After dealing with the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, Douglas went straight to Dumbledore's office.
"Professor, is there something else you need me to do?"
Dumbledore took out a thick envelope he had prepared earlier and handed it to Douglas.
Then he began to explain:
"I had intended to give you this gift on your birthday, but I hesitated at the time.
"Through certain channels, I learned of your attitude toward your Muggle relatives, so I kept hesitating over whether to tell you. But from your neighbors...
"Douglas, please forgive me for having investigated you without your permission because of certain matters..."
Douglas frowned slightly. You've already finished investigating me. What else can I say? Since when did background checks become fashionable at Hogwarts too?
He opened the envelope. The first sheet of parchment recorded his paternal family tree. He saw nothing wrong with it. There were no familiar names, and six generations of his ancestors had all been Muggles.
The second sheet recorded his maternal family tree. There was nothing there either... Wait. Looking up from the column listing his maternal grandmother's sisters, he found "Squib" noted beside his grandmother's grandfather. Farther up, there was a Dumbledore...
Douglas was not particularly shocked. Every Muggle-born wizard was bound to have a wizard somewhere among their ancestors. He simply had not expected his wizarding blood to come from the Dumbledore family.
He looked at Dumbledore in confusion, not understanding what he meant by this.
Following Douglas's gaze, Dumbledore knew what he had seen and explained cheerfully:
"Oh, that was a cousin of my father's. Father said that because he was a Squib, he had always lived in the Muggle world and changed his surname. But that isn't the point. You should look farther down..."
Douglas did not dwell on his