Shocking! Voldemort's Downfall Was Caused by This Mistake!

"Better not get your hopes up." Harri shrugged helplessly. "I heard from the Hufflepuffs that Professor Quirrell's teaching is only a little better than Professor Binns's~"

Harri had completely shed any trace of her original self. She was practically Hogwarts's social butterfly now; from fifth- and sixth-years to all four Houses, she already knew people everywhere!

Just yesterday, she had learned about Quirrell's abilities from a Hufflepuff who had attended his class.

Everyone drew in a sharp breath. He was only a little better than Professor Binns, the hypnotist of A History of Magic? Terrifying! Ron also said quietly, "I heard from George and Fred that the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor position is unlucky!"

That immediately caught everyone's interest. Jerry pressed for details, while Neville and Harri leaned closer with gossip written all over their faces.

Seeing how popular his news was, Ron smugly said, "I heard that the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor has been replaced every year for over thirty years straight! Basically, no one gets to keep teaching into their second year! All sorts of accidents happen, forcing them to resign! They say the position's cursed!"

Good heavens, the surrounding students had all stretched out their ears to listen. The moment they heard the word "curse," they erupted into chatter.

Some had even started betting on whether Quirrell would still be teaching next year.

Hermione quietly asked Ted, "Is what Ron said true? A Section of School History didn't mention any of this!"

Ted smiled. "What isn't written in books doesn't necessarily not exist, and what is written in books isn't necessarily true. Better to have no books than believe everything in them. You need to learn to think dialectically. Oh, and Ron's right..."

Anyone could find out simply by asking older students.

It had already been like that in their day: a new disposable Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor every year.

The lucky ones had to resign because something came up. The unlucky ones became so unfortunate that they could no longer teach. Quite a few ended up staying at St. Mungo's Hospital.

As a result, the Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor position had developed such a terrible reputation that it was very difficult to recruit anyone.

Class began soon after. Quirrell entered the classroom with a purple turban wrapped around his head, a strange smell clinging to him, shifty eyes, a hunched back, and a timid, shrinking posture.

"H-hello, everyone. I-I am the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, Q-Quirrell..."

Good heavens, just looking at him had already killed everyone's expectations. And he was a stutterer, too.

The students were deeply disappointed! Harri even quietly imitated Quirrell under her breath. "Hello, everyone, my name is Q-Quirrell~"

Quirrell might not have understood that too much was as bad as too little. His act was a bit overdone.

After all, this was not his first day teaching at Hogwarts.

He had previously been the Hogwarts Muggle Studies teacher, but later, this fellow had taken unpaid leave and gone abroad for a period of investigation...

Well, he had investigated his way into the Albanian Forest.

It was precisely because Professor Quirrell had traveled to the forests of Albania that he brought Voldemort back to Britain.

Voldemort had hidden there for nine years. Everything truly had its destiny~ Quirrell's transfer from Muggle Studies to Defense Against the Dark Arts had probably been Voldemort's demand. He went on and on about pure-bloods, so of course he could not let a possessed Quirrell teach Muggle Studies. That would have been far too embarrassing!

Besides, Voldemort had always wanted to become the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, but Armando Dippet and then Dumbledore had both refused him. Only then had he placed a curse on the position.

It was also because the curse had never disappeared that Dumbledore believed he had not truly died.

Now things were perfect. He had possessed Quirrell and could indulge his desire to be a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at the same time! His wish had finally come true.

It was a dream-fulfilling journey, all right~ Worth mentioning, Quirrell's full name was Quirinus Quirrell.

Quirinus was a little-known Roman god often associated with war.

So Quirrell might not have been as meek as he appeared.

The first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson covered how to deal with ghouls.

The ghouls of the wizarding world were not the same as the ghouls Ted remembered.

Ted: Can your ghoul gather wood, eat corpses to restore health, and parasitize minions?

Wizarding ghouls were magical creatures. They generally liked to live in the attics and barns of old houses, surviving on insects and mice.

Ron's family had one. It kept banging on the pipes; maybe it was a percussionist~ As mentioned before, because of vocabulary limitations, many different but similar-looking creatures had been given the same name, and it had never been corrected.

Ghouls were one such case.

Worth mentioning, although ghouls bit people, they were not dangerous.

Some wizards even bizarrely regarded having a ghoul living in their home as a good omen, and often treated them as members of the family.

They were raising them as pets! The focus of Defense Against the Dark Arts was dangerous magical creatures.

Including Ted and the others' textbook—The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, written by Quentin Trimble—most of its content concerned preventing and dealing with dangerous magical creatures.

Defense Against the Dark Arts did not teach people how to deal with Dark Magic. It was rather like a Muggle criminal law course—it did not teach you how to respond to crimes, but how to sentence criminals~...

Until class ended, Quirrell remained exactly the same, reading straight from the book.

After class, the students complained in the corridor that Professor Quirrell was unreliable and that Defense Against the Dark Arts was doomed!

Neville said nothing. He actually rather liked Quirrell. He felt that he and Quirrell were quite alike.

After several days together, the halo around The Boy Who Lived gradually faded, and many students began to realize that Neville was not outstanding.

On the contrary, he seemed timid and clumsy, which led to all sorts of criticism about Neville—Malfoy played an especially crucial role in fanning those flames.

Wherever there was trouble, he was there nine times out of ten! Ron, Jerry, and Harri would still help Neville, since they cared about him!

But they also had to admit that Neville was not an especially outstanding wizard, and they would privately make a few comments as well.

Ron: Maybe The Dark Lord hadn't been feeling well at the time and had eaten something bad? Harri: Neville's greatest strength is that he has no real weaknesses, while his greatest weakness is that he has no real strengths.

Hermione, who had been half-convinced by Harri's criticism of Quirrell, finally complained to Ted with a disappointed expression. "Professor Quirrell doesn't seem very good at teaching? Is he nervous because it's his first time being a professor?"

She did not even believe it herself. She simply did not want to speak badly of a professor. She was still a Good Student.

Ted said, "This isn't his first time being a professor. He previously taught Muggle Studies at the school. He was also a Ravenclaw student back then, and I heard he was quite talented."

"It was just that he had an accident during one of his later holiday adventures and became like this. I heard he encountered a vampire zombie in Africa and may have developed post-traumatic stress disorder~"

Disappointment was written across Hermione's face, and she worried that this course might become difficult.

At the thought of seven years of Defense Against the Dark Arts being like this, she felt despair wash over her.

Ted did not think it was so bad. Wasn't Quirrell far better than Lockhart?

Quirrell's theoretical knowledge was still solid; Ted's own experience gains could prove that.

It was simply that his manner did not inspire respect, making people unable to listen properly.

Still, Ted had answered several questions and earned five points. It was just a pity that he had not triggered a quest.

Ted said, "Don't worry. At most, he'll last a year."

"Because of the curse?" Hermione asked.

"Right. No Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor lasts more than a year. You can ask the upper-years. This course gets a new teacher every year, and its progress is a complete mess."

"Then that's even worse. Not even Dumbledore can lift this curse?" Neville asked.

"I'm afraid that's the case. Otherwise, Dumbledore would have solved this problem long ago. After all, they have to recruit a new professor every year. Anyone who didn't know better would think Hogwarts sacrifices professors!"

Thinking about it, that was true! Aside from Quirrell, Lockhart, and Barty Crouch Jr., who died or went mad during their teaching terms, Lupin, Moody, and Snape—the three teachers who had "safely" survived their teaching terms—all died in the seventh book as well...

Even Voldemort himself died!

Defense Against the Dark Arts truly was not something anyone should teach. Whoever got involved with it died.

The curse was so powerful that even Voldemort himself could not withstand it.

Voldemort: I scare myself when I curse people! There was actually a reason Voldemort could not live past seventy-three.

For one thing, seventy-three and eighty-four were both unlucky ages; for another, he had been born in 1926, the Year of the Tiger, and 1998, the year of the finale, happened to be his zodiac year. In one's zodiac year, one either enjoyed great fortune or encountered great calamity.

He probably had not worn red underwear, either. Meanwhile, his nemesis Harry had been born in 1980, the Year of the Monkey, which clashed with his sign. Add to that the ancient rule that the one on the left always loses in a beam struggle, and well, tsk tsk tsk~ Speaking of which, Harry Potter and Voldemort were distant relatives. Harry was descended from the youngest of the three brothers in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the one who possessed the Invisibility Cloak, while Voldemort was descended from the second brother, who possessed the Resurrection Stone.

Of course, there were only so many pure-blood families in Britain. After a thousand years of intermarriage, if you traced back five generations, everyone was related.