Professor McGonagall, standing in the common room, was immediately incensed when she saw Victor floating halfway up the stairs. She quickly walked over and shoved a ball of mashed potatoes, which she had transfigured from an apple, into Victor's mouth.
"Bluergh!!! Who gave me mashed potatoes?!" The familiar and disgusting taste instantly sobered Victor up. He quickly looked around and saw Professor McGonagall standing not far away, glaring at him angrily.
"Ha...haha, good morning, Professor McGonagall!" Victor was about to raise his hand to greet her, but he suddenly realized he was wrapped up in his blanket and couldn't move. "Bloody hell! Let me go, Penelope!"
Victor twisted and writhed in the air like a maggot. His comical appearance even made Penelope, who was usually very serious, laugh out loud as she quickly freed him from the blanket.
Professor McGonagall found the sight both infuriating and amusing. She immediately put on a stern face and said, "Mr. Dreyar, please be serious. You know why I'm here!"
"Yes, yes, I know!" Victor said helplessly, then turned to Penelope and said, "Penelope, could you please excuse us? What we're about to discuss isn't for you to hear!"
Surprisingly, Penelope didn't ask for a reason. She just nodded and went upstairs with Victor's blanket. It was a strange rule at Hogwarts that girls could enter the boys' dorms at will, but boys couldn't enter the girls' dorms.
Professor McGonagall looked at Penelope's retreating figure and suddenly said with a meaningful tone, "Mr. Dreyar, it seems you are quite popular with the Ravenclaws."
"It's natural charisma. What can I say!" Victor said with a boast, then continued, "Professor McGonagall, you're here for the Philosopher's Stone, aren't you?"
"That's right!" Professor McGonagall nodded. "The Philosopher's Stone is with you?"
"Right here!" Victor took the Philosopher's Stone out of his pajama pocket. Professor McGonagall leaned in and carefully examined it. After confirming that the precious stone was not missing, she let out a long sigh of relief. Although the trio had already told her that the Philosopher's Stone wasn't gone and that Victor had it, she was still worried.
Victor also clearly saw Professor McGonagall's concern, so he tapped a bronze fruit bowl on a nearby table with the Philosopher's Stone and said, "Don't worry, Professor McGonagall! This is the real deal!"
A dull red light flashed from the Philosopher's Stone, and the fruit bowl immediately turned into gold.
"You know how to use the power of the Philosopher's Stone?!" McGonagall was very shocked at the sight. In her memory, besides Nicolas Flamel, the creator of the Philosopher's Stone, she had only seen Dumbledore know how to use its power.
"This thing has a lot in common with the magic I study, so to me, it's just a very special magical item…" Victor said with a smile. The alchemical runes and magical circles contained within the Philosopher's Stone were very similar. The only difference was that magical circles used pure magical power to carve the runes, while the Philosopher's Stone carved the runes onto a special substance and then activated its power using a specific method.
After demonstrating the authenticity of the Philosopher's Stone, Victor put it back in his pocket. Surprisingly, Professor McGonagall didn't ask him to hand it over. Instead, she said with a serious tone, "Mr. Dreyar, you should know the importance of this stone without me having to tell you. Please keep it safe until Headmaster Dumbledore returns!"
The truth was that she didn't want to ask for the Philosopher's Stone back because she knew that with Victor's personality and his nonchalant actions just now, it would be a bit difficult to get it back immediately.
So, Professor McGonagall sighed helplessly, calmed herself down, and found a sofa to sit on. Victor also used Dressing Charm to change his clothes. He also found a sofa and sat down in front of Professor McGonagall, then took out two cups of black tea and two slices of cake from who knows where and placed them on the coffee table between them.
"Professor, did they tell you what happened last night?" Victor asked with a smile, taking a sip of his tea.
"They did. They were so bold that they actually went to the dungeon where the Philosopher's Stone is being guarded on their own." Professor McGonagall got a headache just thinking about the three students who were still sitting in her office.
"Well, from the looks of it, no matter how much Dumbledore favors them, this year's House Cup is probably out of Gryffindor's reach," Victor said, suddenly recalling the final scene in the movie where Dumbledore created a massive rigging at the end-of-term feast.
"Their actions won't just result in point deductions. They are likely to be expelled from Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall said, picking up her cup of tea from the table, taking a sip, and then suddenly saying very seriously.
"Pfft!" Victor puffed out his cheeks and couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Professor, that kind of scare tactic might work on those three idiots, but don't use it on me. The Devil's Snare, the flying keys, the wizard chess, and the potion riddle," Victor said, holding up four fingers. "If you randomly grab a Ravenclaw student and ask them, any idiot would be able to tell that these so-called challenges were specifically designed for those three foolish little lions. If Dumbledore really wanted to protect the Philosopher's Stone, he wouldn't have needed to move the Mirror of Erised out of his office. There is probably no safer place in the entire British Wizarding World than the Hogwarts Headmaster's office, is there? But he went to all this extra trouble and had you professors set up such childish challenges. Especially that wizard chess. Who came up with that? Only those three little lions would be silly enough to actually play the game!"
"…" Victor's rant made Professor McGonagall feel a little embarrassed. She had actually been trying to use the trio's incident to scare Victor into not bending the school rules so often, as it would have a bad influence on the other young wizards. But she didn't expect Victor to have already seen through Dumbledore's plan. So to avoid further awkwardness, Professor McGonagall immediately changed the subject.
She asked, "Dreyar, can you tell me in detail what happened last night?"
"Hmm?!" Victor stuffed a mouthful of cake into his mouth, and a question mark appeared over his head. "They didn't tell you?"
"They only told me the gist of it," Professor McGonagall replied, then said with a serious expression, "I want to know how Tom was able to get into the school. Logically, someone with bad intentions shouldn't be able to enter Hogwarts."
Ever since she had heard the trio tell her what had happened last night, she had been very concerned about this matter. As the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, she hadn't received any warnings last night.
But Victor himself wasn't too clear about the answer to that question. He didn't know much about Hogwarts's defensive mechanisms, only that if someone with bad intentions entered the school, the four House Heads and Dumbledore would be immediately notified.
So, he answered Professor McGonagall truthfully. "Professor, to be honest, I only have a guess as to why Voldemort was able to sneak into the school undetected. Last night, Peeves came to me and said that Voldemort had taken advantage of Dumbledore's absence to sneak into the school by turning into a snake."
"You said Peeves?" Professor McGonagall frowned at this unexpected name. "That doesn't make sense! It never did anything but play pranks before. And why would it come looking for you?"
"Sigh~" Victor sighed. "Professor, if you could just look at Peeves from a different perspective, you would know the reason."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing…" Victor didn't want to reveal the truth about Peeves. He guessed that the reason Peeves came to him last night was probably because it couldn't find anyone who would believe it, and it might also have something to do with the Ravenclaw diadem.
"Professor, let's not talk about Peeves for now! Since Voldemort was able to bypass Hogwarts's defensive mechanisms by turning into a snake, I suspect that a wizard who is an Animagus could do the same thing."
"You're very likely right. An Animagus can transform a wizard into a real animal, and Hogwarts's defensive mechanisms probably don't react to animals." Professor McGonagall nodded in agreement, and then her tightly furrowed brow suddenly relaxed. "But in this case, it was a blessing in disguise. Tom helped us discover this loophole."
"So, you want to thank him now, Professor!" Victor said with a smile.
"He is never a person to be thanked for anything!" Professor McGonagall immediately denied. "But honestly, when Dumbledore told me you had severely injured him last time, I didn't quite believe it. Thanks to you this time, Harry and the others were able to come back alive."
"Actually, if you hadn't stirred up so much trouble, the three of them wouldn't have had so many weird ideas," Victor complained. "Also, when is Professor Dumbledore coming back? The dear Savior almost died this time because of his absence."
"It takes a while for owls to deliver letters. Something very big has happened in Eastern Europe, and he's there helping with the mediation. Even if he receives the letter and immediately has Fawkes bring him back, it would still take some time," Professor McGonagall said.
"Oh, I see!" Victor suddenly understood.
That's why the old coot was often absent from school since Christmas. It turned out that the Soviet Union was about to collapse. It seemed that the split of the Muggle government had also led to a severe upheaval in the magical world over there.
If there wasn't a White Lord to keep things in order, something big and irreversible would probably happen.
——————————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to my Patreon ——— patreon(.)com/PrimalDemon [remove the parentheses ( )]
There are 50+ advance chapters available for you to read!