactly like this all those years ago.
The longer Snape watched, the angrier he became.
The more he watched, the more unbearable it felt.
The thread of reason inside his mind was already stretched dangerously close to snapping.
His fingers tightened around his wand.
And tightened.
In the end, however, Snape did nothing.
He slowly closed his eyes.
He couldn’t do anything in front of Lily.
Just as Snape turned to leave, a hand landed on his shoulder.
“Severus.” Dumbledore looked toward Harry and Lily in the distance.
Two sets of memories surfaced in his mind at once, overlapping with the scene before him.
The sensation of different points in time intersecting like this was both strange and magical.
“Dumbledore.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of respect in Snape’s voice.
Ever since Dumbledore had said those words to him the other day, Snape had refused to speak to him.
In fact, he had been deliberately avoiding him.
Every time Snape remembered what Dumbledore had said, his heart turned cold.
Dumbledore, you really have no heart.
Unfortunately for Snape, his unwillingness to face Dumbledore did not mean Dumbledore wouldn’t come looking for him.
The Sword of Gryffindor Blueprint Witt had brought him yesterday had given Dumbledore quite a shock.
Then there was the magic-training technique recorded in Gryffindor’s Travels.
And Witt’s astonishingly accomplished forging skills.
Every one of these developments had caught Dumbledore completely off guard.
But they had allowed him to confirm one thing.
Witt truly could travel through time and space.
More importantly, he could bring people and objects back with him.
At his current level of ability, however, it appeared that he could normally only bring back relatively simple objects.
Lily and Snape had been exceptions, much like an accidental burst of magic from an underage wizard.
But accidental magic still came from the young wizard’s own power.
In other words, once Witt became stronger, he would definitely be capable of bringing people out of the river of time.
And according to Dumbledore’s investigations, none of the historical records had changed in the slightest.
It was an extraordinarily powerful ability, one that allowed its wielder to move freely through time without altering the past.
Two points in particular deserved close attention.
The first was that nothing had happened when the two Snapes met.
Dumbledore had observed them for two days, and neither Snape had displayed anything unusual.
This was extremely important.
When travelling through time with a Time-Turner, one of the greatest taboos was allowing two versions of the same person from the same timeline to encounter each other.
Such a meeting could cause time itself to collapse, leading to unpredictable chaos and danger.
Yet after several days of testing and observation, Dumbledore had managed to confirm a great many things.
Which meant it was time to give Witt some special attention.
Under ordinary circumstances, Hogwarts believed in a fairly relaxed approach to education.
No matter how badly a wizard might fare after graduation, starving to death was almost impossible.
As long as a student learned a few basic spells useful in everyday life and gained enough knowledge to find work somewhere in the wizarding world, they could make a living.
Accomplish that much, and Hogwarts considered you a perfectly qualified graduate.
If a young wizard was ambitious enough to approach the professors on their own initiative, ask to learn more advanced magic and work hard to improve themselves, the professors would naturally teach them everything they could.
But the initiative had to come from the student.
Hogwarts did not force its pupils to pursue excellence.
Those standards applied to ordinary young witches and wizards.
For students burdened with a special destiny, however, things were different.
Harry, for example, was the saviour destined to face Voldemort.
Naturally, Dumbledore would arrange special training for him, strengthening not only his abilities but also his conviction.
And now, Dumbledore intended to put Witt through a similar programme of intensive training.
Part of that programme would require Snape’s cooperation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Inside the Headmaster’s office, Dumbledore smiled.
“Would you care for a Cockroach Cluster?” Snape did not appreciate the gesture in the slightest.
Instead, he gave Dumbledore a look of undisguised disgust.
“Don’t waste time on pointless nonsense.” Dumbledore had long since become accustomed to Snape’s attitude.
He calmly opened a drawer and took out a book and a blueprint, placing them before him.
“Gryffindor’s Travels.
There are several rather interesting potions recorded inside.
I’d like you to brew some of them for Witt.” The training method Gryffindor had taught Witt required potions to support it.
Gryffindor, however, had never told Witt about that part.
It had been a small test.
Evidently, the founder of Hogwarts had not completely believed Witt’s story.
Many magical books were extraordinarily troublesome to create, and quite a few were even unique, with only a single copy in existence.
Gryffindor’s Travels was one such book.