HP: It's a snake, not a badger.

Chapter 170 Extra: Ellie's Transmigration 1

Since Severus and Emeric got married, they've been living in the headmaster's office. Dumbledore ran off with Gellert, leaving Severus with a mess. Now, he's constantly busy teaching Potions and dealing with paperwork, leaving him dizzy with stress.

Fortunately, Emeric helped him get rid of some of the problems, but he also had a lot to do. In order to stay at the school, he applied for a job as a professor of magic runes, while also handling half of his business affairs, leaving the other half to his two fathers.

"Severus, I'm going crazy! How come there's still candy here? Does Albus think this place is a candy jar?" Emeric casually pulled a candy from the pillow behind him. He had been pricked by it countless times. They had searched the place on the first day they moved in, but he didn't expect there to be so many left.

"I found two pills in the file box yesterday," Severus said, rubbing his forehead; he also felt a headache coming on.

"What is that?" Emeric smelled a strange odor, a scent that didn't belong to this time and space. He had a bad feeling and quickly took two steps to the side. But the aura seemed to lock onto him, directly engulfing him at the spot where he had landed.

Emeric left only with the words, "I'll be back soon," before disappearing from Severus's sight. The man felt a pang of fear for the first time, and could only be thankful that the contract hadn't been broken, telling him that Emeric was safe.

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"Damn it, what kind of crappy place is this? Wait, why is it still Hogwarts?" Emeric stood in the corridor, observing his surroundings. The Hogwarts he was in was different from the one in his original timeline.

Behind him, a figure was watching. The man with long red hair stood quietly, observing the suddenly appearing youth. When he heard that it was still Hogwarts, his eyes flickered, wanting to know his origins.

Emeric, unaware of the person behind him, looked around frantically, trying to find a way back. His sudden disappearance must have frightened Severus. "I wonder if Albus in this timeline recognizes me, or if there's any way to send me back," he muttered as he walked, wondering why there were no students at the school.

"Excuse me, sir, I think you need to explain your origins." Hearing Emeric mention him, Dumbledore relaxed his guard slightly, emerging from the shadows to call out to him, wanting to know more. "You also need to explain why you're here, and why the castle accepted you."

"Huh? I've actually returned to this time period?" Emeric looked back in surprise, and when he saw Dumbledore with his long red hair, his gossipy nature kicked in. "Excuse me, did you and Gellert break up?"

"Shouldn't you introduce yourself before asking questions?" A hint of apprehension flashed in Dumbledore's eyes. Neither he nor Gellert would publicize this relationship, so why would this person know?

Emeric scratched his head, feeling quite uncomfortable with Dumbledore's demeanor. Seeing Dumbledore raise his wand at him, he quickly explained, "Well, I must be from the future. My name is Emeric Thaddeus. This morning I encountered a time rift in the Headmaster's office, and it brought me here. Do you have any way to send me back? My lover is waiting for me."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, I have no choice. For the safety of the students, you need to stay with me." Dumbledore pondered for a moment, then reluctantly believed him, because there was indeed a new person named Americ Thaddeus in the castle's professorship contracts.

"I need to meet up with some students today, could you please come with me?"

"Guiding students? Can you tell me what year it is?"

"What happened in 1938?"

"19...38?"

Emeric began to recall what had happened at this time. It was impossible for him to be sent here for no reason. 1938 was Voldemort's first year of school. Could it be because of this?

"Is there a problem?" Dumbledore stared intently at Emeric's expression, afraid of missing any clue.

"Oh no, but I think I know why I came here," Emeric shook his head and told him. While going through his memories, he also remembered something else. He hesitated for a moment before deciding to say it, "How are you and Gellert doing? Ariana will eventually come back to you. I can't say too much else, for fear of causing spacetime disturbances. I'll show you a photo we took a while ago."

He handed Dumbledore a photograph of five people. Ariana was sitting in the middle, with him and Severus standing to her left, and Dumbledore and Gellert to her right. The photograph was magically marked with a date, and with Dumbledore's discerning eye, it was easy to tell that it was genuine.

"Can I have this photo? Will she really come back?" Dumbledore's hands trembled slightly as he gently stroked the photo of Ariana.

"Of course, get all these things ready. Let me calculate how many years we have left, only about fifty." Emeric said, sounding a little guilty, but it wasn't his fault. "Don't look at me like that, I can't help it. You'll understand when we meet again."

Emeric gave Dumbledore a list of items needed for the resurrection ritual, believing that fifty years would be enough to collect them and save money for his next self.

"Don't worry~ I'll definitely come. If you're worried, don't break up with Gellert. You'll see me about 10 years earlier." Seeing the dejection on Dumbledore's face, Emeric couldn't help but say something, thinking to himself: No wonder Gellert is love-struck, everyone likes that face.

Hearing the information revealed in Emeric's words, Dumbledore kept it in mind. Like Gellert, the young man loved adventure. Since there was a way to see Ariana again, what was a little man seduction? He could do it. At worst, he could knock her out and lock her up.

"Hehe, sir, you're thinking about some extreme things. Don't get into the imprisonment thing. In my timeline, you two were practically estranged forever. If I hadn't enjoyed watching the drama and hadn't had a bit of fun, one of you would have lived a lonely life, and the other would have suffered a lot and ended up with no good outcome."

Emeric interrupted him impatiently, immediately realizing that Dumbledore was thinking something dangerous. No wonder Gellert always said he and Dumbledore were similar in some ways—their expressions when plotting something were exactly the same. How could they not be similar?

"Sir, my suggestion is to have a good talk with him. If verbal communication doesn't work, you can try it in bed. Oh, this kind of talk might cause some physical discomfort, which can be resolved with a magic potion. Of course, it might not work in a day or two, so try it for a few days, then leave him out of the picture. Also—"

"Cough, cough, cough," Dumbledore coughed several times, his face red, choking on his own saliva. He quickly interrupted Emeric's bad idea, "We'll handle these things ourselves, no need for the child to worry about them." From what had just happened, he deduced that Emeric was probably a junior of Gellert, but he didn't know where he came from.

"Let's go pick up the kids. Hold my hand and let Phoenix lead us away." He quickly changed the subject, afraid that Emerick would say something scary again.

"Oh, okay." Emeric naturally took his arm. It has to be said that Dumbledore's fashion sense was quite good at this time. Why did he become like that when he got old?

At the entrance of the Wu Family Orphanage

Emeric and Dumbledore landed on the side of the street and looked across at the orphanage, their target for the day.

"Hey, hey, change your clothes. Don't go in like this. There are Muggle kids inside. What if you scare them?" Emeric reached out and grabbed Dumbledore, took out his wand and touched the two of them. Their original wizard robes turned into two dark suits, and he disguised the wands as canes in his hands.

"Excellent Transfiguration, but why do it this way? You could just erase their memories later." Dumbledore praised, noting that the spellcasting technique resembled his own, suggesting that Emerick and he had a good relationship.

"..." Emeric didn't know what to say, only able to sigh that the wizard's arrogance was indeed ingrained in his bones. He took a deep breath and began to explain, "First of all, you won't erase the little wizard's memories. So what if he brags about it to his friends? Let's start with the good thing: if the child is popular, the other children will envy him and spread the word. But what if he's not popular? Won't the other children ostracize him even more after hearing about it?"

"Besides, this is an orphanage. The children here are always hungry and cold. They learn to fight at a young age in order to survive and find a better family. Do I need to elaborate on what an outcast would suffer if someone stood out in an otherwise ordinary environment?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't think that far ahead. You're right." Accepting advice has always been one of Dumbledore's strengths. Following this line of thought, he realized that doing so would undoubtedly push the child into the abyss.

Did you bring any pounds?

"No, what would I need this for?"

"Let's go to Gringotts to exchange money. I'll explain later," Emeric glanced around. "Fox, come here and take us to Gringotts. I'll give you some dragon jerky."

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"Thanks, Fawkes, here's the jerky you promised." Emeric tossed over a large piece of jerky, then pulled Dumbledore toward Gringotts. "We'll exchange for pounds, thank you."

While waiting for the goblins to count the money, Emeric explained, "If we disguise ourselves as Muggles and enter the orphanage, and then leave after only a few words with the young wizard without leaving anything substantial behind, others will think that the child scared us away, and he will suffer even more."

"I understand." Dumbledore sighed, feeling old; otherwise, why couldn't he understand something so simple? "Let's go back."

The two reappeared at the entrance of the Woods Orphanage. This time, Dumbledore transformed their wizard robes into Muggle clothes as soon as he landed.

Since he genuinely didn't know how to interact with Muggles, Dumbledore simply remained silent and left the matter to Emerick, letting him deal with the staff.

They followed Mrs. Cole, listening to her introduce each child, but Emeric and Dumbledore didn't nod until they had seen all the children in the yard.

"Perhaps there are other children? These children are indeed good, but my family has a worthy heir. I just want to find him a playmate." Emeric feigned arrogance, his eyes sweeping across the entire yard.

"Well... there's another one, but this child is a bit special, and he's too old to be adopted." Mrs. Cole hesitated for a moment, but ultimately decided to take them to Tom. She didn't want to miss out on such a large sum of money, enough to feed the children for a long time.

"Here it is, gentlemen." Mrs. Cole pushed open the attic door, revealing the dark scene inside.

"What's this child's name? He's quite handsome." Emeric showed a satisfied expression, casually taking out a few pounds and handing them to Mrs. Cole. "Could we talk alone? Don't worry, I won't close the door. If there's a problem, you'll hear me if he calls, right?"

"Of course." Mrs. Cole clenched the money in her hand and glanced at Tom subtly, signaling him not to anger Emeric and Dumbledore.

Once only three people remained in the room, Emeric stood to one side against the wall, letting Dumbledore and Tom talk. He had never been a Conduit Professor, so how would he know what to do?

"My child, I am a professor at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said, handing Tom a box of candy in an attempt to calm him down. "I'm taking you to Diagon Alley to buy things today. On September 1st, you will need to go to Platform 9¾ alone."

As Emeric listened to Dumbledore's words, his mind wandered. He wondered if Severus was anxious at this moment, if he was thinking of him. They had never been separated by such a great distance before, and he wondered if Severus had been frightened when he disappeared.

"Can you explain to me why there are so many things here that don't belong to you?"

Before he knew it, Dumbledore's tone changed, becoming very serious, as if he had seen a bad child and was about to scold Tom.

"Hey, calm down, don't be so harsh on a child," Emeric shielded Tom behind him. He understood Dumbledore's nervousness caused by Gellert, but that wasn't a reason to doubt a child. "Riddle, can you tell me why you hid other people's things?"

"Because I want to." He ignored Emeric and stared intently at Dumbledore, wanting to see his reaction.

"You can think about it, that's fine too."

"?"

The other two were stunned, never expecting that Emeric would accept such a ridiculous reason.

"I said I deliberately stole their things, because I wanted to see them cry."

"Fine, fine, I know you're doing this on purpose. Speak softly, don't deafen me," Emeric rubbed his ears, giving Tom a disgruntled look. "What? I'm not blind. Judging by your size and the size of those kids outside, you definitely can't beat them, so this is the only way you can get revenge. Is that so hard to understand?"

Dumbledore pondered once more and realized that Emerick's perspective was different from his own. He listened quietly to their conversation.

"What else did you do? Tell me honestly." Emeric reached out and pinched Tom's cheek, then casually removed the snake from his neck and stuffed it back into his hand so that Dumbledore wouldn't see it.

"I killed everyone else's favorite rabbit."

"Anything else?"

"I've hidden their favorite things here." He reached into the cabinet behind him and opened it; it was filled with many items.

"Ah, anything else?"

"I released snakes to scare Mrs. Cole."

"Is there anything else?"

"That's all."

Tom was speechless when asked the questions. He thought he had done enough bad things, but he didn't expect that Emerick was not scared at all.

"Not bad, he knows how to protect himself. Albus, he's a normal person."

"?"

The two were completely confused by Emeric's words, and they waited quietly for him to continue.

"In that case, you can hide half of this money, and give the other half to Mrs. Cole later. That should be enough for you until September."

"That's it? Aren't you going to yell at me?"

"What's there to curse about? You didn't kill or commit arson. At most, it's just that you were uneducated and your revenge methods were cruel. You'll suffer the consequences after school starts. What's there to curse about now?"

Dumbledore suddenly remembered that there was indeed a strict professor in the college, and Tom would definitely suffer a lot if he entered the college like this. He immediately stopped being in a hurry.

"Why should I give them the money? I'll hide it and use it myself after you leave."

"Because we are wizards, we can control you to send money." Emeric smiled evilly and turned his cane back into a magic wand.

(Ah~ there's still so much to write. This idea is a bit far-fetched. I'll finish the rest tomorrow.)