Dumbledore's memories were slightly blurred.
The figure he could barely recognize overlapped with the young, sharp, and brilliant Tom Riddle standing before him now.
In truth, they were the same person.
Dumbledore steadied his thoughts and returned to the present.
Outside, Gilderoy Lockhart's expression had become rather strange.
What had he just seen?
The [Live Broadcast Q&A System] had clearly stated that the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor position at Hogwarts was cursed.
This had long been an open secret within Hogwarts.
Lockhart had heard rumors about it when he first arrived, but he never took them seriously.
As a former Hogwarts student, he had heard countless so-called secrets passed around through gossip.
Naturally, he dismissed this one as well.
But now things were different.
Thinking back on the fate of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors over the past decade, his face grew increasingly pale.
Very few had completed a full year without incident.
Most had been forced to leave due to strange accidents, and some had even died.
At one banquet, Lockhart had once heard an absurd story.
A former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor supposedly had to resign because he was going to have a child.
But that professor had been a man.
At the time, Lockhart treated it as a joke.
Now, he no longer found it funny.
If the curse was real, then all those bizarre events were no longer coincidences.
They were warnings.
And he was the current Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
If he went to Dumbledore right now and resigned, would it still be in time?
He was practically asking himself, asking online, and asking the universe at the same time.
Urgently.
While Lockhart was panicking internally, Severus Snape stood beside him, silently reconsidering something else entirely.
For years, he had desired the Defense Against the Dark Arts position.
But now, that desire wavered.
He had personally witnessed Hogwarts cycle through more than a dozen professors in that role over the past decade.
Not to mention Quirinus Quirrell, who had died a horrific death just last year.
Before him, others had suffered equally terrible fates or had been forced out for absurd reasons.
Between the two possibilities, Snape found the second far more unacceptable.
Death was terrifying, but at least it preserved one's dignity.
Being humiliated, mocked, and turned into a lifelong joke was far worse.
If given the choice, Snape would rather die than become a laughingstock.
In the bathroom, where the professors and Cedric Diggory stood, the atmosphere had turned heavy.
Minerva McGonagall understood Snape's long-standing obsession.
She also understood Lockhart well enough after spending time with him to guess what he was thinking.
Cedric's thoughts, however, were much simpler.
He was merely curious and slightly excited.
He wondered what would happen to Professor Lockhart after one year.
After all, he was a Hufflepuff.
What malicious thoughts could he possibly have?
While the atmosphere outside grew tense, the atmosphere inside the Q&A space also became increasingly strange due to Dumbledore's earlier words.
"So it was me who did it."
"I must say, that does sound like something I would do."
Tom Riddle gently stroked his wand, his gaze distant as he muttered to himself.
He began imagining how he might curse the position in the future.
But the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.
Why would he curse a teaching position at Hogwarts?
If anything, it would make more sense to curse powerful wizards who posed a threat to him.
Unless…
Unless that position held special meaning to him.
The kind of meaning where if he could not have it, no one else could either.
What Tom did not realize was that, in the future, his sanity would deteriorate.
He would be consumed by negative emotions and filled with a desire to kill anyone who opposed him.
The Tom Riddle standing here knew nothing of that future.
This version of him had only just created his first Horcrux using the Basilisk during his student years.
He was far from the Tom who would later travel abroad, study the Dark Arts for decades, and eventually become Lord Voldemort, the Dark Wizard who brought terror to wizarding Britain.
Dumbledore glanced at him but said nothing.
If he revealed too much, how could he guide Tom later?
The appearance of the [Live Broadcast Q&A System] and the sudden arrival of Tom Riddle were both completely unexpected.
Tom himself understood what it meant to stand before Dumbledore like this.
And Dumbledore had never imagined he would see his student again under such circumstances.
"Please answer the question, Albus Dumbledore."
Dumbledore looked at Tom once more, his gaze deep and unreadable.
"I choose A."
"The answer is Tom Riddle."
...
📢 Author's Note
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