The unused Defence classroom on the third floor became colder than the corridor outside.
That should not have happened.
The windows were closed. The fireplace was empty. No ghost had passed through the room in hours. Yet frost gathered on the legs of the desks, and the ink stains on the teacher's table slowly darkened as if something wet had seeped into the wood.
The dream mist hovered near the blackboard.
It had entered easily.
Too easily.
That was its first mistake.
The door behind it clicked shut.
Green-gold lines spread across the floor, thin as hair, quiet as roots. They did not rush toward the mist. They formed a square around the classroom first, then another square inside it, then a third around the teacher's desk.
The blackboard wrote by itself.
Lesson One: Stay where you are.
The dream mist stopped moving.
For a long moment, the classroom was silent.
Then the mist pressed toward the door.
The handle turned halfway.
A yellow talisman pasted on the outside of the door burned.
Filch, standing in the corridor with Mrs. Norris, immediately straightened.
"Trying to leave already?"
Mrs. Norris hissed.
Filch struck the floor once with his peachwood sword.
"Detention has started."
Inside the room, the dream mist recoiled.
On the blackboard, a second line appeared.
Leaving without permission is prohibited.
In the Room of Requirement, Theodore watched the small classroom model darken and struggle.
Willow Immortal stood beside him, branches lowered toward the miniature world. It seemed very interested.
Too interested.
Theodore glanced at it.
"You may watch. You may not eat it."
A branch drooped.
"No."
The branch drooped further.
Theodore ignored the performance.
This was not a meal. It was a test.
The dream below the lock had searched for students through common rooms, then classrooms. It wanted minds. Fear. Desire. Questions. Habits. All the loose threads that sleeping children left behind.
So Theodore gave it a classroom with no students.
A bait room.
A place where the dream could enter, reveal its method, and be studied without touching anyone important.
In theory.
Hogwarts theories often ended up biting people.
That was why Filch was guarding the door.
Theodore raised two fingers.
The first question appeared on the blackboard.
What do you want?
The dream mist twisted.
For a moment, it became water.
Then smoke.
Then a crowd of faceless students sitting at desks.
Then it collapsed back into mist.
The answer did not appear in words.
It appeared as pressure.
Hunger.
Theodore nodded slightly.
Expected.
The blackboard changed.
What do you remember?
The mist stilled.
That question worked better.
The classroom walls darkened.
The desks lengthened.
The ceiling stretched upward until the room became something else.
A stone hall.
A black door.
Figures standing in circles.
A white-haired man with blood running from his eyes.
The vision lasted only a breath before the green-gold lines on the floor forced the room back into its classroom shape.
Theodore's eyes sharpened.
Same vision.
Not random.
That white-haired man was important.
Dumbledore's ancestor, most likely.
The dream mist had not shown him by accident.
It wanted the connection recognized.
The blackboard wrote a third question.
Who opened the first door?
The mist reacted violently.
Every desk in the room lifted at once.
Outside the door, Filch heard the crash and became furious.
"Those desks are school property!"
The talisman on the door flared.
The desks slammed back down.
Several legs cracked.
Filch's face darkened.
"I heard that."
Inside, the mist gathered into a tall shape.
Not human.
Trying to be.
Its head brushed the ceiling. Its arms were too long. Its body was made of black water, fog, and fragments of old robes. For one moment, a crown-like shape formed above it.
Then the blackboard cracked.
A word scratched itself across the surface.
THIRST
Theodore frowned slightly.
Not hunger this time.
Thirst.
Different desire.
More specific.
Willow Immortal rustled.
Theodore understood its meaning.
The dream wanted something to drink.
Not water.
Not blood.
Memory.
Magic.
Life.
Attention.
Perhaps all of them.
The third-floor classroom shook.
Filch lifted his sword.
"Mr. Snow?"
Theodore's voice came from the talisman.
"Hold the corridor."
Filch grinned.
"With pleasure."
Inside the classroom, the dream shape raised one long arm.
Black water spread across the floor.
The green-gold lines hissed.
Theodore did not reinforce them immediately.
He let the mist press.
Let it expose how it corroded structure.
Black water touched the first square.
The square dimmed.
A cold thought slipped through the talisman network.
Why teach children spells when all spells sink?
Filch heard it.
His face went blank for half a second.
Then Mrs. Norris bit his ankle.
Filch yelped.
The thought broke.
He looked down.
Mrs. Norris stared at him.
Filch's face turned red.
"Good cat."
He slapped three more talismans onto the door.
"Don't whisper at me!"
The black water retreated from the first square.
In the Room of Requirement, Theodore smiled.
Filch remained unexpectedly reliable against mental nonsense, mostly because his anger was simple and close to the surface. Complicated temptation had trouble finding a place to hook.
Theodore raised his hand.
A small piece of the severed-hand nail glowed beneath the miniature pitch.
He guided a thread of its power into the classroom trap.
The dream shape froze.
It recognized the hand.
Or rather, it recognized the wound.
The blackboard wrote again.
You lost this.
The classroom became very still.
Then the dream attacked the blackboard.
A spear of dark water shot across the room.
Before it landed, a willow root broke through the floor and blocked it.
The root blackened at the tip.
Yimu Divine Light repaired it at once.
Theodore clicked his tongue softly.
"Still poisonous."
Useful to know.
The dream shape struck again.
This time toward the window.
Outside, the glass reflected the room for a second.
Golden Light residue in the Wuzhuang foundation reacted.
The reflection twisted.
Instead of showing the corridor outside, the window showed the Quidditch pitch.
Nine nails glowing.
The heartfire burning steadily.
The severed-hand mark buried beneath roots.
The dream shape recoiled.
It disliked seeing its losses.
Good.
Theodore wrote the next line personally.
Not on the blackboard.
Through the entire room.
Lesson Two: You are not outside the classroom.
The green-gold squares rose from the floor and became walls of light.
The dream mist rushed toward the ceiling.
A Wutu seal pressed down.
It rushed toward the cracks beneath the desks.
Yimu roots sealed them.
It rushed toward the memory of students who once studied there.
The leaf talismans around the common rooms warmed and blocked the route.
The dream had entered through a classroom.
Now the classroom had become a closed jar.
In the corridor, Filch heard the room go silent.
That worried him more than the noise.
"Mr. Snow?"
No answer.
Then the door shook.
Once.
Twice.
Harder.
Filch planted his feet.
"Oh no, you don't."
He drove the peachwood sword into the floor.
A circle of yellow talisman light spread under his boots.
For a man who had once been unable to cast a single spell, Filch now looked very much like someone who intended to arrest a nightmare for trespassing.
The door shook again.
Filch's arms trembled.
Mrs. Norris pressed against his leg.
He bared his teeth.
"This is my corridor."
The talismans brightened.
Inside, the dream shape paused.
Theodore noticed.
Territory again.
Filch's greatest strength.
The dream could attack fear, desire, curiosity, loneliness, and memory.
But Filch's mind at that moment contained one simple rule.
Students belonged safe.
Corridors belonged clean.
Unauthorized nightmares belonged detained.
Crude.
Effective.
Theodore allowed more Wuzhuang power through the talisman line.
The door stopped shaking.
Filch exhaled.
Then immediately glared at the door so it would not think he was tired.
In the Room of Requirement, Willow Immortal's branches swayed eagerly.
Theodore finally gave permission.
"One bite."
The tree brightened.
A root pierced the classroom model.
Inside the real classroom, a green root shot from the floor and caught the edge of the dream mist.
The mist screamed without sound.
Willow Immortal pulled.
Not too much.
Just enough to tear away a small black drop.
The dream shape collapsed.
The classroom snapped back to normal.
The desks were broken.
The blackboard was cracked.
Frost covered the floor.
But the mist was weaker.
The stolen black drop traveled through the root network into the Room of Requirement, landing inside a small Wutu seal before Willow Immortal could swallow it.
The tree rustled in disappointment.
Theodore said, "I said one bite, not one meal."
A branch turned away, sulking.
Theodore studied the black drop.
Unlike the residue from the chains, this had come from an active dream probe. It held more structure.
He touched it with Fuxi Divine Heaven Resonance.
A new image appeared.
The black door again.
This time closer.
The mark on it glowed.
In front of the door stood the white-haired man from the vision. His broken wand was pressed against the mark. Around him, others argued silently.
Then the image shifted.
The man turned.
For a brief instant, Theodore saw his face clearly.
Blue eyes.
Sharp nose.
Blood on the cheeks.
A smile that looked far too much like Dumbledore's when he was about to do something reckless.
Then the image cracked.
A name appeared in Theodore's mind.
Not spoken.
Remembered.
Aurelius Dumbledore.
Theodore's eyes narrowed.
The image shattered.
The black drop dissolved into smoke.
In the Headmaster's office, Dumbledore suddenly opened his eyes.
He had been resting in the chair opposite Quirrell, wand still in hand.
Fawkes also lifted his head.
Dumbledore looked toward the third floor.
"Aurelius."
Quirrell stirred.
Behind the turban, Voldemort listened.
The name meant something.
Not to him.
Not yet.
But the mark beneath Quirrell's chair pulsed faintly, as if pleased the name had surfaced.
Dumbledore rose at once.
By the time he reached the third-floor corridor, Filch was still standing in front of the classroom door, pale but proud.
Several talismans had burned to ash.
Mrs. Norris sat beside him like a tiny guardian beast.
Dumbledore looked at the cracked door.
Then at Filch.
"Argus."
Filch lifted his chin.
"It tried to leave."
"I see."
"It failed."
"So it did."
Dumbledore's eyes softened.
"Well done."
Filch looked away quickly.
"Door's damaged."
"I shall not blame you for the door."
That seemed to matter more to Filch than the praise.
Theodore arrived from the other end of the corridor.
Dumbledore turned to him immediately.
"You saw him."
"Yes."
"Aurelius Dumbledore."
Filch looked between them.
"Relative?"
Dumbledore's voice was quiet.
"An old family ghost, if the stories are true."
Theodore looked at the ruined classroom.
"He was at the door below the lock."
Dumbledore did not answer.
For once, the Headmaster looked his age.
Perhaps older.
Inside the Headmaster's office, Voldemort smiled again through Quirrell's sleeping face.
A name.
A bloodline.
A door.
The lock was becoming less mysterious.
And every mystery Theodore uncovered, Voldemort could hear pieces of through the mark.
Theodore sensed the pulse from far away.
His expression cooled.
So that was Voldemort's next advantage.
Not strength.
Eavesdropping.
He looked at Dumbledore.
"We need to move Quirrell."
Dumbledore's eyes sharpened.
"Where?"
Theodore glanced toward the broken classroom.
"Somewhere the mark hears only what we want it to hear."
Filch frowned.
"A detention room?"
Theodore smiled faintly.
"Exactly."
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