Chapter 188: Cursed Course, Canceled Exam
Dumbledore fell silent, his expression unreadable as he seemed to sink into his own thoughts. Ethan, seated across from him, suddenly remembered a question that had been nagging at him for quite some time.
"Headmaster, is there a connection between Nancy and Voldemort? They share the same surname, and Riddle isn't exactly a common name.
"Besides, when she had the diary, she cooperated so readily, not at all like someone who'd been coerced. So if you tell me they're unrelated, I find that hard to believe."
Same surname, same black hair and dark eyes, same ability to speak Parseltongue. How could there possibly be so many coincidences in the world?
Although Ethan had already concluded that some kinship must exist between Nancy Riddle and Tom Riddle, he lacked any concrete evidence. So he wanted to ask the old man if he knew anything. After all, Dumbledore had also visited the orphanage that had taken Nancy in. He might know more.
"As for that, there is indeed a connection between them, but I haven't yet been able to determine whether they are direct relatives."
Dumbledore had indeed verified certain things through orphanage records and other channels. However, the evidence wasn't entirely clear. So far, he could only confirm that the two were indeed direct relatives, but whether they were father and daughter or grandfather and granddaughter remained unknown.
The orphanage's adoption records showed that Nancy had arrived in the months following Voldemort's disappearance. That timing raised several questions. Until Nancy's missing mother was found, no definitive conclusion could be reached.
Hearing this, Ethan pressed further. "What if you asked Nicolas to lend you the Bloodline Slate? Find some excuse to test Nancy, see if she's really Voldemort's child."
"Difficult. If this had been done before she obtained the diary, there might have been a glimmer of hope. But after she cooperated with Tom, it almost certainly wouldn't work.
"Using the Bloodline Slate requires her personal cooperation, after all.
"Besides, whether there are records of the Gaunt family bloodline in it is hard to say. For years, the Gaunts had been intermarrying to maintain blood purity. The bloodline had not spread outside the family."
"So whether Nicolas even has a record of the Gaunt bloodline is truly hard to say."
Dumbledore shook his head with evident regret. Since learning of Nancy's existence, he had considered using the Bloodline Slate to determine her relationship to Voldemort under the pretext of helping her find her relatives.
But the approach felt less than honorable, so he had continued to hesitate. Now that hope had almost entirely faded.
"True. After the diary passed through Ron's hands, the Tom inside it probably knows full well about Voldemort's current reputation. Naturally, he won't let Nancy cooperate."
"He wouldn't want her discovering their blood connection and drawing unnecessary trouble upon herself."
Ethan felt this was the reason too. After Voldemort's downfall, with everyone out for his blood and before he was truly resurrected, there would certainly be no shortage of former Death Eaters looking to prove their loyalty to the Ministry of Magic by offering up Nancy as a sacrifice.
Ethan clicked his tongue. "What a pity."
"Don't worry about the Horcrux matters for now. Leave that to us old bones. Your top priority right now is studying hard and preparing for exams."
"Uh, speaking of exams, Headmaster, can you get rid of Lockhart now?" Ethan stood up and hesitated for a moment. But thinking of his misery while studying these past two days, he couldn't hold back.
"It's not just me. Harry, Hermione, Fred, everyone. We're all at our breaking point."
"He's using seven novels he 'wrote' himself as our textbooks, and now he wants to pull exam questions from them.
"You even said last time that his questions were terrible. I'm guessing it'll be something pointless like 'Lockhart's Ambitions,' right?
"Even if you tell him to revise them, will he actually listen? And even if he does, how would he change them?
"Besides reading passages from his books in class and putting on his little performances, he's never taught us anything useful.
"So we can only assume he'll pull sections from his books and make us fill in the blanks.
"Does this really mean anything?"
Two days of review had left Ethan boiling with frustration. The more he spoke, the angrier he became.
"I haven't seen Lockhart's revised exam questions for the past two days. Let me look at his newly modified questions before I decide." Seeing Ethan so furious, and remembering that outrageous exam paper Lockhart had created before, the old man wasn't sure either.
"Fourth years are taking this exam tomorrow. You'd better decide quickly. Otherwise, I'm afraid a lot of students will have breakdowns on the first day of exam week."
Ethan left. Dumbledore lifted the Muffliato and pondered whether to act immediately and send Lockhart to the Wizengamot to face trial.
Although he had previously told Ethan that they would take down Lockhart after the exams, after careful consideration, the old man was still somewhat hesitant. He still leaned more toward working with the Ministry of Magic to arrest Lockhart during summer vacation.
This was mainly for the sake of the school's reputation. After all, thirty years had passed, and Lockhart was a rare professor who could make it to the end of the school year without incident.
If they took him down before the holiday, then recruiting a new professor for this course the following year would be even more difficult.
But what Ethan said also made sense. Students would suffer mental breakdowns because of their poor grades in this course.
"Gilderoy Lockhart, what should I do with you?"
The old man had a dilemma: should he preserve the school's reputation, or protect the students' mental well-being?
"How about we look at the questions he's prepared first? Just in case they might meet my requirements?" Dumbledore still clung to a shred of hope.
Truthfully, before Lockhart came to teach at the school, Dumbledore had had very little contact with him.
By then, Dumbledore was already Headmaster, no longer teaching classes himself. So even when Lockhart was a student, aside from Lockhart lobbying him to approve the creation of the school newspaper, their paths had rarely crossed.
The reason for inviting Lockhart to teach this year actually came down to several considerations.
Beyond the fact that the Defense Against the Dark Arts position was notoriously difficult to fill, with virtually no applicants, Dumbledore also wanted to keep Lockhart under his watchful eye, knowing what had happened to several old friends, and let him reveal his true colors.
On top of that, Dumbledore was perfectly willing to let the position's infamous curse bring Lockhart misfortune at the school.
As the year progressed, Lockhart's true nature was exposed almost completely. The whole school, teachers and students alike, now knew exactly how little actual ability he possessed.
Furthermore, the Armenian wizard whose werewolf story Lockhart had stolen now had his memory restored. Lockhart's fate was sealed. Azkaban was only a matter of time.
"No. I need to review Lockhart's questions. Pull some useful knowledge from those stories in his books."
Dumbledore felt a sudden sense of urgency. He adjusted his hat and set off toward Lockhart's office.
"Lockhart? That fraud! Why would you bring him up all of a sudden? Did he cause trouble again?" Phineas's portrait on the wall asked Dumbledore.
"No, it's about exam questions. I have to go oversee things a bit, to make sure his exams actually test what they're supposed to."
"Ha! Him, not mess things up? That's hard to believe. I heard all about it, asking the poor fellow what his favorite color is. What kind of exam is that?" Phineas sneered.
"If I were still Headmaster, this sort of professor would never set foot in Hogwarts!"
Phineas had a point. In his era, every professor was a master of their respective field.
And Hogwarts now? The other courses were still fine. But the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor changed every year, each one worse than the last.
The portraits hanging on the walls didn't stay in the Headmaster's office every moment either. Occasionally, they visited other places as well.
Judging from the conversation between several people and the wall of portraits in Lockhart's office shortly after term began, it was clear the new professor was just filling a seat. Listening to him chat with his own portraits put his ignorance and arrogance on full display.
Faced with Phineas's angry portrait, Dumbledore was equally at a loss. "It's just that we couldn't find a suitable candidate."
"For over thirty years. As you all know, the school hires a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor every year."
"By now, the entire British wizarding world knows about the terrible reputation of the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. We simply cannot recruit anyone suitable."
The lucky ones managed to leave unharmed, though they never lasted the full term. The unlucky ones died right in their offices.
This pattern began after Voldemort's second attempt to secure a teaching position at the school was rejected.
At first, everyone assumed it was mere coincidence. But as time passed, these coincidences became increasingly frequent, occurring once a year. Everyone knew it wasn't a coincidence at all.
As for the curse theory, no one knew who first spread the rumor, but the claim was that Voldemort had jinxed the position itself, dooming every Defense professor to fail to survive a full year as revenge for being denied the job.
However, that theory didn't surface until ten years after the accidents began.
Before then, Dumbledore, as Headmaster, along with the school governors, had already started brainstorming ways to prevent such incidents.
But all their efforts had little success. Aside from the professors who managed to leave early and unharmed, the rest continued to suffer frequent accidents, with some even dying on the job.
So when the curse theory finally emerged, everyone began seriously considering ways to counteract it.
Yet whether they attempted to break the curse or rename the course, all efforts failed.
Breaking the curse proved impossible because no one could determine what the curse actually was or what its specific effects were.
The curse-breaking experts Dumbledore hired couldn't locate any source of the curse or traces indicating that the position itself was cursed.
As for renaming the course, they tried Defense Arts, Dark Magic Resistance, even Partial Magic Cognitive and various other names, both related and unrelated. But without exception, every attempt failed. In the end, they always returned to the original name: Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Of course, the most direct, and most hopeless, approach was to simply abolish the subject entirely. No course, no professor, and certainly no deaths.
But actually implementing it would turn Hogwarts graduates into laughingstocks.
So all the school governors and faculty opposed this approach.
In the end, the only solution they could settle on was offering an exceptionally high annual salary and rotating professors through the position.
Several Headmasters fell silent after hearing Dumbledore's words. Especially Armando, the former Headmaster who had first rejected Voldemort.
"I'll leave first. We'll discuss matters when I return. I'm afraid we may not have time later." Glancing at the clock on the wall, Dumbledore hurried out of the Headmaster's office.
"You mean to say this course is truly cursed? Does that mean the curse will only be lifted when that person dies?"
After Dumbledore left, Dippet asked the others quietly.
No one answered him. The Headmaster's office fell deathly silent.
But a moment later, the door banged open and Dumbledore strode back in, furious.
"What's happened? What is it?" Several Headmasters who had been dozing just moments ago startled awake.
"Lockhart is simply outrageous. I specifically told him to revise the exam questions, but what he came up with is basically no different from before.
"He just changed 'Lockhart's favorite color' to 'Lockhart's most hated color.' Equally meaningless questions!
"And absolutely nothing about things like what spell can be used to drive away a Yeti!"
Dumbledore slammed a piece of parchment onto the desk.
This was the exam paper he'd confiscated from Lockhart, the one intended for every year.
Indeed, students from every year would be taking the exact same exam. No distinction in difficulty whatsoever.
After reading through the exam paper carefully, Dumbledore was no longer worried about the school's reputation. If he actually let students take this exam, Hogwarts's reputation would truly crash and burn.
"Fawkes, go to Minerva's office and tell her to come here. Have her announce the cancellation of the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam," Dumbledore said to the phoenix behind the door.
Pop! Fawkes vanished. Dumbledore tossed the exam paper into the wastebasket and began drafting a letter to the Head of the Auror Office at the Ministry of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour.
The plan to arrest Lockhart had been agreed on by the two men weeks ago. At the time, however, the Armenian wizard serving as the key witness had not yet arrived in the UK. Dumbledore had also been concerned about the fallout, so they had postponed the arrest until the summer holidays.
But now, Dumbledore no longer cared. He notified Scrimgeour, instructing him to come to the school tomorrow prepared to arrest Lockhart.
Fawkes had barely returned before Dumbledore sent him out again, the phoenix flying off to deliver the letter to Scrimgeour.
A short while later, Professor McGonagall hurried into his office.
"Cancel the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam?! Why? We at least need a reason, don't we? The exams are about to start." Professor McGonagall was clearly surprised.
"Lockhart will be arrested tomorrow."
"Arrested?"
Dumbledore explained Lockhart's crimes in detail.
Professor McGonagall took the information in stride. "No wonder Lockhart's performance at the school fell so far short of what he wrote in his books."
"I understand. I shall make the announcement in the Great Hall tomorrow morning."
She sighed. *Where would she find a new professor for next year?* Professor McGonagall departed, leaving Dumbledore to deal with fresh worries.
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