Carvings on the Oak Tree

The situation had become unbelievably terrible. In an instant, Hoffa had gone from an ordinary student to an ordinary student who had been warned by the school authorities.

One more offense, and he would be expelled.

The look in Gorshak's eyes had not been a joke. He really would do it. On this matter, Hoffa had no room to resist. He had obtained the Disillusionment Charm, even the advanced Ghostwalk, but that did not change the fact that he was weak.

Only at that moment did Hoffa realize that he was not some savior, with neither fame nor a halo. He was only eleven years old, lacking experience, lacking a solid foundation, lacking the real power to break the rules.

Hoffa could guess who had reported him without even thinking. Yet strangely, he was not angry. He felt only numbness. He could not possibly hate Argeleia any more than he already did. If she had been a boy, Hoffa would probably have skipped magic altogether and gone straight in with his fists.

Unfortunately, Hoffa had suffered a loss because of her gender.

As for the school's arrangement, he could only accept it and treat it as an indispensable lesson.

All day long, he sat in class expressionlessly and did not speak to anyone.

He considered his future plans. First, he had to complete every task assigned by the school, erase the negative impact of the Hogsmeade incident, and return to being a low-profile ordinary student. Second, he could not let anyone discover any sign that he had broken school rules. All gray-area schemes had to be suspended for now, whether it was illegally exploring the school or studying the knowledge in forbidden books.

He had to be as cautious as possible.

Expulsion?

Hoffa absolutely could not let that happen. He was only eleven, with no family anywhere on the European continent. For the time being, he had to rely on Hogwarts to survive.

By dinner that evening, Hoffa had returned to normal.

He began chatting and laughing with the students around him, no different from usual.

Halfway through dinner, an older student came over and handed Hoffa a letter.

When he opened it, he found two sheets of parchment inside. The first read:

[Every day at five thirty, the groundskeeper will wait for you at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest. I hope that through labor, you will discover your own shortcomings. —Adbe Gorshak]

It was a letter of labor punishment.

There was another sheet of parchment beneath the note.

The moment he took it out, Hoffa's heart sank.

It was an evaluation form for the Forbidden Forest groundskeeper to sign and grade.

It listed four ratings: Excellent, Good, Average, and Poor.

Beside Average was written: (Probation)

Beside Poor was written: (Expulsion)

An extra objective: behave himself for one month.

Hoffa sighed. This was both his goal and his obstacle. He had to overcome it before he could talk about future development.

He checked the time. It was already five o'clock, with only half an hour left before the time stated in the letter. He gave up on dinner, grabbed two chicken legs from the table and stuffed them into his pockets, then hurried away after saying goodbye to Miranda.

Outside the castle, a dim, hazy moon had risen. The sky was very dark, and a breeze stirred Hoffa's hair. The drizzle still fell steadily, soaking his school robes.

The rain was much lighter at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Many tall trees grew here, and the air was filled with the scent of rotting leaves.

Just as he reached the forest's edge, a huge flock of crows suddenly burst from the pitch-black woods. They cawed as they flew across the moon, as though they had seen something ominous.

The grounds were empty. Hoffa stood at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest for a while. Only after the crows stopped calling did he spot several carvings on a tree in the last fading light.

[Joey Dago's Home—Do Not Disturb Without Cause]

Joey Dago?

It seemed that this man was the current groundskeeper.

The only groundskeeper Hoffa knew of was Rubeus Hagrid.

Hagrid would not come to Hogwarts as a student for another two years, so naturally, Hagrid's hut was not here yet.

He had seen the current groundskeeper before. He was a one-eyed old man who rode a horse. He had taken Hoffa to the boats at the start of term and was responsible for putting up all kinds of school notices, but Hoffa did not know him at all.

I'll deal with it as it comes.

Hoffa comforted himself.

"Lumos."

With a soft incantation, silver light pierced the darkness.

Hoffa held his wand high, pointing it down a narrow trail that gradually vanished into the depths of the black forest. Looking into the Forbidden Forest, he could see nothing.

Hoffa tightened his robes around himself and stepped into the familiar yet unfamiliar woods.

He had thought that if he simply followed the path, he would find the groundskeeper named Joey Dago.

But as he walked, something began to feel wrong. When he followed the path to an oak tree, the narrow trail beneath his feet split into a three-way fork leading in different directions.

"What the hell is this?"

Hoffa muttered. He pulled out the note Gorshak had given him and looked it over, but there was no map of the Forbidden Forest on it.

There was no helping it. A task was a task. He had to reach the groundskeeper before five thirty, or he would be late. He put away the note, walked to the fork, and called out several times.

"Mr. Dago?"

"Are you there?"

His voice echoed through the empty forest in layers, but no one answered.

Hoffa frowned. Did he have no choice but to pick one path? But the three paths did not look different at all.

He walked toward the oak tree in the center of the fork.

Only when he got closer did Hoffa notice several crude yet vivid carvings on the tree.

There were three pictures, each corresponding to one entrance.

On the left was a tower lit by lightning.

In the center was a robed woman holding a set of scales.

On the right was a strange man hanging upside down from a tree.

Hoffa thought for a moment. He seemed to have seen these images in the school's Divination textbook, but he was not good at divination. To be honest, he did not believe in that stuff either.

To him, the obscure and indescribable phrasing used by Divination professors sounded more like the ravings of madmen. He understood every word separately, but once they were put together, he understood nothing.

Faced with such a strange crossroads, Hoffa had no good solution.

He put away his wand, stood before the three paths, and pointed at the ground with his hand.

"You, me, him, big fool, Snow White marries him."

Left.

Hoffa entered the path marked by the lightning tower.

The moment he stepped into the wooded clearing, his figure flickered a few times and vanished into the Forbidden Forest.

Mist swallowed the path.

Sensing the damp night fog of the forest, Hoffa narrowed his eyes and raised his wand.

The wand's silver light illuminated the road around him. Along the damp path at his feet grew moss and tiny fungi in all kinds of colors. Unfamiliar glowing insects drifted through the darkness, and at the sound of Hoffa's voice, they scattered.

He had not gone far when a massive tree, wide enough for two people to wrap their arms around, appeared in the middle of the path again, firmly blocking his way.

"Damn it!"

Seeing his path blocked once more, a trace of impatience rose in Hoffa's heart.

What was going on? Hadn't he been sent into the Forbidden Forest to find the groundskeeper? Why was the path either branching or blocked? Was this groundskeeper insane?

In Hoffa's impression, the Hogwarts staff of this era had all been fairly normal. Why would someone do something so absurd?

Irritated, he walked toward the side of the tree in the middle, trying to go around it.

But when he reached the tree, he saw the same three carvings etched into its trunk.

A tower lit by lightning.

A robed woman holding a set of scales.

A strange man hanging upside down from a tree.

The impatience on Hoffa's face gradually turned cold. Something was becoming very abnormal.

A faint feeling of being watched reached him. The glowing insects fluttering around him slowly drifted closer, their numbers increasing.

He drew his wand and slowly backed away, intending to return to the entrance first.

But after taking only one step back, he discovered that he could not move his foot. Looking down, he saw a black, shriveled hand gripping his ankle from the ground.

Hoffa's hair stood on end.

He suddenly exerted himself, kicked away the hand hooked around him, then spun around and ran wildly back the way he had come.

At once.

The fog grew thicker.

La~ la~ la~

Unexplained soft laughter rose around him.

Hoffa turned his head and saw the tiny mushrooms growing in damp, dark places on the ground suddenly swell, densely covering the tree trunks and earth like parasites.

As the mushrooms grew larger, some of their patterns split open and continued dividing. The markings on them looked like little faces—some laughing, some vicious, and some staring at him with pitiful expressions.

They pressed in from all directions. Hoffa's heart pounded. This unknown change had exceeded all his expectations, and the sudden danger made cold sweat pour down his back. He could only force himself to calm down.

He changed direction and began running again.

After only a few steps, the swollen mushrooms on the ground all burst open with a series of pops. Amid splattering slime, countless black hands stretched densely from within and pinned Hoffa down. The glowing insects in the air clung to his face, trying to burrow through his skin.

Without hesitation, Hoffa entered Ghostwalk.

In an instant, he left the material world and entered a shadow world containing only gray and white.

But the black hands did not disappear. Instead, they sprouted from the ground even more vigorously. From the perspective of the shadow world, the entire forest had changed, continuously writhing like a living creature.

The black hands grabbed Hoffa in the shadows. The mushrooms still fixed their gaze on him, while countless insects burrowed into his cheeks, making him look bizarre and grotesque.

Damn it!

Hoffa's mind raced.

Even leaving the material world had not freed him from this strange magic. It seemed this was not a spell aimed at the body, but magic that targeted the mind.

Having realized this, Hoffa's expression became grave.

He did not waste any more magic power and immediately withdrew from Ghostwalk.

The black hands nearly drowned Hoffa. They dragged him bit by bit underground, making excited, strange chattering sounds among themselves.

Hoffa closed his eyes. On one hand, he operated his meditation technique at full strength, purifying his mind. On the other, he rapidly considered a countermeasure.

Magic involving illusions and spells capable of affecting the mind were mostly connected to dark magic. Professor Merrythought of Gryffindor had mentioned this in class.

It could be a defensive spell, or it could be pure dark magic. There was only a fine line between the two.

This place was less than a few hundred meters from Hogwarts Castle. Hoffa did not believe anyone could set up profound dark magic here, so it had to be some kind of strange defensive spell.

With the meditation technique running at full force, Hoffa's mind gradually changed from simple to sharp. The scenery around him and the black hands began to blur. Some of the hands gripping Hoffa's arms even started screaming and smoking white.

It was as though they were not grabbing a person at all, but a red-hot iron.

The insects clinging to Hoffa exploded in rapid succession.

But Hoffa's resistance did not make them retreat. Countless black hands surged out from the dark underground like a tidal wave and swallowed Hoffa.

With his eyes closed, Hoffa's mind radiated outward like a web. Every thread of mental contact became a steel needle, and every needle pierced through a black hand or strange insect.

The entire mental world became a battlefield.

A battlefield between him and unknown magic.

Just as the battle rapidly reached a deadlock, with neither side able to gain the upper hand—

A powerful force came from somewhere unknown. A man reached out, crossed the boundary between illusion and reality, gripped Hoffa's shoulder, and forcibly pulled him free from the control of those black hands.

Hiss!

It felt like falling off the bed in the middle of sleep.

Hoffa jolted and snapped his eyes open, his entire body swaying twice.

He was completely awake. The mushrooms, black hands, writhing forest, and flying strange insects had all vanished.

The cold drizzle still fell steadily. He was standing before an old oak tree at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest, his face nearly pressed against its trunk. Before him was the carving of lightning striking a tower.

Hoffa's face was pale, and his fingers felt cold.

His consciousness had gone so far, yet his body had not taken a single step.

Hoffa had no idea when he had fallen into the illusion.

"You came early."

A hoarse yet steady voice sounded beside him.

"We agreed on five thirty. Why did you come ahead of time?"

Hoffa turned his head and saw a weathered face. It belonged to a one-eyed old man around fifty years old, his arms crossed as he looked Hoffa up and down.