First Meeting with Albus Dumbledore

Ezio was ready to depart; before setting off, he had already handled all the necessary matters.

He deleted the email, logged out of the account, and destroyed the computer's hard drive. He erased as many traces as possible; in a world without advanced artificial intelligence, such destruction methods were sufficient.

Aside from the Broken Spear just rewarded by the system, Ezio had prepared other tools to carry with him.

A pair of hidden blades, a dozen throwing knives, a micro-crossbow with matching bolts, several smoke bombs, flashbangs, potent poisons, anesthetics, and other odds and ends. There was also the Assassin's Cloak, a system reward that significantly reduced his presence once the hood was raised, and of course, an Ingram Mac-11 suppressed submachine gun modified by a gunsmith.

As a modern assassin, Ezio did not reject the use of firearms. At a hidden training ground not far from home, he had completed at least thirty thousand rounds of precision shooting; from pistols to sniper rifles, he was proficient in them all.

At times, a gun was more useful than throwing knives or hidden blades.

Retrieving two buckets of cryogenically stored gasoline from the tool shed, Ezio walked through every corner of the house with them. He felt the smiles and laughter Giovanni had left behind in this house one last time, and before he knew it, his eyes were slightly moist.

But he had to say goodbye; he could not let anyone find him. With his current strength, he was not confident he could kill the enemies who might pursue him. He had taken too much advantage of the element of surprise in his encounter with Snape; when prepared, it was very difficult for Ezio to deal with a wizard.

Destroying the evidence was a necessity. After all, the person who killed Giovanni was likely a wizard, and wizards could search memories. Ezio was not a wizard; he was merely an agile ordinary person, at most possessing some exquisite assassination skills.

Ten minutes after Snape had left, Ezio had finished all his preparations. He dragged a trail of gasoline to the doorway and looked silently at the house that had been filled with his memories and joy.

"You really don't have to do this, child."

An aged but gentle voice sounded from behind Ezio. Ezio, whose strength was already on par with his father Giovanni, had not even noticed when the person behind him had arrived.

But he did not turn around in a reactive panic; instead, he stood in place without saying a word.

After a long moment, Ezio silently took out a box of matches and struck one to ignite it.

The flames spread forward in an instant, drawing a line of fire dozens of meters long. Gasoline is highly volatile; although the gasoline poured inside had been cryogenically stored to reduce volatility, there was still a chance of a flash fire upon contact with flames. Moving away was a necessary safety precaution.

"You mean to say that you can protect me, right?"

Ezio turned around at this moment. In the distance behind him, the fire spread in a very short time. It wouldn't be long before this burning house became a ruin.

Ezio saw the old man standing five meters behind him. His silver-white beard was long and beautiful, swaying gently in the breeze. Behind half-moon spectacles, there was a pair of clear, bright blue eyes.

"Yes, child. As long as you attend Hogwarts, I can guarantee that no one will hurt you."

"But I will eventually graduate, won't I?" Ezio said calmly. "I need to be responsible for my future self, right, Headmaster Dumbledore?"

"We can never guess what will happen in the future. I understand how you feel, child."

Dumbledore nodded. He did not refute Ezio's words; he thought they held some truth, and very pragmatic truth at that. Whether the world was sinister, he knew better than most.

"I came here to ask you a question."

"Please go ahead, Headmaster Dumbledore."

"If you find the murderer who killed your father, what do you intend to do?"

"A debt of blood must be paid in blood. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"But what if it was your father who threatened them first?"

"Then I will wait for their revenge against me. Things always need a conclusion. This conclusion might be good, or it might be bad, but someone always has to pay the price."

This answer did not satisfy Dumbledore. He saw the child's stubbornness and his determination.

"If a relative who was most important in your life died under unclear circumstances, would you not want to find the answer?"

Ezio looked up at Dumbledore. Those pure and clean eyes stung Dumbledore's heart at that moment. He, too, had once had a family member he cherished leave him, and even after all these years, it remained a thorn in his heart that pained him whenever it was mentioned.

Ariana...

Dumbledore said the name silently in his heart, his throat feeling dry.

"I don't know." Dumbledore shook his head slowly. He didn't want to say it, nor did he want to think about it. Everyone's personality was different, their experiences were different, and their choices were naturally different.

"But I know what I should do. If Giovanni hadn't picked me up from the snow and brought me home, I would have frozen to death at the door of the orphanage ten years ago. He saved my life and gave me a happy and beautiful life, but now I can neither provide for him in his old age nor lay a flower on his grave."

"Then what if one day your biological..."

Before Dumbledore could finish his sentence, Ezio interrupted him.

"Are you sure you want to ask me about those two people who tried to kill me ten years ago? Perhaps you didn't hear clearly just now: it was winter, in the cold month of December. They were determined to kill me and tried very hard to do so, nearly succeeding. When Giovanni picked me up, I wasn't even half a year old."

The so-called emotional appeal was completely ineffective on Ezio. Even if Dumbledore really found his biological parents from this life, Ezio wouldn't even bother to look at them.

Dumbledore was speechless. He hadn't heard the answer he wanted, yet he was powerless to refute it, because it was a bloody reality, incredibly true.

"So, did you come here to have me attend your school? Or just to watch the show?"

"If you're here to watch the show, please head back now. I need to go to London to find a place to stay."

"I did come to invite you to study at Hogwarts." Dumbledore sighed slightly in his heart. "However, I need you to give me a guarantee."

"I will not lay a hand on any student at school. Even if they offend me, I will only make a reasonable counterattack."

Ezio answered decisively; he knew what guarantee Dumbledore wanted. "My hands are clean; they haven't been stained by a single drop of blood. Oh, right, except for Professor Snape. I consider him a bad guy."

"Well, Severus... he was furious when he returned." Dumbledore spread his hands helplessly. When Snape went back to him, he had been gritting his teeth in a great rage.

"It seems we have reached a pleasant agreement."

Ezio glanced at Dumbledore. "So we are leaving now, right? Wizards can teleport, so you can take people with you, right?"

"Of course. But before that, I have something else for you. You read the acceptance letter, right? However, there is one thing not written in it: for students with financial difficulties, Hogwarts provides a bursary." Dumbledore handed over a small money pouch, which seemed to contain quite a few coins, as a clinking sound could be heard.

"Thank you for your kindness, but may I ask a question? Does the magical world accept pounds or gold?"

"We use Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. However, Gringotts Wizarding Bank provides currency exchange services. Hogwarts students enjoy an annual exchange service of one hundred Galleons for pounds. The goblins love gold very much, so there is no limit on the exchange between gold and Galleons."

"Come, take my hand." Dumbledore extended his left arm. "We can go to Diagon Alley now."

Ezio whistled, Neil swooped down, and then the two people and the bird vanished in an instant.