The conversation with Dumbledore had left his heart feeling somewhat heavy.
However, seeing Lucky crouching by the desk, tilting his head as he watched him, Victor was reminded of the dog he'd raised back 'home,' Old Yellow...
The anxiety in Victor's heart instantly eased.
"Shall we go for a walk tonight?"
"Woof!"
"Will I have good luck this year?"
"Woof!"
"Heh heh..."
After playing with the dog for a while, Victor's mood stabilized significantly.
He sat back in his chair and habitually cast a Felix Felicis Charm on himself.
Just as he intended to use his absolute logic to review the conversation with Voldemort from the previous night, he suddenly felt the magic operating system in his mind vibrate slightly...
Victor lightly tapped his temple with a finger.
A blue light screen, visible only to him, appeared before his eyes.
On the screen, a line of small red text was particularly striking.
[UNKNOWN MAGIC PROTOCOL CAPTURED!
ARCHIVED TO: CASTLE RESTRICTED AREA - ADMINISTRATOR LOGS]
Victor frowned slightly. Without much thought, he fully unleashed his operating system, putting all his effort into tracking the source of that unknown and unfamiliar magic protocol!
Finally, Victor gently closed his operating system, his eyes looking at the castle walls with a complicated expression...
'I should have realized sooner... Hogwarts is a magical castle. How could there be no runic sequences visible? It turns out they were hidden.'
At this thought, a flicker of excitement crossed Victor's eyes.
Just like the Sorting Hat, this castle was "alive"!
One could say the entire castle was like a massive server!
This gargantuan server had been silently monitoring the entire castle, running quietly for over a thousand years!
That unknown magic protocol from just now was actually the castle recording him as an 'anomaly'!
Because Victor had used his code magic for an extended period during his demonstration in class, he had caught the server's attention.
It likely sensed that he possessed the power to damage the server itself, which is why it had secretly archived and recorded his existence...
If nothing went wrong, should he ever attempt to damage the castle, Dumbledore would certainly receive a warning from it.
In other words, every Headmaster was essentially the administrator of this server—even if they might not know it themselves.
Victor stroked his chin, thinking to himself, 'Dumbledore must know about his authority over the castle... No wonder he knew the gist of my lesson right after class ended. The castle must have told him... No, rather, he used the abilities granted to him by the castle to silently monitor things of interest... No wonder he's so confident, letting Quirrell into the school so casually.'
Moreover, Victor had long heard that Hogwarts Castle indeed possessed many features that only the Headmaster could use...
Which meant a Headmaster who wasn't recognized by the server might not even be able to open the door to the Headmaster's office!
Thinking of it this way, Hogwarts really was a fascinating castle.
However, even if the Headmasters were recognized by the castle and held many of its functions, there was no instruction manual. Their methods for controlling the castle might have been partially lost over the long centuries.
Based on Victor's scans, many of the server's functional modules seemed untouched for years. There was only one possibility: the means to activate those functions had been lost. For instance, the internal detection functions...
Having cleared his thoughts, Victor opened his operating system again, cautiously exploring the massive server that was Hogwarts, and attempted to interface his own system with it...
The Great Hall.
Students were chatting as they ate dinner.
No one noticed that in a portrait on the wall, a dozing wizard suddenly opened his eyes.
His eyes seemed to regain their spark as he slowly surveyed everything in the Great Hall...
Dumbledore, who was happily enjoying a piece of strawberry pudding at the High Table, suddenly froze.
He remained silent for a moment, a faint smile touching his lips that was barely perceptible to others.
...
Early morning.
Students were enjoying breakfast in the Great Hall.
Suddenly, a scream followed by a burst of manic laughter erupted from a distance...
Peeves floated in the air, pointing and laughing at Professor Quirrell, who stood below with a soaking wet head and a bucket of foul-smelling slops.
It turned out Peeves had just flown into the Great Hall with a bucket of swill and dumped it at random.
By some incredible coincidence, that bucket of swill landed squarely on Professor Quirrell's head...
Panicking, Quirrell clutched his purple turban and vanished from the Great Hall entrance as fast as his legs could carry him.
After his prank, Peeves laughed for only a few seconds before diving through a wall and disappearing, as the Bloody Baron was glaring in his direction...
Leaving only the castle caretaker, Mr. Filch, standing before the filthy mess on the floor and cursing loudly.
"Whoa! What a brilliant idea!"
"Why didn't we think of that!"
Fred and George watched the scene with gleaming eyes.
They felt Peeves was the ghost of their dreams, someone they could definitely form the greatest prank alliance in Hogwarts history with!
At the Gryffindor table, everyone was discussing Peeves' latest masterpiece, except for Neville, who remained silent, staring at a letter in his hand.
"Neville, is that a reply from home?" Harry immediately remembered their previous conversation.
"Yes," Neville said, folding the letter and sliding it back into the envelope. "My owl brought it this morning."
"What does it say?" Ron asked eagerly, dropping his roasted potato.
Hermione shot him a look. "Keep your voice down!"
The few of them huddled together to prevent anyone else from hearing their conversation.
"My parents didn't give me specific details. They just said that Professor Wick lost some friends in the past. He feels their deaths were his fault, and then... he didn't want to make friends anymore. He even broke up with his girlfriend... He's been alone ever since."
After hearing Neville's words, Harry and the others fell silent.
Harry thought back to Victor's advice about making more friends, and his heart couldn't help but ache slightly...
Who would choose to be all alone without a single friend if they had a choice? It was clear Victor didn't want Harry to be lonely like him.
"But the war is over. Why hasn't he made any friends now?" Ron whispered.
Neville tapped the envelope on the table with his index finger. "My grandmother mentioned that too. She said... Professor Wick believes he's a jinx, that he shouldn't have friends. But my grandmother thinks it's because he's worried he's offended too many people, and even though the war is over, any new friends he makes might still be targeted for revenge..."
He finally understood why his grandmother always got a pained look on her face whenever Victor Wick's name was mentioned.
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