Hogwarts: Even Voldemort Can't Stop Me From Studying

The weather in June was already hot, but Professor Trelawney still had the fireplace lit and even drew the curtains. The room in the tower was stuffy and hot, filled with smoke.

Professor Trelawney sat in front of a giant crystal ball, with an expression as if she hadn’t quite woken up.

”Oh, Vid, dear, I’ve never been worried about your exams.”

She pointed at the crystal ball and said with a smile: ”Look inside, tell me what you can see?”

As Vid observed the crystal ball, Professor Trelawney got up to pour herself a glass of gin, took a sip, and squinted in enjoyment.

”It’s no wonder this imported liquor is famous, it’s quite intoxicating. These house-elves certainly know how to shop, though it’s too expensive...”

Professor Trelawney opened her eyes, with a hint of alcohol, asked: ”Vid, what did you see?”

After a moment, Vid looked up and said: ”I saw an oval-shaped arena... It’s very huge, with lots of people... It seems like there’s a grand competition taking place.”

”A competition?” Professor Trelawney put down her glass, wrote a few lines on parchment, and pressed further: ”Then? What else did you see? Did you see the result of the competition?”

”I saw a person wearing red clothes raising their fist... But I also saw people in green clothes cheering,” said Vid.

”Raising a fist? Does that mean they caught the Golden Snitch? But cheering...”

Professor Trelawney pondered and asked: ”Did you see the ending scene? Who won in the end?”

”The people in green clothes,” Vid said confidently.

”The people in green clothes...”

Professor Trelawney murmured, her eyes suddenly brightened as if she thought of something, absent-mindedly said: ”Well, dear, the exam ends here, you may go.”

”Alright, goodbye, professor.”

Vid got up to leave, and before he had descended the trap door, he saw Professor Trelawney hurriedly pulling her piggy bank from the cabinet and pouring all the coins onto the table, happily counting them.

Vid felt he could almost hear the sound of an abacus in her mind, chuckled, and couldn’t help but feel a bit envious of Professor Trelawney’s simple joy.

As he descended the stairs, he recalled what he had truly seen in the crystal ball—

A curled-up snake-faced baby.

An adult wizard holding the baby, with cold eyes.

A tall Dementor grabbing a person, bending down as if to kiss.

Finally, there was a long, seemingly endless corridor, with tightly closed doors on either side.

His gaze swiftly swept through the corridor and finally stopped in front of a locked door, with a shell-like symbol on it.

The swirling white mist inside the crystal ball briefly showed Vid a few images. Except for the last one, which he still didn’t understand, the earlier ones seemed to be scenes of future wars.

Vid took a deep breath, hard to believe he had ignored the matter of Voldemort for so long, believing that the real Wormtail was dead and therefore thought that he wouldn’t be a threat anytime soon.

Especially the man holding the baby...

Vid furrowed his brows, memories from the Pensieve swirling in his mind.

The films he had once watched didn’t actually provide much reference, for the people in this world and those actors looked quite different.

But by comparing age, demeanor, and features, Vid gradually locked onto one person.

He quickly walked to the library, tossed his backpack onto a chair, and dove into the newspaper area.

Madam Pince was sorting books, and upon seeing Vid’s hurried figure, quickly said: ”It’s almost closing time, Gray!”

”I know! I just need to look up some information!”

Vid’s voice came over the bookshelves. Madam Pince first frowned at his loudness, then remembered there were no other students in the library, shook her head, and didn’t chase him off.

Vid waved his magic wand, and several old newspapers floated down from the shelf, laying open before him one by one. He searched through them and finally found the picture he was looking for in one of the newspapers.

A teenager, looking only seventeen or eighteen, was being dragged by a Dementor, struggling hard, with his mouth wide open in a silent scream, his face full of terror.

The newspaper had two smaller pictures; one was of several other prisoners being judged, the other showed a man with a cold and hateful expression. The caption explained that he was the head of the Magic Law Enforcement Department, Barty Crouch.

Vid’s gaze then shifted upwards.

The boy with a face pale as paper was Barty Crouch Jr. He resembled his father greatly but appeared younger and skinnier.

If he were taller, with more mature features, and swapped the panic he wore for his father’s expression, he’d look just like the man Vid saw in the crystal ball.

Vid didn’t understand how he could forget this man’s destructive power?

Of course, Barty Crouch Jr. was initially in a later stage of his plan, as this person should’ve been harmless under his father’s control, with the Imperio curse, like a hamster.

Until Wormtail Peter escaped, the Death Eaters made trouble at the Quidditch World Cup, Barty Crouch Jr. finally found an opportunity to escape his father’s control and reveal his true fangs.

Besides, Barty Crouch held a high position as the head of the Magic Communication and Cooperation Department and earned considerable prestige for his firm resistance against the Death Eaters, making him far from someone an ordinary student could easily approach or ”slander.”