In the dead of night.
Kasen sat at his desk and took a sip of coffee. At this point, he could already feel his heart beating a little too quickly.
In the distance, a figure slowly approached.
Kasen raised an eyebrow. "Not bad. You understood."
Orante nodded. "I didn't realise what you meant at first. My girlfriend explained it to me later."
"Oh? You're dating someone now?" Kasen raised an eyebrow.
In Kasen's eyes, Orante had always been the kind of natural-born study machine who would throw himself completely into anything that interested him, while merely learning enough to get by in subjects he did not care about.
As for dating?
Considering Orante's emotional intelligence could rival Snape's, Kasen had not expected this development.
"Yes. Maple from Slytherin," Orante said with a nod.
"Hmm... Ravenclaw and Slytherin do get along pretty well."
Kasen was not speaking from personal sentiment. Ravenclaw and Slytherin really did seem to be the only two Houses that could consistently get along with each other.
Of course, the main problem was Slytherin.
Gryffindor was their sworn enemy, so there was nothing much to say about that.
Hufflepuff, in their eyes, was a group of overly nice people who were not particularly useful.
Ravenclaw, meanwhile, was full of bookworms.
But this was the magical world, where knowledge was power in the most literal sense.
Looked at that way, Ravenclaws, who possessed rationality, intelligence, and power, suddenly seemed much more appealing to Slytherins. Outside of dating within their own House, Ravenclaw could practically be considered their first choice.
Ravenclaw was in a similar situation.
Because of their own rational and calm nature, they did not particularly like hot-blooded people who acted before thinking, nor did they favour completely ordinary mediocrity...
It was impolite to put it that way, but because Hufflepuff's defining trait was essentially having no obvious defining trait, in the eyes of most people, Hufflepuffs were simply...
Ordinary.
"Mm. She was the one who pursued me," Orante said.
"You're excellent. That's perfectly normal. Your girlfriend is Maple Green?" Kasen suddenly remembered a fifth-year Slytherin witch who carried a faint Ravenclaw-like air about her...
"That's right."
Once Orante confirmed it, Kasen silently memorised Maple Green's name.
That name had now been added to Kasen's internal Voldemort watchlist.
For no other reason than...
Although he had just said that Orante was excellent and that someone pursuing him was perfectly normal, the truth was that Orante's family was merely an ordinary half-blood family.
His magical talent was only above average.
Everything he had achieved, reaching the first tier among Hogwarts students, came from his excellent mind and the effort amplified by genuine interest.
He was also reasonably handsome.
In other words, Hogwarts had plenty of young wizards like him.
The one absolute advantage that placed Orante far ahead of almost everyone else was that the boy knew how to teach.
If Orante and Snape taught the exact same material, the students taught by Orante would perform dramatically better than those taught by Snape.
That was the situation.
Among all these adolescent Hogwarts students overflowing with youthful hormones, having a witch actively pursue Orante, a genuine low point in the landscape of emotional intelligence, was difficult for Kasen not to notice.
After all, being good at teaching did not offer much advantage in romance...
Hmm.
Of course, Maple might simply have wanted to secure herself a free private tutor.
Or perhaps Voldemort was hiding in another year group and, drawing on his many years of experience remotely controlling Death Eaters, had manipulated Orante into becoming his student, who would then go back and teach her...
So Voldemort might have predicted that Orante's strange behaviour would attract Kasen's attention and get him pulled close for observation...
Then would Voldemort also have predicted that this would make Kasen turn his attention toward Orante's social circle?
No.
It was still too early.
Orante's entire social circle needed to be investigated first.
After roughly sorting out his thoughts about Orante and Maple, Kasen suddenly remembered something else.
So Voldemort's ability to self-study was really that bad?
When Kasen had written the Book of Kasen, he had not added any anti-self-study mechanism to it.
Voldemort, I, Kasen, officially look down on you.
"Professor?"
At first, Orante did not pay much attention when Kasen suddenly seemed to go offline, because he sometimes did the same thing when he was deep in thought.
But this time, he had been offline for far too long...
Long enough that Orante could not help wondering whether Professor Kasen might actually be a little dead...
"Oh, I'm fine. Do you know why I'm waiting for you here in the middle of the night?" Kasen asked.
"Professor, during the day, because I said I didn't like studying Create-based alchemy, you tapped me three times with your pointer and told me to come here. I assume you want to teach me something outside of Create," Orante said.
"What do you want to learn?" Kasen asked from his chair.
If Orante's answer matched his expectations, such as choosing one of the systems Voldemort had suffered from before, then Kasen could tentatively conclude that Voldemort really was the person behind Orante.
That would mean Voldemort had been subtly influencing, or even remotely controlling, Orante into specifically studying the subjects that had caused Voldemort trouble.
Unfortunately, Orante's answer disappointed him.
"Anything, as long as it isn't Create."
Kasen sighed.
Anything except Create.
Actually, that still made some sense.
After all, of all the methods Kasen possessed, Create had probably caused Voldemort the least suffering.
His other powers could outright kill Voldemort, but the mechanical arm...
If Kasen remembered correctly, by the second time they met, Voldemort had already mastered some kind of flesh-based magic capable of rapidly healing his bodily tissues.
So Voldemort would naturally look down on Create...
Just like Orante standing in front of him.
"Nothing in particular you want to learn...?"
Orante shook his head. "It would be more accurate to say I want to learn all of them, so I don't know which one to choose."
Kasen nodded. "Do you have the book I published, The Book of Kasenhis?"
Orante nodded.
"Go back and read the table of contents, the chapters, the detailed papers, even the individual passages inside them. Come back at this time tomorrow and tell me what you most want to learn."
After saying that, Kasen waved his hand, signalling that Orante could leave.
"Yes, Professor."
"Wait."
Kasen stopped him.
"What is it?" Orante turned back.
"Come as soon as curfew starts tomorrow. You don't need to wait this late."
Kasen yawned as he spoke.
"No problem, Professor."
...
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