“Now, you need to appease the Ravenclaw students, Filius.”
Dumbledore reminded Professor Flitwick.
“oh!”
Professor Flitwick almost jumped.
“Yes, I have to go…” He turned to look at Scott, “Scott, will you go back with me?”
Scott was about to say hello, but Dumbledore said again: “Maybe Scott can come to my office and enjoy a cup of sweet hot cocoa.”
“That’s fine.”
Professor Flitwick glanced at Dumbledore, turned and walked towards his office.
“bring it on.”
Dumbledore called to Scott.
“Go and sit in my office. Of course, you can also go in from the eighth floor.”
Scott followed Dumbledore, turning left and right, and finally pushed open an inconspicuous oak door hidden in the corner.
The moment he opened the door, Scott keenly heard the lively conversation in the office come to an abrupt end.
“Oh, it’s the portraits of the previous headmasters.” Dumbledore said with a smile, “They always quarrel with each other when I’m not around.”
Scott glanced at the wall. The figures in the row of portraits were all pretending to be asleep.
Dumbledore walked behind his desk and sat down, pointing to the chair on the other side.
“Come on, sit down.”
He tapped the table with the Elder Wand, and two steaming cups of hot cocoa appeared on the table.
He picked up the cup and took a sip, showing an expression of enjoyment.
Scott also picked up the cup and took a few sips, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Can you show it to me?”
Dumbledore pointed to the roll of parchment in Scott’s hand.
“That’s the parchment you used to record this arithmetic divination, isn’t it?”
“Oh, of course.”
Scott handed him the parchment in his hand.
Dumbledore stretched out his hand to tie the knot, unfolded the rolled parchment, and looked at it carefully for a while.
“Very talented, Scott. You are very talented in this subject.”
He said nonchalantly.
“Speaking of which, I also know some arithmetic and divination, but I can’t do this. I can only rely on the conditions you wrote down to deduce the position of the crown.”
He blinked.
“Usually…I use arithmetic to figure out what Honeydukes’ discounted candies will be each quarter.”
Scott couldn’t help but laugh.
Although Dumbledore seemed to be joking, Scott always felt that it was not impossible for him to do such a thing.
Dumbledore took a few more sips of hot cocoa and his expression became a little serious.
“Next I need you to try to figure it out, Scott,” he said, “about Tom’s Horcrux.”
He paused, looked at Scott and asked, “Are you willing?”
“Of course I do.”
Scott nodded.
“But…” he said hesitantly, “there are too few known conditions, and it may not be possible to obtain satisfactory results.”
“Of course, of course I understand that.”
Dumbledore put down his cup.
“What I want to know most is how many Horcruxes Tom has. I want to ask you to try it. It doesn’t matter if there is no result.”
Scott asked him curiously, “Why not ask Professor Victor to do the calculation? I mean, he should be more capable than me.”
“Of course Professor Victor has already calculated it.”
Dumbledore said.
“It’s a pity.” He showed a helpless expression, “He didn’t get the results he wanted.”
“Is that so?” Scott nodded again, “Then I’ll give it a try, but to be honest, I’m not confident about it.”
Dumbledore took out a new piece of parchment and placed the ink bottle with the quill in Scott’s hand.
“It doesn’t matter.” He said with a smile, “This is just an attempt.”
Scott put the mug of hot cocoa aside and picked up his quill.
He first wrote down the divination target, [Voldemort/Tom Riddle’s Horcrux].
Then, he wrote [Notebook] and [Ravenclaw’s Diadem].
Then he stopped writing.
“Sorry, there are only so many known conditions that I know of.” He said hesitantly, “And they are not logically related to each other.”
“Yes.” Dumbledore said softly, “Of course this won’t work. You need to know more about Tom.”
He began to tell Scott about the Voldemort he knew.
It starts from when he, as a transfiguration professor, visited the orphanage where Riddle lived since he was a child…
One summer day in 1938, Dumbledore went to the orphanage and invited Riddle to come to Hogwarts…
Scott quietly listened to Dumbledore’s words about Voldemort’s past, corroborating the information he still remembered in his memory.
According to Dumbledore, Riddle was born after his mother used a love potion on his father, so he was born without knowing how to love.
But Scott thought he might just be sick, some mental illness and mental illness.
Like antisocial personality disorder?
However, Scott just thought about it this way, he didn’t understand this.
Maybe love potions do have that effect?
Dumbledore spoke for a long time, and Scott held the quill in his hand, extracting some key words from his words and writing them on the parchment.
When Dumbledore stopped talking, Scott had filled most of the parchment, summarizing most of Voldemort’s life experiences in a few concise words and phrases.
“How is it.” Dumbledore took a sip of hot cocoa from the cup to moisten his throat. “Do you have any ideas, Scott?”
“Hmm…”
Scott pondered for a while and looked down at the parchment.
“Riddle is a very proud and conceited guy. Judging from his personality, he doesn’t seem to use ordinary things to make Horcruxes… But he used an ordinary notebook…”
“He was only 16 years old at the time.” Dumbledore said, “I think that was his first attempt.”
“That is to say, among his Horcruxes… it is very likely that only the notebook is an ordinary item, and the other Horcruxes are more meaningful things.”
Scott said in a speculative tone.
“For example, the Ravenclaw crown.”
“You mean…” Dumbledore nodded, “It’s possible, Slytherin’s locket, Hufflepuff’s gold cup? It’s indeed possible, they are all missing.”
Scott wrote several more words on the parchment.
Then, Dumbledore said some rumors about the two relics.
Scott wrote while listening and adding conditions.
In the end, he almost filled the entire parchment.
“That’s all.” Dumbledore looked over, “Now, you try it.”
Scott nodded and began to convert the words into numbers.
Since the parchment was too full, he could only write the numbers smaller and in the gaps.
This time, it took him more than ten minutes to complete this step.
