The Fairy Sphere faded away, leaving only a faint mark of the fairy wing symbol on the student's forehead. Victor saw that the seal was complete and, without a word, grabbed the student and instantly disappeared from the library.
Meanwhile, Filch was just now getting to the fifth floor, panting.
In the Hogwarts headmaster's office, Dumbledore was still in the Pensieve, looking for clues in past memories. But as he was concentrating on the past, two figures suddenly appeared behind him. One of them was grabbing the other and shouting, "Professor Dumbledore!"
"Merlin's beard!" Dumbledore was startled, even giving a little jump. He spun around and saw Victor standing behind him, dragging a Gryffindor student. Dumbledore let out a sigh of relief.
"Mr. Dreyar, how did you get in here?" Dumbledore's office had a powerful defense mechanism. No one who wasn't approved could just walk in.
"Let's put that aside for now; it's not important!" Victor dragged the student in front of Dumbledore. "Please, take a look at what's wrong with him!"
"Hmm? What is this…" Dumbledore put on his glasses, and as soon as he saw the student's condition, his expression became extremely serious.
"Fawkes, please go to Minerva and Severus and ask them to come here!" Dumbledore said sternly to the phoenix.
Only Fawkes could bring the two professors to the office using Apparition. Fawkes let out a cry, spread his wings, and with a flash of golden flames, instantly disappeared from his gilded perch.
"Wow, I didn't notice it last time I was here, but Professor, your pet's perch is a bit extravagant. Even for a phoenix, is a golden perch really necessary?" Victor placed the student on a sofa and walked over to tap Fawkes's perch. "This must be at least a dozen pounds of gold. Aren't you afraid of Fawkes's flames melting it?"
"A phoenix's flames cannot instantly melt gold, and this perch has been one of the Dumbledore family heirlooms for generations. It is at least older than my grandmother," Dumbledore replied.
With that, Dumbledore began to carefully observe the student's condition. On the other side, Victor started to help himself to Dumbledore's snacks again.
"Mr. Dreyar, can you tell me how he came to be like this?" Dumbledore asked after a while.
"Huh? How would I know? This has nothing to do with me!" Victor said, his cheeks puffed out with a piece of pink-glowing coconut ice cream. "I was minding my business reading a book when I just happened to find him in trouble. I was just being a good Samaritan!"
Just as Victor finished speaking, a ball of golden flames erupted in the middle of the office, and Professor McGonagall and Snape appeared inside.
Professor McGonagall was still in her pajamas with a blanket draped over her shoulders, so she must have been woken up directly from her bed by Fawkes.
Snape had an angry and impatient expression, and he stumbled a bit and flicked his hair, which Victor guessed was because Fawkes had brought him here without a moment's notice.
"Albus, why so late?" Professor McGonagall was about to ask why the rush when she saw the student lying on the sofa. "Merlin's beard! It's Mr. Kenneth Toller! What happened to him?!"
"I'm sure it's something our school's celebrity did," Snape said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he looked at Victor. "Otherwise, Mr. Dreyar wouldn't be here so late."
"..."
Victor just stared with a deadpan expression, chewing on his snack, not wanting to say anything.
With Snape's sharp tongue, you were destined to lose if you took him seriously. The best thing to do was to just ignore him, give him nothing to work with, and let him choke on his own words.
Just as expected, Snape's eye twitched almost imperceptibly when he saw that Victor was ignoring him.
"Severus, please take a look at our student's condition," Dumbledore said.
Snape waved his hand, his black robe sweeping behind him, and walked over to the student named Toller. He first pried open Kenneth's mouth to look inside and then pulled back his clothes a bit. Kenneth's tongue had forked, and at least a fifth of his skin had grown silver scales. After a moment, Snape finished his examination. With a blank expression, he said to Dumbledore, "Serpent Slave Blood Curse!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Professor McGonagall clutched her chest, looking at her student with fear and worry.
"Can you cure it?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes," Snape replied. "This blood curse isn't complete. It looks technically clumsy, like it was made by a novice. But I'm curious. Creating a Serpent Slave requires the caster's blood. So where did this come from? Also, the transformation of this student seems to have been stopped by some special method."
"So, can you enlighten us, Mr. Dreyar, who looks like he's starving to death?"
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! The sound of Victor chewing on chocolate-covered hazelnuts gave the three professors a headache.
"Mr. Dreyar, this is not the time for snacks. This is a matter of a student's life and death!" Professor McGonagall said angrily.
"Don't worry, Professor McGonagall! Even if I were to die, this little lion would be fine for the next five years!" Victor said, eating his snack. "He got hurt in the deepest part of the Restricted Section. It looks like he opened a hidden mechanism and broke something inside."
"See, this is it!" With that, Victor pulled out the glass shards that had been on the floor by Kenneth Toller's feet. The shards floated in the air, and under the light of the office, the leftover red liquid on them looked incredibly alluring.
Snape took out his wand from his pocket and gently poked a piece of glass with the red liquid on it. He squinted at it, then, without hesitation, used magic to cut his finger and let a drop of his own blood mix with the liquid on the glass. After a moment, Snape saw that there was no reaction. "It has been neutralized," he said.
"How much time do you need, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.
"Some of the ingredients need to be collected through special channels. I'll need two weeks to brew the antidote for the blood curse," Snape replied.
"Very well. Minerva, please explain this to the student's parents and tell them not to worry."
"Of course, Albus," Professor McGonagall nodded.
At this point, Victor, who had been standing to the side, saw that Dumbledore had pretty much handled the situation. He walked over and asked curiously, "Professor, I know what a blood curse is, but what exactly is a Serpent Slave Blood Curse? And what does it have to do with Voldemort?"
"Mr. Dreyar, that name should not be spoken casually. Also, you need to explain why you were out of your dorm during curfew and in the Restricted Section!" Professor McGonagall had just remembered that she needed to discipline Victor. This time, he had actually broken a school rule, and she was determined to use this opportunity to rein in the mischievous student.
"Professor McGonagall, I admit that I broke the school rules, but you also have to look at it from another perspective. If I hadn't been in the Restricted Section tonight, this guy probably would have died without anyone knowing!" Victor started his reasonable debate again, pointing at Kenneth Toller on the sofa.
"Minerva, being in the Restricted Section after curfew is indeed a violation of the school rules, but at the same time, Mr. Dreyar saved a student's life and saved the Toller family from their fate," Dumbledore said, coming to Victor's defense. "Therefore, regarding Mr. Dreyar's violation of the school rules, I think deducting thirty points from Ravenclaw as a punishment would be sufficient."
"Albus, you can't possibly…" Professor McGonagall believed that this was complete indulgence. Victor could earn back thirty points in a few days, so the punishment would essentially be meaningless.
"Minerva, perhaps you have a more appropriate punishment?" Dumbledore tossed the question back to his old friend, leaving Professor McGonagall speechless for a moment.
Dumbledore was right. Although Victor had indeed broken the rules, he had also saved a life. With the good and bad canceling each other out, she couldn't very well expel him. Thinking about it, Professor McGonagall let out a helpless sigh, then glanced at Victor. "I'm taking Mr. Toller to Madam Pomfrey." She then used the Levitation Charm to carry Kenneth Toller to the hospital wing.
Watching Professor McGonagall slowly walk away, Victor, holding a jar of snacks, asked Dumbledore the question he had asked before. "Professor, you still haven't told me what a Serpent Slave Blood Curse is."
Through his time in and out of the Restricted Section, Victor knew that a blood curse was an extremely vicious curse.
Its history could be traced back more than 1,200 years ago. A blood curse would cause a person to gradually lose their mind over time and turn into a beast. The power of the curse could even be passed down through the blood to the next generation and was incredibly difficult to remove.
To this day, no one in the wizarding world had ever heard of a solution to a blood curse, not even a way to slow its progression.
Hearing Victor's question, Dumbledore thought for a moment and then began, "The Serpent Slave Blood Curse is an irreversible, vicious curse. Its most prominent feature is that it turns a person into a half-human, half-serpent monster and forces them to obey a Parselmouth's commands. He used this blood curse to control those who opposed him, toying with their humanity and forcing many people to kill their own family or close friends. I can still remember one of my students, who couldn't even hold his wand, facing his controlled parents with a broken heart. But Mr. Toller is lucky. He was afflicted with an incomplete blood curse, one that was likely created when the caster was still a student, and it can be cured with a potion…"
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