A Deluge of Lies! Snape's Fury!

Lies! Snape's Fury!

The curtains were drawn tight.

Tattered oilcloth and chaotic corpses littered the entire room. Had Snape not known for a fact that this was one of his own vacant properties, he would have certainly assumed he had stumbled into the lair of some dark wizard.

"So you're telling me that you were walking down the street, accidentally bumped into a dark wizard, and this dark wizard just happened to accidentally drop a piece of parchment."

"And this parchment just happened to record a piece of Dark Magic, which you didn't recognize, but out of pure curiosity, you just happened to learn the Dark Magic recorded on it?"

Snape stared at Ian with his sinister gaze, his expression as unsightly as a crumpled piece of paper, his brows knitted into a knot that seemed impossible to untie.

"Yes, that is exactly how it happened."

Ian nodded his head like a bobblehead.

"Professor, I am innocent, I am a victim! My young heart was so terrified that I didn't sleep a wink all last night!" Ian widened his green eyes as much as he could.

His words were, of course, half-truth and half-lie.

Even if he wasn't a young wizard born and bred in the wizarding world, Ian knew that a book like Secrets of the Darkest Art was practically equivalent to a death sentence in this society.

Claiming Aurora had given it to him?

Setting aside whether that would actually clear his name, that limited-edition study material would definitely be confiscated, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't be held accountable for even coming into contact with Secrets of the Darkest Art in the first place!

After all.

Aurora had a grandfather named Grindelwald.

He did not!

If Aurora possessed Secrets of the Darkest Art, it could be called a family legacy; if he possessed it, he would likely be branded as Voldemort the Second!

"I had no idea this place used to be a graveyard, Professor. You don't know—when those corpses started crawling out from under the floorboards, I was nearly scared out of my wits!"

Ian continued to play the victim with an exaggerated tone, trying his best to appear innocent.

However.

Snape clearly wasn't buying it.

"Boy, do you think I'm as easy to fool as those children at the orphanage?" Snape's face remained ghastly, his voice laced with a sense of grinding teeth.

"Do you think dark wizards are just lying around everywhere?"

He clearly didn't believe Ian's nonsense.

"It must have been a dark wizard. I encountered one when I was in London who kept tailing me, trying to capture me for evil experiments. Who's to say it isn't the same one who appeared in the village!"

Ian tried to bolster the credibility of his story by bringing up his past experiences.

Unexpectedly.

Snape's expression turned even uglier.

"Shut up! You fool!"

He barked at Ian directly.

"Tell me the truth!"

The pressure radiating from Snape intensified significantly.

"It really is like that..."

Ian's confidence began to waver. He couldn't help it; before he transmigrated, he was just an innocent college student—the kind who would get scammed with counterfeit money while selling jelly at a summer market stall.

If not for the fact that he had sensed a flicker of emotion from Snape due to the man's intense mood swings after bursting in, he probably wouldn't have dared to keep biting down on his story.

"You think I would believe that without anyone teaching you, a young wizard who walked out of a Muggle orphanage and didn't even know what magic was, could self-study a complex piece of Dark Magic?"

"Hah, the Corpse Control Curse. For a spell of this caliber, even fourth or fifth-year students wouldn't dare claim they could learn it in just a few days!"

Snape let out a mocking sneer.

"Perhaps you truly have been blessed by the heavens, a natural Legilimens..." Snape began to pace back and forth in the dilapidated living room.

His eyes remained fixed on Ian the entire time. "But there are many, many people in this world with more talent than you. You don't actually think you're more capable than You-Know-Who, do you?"

Standard Snape-style sarcasm.

"I never said anything like that, Professor."

Ian retorted in a low voice.

"It seems you have been flipping through your A History of Magic textbook after all, knowing who You-Know-Who is... that is good." Snape continued to observe Ian's reaction.

Suddenly.

He shifted his tone, raising his voice.

"Since that is the case, you shouldn't use your troll-like brain to concoct such a stupid lie, attempting to make me believe you can do things that even You-Know-Who could not."

"I can tell you right now, at your age, You-Know-Who didn't know this kind of Dark Magic." Snape's gaze was fierce, as if he wanted to swallow Ian whole.

"Hiss, you know You-Know-Who's true identity?"

Ian attempted to use shock to change the subject.

Yet, Snape still wouldn't take the bait.

He continued to glare at Ian with fierce hostility.

"I could easily send you to Azkaban right now, let the Aurors use the Legilimency you're so proud of to dig out your secrets, and then you would spend the rest of your life living there with the Dementors."

"The only reason I haven't done so is to give you a chance... You must understand, it is your status as a Hogwarts student that has earned you this opportunity!"

Snape threatened Ian in a sharp, stern voice.

"Professor, I don't want to go to Azkaban."

Ian looked at Snape with a face full of panic and confusion.

This was, in a way, a half-truthful performance.

He was certainly panicked.

But he hadn't reached the point of worrying that he would actually be sent to Azkaban—he wasn't a fool, and he could certainly tell that there was some sort of connection between himself and Snape.

If that weren't the case.

Forget about giving him money or arranging a place to stay; even taking him to Diagon Alley to buy some second-hand textbooks would have been considered a sign that Snape was in a good mood that day.

"If you don't want to go to prison, then tell me, who taught you Dark Magic?"

Snape stared fixedly at Ian.

"It was a dark wizard; he had a note that just happened to drop in front of me."

Ian still stuck to his original story. There was no helping it; he really couldn't bear to part with the copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art annotated by Grindelwald herself.

Knowledge is innocent!

"Bang!"

Snape was so infuriated that he slammed his hand onto the table.

"Good! Very good! You think that since I can't find that dark wizard, I can't verify your utterly ridiculous claims, is that it?" Snape spoke as if he had something else stuffed in his mouth.

He was gritting his teeth.

Every syllable sounded as if it were being squeezed out from between his teeth.

"I am telling the truth."

Ian once again put on an innocent look, tinged with a hint of bewilderment.

Well.

The truth could certainly be considered the truth; it just wasn't the whole truth, and it had been embellished with a bit of artistic flair... how could that not be called the truth?

"Clever little brat!"

Snape sneered.

Immediately.

He grabbed some paper and a quill from the table and scribbled a long string of text onto the paper with a flurry of motion.

"What are you doing?"

Ian asked with curiosity.

"This is a note dropped by a dark wizard. Come on, Mr. Prince, prove that talent of yours—the one that is even more powerful than You-Know-Who, and perhaps even more powerful than Dumbledore himself... Heavens!"

Snape thrust the paper in front of Ian.

His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

His eyes had also turned mocking and derisive.

"Are you teaching me magic?"

Ian's eyes lit up.

He immediately looked at the paper in his hands with eager anticipation.

Sure enough.

The note did indeed record the detailed principles of a spell.

(End of chapter)