Chapter 7
The conversation with Professor McGonagall went extremely smoothly—such smoothness made Lucian feel very comfortable, "Then, let's leave it here for today."
"Thank you for your help."
Lucian bid farewell to Professor McGonagall, then left the Deputy Headmistress's office together with his two assistants and Barton.
Unexpectedly, someone was already waiting outside for quite some time.
The moment the warmth and fragrance of tea from the office was cut off, a sudden damp, cold wind blew in, carrying the distinctive scent of Hogwarts Castle—years of accumulated stone walls mixed with the smell of potion ingredients.
"I thought you'd died in some forgotten corner who-knows-when." Lucian stopped walking and calmly turned toward the source of the voice.
Severus Snape was leaning against the stone wall, staring at Lucian with a pair of icy eyes.
The sharp contours of his face had softened, now looking somewhat bloated and slack. Greasy black hair clung to both sides of his cheeks, and at his temples, one could faintly make out a few strands of gray that were definitely not caused by potion fumes.
"Severus? You've aged quite a lot."
Lucian looked at the once-dazzling Half-Blood Prince, now reduced to the kind of greasy middle-aged man one might see anywhere on the street, and lightly furrowed his brows—one of the very few things he actually minded was the possibility of one day becoming like this himself.
"Oh, very observant, Lucian. It seems your years of skulking and hiding have actually refined your leisure for judging others?" Taking the opportunity, Snape gave Lucian a slow up-and-down glance, his face full of mockery. His words came extremely fast, like cannonballs being fired one after another, as though many of these remarks had been bottled up in his heart for a long time and had finally found an outlet.
"What happened? Didn't you once stand so high and mighty, declaring that you would devote all your energy to magic and had no time for our childish squabbles? So how is it that now you suddenly have the leisure to care about appearances?
Or is it that, after you could no longer achieve anything significant in magic, you had no choice but to shift your ambitions elsewhere… say, becoming a delicate pretty boy?"
"I've told you countless times—good looks give you invisible power. It's exactly because you're so sloppy that Lily never liked you."
"Shut up! How dare you mention that name!" Snape's furious roar suddenly echoed down the corridor.
The next moment, realizing his loss of composure, his expression changed abruptly. He immediately turned sideways, about to leave. But before he walked away, he couldn't help turning his head and giving Lucian one long, deep look. 'Back then, if you and I had joined forces, how could Potter still act so smug? How could Lily ever have looked at him?'
In the end, though, he didn't say it out loud.
The moment they met eyes, he already understood—Lucian was still the same Lucian as always, always wearing an expressionless face that disregarded everything and everyone, with nothing in his eyes except his own goals.
Perhaps in the other's view, the only thing about him that was still worth remembering was his once outstanding appearance. And that was precisely the thing Snape cared about the least.
"…Hmph!" With an displeased flick of his robes, Snape strode away quickly.
"After all these years, still the same troublesome personality. Don't tell me he's going to blame me for not winning Lily over?" Lucian watched Snape appear out of nowhere and then hurry off like a giant bat, and calmly rolled his eyes.
Back then, he had already helped Snape avoid the single most humiliating public humiliation of his life—yet somehow the man's personality was still so twisted.
That was practically the only time Lucian had ever involved himself in the original plot, and the facts proved that even so, Snape still hadn't won Lily's affection.
"Professor, was that someone you used to know?" Jeffery, as a bystander, vaguely sensed that this Professor Snape seemed to share quite a significant history with his teacher.
Camille frowned, staring in the direction Snape had left, saying nothing.
"Mm, he was a classmate of mine once. Familiar? Not really. We never talked much anyway. Forget him, he's not important."
At present, Lucian's primary goal was to find a way to free himself from the crushing burden of teaching as soon as possible. Lucian led the three of them to an unused classroom on the first floor.
No one knew how long it had been abandoned. When Lucian opened the door, a little dust drifted down from the top, and the floor was covered with a thick layer of gray.
At the back of the room, desks and chairs lay in disarray; in some corners, tattered books of unknown age lay abandoned. "Professor, let us handle these things."
"It's fine, I'll be faster."
Lucian extended his wand and slowly stirred the air ahead. A vortex formed at the center of the classroom. After only three rotations, it turned into a small tornado that reached all the way to the ceiling.
Dust, books, desks, chairs, miscellaneous objects—everything, regardless of size, was swallowed up in an orderly fashion.
"Whoosh!" After devouring everything, the tornado suddenly dissipated, taking all the captured debris along with it. Just ten seconds later, the entire classroom was spotlessly clean… though it now looked a little bare.
"You two go prepare your own rooms."
Lucian waved his wand again, casting a seamless extension charm. The entire classroom expanded tenfold. The originally closed windows quickly fused together, gradually turning into enormous floor-to-ceiling panes.
Jeffery promptly cast a spell, adding a one-way reflection charm to the glass—so they could see outside, but no one outside could see in.
Camille acted at the same time, repainting the somewhat mottled white walls to a fresh, clean white.
The black dragon-hide suitcase opened once more, then abruptly caved inward—large quantities of rosewood furniture and the two assistants' luggage were "spat" out, then moved under magical control to their proper places.
Very soon, the classroom no longer looked like a classroom at all. Instead it resembled the private library of some great scholar.
Jeffery and Camille each chose rooms close to Lucian's. The house-elf Barton selected a corner of the classroom as his own quarters.
"The task of greeting others is yours, Barton."
"Please leave it to me with confidence." Carrying the pre-purchased sweets and snacks, Barton vanished with a sharp 'crack' like a firecracker.
After everything was settled, Lucian turned around to find his two assistants standing side by side in silence, gazing out through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Their position perfectly faced the Black Lake. Sunlight spilled across the water, scattering golden reflections. An enormous, almost monstrous giant squid lay lazily on the shore, basking in the sun.
Lucian, who had originally intended to immediately begin studying Fiendfyre, saw the scene and suddenly felt something stir within him. He slowly walked up behind the pair.
"Come to think of it, you two never attended school properly. Even your general education was done through private tutors—want to go out and take a walk?"
"We're only interested in the places you once studied, Professor." Camille spoke calmly, seemingly unwilling to admit she was curious about the new environment.
"Professor, you seem to be in a good mood?" Jeffery sounded a little surprised—the Professor hadn't immediately buried himself in magical research? It seemed this place really held special meaning for him.
That realization made Jeffery himself grow somewhat curious about Hogwarts.
"Mm… I'm feeling something strange right now… but I can't quite put it into words."
"…Perhaps, deep down in some corner of my heart, I actually once longed to return here." Lucian gently exhaled. Memories from the past surged up one after another.
The surprise of receiving the Hogwarts letter on his eleventh birthday. Magic, something he'd only ever seen in fairy tales, suddenly appearing before his eyes. The sensation of flying high above the ground for the first time.
Though the journey had mostly consisted of lonely, tedious, repetitive scenes, looking back on them now, they didn't feel bitter at all. Instead, they brought a kind of quiet comfort.
After all, it was precisely those harsh, diligent years that had forged the person he was today. Otherwise, during the war, any random high-ranking Death Eater could have killed him easily.
Frankly acknowledging the thoughts in his heart, Lucian's gaze passed over the two assistants and reached out toward the wide world beyond the window.
Sensing their teacher's unusual mood, the two assistants quietly remained silent, careful not to disturb him. The three of them stood motionless like that, silently watching the view outside for a long time.
Suddenly, Lucian felt something long-forgotten—a tender, budding palpitation rising from deep within. He was struck by a sense of premonition.
This return might very well become a turning point of some kind. Lucian collected himself, thoughtful, and led his two assistants out of the classroom, while thinking, 'Hogwarts. I'm back.'