Throughout the next week, I quickly established myself as one of the most talented students in my year.
It wasn’t even particularly difficult.
I answered questions in class, completed my assignments with excellent results, helped my classmates when they struggled, and made sure to remain polite toward every professor.
Most importantly, I never acted arrogant about my abilities.
Whenever a professor complimented me, I responded with modesty.
Whenever I answered a difficult question, I made it seem as though I’d simply happened to know the answer.
Whenever one of my classmates struggled with something, I offered to help them rather than making them feel stupid.
It was all part of the mask.
And it was working beautifully.
The teachers seemed delighted to have a student like me.
I was intelligent, hardworking, respectful, curious, and remarkably well-mannered.
From their perspective, I was practically the ideal student.
Even the professors who didn’t teach me directly had already begun hearing about the talented first-year named Tom Riddle.
Of course, there was one notable exception.
Dumbledore.
That man was far too intelligent for his own good.
I had initially thought I’d managed to push away most of his suspicions after his visit to the orphanage.
Apparently, I’d been wrong.
He wasn’t openly accusing me of anything, and he certainly didn’t have evidence, but I could tell from the way he occasionally watched me that something about me bothered him.
It was almost as though he was trying to solve a puzzle.
And then I realised my mistake.
“Oh.” I mentally slapped myself.
The personality I’d presented to Dumbledore during our trip to Diagon Alley hadn’t exactly been consistent with the person I’d become at Hogwarts.
During that trip, I’d deliberately acted like a particularly innocent, slightly clueless child.
I’d asked ridiculous questions, pretended not to understand basic wizarding concepts, and generally presented myself as some combination of Ravenclaw curiosity and Hufflepuff innocence.
Then I arrived at Hogwarts and immediately got sorted into Slytherin.
I was intelligent, ambitious, calculating, politically minded, and already surrounding myself with ambitious pure-blood students.
Of course Dumbledore noticed.
I had basically changed personalities immediately after arriving at Hogwarts.
“That’s probably what made him suspicious.” Still, there wasn’t much I could do about it now.
I couldn’t suddenly become less intelligent or less ambitious just to make Dumbledore comfortable.
Instead, I needed to make my current personality seem like the natural result of attending Hogwarts and becoming more comfortable around people.
Fortunately, Dumbledore didn’t have any proof.
As long as he remained suspicious rather than certain, I could work with that.
I would simply have to be more careful around him.
I pushed the matter aside and returned to my studies.
Then another thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Wait.” My eyes widened slightly.
“Ancient Magic.” I had completely forgotten something incredibly important.
In my previous life, I had played Hogwarts Legacy.
If this really was the Harry Potter universe, then did the events of Hogwarts Legacy actually happen?
Was the ancient magic described in the game real?
Could the ancient magic wielded by Isidora Morganach actually exist in this world?
And if it did…
Could I learn it?
The possibility was too interesting to ignore.
I immediately opened my system interface.
I searched through the available abilities until I found exactly what I was looking for.
Ancient Magic — Hogwarts Legacy Description: Grants the user the ability to perceive traces of Ancient Magic and interact with certain manifestations of Ancient Magic.
My eyes widened.
“So it really exists.” That was incredible.
Unfortunately, I didn’t currently have enough system points to purchase it.
I’d only recently started earning points through Hogwarts, and my balance was still painfully low.
But that didn’t necessarily mean I needed to buy it.
If Ancient Magic existed naturally in this world, then there had to be places where it could be found.
The system description mentioned the ability to see traces of Ancient Magic.
That implied that the magic itself existed independently of the system.
Which meant there might be another way.
I immediately began thinking about everything I remembered from Hogwarts Legacy.
The ancient magic hotspots.
The repositories.
The Keepers.
The memories of Isidora.
The ancient magical sites scattered around Britain.
If those things existed here, then I might be able to find them myself.
And if I could somehow absorb or interact with Ancient Magic without purchasing the system ability, I’d save an enormous number of points.
If I couldn’t?
Then I’d simply purchase the ability later.
Either way, researching it would be worthwhile.
I pulled out a piece of parchment and immediately began writing down everything I could remember from the game.
Locations.
Names.
Ancient ruins.
Legends.
Historical events.
Anything that might potentially connect to Ancient Magic.
My memory wasn’t perfect when it came to every detail of a game I’d played in another life, but my enhanced memory allowed me to recover far more information than I initially expected.
There was another possibility, too.
If Ancient Magic truly existed, then perhaps the events surrounding it had left traces in magical history.
That meant the Hogwarts library might contain references to it.
I smiled.
Apparently, I had just found another reason to spend even more time in the library.
Dumbledore might be watching me.
My classmates might be watching me.
The professors might be praising me.
But while everyone else thought Tom Riddle was simply a talented first-year student trying to succeed at Hogwarts, I was quietly searching for one of the most mysterious forms of magic in history.
And if I found it before anyone else knew what I was looking for?
That could change everything.