You can read ahead up to 100 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
The memory continued to haunt him.
…
A faint chill lingered in the air, carried by the night wind as it rustled through the trees.
The moment Ian awoke, he reached instinctively into his pocket. The warmth beneath his fingertips sent a surge of joy through him. He had done it. He had brought the Phoenix egg back from the Twilight Zone!
"My treasure~"
Ian could already picture it— the sheer spectacle of soaring through the wizarding world with a fully grown Phoenix at his side. He cradled the egg in his hands, its crimson glow casting flickering patterns across his dormitory walls. At that moment, his affection for it far surpassed any enthusiasm he'd once had for Secrets of Dark Magic Revealed.
"I'll study it myself first… then go find Dumbledore tomorrow!"
Fully awake now, Ian rummaged through his school trunk and pulled out the works of the esteemed retired Magizoologist, Newt Scamander, eager to uncover any knowledge related to Phoenixes.
At his desk.
He read late into the night, the rhythmic snores of his dormmates filling the air. Outside the castle, stars glittered like scattered gemstones on velvet, with the occasional shooting star streaking across the sky in a brief, dazzling arc.
The next morning.
Despite an entire night of research, Ian hadn't found the answers he sought. There was nothing on bloodline origins— no clues as to where Phoenixes truly came from. Hogwarts' library likely held no such records either. After all, according to Scamander himself, the birth of a Phoenix was one of the great unsolved mysteries of the magical world.
Even Dumbledore, the most renowned Phoenix companion in recent history, had never provided a definitive answer.
The retired Magizoologist had once remarked that he suspected even Dumbledore didn't know. But Ian wasn't convinced.
"Old Scamander simply didn't make the right connections."
Ian muttered to himself as he watched the first rays of sunlight creep over the horizon. He turned his attention to the two letters beside him, ready to be sent. Each contained a photograph— though, naturally, he had reserved the more flattering group photo for Albus Dumbledore's letter.
After all, Ian neither knew Aberforth personally nor had any particular fondness for goat meat.
As was his habit, he took it upon himself to wake his dormmates.
By the time Ian stepped into the Great Hall, he had barely begun contemplating his breakfast options— oatmeal, bread rolls, cornflakes, pickled fish, eggs, bacon, or toast slathered in butter and jam— when the latest wizarding news had already reached his ears.
The buzzing chatter of students carried the headlines straight to him.
"SHOCKING! Ministry of Magic loses track of a Dementor—wandering loose in Britain?! Officials DENY all responsibility!"
Nearly every newspaper had run the story.
Concern rippled through the student body, from the wide-eyed first-years to the older, more skeptical seventh-years.
A Dementor.
Somewhere out there.
And the Ministry had no idea where.
"I swear on my wand! This isn't the first time! I saw a Dementor outside my house when I was a kid! My Muggle mum said I was being unscientific— claimed it was probably an alien!"
"The Ministry's always been like this— too bureaucratic for its own good. When they make a mistake, they don't fix it, they just cover it up. Sooner or later, they'll run the entire wizarding world into the ground!"
"Too right! My dad's just a minor official, but our cellar's stuffed with Galleons. He says if he didn't take them, Dolores Umbridge herself would see to it he got the sack."
"What?! Is that something you should really be telling us?! Forget the Ministry for a second—shouldn't we be asking whether that Dementor in our Defense Against the Dark Arts class was real or not?"
…
Noticing that William was actually trying to rally students to dig deeper into the matter, Ian quickly stepped in.
Frowning, he spoke in a tone of calm authority, as if making a logical deduction:
"If a Dementor had really gone rogue, people would have started dying by now. Have you seen any news of that happening?"
Without waiting for a response—
Ian clapped his hands decisively.
"No! Not a single death! Which proves that this whole thing is nothing more than baseless slander against the Ministry of Magic. Right now, what the Ministry needs is our support!"
"Let me guess— it's those Death Eaters stirring up trouble again, trying to sow chaos in our peaceful wizarding society. And let's not forget, plenty of them are still lurking in places like The Daily Prophet!"
"So tell me, who do you trust— the Ministry of Magic, or the Death Eaters?"
"Could the Ministry possibly be lying? I don't think so! It's an official governing body. We ought to place our faith in its decisions and trust in our justice system!"
His confident, well-reasoned speech— paired with his usual reputation among the students— successfully redirected the conversation away from the missing Dementor and onto the so-called corruption of the press.
Ian discreetly let out a sigh of relief and joined in the growing wave of complaints about unethical journalism.
No one dared mention the Death Eaters again.
The shadow of Tom Riddle still loomed too large.
After finishing breakfast with his two roommates, Ian gathered up One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and Potions and Elixirs. He planned to seek out Professor Snape today— an attempt to smooth over any lingering tension from their last lesson.
But before they even reached the second floor, they spotted Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gilderoy Grindelwald standing guard beside a towering stack of crates.
"It's Professor Lockhart!"
Due to the Dementor incident, Ian's two roommates were thoroughly unsettled by Grindelwald, who had taken on Gilderoy Lockhart's familiar face. Like many others who had been present during that class, they couldn't help but link the missing Dementor to Gilderoy Grindelwald.
However—
Since Ian had so publicly defended the Ministry, the students who regularly attended his study sessions naturally didn't challenge him on it.
Besides, deep down, none of them particularly wanted to report their own professor.
They still had seven years at Hogwarts ahead of them.
And everyone knew that students who turned on a professor never had an easy time afterward.
"Oi, you— come give me a hand."
Gilderoy Grindelwald had spotted Ian and beckoned him over. Ian barely had time to turn before his two roommates had vanished into thin air.
"Traitors!"
With no other choice, Ian squared his shoulders, took a steadying breath, and strode forward alone to greet the professor.
Since there were plenty of students coming and going, he made sure to keep up appearances.
"Professor Lockhart," he said smoothly.
And not a soul questioned it.
"Have you mastered the Levitation Charm yet? Move these to the entrance of the Forbidden Forest. I'll be along shortly." Gilderoy Grindelwald issued the command without the slightest hesitation.
Ian regretted not taking the time to learn Professor Morgan's techniques last night— he'd been too fixated on studying the egg. If he had, he might have at least had the confidence to stand his ground in front of this professor.
"My Potions lesson is about to start, Professor. You wouldn't want one of your students to be late, would you?" Ian attempted a bit of moral persuasion.
Unexpectedly—
Gilderoy Grindelwald merely raised an eyebrow. "I need to catch something for class. And whose fault do you think that is? So tell me, would you rather be late for Potions... or go to Azkaban? I imagine you'd prefer not to have the Ministry discover the whereabouts of their misplaced Dementor, yes?"
It was obvious.
While Gilderoy might have cared about appearances, Grindelwald had no such scruples. He didn't even hesitate to use his position as a professor to threaten Ian. The missing Dementor meant nothing to Gilderoy Grindelwald, but he clearly enjoyed using it to keep Ian on edge.
"Merlin's beard, Professor, I think you must be mistaken— I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm simply delighted to assist a professor in need." Ian decided to chalk this up as the price of acquiring the Dementor.
Under Gilderoy Grindelwald's amused gaze, Ian muttered a quick Reducio, shrinking the crates before hoisting them up and hurrying toward the basement.
According to his homemade Marauder's Map, there was a hidden passage leading straight to the Forbidden Forest. Unlike the original map, his version contained details about secret routes he'd personally discovered.
It wasn't selfishness.
Ian just didn't fancy the idea of some overexcited student sneaking out in the next seven years, meeting an unfortunate end, and then haunting him every day as a lingering, resentful ghost.
"He clearly doesn't need help from anyone," Ian muttered under his breath as he dumped the boxes at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest. Without wasting another second, he slipped back into the hidden passage within the tree.
He refused to believe Gilderoy Grindelwald actually needed him to carry the crates ahead of time.
No, the man had probably just wanted to ensure Ian was late. The schemes of a bad man were often more difficult to decipher than those of a bad woman. In any case, Ian ended up exactly where he'd expected to—
Late for Potions.
Fortunately, for once, the Potions classroom door hadn't been shut. As Ian approached, he could hear Snape inside, his voice smooth and precise as he detailed the ingredients for today's potion.
Bracing himself, Ian pushed open the door and strode in, flashing his most sincere expression.
(To Be Continued…)