Halloween Calls for Cosplay

Dumbledore's life was filled with all kinds of regrets.

After being hurt once, people always found ways to avoid falling into the same pit twice.

As the saying went, you could know a person's face but not their heart. After being burned by Voldemort once, even though Harry Potter had grown up under his watch, Dumbledore still needed another layer of assurance.

This was the Mirror of Erised incident Roger remembered.

By reflecting what Harry Potter desired most, it would verify that his judgment had not been wrong.

He came back so soon?

Harry stood before the mirror, once again lost in it, while Roger turned to look at Dumbledore, who had appeared behind them at some point.

Dumbledore understood the meaning in Roger's eyes.

But instead of answering directly, he asked, "Roger, what did you see?"

"A great many things," Roger said flatly.

In the Mirror of Erised, he had seen countless beautiful things in the world. The only problem was that the images kept flickering; before he could make out one scene clearly, the next had already appeared.

The Sorting Hat had been right. The house best suited for Roger was Slytherin. His heart was filled with greed for everything—never satisfied, forever yearning.

A hundred years was far too short for the things he desired, so...

"Headmaster." Hearing the two behind him speaking, Harry jolted awake as if from a dream.

After that, Dumbledore explained the purpose of the Mirror of Erised to Harry, announced that he would be moving it away, and warned Harry not to try looking for it again.

...Actually, Dumbledore's objective had already been achieved the first time Harry looked into the mirror.

It was only because Harry, who had never experienced familial love, had stood before the mirror for so long, sometimes even crying at the sight of his parents within it, that Dumbledore had been reminded of his own past.

That was why he had not shown himself until now.

But now, in order not to let down the trust of his Quidditch teammates, Harry had chosen to reject the illusion in the mirror and embrace reality. Even if Roger had not come, Dumbledore felt it was time for the illusion to return to nothingness.

After taking one last look at the mirror, Harry gritted his teeth and walked out of the old classroom with firm steps.

When only the two of them remained in the classroom, Dumbledore looked at Roger and said, "I didn't just get back. I was actually just about to leave."

This answered Roger's earlier question.

The matter was rather complicated.

Back then, Roger's case had been endlessly debated within the Middle Eastern wizarding world. Even after Roger had returned to the United Kingdom, no one had come to arrest him, so they had tossed the matter to the British Ministry of Magic to pass judgment.

Yet even after the verdict, certain people in the Middle East were still making a fuss. There had been no sign of it stopping even after Roger had enrolled at Hogwarts.

So Dumbledore had intended to make a trip there personally.

For a figure as important as Dumbledore—the chairman of the International Confederation of Wizards, as well as one of the greatest wizards of the age—it was naturally impossible for him to simply act without notice and Apparate over.

The Gulf War had only ended at the beginning of the year, and everyone was still on edge. Someone would surely fear that Dumbledore was about to start a wizarding version of the Gulf War or something else. If they misunderstood him, it would be troublesome.

Therefore, Dumbledore's entry had gone through the slow, official approval process as a gesture of goodwill.

But upon hearing that Dumbledore was coming, the people hostile to Roger because of his identity as a "religious prophet" lost their nerve.

For a time, they all fell silent.

Dumbledore had thought they were truly cowed, so he canceled the trip.

If possible, Dumbledore was not someone who liked conflict.

But then...

Because the trip had been canceled, those people thought Dumbledore had merely been trying to scare them, applying extreme pressure for show. They believed he would not truly come over Roger's matter, and so they started causing trouble again.

Thus, now, about a month after handing the Philosopher's Stone to Roger, Dumbledore once more sent notice to the Middle Eastern wizarding world of his intended entry. He would depart in two days, so those idiots who did not know when to take the offered way out and could not get their heads straight could learn what it meant to be the greatest wizard in the United Kingdom this century! "...Thank you for your trouble, sir." After hearing the story, Roger could only respond like that, unsure what else to say.

At the same time, he made a note of it in his heart. In a few years, when he had the ability, he would make a trip to the Middle East himself.

Roger repaid kindness. And when it came to enemies, naturally, they had to be dealt with too! "It's nothing. It's just rather regrettable that I won't be able to spend Halloween with the children." Dumbledore did not seem particularly concerned.

"When will you be back?"

"I can't say. It depends on how they react after I get there."

"Pfft, Roger, what kind of look is that?"

Time always passed especially quickly when one was fully focused, whether on entertainment or studying.

In the blink of an eye, Halloween had arrived.

The smell of roasting pumpkins had filled the entire Hogwarts castle since early morning, and all sorts of strange Halloween decorations had already been hung everywhere.

Today was a holiday, so there were fewer classes than usual. The children who had finished early were all hurrying toward the Great Hall.

It was said that the professors had arranged an impressive display for today's feast: a thousand bats flapped around the walls and ceiling, while another thousand hovered like low, dark clouds. Together with the thunderous starry sky from the start-of-term feast, it was a spectacular sight.

However, on the way there, something else caught their attention.

The blond hair over Roger's forehead had been combed into several locks and firmly fixed in place, while the hair behind it had turned a strange dark red.

Roger ignored the strange looks from the students along the way, until an acquaintance asked the question above.

At the beginning of the school year, everyone had held Roger in awe because of the rumors. But after spending so much time with him, they had all come to understand that those were probably just exaggerated rumors... How could my classmate possibly be a murderous demon king?

Roger was clearly a good person!

After their impression of him changed, some of the more outgoing students had also grown closer to Roger.

"This?" Roger pointed at his strange hairstyle.

Then he said, "Shouldn't Halloween involve dressing up in some special way?"

Normally, when Halloween arrived, children dressed up as skeletons, murderers, zombies, mummies, and other cute things, going door to door for candy and saying, "Trick or treat."

That was a holiday tradition. Without cosplay, there was no festive atmosphere at all.

"Uh, but we're wizards," the student who had asked said, stunned.

Dressing up as wizards was also a kind of Halloween costume.

Besides, did Hogwarts even have a precedent for cosplay on Halloween?

Didn't everyone just return to their dormitories to sleep after the feast? After all, Hogwarts could hardly play trick or treat.

If they really caused trouble, they would probably be punished with toilet-cleaning duty.

Roger understood what he meant. "It would be too boring if everyone dressed the same way. Besides, I don't think there's any school rule saying we can't dress up."