"Slytherin!"
The Sorting Hat shouted loudly before it had even touched a single hair on Malfoy's head.
Malfoy smirked and headed toward the Slytherin table with a self-satisfied air.
Before Professor McGonagall called the next name, Victor Wick's gaze inadvertently swept across the silver goblet in front of him.
The goblet's surface was polished spotless, clearly reflecting his profile.
Victor extended a fingertip and lightly tapped the side of the cup. His eyebrows twitched slightly, and an imperceptible glimmer flashed in the depths of his eyes.
Two more freshmen completed their sorting.
Then...
"Harry Potter!" Professor McGonagall's voice rang out again.
Every eye in the hall instantly fell upon Harry. Even Quirrell could not help but steal a brief glance at the boy as he walked nervously toward the stool.
At that exact moment, a tiny insect suddenly flew out from beneath Victor's table and vanished into the shadows...
By the time Quirrell looked back, Victor had already put down his cup and was watching Harry with an intense, eager expression, looking just as curious as everyone else.
Meanwhile, the Slytherin student controlled by the Imperius Curse shifted. The previous vacant stare was gone, and as he turned to look at Harry, he reached into his pocket and quietly drew his wand...
At this moment, everyone's attention—save for Victor and Quirrell—was fixed on Harry and the Sorting Hat. No one noticed the boy's subtle movement.
On the stool, Harry wore the Sorting Hat and squeezed his eyes shut, chanting over and over in his mind, 'Not Slytherin! Not Slytherin!'
"Not Slytherin? But you could achieve greatness there. It could grant you endless power... well, since your mind is made up, I shall honor your choice..."
After the private conversation in Harry's head concluded, the Sorting Hat opened its wide mouth and bellowed, "GRYFFINDOR!"
The Gryffindor table erupted in an instant!
Fred and George embraced each other excitedly, jumping up and down and chanting at the top of their lungs, "We got Potter! We got Potter!"
Ron's face turned beet-red as he slammed his hands against the table, more excited than if he had won the lottery. Hermione was also beaming.
At the high table, the professors were smiling and clapping... all except for Snape! He looked as though he had just been forced to swallow a live fly.
Harry, beaming with relief, took off the Sorting Hat, handed it back to Professor McGonagall, and started toward the Gryffindor table.
He was genuinely happy; being in Gryffindor meant he would be in the same house as the friends he had just made. What a wonderful twist of fate!
Just as Harry was halfway there, moving out of Professor McGonagall's immediate reach, the Slytherin student suddenly stood up.
However, many other students were standing at the same time, so his movement drew no attention from anyone except his own housemates.
Just as the other Slytherins began to suspect the boy was a traitor for wanting to cheer for Gryffindor, he suddenly whipped out his wand and pointed it straight at Harry!
"Avada—"
Victor Wick, who had been secretly watching the Slytherin from the high table, felt his pupils contract.
He tapped the tabletop lightly with a soft 'thud.'
The tiny insect that had been quietly clinging to the student's robes instantly burst!
An invisible wave of magic silently washed over the boy.
In a flash, the Slytherin student attempting to cast the Killing Curse stiffened, his mind suddenly snapping back to clarity!
When he realized he was pointing his wand at Harry and that the tip was glowing with a lethal green light, he didn't even have time to be afraid. Acting on a sudden, desperate instinct, he jerked his wand upward toward the ceiling!
Crack!
A blinding streak of green light shot upward at a forty-five-degree angle into the air!
Boom!
A small crater was blasted into the stone wall instantly.
The atmosphere in the Great Hall froze.
"An Unforgivable Curse! It's an Unforgivable Curse!"
Someone screamed, and panic spread like wildfire.
Students shrieked and began to scatter like headless chickens. The sound of overturning chairs and desperate crying filled the air as the Great Hall dissolved into chaos.
Because the students were running in every direction, the professors' rescue paths were completely blocked!
In that moment, the Slytherin student, who had only been conscious for a heartbeat, lost his autonomy again. He rapidly aimed at Harry to launch a second Killing Curse!
The calming effect of the Felix Felicis Charm could not fully break the Imperius Curse; it could only provide a momentary awakening during a sudden surge of magic.
And now, the light of the Killing Curse flared once more...
Professor McGonagall was the closest, but by the time she dropped the Sorting Hat and the list of names to draw her wand, it was already too late!
McGonagall watched the green light in horror, her eyes full of despair. There was no time...
Harry's reaction was actually quite fast. After the first curse, he had already started running.
But the distance was too short. Without any cover, he was nothing more than a sitting duck!
'I can't dodge it...'
Harry closed his eyes in despair. That blinding green light was exactly like the one in his dreams; the breath of death was already brushing against him.
However, Harry never felt the impact of the spell hitting his body.
'Is death so fast that there is no pain at all?'
Harry slowly opened his eyes and found a familiar back standing in front of him.
"Professor Wick!" Harry cried out in surprise.
Harry turned his head toward the high table in bewilderment. They were so far away—how had he gotten here so fast?
Meanwhile, the Imperius-controlled student, seeing he had missed his target, continued to follow the commands in his head and fired another Killing Curse at Harry's position!
Yet, this lethal curse, which should have killed on contact, simply dissolved into points of light the moment it touched Victor Wick's body...
The Slytherin student stared at Victor in shock. Before he could make another move, he was suddenly bound by an invisible force and hoisted into the air!
Victor shielded Harry behind him, staring calmly at the Slytherin student.
The plan was a success.
In truth, only a few seconds had passed from the start of the attack until Victor stepped in to block the curse.
The reason the first Killing Curse failed was because the student 'himself' had broken free of the Imperius Curse. That was Quirrell's mistake! It had nothing to do with Victor Wick. His hands were clean!
And after the first Killing Curse appeared, Victor finally had a legitimate reason to intervene.
As a professor of Hogwarts, if he had sat by while a student was attacked, that would have been truly suspicious.
So, blocking the second curse was a natural act of protection. Even the Dark Lord couldn't find fault with it!
"How... how did you do it... why didn't the Killing Curse... work on you..." the Slytherin student gasped.
People under the Imperius Curse are actually quite aware; it is simply that their thoughts and actions are completely overridden.
Therefore, it wasn't strange that he could clearly ask such a question.
Victor said calmly, "The core logic of the Killing Curse is the forced termination of the target's life process. However, your spell was weak, riddled with errors, and your runic sequence was so fragmented and buggy that it couldn't even penetrate the first layer of my firewall's defense code. My boy, that is not how one uses the Killing Curse."
Just moments ago, the insect he had released while Quirrell was distracted had been transfigured from a mere piece of thread.
However, he had attached a specific spell to that insect—the Felix Felicis Charm!
When the insect burst, the charm took effect instantly!
It was the forced tranquility brought by the Felix Felicis Charm that gave the Slytherin student that brief moment of clarity.
It was also because of the luck-boosted intuition that he had been able to jerk his wand up just as the spell was being cast!
As for how Victor had 'teleported' within Hogwarts? That was the Mirror Magic Dumbledore had taught him years ago!
Mirror Magic allowed one to not only pull enemies into a mirror dimension but also to enter it oneself and reappear from any reflective surface.
That silver goblet from earlier had been Victor's gateway for the jump.
At last, the other professors broke through the panicked crowd. Professors Flitwick and Sprout hurried to calm the terrified students and restore order, while Professor Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape rushed to Victor's side.
"Shafiq! How dare you! Using an Unforgivable Curse on a freshman! Do you have any idea that this will earn you a lifetime in Azkaban?"
McGonagall's face was white, her chest heaving with rage and confusion as she looked at the suspended Shafiq. Her voice was thick with heartbreak.
Snape arrived as well, glaring at Shafiq as if he wanted to skin the boy alive.
Quirrell sat slumped on the floor not far away, his face pale as he watched. Everything was ruined. The mission... had failed.
Dumbledore came to Victor's side, frowning as he looked up at the hanging student with a cold, scrutinizing gaze.
Victor lowered Shafiq to the ground and carefully examined his condition. Even now, Shafiq continued to stare at Harry with a look of stubborn obsession.
Victor turned and said, "Professor Dumbledore, he is under the Imperius Curse. Everyone, please do not be too harsh on him. Fundamentally, he is a victim as well."
Upon hearing this, a flicker of despair crossed Quirrell's eyes. 'I knew Victor Wick couldn't be trusted!'
At that moment, Victor's gaze swept covertly over Quirrell. "However... it seems he was placed under this curse before he even arrived at the school."
'Outside the school?' Quirrell blinked, stunned.
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed slightly. "I see. I know you are capable of identifying the caster... can you track their current location?"
"I can't track them anymore. They are too far away," Victor said, shaking his head.
After listening to the exchange between Victor and Dumbledore, the pale Quirrell suddenly began to tremble, a new light dawning in his eyes.
'Master! Victor Wick hasn't betrayed you after all! He's providing cover for me!'
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