Umbridge slowly walked out from the encirclement of the Inquisitorial Squad members.
She first swept her gaze over the surrounding squad members with a look of pleased approval, her lips moving slightly, as if she were praising their reaction just now.
Under the soothing effect of her words, the panic on the faces of the squad members, caused by the fact that they had just injured Professor Trelawney, quickly faded away.
And very soon, it turned into excitement, into secret delight.
This was probably the result of some promise Umbridge had made to them.
But immediately afterward, when Umbridge turned her gaze toward the onlooking crowd not far away, and toward Trelawney, who was lying on the ground vomiting blood, the expression on her face suddenly shifted from gentle to smug and arrogant.
"I am truly sick of you, you fraud, Trelawney," Umbridge said in a nauseating tone.
"Hogwarts was indeed once your home, until one hour ago, when the Ministerial Council signed your dismissal order. Now please leave the hall. You're embarrassing us."
Although Umbridge said this, she made no move at all to continue driving Trelawney away, let alone to throw her out of Hogwarts.
That would not have been difficult for her. Many of the Inquisitorial Squad members behind her would have been more than willing to carry out such an evil act for her.
Yet she simply did nothing.
She just stood there, gloating as she watched Trelawney lying on the cold floor, vomiting blood, twitching from time to time.
It was as if she were savoring the other woman's current state of misery and total humiliation.
Or perhaps she intended to use this scene to intimidate the rest of the Hogwarts professors and students.
Either way, she could already be said to have succeeded.
Link only needed to glance around briefly to see quite a few students clinging to one another and crying quietly.
Even several professors from minor subjects wore expressions of shared doom, like rabbits mourning the death of their kin.
At that moment, a burst of hurried footsteps rang out.
Professor McGonagall squeezed out from the crowd and walked straight up to Professor Trelawney, firmly patting her on the back while pulling a large handkerchief from her robes.
"All right, Sybill, calm down… things aren't as bad as you think…"
Professor McGonagall did her best to comfort Trelawney, and Umbridge showed no intention of stopping her.
There was even a trace of secret delight on Umbridge's face, as if she thought dragging Professor McGonagall into this as well was an unexpectedly pleasant bonus.
But in the very next moment, Professor Trelawney, who just a second ago had been covered in blood and looked on the verge of death, suddenly pushed herself upright.
Her head swayed unconsciously, causing the blood mixed with saliva to pour out of her mouth in a rush, forming a large, disgusting pool of stringy blood on the floor.
Not only that, the limbs supporting her body bent at bizarre angles.
Combined with her tightly shut eyes and lifeless expression, it gave people the illusion that she had turned into a marionette, as if countless strings were controlling her movements.
Professor McGonagall, already sensing that something was wrong, raised her wand, but with her brows tightly knit, she hesitated and failed to take the next step, seemingly unable to figure out what exactly was causing Trelawney's strange behavior.
The Inquisitorial Squad members beside Umbridge also raised their wands.
Judging by their earlier pattern of action, they should have attacked the instant Trelawney showed any abnormal movement.
This time, however, because Professor McGonagall was present, they did not act.
At the very least, before Umbridge officially gave the order to attack, they did not dare strike while Professor McGonagall was involved.
The atmosphere in the entrance hall grew heavier and heavier. Some people who couldn't take it anymore had already begun to quietly leave.
Link and Emily and the others, however, were watching with great interest.
Link did not care what kind of fate Trelawney would meet. Even though Trelawney's earlier prophecy about Umbridge's final outcome had been extremely accurate, that still could not rule out the possibility of a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse.
After all, Trelawney herself had been trying to curse Umbridge.
And the prophecy Trelawney made was nothing more than the ending from the original story.
This world now had a variable like Link in it.
It was like holding a knife to a fortune teller's throat and asking him whether he could predict if he would die.
Link could completely kill Umbridge tonight and make Trelawney's prophecy fail.
He could also really send Umbridge to Azkaban, thereby making Trelawney's words come true.
So-called prophecies, or divinations, are merely predictions of one possible outcome in the future.
And the future holds infinite possibilities.
If you want a prophecy to come true, you need to put in tremendous effort to construct the necessary groundwork, to steer events in that direction.
That was exactly the strategy Dumbledore used.
Link didn't know whether Trelawney had been lying when she made the prophecy about Voldemort and the child born at the end of July, where only one could live.
But Dumbledore certainly didn't believe it.
He merely pretended to believe it, and then forced Voldemort and everyone else to believe it as well.
Because only then could he use that prophecy as the core to construct a dead-end trap to completely destroy Voldemort.
Seen that way, the motive for keeping Trelawney at Hogwarts became easy to understand.
It was simply one of the methods used to make Voldemort believe in that prophecy.
In other words, whether Trelawney actually had prophetic abilities was not important at all.
She was nothing more than a tool. As long as the "prophecies" she spoke benefited Dumbledore, that was enough.
After thinking all this through, Link no longer hesitated over whether he should step in to save Trelawney.
Unless… Trelawney could make another prophecy that would also be useful to him, and one that had a real chance of coming true.
But was that possible?
After all, although Link had lived at Hogwarts alongside Trelawney for so many years, because he had not signed up for Divination and because Trelawney was a drunken shut-in, the two of them had barely met.
Link was one thing, but Trelawney was genuinely unfamiliar with him.
However, reality proved that nothing in this world is impossible.
Because in the very next moment, under the gaze of everyone present, Trelawney actually staggered to her feet.
She had now opened her eyes.
But her open eyes were nothing but white, with no pupils to be seen at all.
She extended a hunched, crooked finger and slowly pointed it clockwise around the surrounding crowd, muttering in a crazed tone, "Outsider… the outsider has already come into this world… destiny… he is the chosen one!"
"He is also… the demon king of destruction and pain!"
"The blood of the demon king grants him the favor of heaven and earth!"
"He is… the end of the world… blood-red flames… will burn everything to ashes…"
"He is also… a newborn sprout… who will lead… lead wizards toward a new era of glory…"
"Everything requires… requires love…"
"Let love guide… guide him to become… the master of the demon king's blood… rather than the blood's… slave!"
As her words ended, Trelawney collapsed into a pool of blood and lost consciousness.
The entrance hall was deathly quiet.
Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to say.
What Trelawney had just displayed was far too bizarre, and it did indeed match the image people had in their minds of a seer delivering a prophecy.
But the problem was that her behavior just now was far too different from her usual self.
That left everyone with an overwhelming sense of unreality.
After a long while, a shrill laugh finally burst from Umbridge's mouth, "Hahahaha! Even at this point you still want to deceive us?"
"I thought you would curse me again, but I never expected such a rambling, nonsensical prophecy."
"What, were you trying to prove your abilities?"
"Too bad, it's far too late for that!"
As Umbridge laughed wildly, the Inquisitorial Squad members around her laughed along.
Under the influence of this laughter, the sense of unreality lingering in people's hearts gradually faded, and eventually quite a few members of the onlooking crowd also began to laugh.
But Link did not laugh.
On the contrary, his expression was exceptionally grim, and even his right hand hidden inside his robes was trembling slightly with excitement.
No one understood this better than he did.
As a transmigrator, he was the purest outsider in this world.
And by coincidence, his bloodline also contained a strange, mysterious power.
This power granted him abilities far beyond the ordinary, but at the same time, it was constantly trying to influence his mind, attempting to make him a slave to that bloodline power.
'This damn thing, it was exactly the same as what Trelawney had just said in that prophecy.'
'So, in Trelawney's prophecy… was she talking about me?'
'Then why did she call that bloodline power the blood of the demon king?'
In modern magical history, there were only two people who could be called demon kings, one was Grindelwald, the other was Voldemort.
Could it be that he was a descendant of one of them?
But that was impossible.
Those two were powerful, yes, but it was impossible for them to possess such a bizarre and terrifying bloodline power.
So that meant the so-called demon king was someone else?
And what did Trelawney mean by destruction and glory?
And the power of love.
Damn it, wasn't that something used on Harry Potter?
———
With the aid of Occlumency, Link's mind raced at high speed.
One terrifying doubt after another surfaced in his mind, only to be constantly denied and set aside…
The mental strain was so great that in just a few seconds, a fine layer of sweat had already formed on his forehead.
Emily was the first to notice that something was wrong with Link.
The smile on her face vanished instantly. She reached out, grabbed Link's arm, and shook it anxiously.
"Link… what's wrong with you?!"
That cry was like a bolt of lightning, slamming into Link's mind and snapping him out of that high-load mental processing.
He slowly swept his gaze over Emily and the others who had just turned around, over face after face filled with anxiety and confusion.
In the end, his eyes landed on Trelawney, lying not far away.
His expression gradually twisted into something ferocious.
Just now, he had almost believed Trelawney's nonsense.
This was exactly what made prophets, or diviners, so terrifying.
Perhaps their actual abilities were just as Link had initially suspected, unimpressive, able to predict only one or two vague, inaccurate future paths.
But their ability to manipulate people's minds was extraordinarily strong.
Relying solely on those few half-true, unreliable prophecies, they could completely bewilder people.
And this kind of trick was often more effective the smarter the person was.
Because the smarter someone is, the more they like to fill in the blanks themselves.
This is a human instinct, even Link could not avoid it.
Silently repeating phrases like "diviners are just tools" several times in his mind, Link finally cooled his emotions completely.
He waved a hand at Emily and the others to signal that he was fine, then turned his attention back to the entrance hall.
At this point, Umbridge seemed to have lost her patience as well. With a broad wave of her hand, the surrounding Inquisitorial Squad members stepped forward, tightly surrounding Professor McGonagall and Trelawney.
A few bolder squad members even tried to reach out and drag the unconscious Trelawney away, but were sharply rebuked by Professor McGonagall.
But anyone with eyes could see that the protection Professor McGonagall was giving Trelawney was only temporary.
Umbridge was simply looking for an opportunity to further humiliate Professor McGonagall. As soon as she felt the time was right, she could order the squad members to act by force.
"Link!" Hermione said anxiously. "Save Professor Trelawney! At least… at least let her have her injuries healed before she's sent away!"
Ron, hearing this, also showed a look of pity.
"Yeah, Link… this is just too cruel."
Even Harry, who had only just had a conflict with Cedric, now looked at Link with pleading eyes.
For him, this was already the greatest concession possible.
The intense sense of shame in his heart even made his earlobes turn red.
But in the face of the trio's pleas, Link remained completely expressionless.
This made Hermione feel deeply disappointed.
Yet just as they were about to despair, Link silently drew his wand.
Woom!
A tremendous surge of magical power suddenly echoed through the hall.
The onlookers let out a string of gasps. Some students standing too close to Link even clutched their ears in pain.
And this overwhelming curse bypassed them entirely, slamming straight into the entrance hall and exploding outward, blasting all the Inquisitorial Squad members surrounding Professor McGonagall and Trelawney into the air.
"Protect the Inquisitor!"
A squad member at the rear roared angrily. The squad members around Umbridge quickly formed a tight formation, shielding her in the center.
Another group of squad members rapidly broke away from the formation and, ignoring Professor McGonagall's hysterical shouts to stop, raised their wands and aimed them at the crowd in the hall.
Unfortunately for them, just as magical light flickered at their wand tips, another incomparable, invisible force smashed violently into them.
The surrounding crowd only heard a thunderous boom, and the once-imposing squad members were slammed into the ground like heaps of mud.
In an instant, the entrance hall filled with piercing screams of agony.
Because of Link's unstable emotions, his earlier attack had been exceptionally ruthless.
The fallen squad members not only lost all combat capability, but were also invaded by the power of the curse.
If no one cast a counter-curse on them, their only fate would be to slowly wither away and die amid their painful wails.
A burst of shocked cries erupted from the onlookers facing off against the Inquisitorial Squad.
However, the chaos quickly subsided.
Because...
Link was walking out, surrounded by Emily, Cedric, and the others.
[T/N: Seeing the lack of readers, I am conducting a vote to see which novels I should drop. So if you don't want this novel to be dropped, please vote in discord announcements or p@treon pinned post, whicever suits you. There are no paywalls anywhere.]