Hogwarts’ John Wick

Chapter 574 574: 574: The Uncrowned King, Searching for the Secret Chambers

It was obvious that when Voldemort was young, he had spent plenty of time flaunting his good looks.

What John had not expected was that the man had not even spared ghosts.

"Tom, you really are..." John said speechlessly.

The Grey Lady knew Voldemort was dead.

But after being deceived once, it became difficult for her to trust anyone again.

Especially someone who looked just like the young Tom Riddle from that era, another handsome young man.

"Believe me, Grey Lady," John said seriously, "I am different from that person."

Looking at that face, the Grey Lady let out a cold snort.

Handsome men? I refuse to believe them.

John found this situation rather troublesome.

Voldemort being a scumbag had nothing to do with him, John Wick.

A thought suddenly crossed his mind. Maybe he should just use Priori Incantatem to interrogate the Grey Lady directly.

But after glancing at her, he hesitated. She was still one of Hogwarts's veteran staff members. Wouldn't doing that be a little inappropriate?

"Grey Lady, John is a good person."

An airy voice rang out. It was Luna.

Hearing those words, the Grey Lady's wariness toward John shifted into suspicion.

"At least give me a chance," John said with a bitter smile. "You can hear my question first before deciding whether to refuse."

After hesitating for a long time, the Grey Lady reluctantly agreed for Luna's sake.

"No matter what you ask, I won't tell you anything."

She said that, yet she still did not leave.

Seeing this, John said, "I want to ask about Rowena Ravenclaw's secret chamber."

"You want to find Ravenclaw's diadem?" the Grey Lady sneered. "Keep dreaming."

"No, I have no interest in that thing."

Already possessing the diadem himself, John calmly replied, "What I seek is Ravenclaw's knowledge."

"Knowledge?" The Grey Lady looked deeply at John.

"You will never find it. Ravenclaw hid it too well. No matter how intelligent a wizard may be, they could never discover it."

After saying that, the Grey Lady stood up and left.

John, meanwhile, began pondering her words.

"She didn't deny it. Which means that chamber really does exist."

John rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Glancing at the departing Grey Lady, John walked over and looked at the book she had been reading.

Love Me, You Domineering Wizard

"...There are books like this in Ravenclaw's library section?"

John looked as though his entire worldview had been shattered. He had thought the Grey Lady was seriously reading a book, but it turned out she was reading this.

After leaving the Ravenclaw common room, John confidently tried answering the bronze knocker's questions again.

The result was that he walked away from Ravenclaw Tower once more, sighing with emotion.

"Sorting Hat, I really shouldn't have blamed you."

No wonder the Sorting Hat had once said John was unsuited for Ravenclaw.

Turns out it had been telling the truth.

On the way back, he ran into some Ravenclaw students leaving class, and they greeted him warmly.

The Battle of Hogwarts had made them realize that John Wick was not merely Slytherin's king, but Hogwarts's king as well.

Without John, all of Hogwarts would have been destroyed.

Even though John himself had never declared such a thing, they had already acknowledged him as their king.

What?

The Headmaster?

Slughorn would simply say that being able to lie back and relax felt wonderful.

His current life mostly consisted of holding small gatherings and chatting with his former students.

Life could not have been more comfortable.

...

After arriving at the Great Hall, John sat there thinking about the clues related to the chamber.

"No wizard, no matter how intelligent, could ever find it?"

The Grey Lady had spoken those words without the slightest hesitation.

The way she had looked at John was as though he were an overconfident challenger attempting to conquer an impossible mountain peak.

"What are you thinking about?"

Malfoy sat down across from John and sneered, "Classes were especially lively today. Potter doesn't have the same skills he did last year."

Last year, Malfoy had stolen Harry's copy of Advanced Potion-Making.

As a result, during the very first Potions class of the new school year, Harry had accidentally ruined an entire cauldron of potion.

Snape had naturally seized the opportunity, causing Gryffindor's points to plummet dramatically.

John glanced at the gleeful Malfoy. He truly could not understand how Malfoy managed to remain this obsessively fixated on Harry.

If Harry were a girl, John would have suspected there would be no place left for Astoria.

He glanced toward the House point hourglasses.

Sure enough, the gap between Slytherin and Gryffindor was very small.

There was no need to guess which professor had been deducting points.

"You lost points?"

"That damned Black." Malfoy's smile immediately disappeared as he gritted his teeth. "He's deliberately targeting me!"

The biggest difference this year was that the annual revolving-door professor had actually lasted into a second year.

It seemed that with Voldemort's death, the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position had finally been lifted.

Sirius Black had successfully remained in the position and continued teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.

However, according to rumors, Sirius had originally only planned to teach for a single year.

This year, he had apparently forgotten to resign and simply continued teaching.

After going through the war, forgetting something like that was perfectly understandable.

Still, this also proved to everyone that the terrible curse had truly been broken.

From now on, Hogwarts probably would not keep changing Defense Against the Dark Arts professors every year.

Though poor Malfoy had suffered because of it. Earlier today, Sirius had deducted ten points from him because he swung his wand too forcefully.

A new round of point deduction warfare was about to unfold at Hogwarts.

Malfoy looked indignant. "This year, I'm going to humiliate Potter properly in Quidditch."

Right, the Quidditch nightmare season was about to begin again as well.

May the players rest in peace.

A flock of owls flew into the Great Hall.

A barn owl cautiously flew to a spot about five meters away from John, while Basil flew over and proudly nodded in approval.

The barn owl dropped the newspaper and flew away as though it had just been pardoned from execution.

Basil picked up the newspaper and flew down to land in front of John.

"You really should control your temper a little," John said as he picked up the paper and glanced at it. "Do I seriously need to find you a mate?"

Basil became visibly angry the moment she heard that. Clearly, she had not plucked enough of that giant's beard.

Daphne placed down a serving of colorful fruit fried rice and reached out to stroke Basil's smooth feathers as she asked, "Basil needs a mate?"

"I always thought Riddle was her mate."

"That's actually not a bad idea, but unfortunately Riddle is the same sex as her," John said with a shrug. "They're both female birds."

Daphne's mouth fell open in surprise. She had always assumed Riddle was male.

After all, that cold and aloof demeanor made it easy to think so.

Wait.

Daphne suddenly became confused. She remembered Basil being very attached to Riddle.

Could it be...

No, stop.

She absolutely could not continue thinking about that.

Daphne adorably shook her head, throwing those thoughts out of her mind.

Astoria was the last to arrive. She had just gone to the library a moment earlier.

After arriving, Astoria sat down beside Malfoy and said curiously, "This lily bloomed?"

A lily that Malfoy had given Astoria was sitting in a cup on the table. He had probably picked it from some unlucky person's flowerpot.

The lily had fully bloomed.

—German Ministry of Magic: High Alert as Grindelwald Appears in Berlin—

Grindelwald had returned to Germany?

John stared at the contents of the newspaper.

Grindelwald had reappeared in Germany and openly shown himself in Berlin.

His followers had gathered around him, instantly wiping away the celebratory atmosphere that had followed Voldemort's death.

Compared to Voldemort, Europe feared Grindelwald far more.

Back then, Grindelwald had nearly plunged the entirety of Europe into chaos. Even after half a century, people still remembered just how terrifying the man wielding the Elder Wand had been.

"Now, he'll only be even stronger."

Having personally faced the young Grindelwald before, a trace of caution flashed through John's eyes.

Back then, Grindelwald had nearly destroyed Paris. Now, after decades of accumulation, his once-aging body had been restored to its youthful state.

A century's worth of magical power, combined with the body of a man in his prime, and the Elder Wand in his hand.

If the current Grindelwald were sent back to the legendary battle of 1945, history itself might be rewritten. Grindelwald would likely win that war.

"Germany..." John narrowed his eyes, recalling something Barty Crouch Sr. had once mentioned.

During the amusement park's opening ceremony, the German Minister for Magic had seemed disappointed that no werewolf attack had occurred.

It was almost as though he had known in advance that werewolves would appear.

"Could the German Ministry of Magic have already fallen?"

Looking at the photograph of Grindelwald in the newspaper, John felt deeply uneasy at how openly the man was acting.

Without even looking, John scooped up a spoonful of the brightly colored fried rice and put it into his mouth.

"How are things going in France?"

He had left the affairs in France to Heinrich and Kim.

Kim had happily spent the holidays talking about how many tourist attractions they had visited, though he never mentioned the branch store business.

With the abilities those two possessed, preparations for the branch should probably be nearly complete by now, right?

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