Seeking Help

Chapter 696: Seeking Help

Dumbledore's words made Harry's face flush bright red.

"I, Professor, I didn't—"

Harry wanted to explain, but he stammered and could not get the words out. Because he really had entertained that thought; he simply had not had the chance to say it before Dumbledore rejected him outright.

Harry wished he could Apparate out of the headmaster's office immediately.

"Sorry, Professor Dumbledore, I, I'll just—"

"You misunderstand, Professor Dumbledore." At that moment, Silvan suddenly spoke. "We came this time because of something else. Harry found something for me earlier. I think it's important, so we should let you take a look."

"Oh? What is it?" Dumbledore shifted his gaze to Silvan, then watched him take a dirty, battered old diadem out of his Mokeskin Pouch.

"This," Silvan said. "If I'm not mistaken, it should be Ravenclaw's Diadem."

Buzz—

Dumbledore felt as though something had plugged his ears. He stood there, with nothing left in his eyes but that battered diadem.

Silvan did not need to explain. The instant he saw it, Dumbledore already knew what it was.

As a somewhat accomplished alchemist, he saw at a glance what dazzling treasure lay beneath the diadem's grimy exterior.

Ravenclaw's Diadem, one of the legendary greatest masterpieces of alchemy, second only to the Resurrection Stone that could grant eternal life.

Dumbledore had considered countless possibilities, but he had never imagined that on an ordinary morning, in his own office, he would see this thing.

"You—where did you find it?" Dumbledore asked.

The headmasters in the portraits on the walls were no longer sleeping. They had all crowded into the frame closest to Silvan. Even Headmistress Dilys Derwent, usually the calmest among them, was stretching her neck to get a clear look at the legendary diadem that could grant its