John's borrowing records displayed a peculiar polarization that immediately caught Adrian's eye as he scanned down the parchment scroll.
One full third of the borrowed books consisted of advanced dark magic books that should never be in a first-year student's hands under any normal circumstances. Works on soul manipulation, possession theory, dark rituals, and forbidden curses.
The remainder, strangely and suspiciously, were basic reading materials that only first-year students would typically consult like Common Magical Plants: An Illustrated Guide, Basic Charms for Beginners, A History of Hogwarts: First Year Edition, and Simple Household Spells.
This contrast was clearly John's intentional attempt at misdirection to hide his true interests from observation.
After all, while an ordinary curious first-year student might browse through profound magical texts out of innocent curiosity or ambition, flipping through pages filled with concepts they couldn't possibly understand yet, they certainly wouldn't persist for long or check them out repeatedly over months.
What particularly caught Adrian's attention was one specific recurring detail: those dark magic books seemed predominantly concerned with soul research from every angle.
This aligned perfectly with Voldemort's primary objective, namely his own scattered soul fragments.
Come to think of it more deeply, Adrian felt that Voldemort's willingness to take such enormous risks coming personally to Hogwarts, the one place where Dumbledore ruled absolutely and his power was at its apex, to retrieve his soul fragments wasn't merely about self-preservation.
There was quite likely a far greater conspiracy at work here, some deeper ambitious plan that required not just recovery but a complete, unified soul operating at full capacity.
What was Voldemort truly planning?
"Madam Pince," Adrian said, making a firm decision. "Could you help me locate and gather every single book that Selwyn has borrowed over the course of this entire year?" Adrian asked. "I need to examine them all personally, each one. It's quite important."
Madam Pince frowned deeply, her lips were pressing into a thin line as she clearly calculated the substantial work involved. Her eyes swept over the long list still in Adrian's hands.
"That's quite a substantial number of books, Professor Westeros..." She hesitated. "Very well, I can help you, but it will take some considerable time to pull them all from the shelves, the restricted areas, and various locations throughout the library. Some may be mis-shelved. Please come back this afternoon and I'll have everything ready and waiting for you."
"Thank you sincerely for your trouble, Madam Pince," Adrian said with appreciation.
She nodded curtly, already making notes on a separate piece of parchment, organizing her retrieval strategy.
That afternoon, when Adrian returned to the library, Madam Pince had already prepared all the books.
She was standing behind a large oak table in the back corner near the Restricted Section entrance, slightly breathless from the obvious effort of gathering so many books. A light sheen of sweat showed on her forehead.
"They're all here, Professor Westeros," she said gesturing toward the table with one thin hand while still catching her breath.
Before her on the large oak table lay a dense pile of books stacked like a small mountain range, nearly overwhelming the entire desktop with their combined mass. They formed towers of leather and parchment, different sizes and ages and binding styles all mixed together.
"There are this many?" Adrian couldn't help but express his genuine surprise, approaching the table to examine the collection more closely. His eyes widened slightly.
It was far more than he'd anticipated based on the list alone.
"Yes, Professor Westeros. To be perfectly honest with you, I frequently see Mr. Selwyn in the library at all hours of the day and evening," Madam Pince explained, and there was a note of approval in her usually stern voice.
She softened when speaking of dedicated students. "This is actually quite a normal quantity for him given his constant presence here. I've seen him arrive before breakfast and stay until curfew forces him to leave."
She paused. "For a first-year student, this level of dedication is certainly unusual—most can barely sit still for an hour. But considering he's a Ravenclaw..."
She smiled more warmly now, clearly impressed by what she believed was pure academic devotion and love of learning.
"He's a Slytherin, actually," Adrian corrected her gently, watching her face.
Madam Pince blinked rapidly in surprise, her certainty shaken. "Oh! Is he really? I could have sworn... well, he certainly reads like a Ravenclaw. Acts like one too."
Her confusion was understandable.
After repeatedly assuring Madam Pince that he would treat the books with the utmost care, handle them with clean hands, and wouldn't damage them in any way swearing on his professorship, almost—Adrian carefully drew his wand and levitated the entire collection in a neat stack.
He guided them carefully through the library aisles, past curious students who stared at the floating mountain of books, and brought them back through the castle corridors to his office with care.
Several portraits commented on the unusual sight as he passed.
He was absolutely determined to see exactly what books Voldemort had been reading in Hogwarts library.
Adrian spent an entire afternoon and well into the evening, working without break except for a quick sandwich he barely tasted, finally making his way through all those accumulated books.
Many of the basic books showed almost no signs of use—they'd clearly been checked out purely for appearance, never opened except perhaps to glance at the first page.
One particular slim book gained his intense interest and scrutiny above all others.
It was a book on soul research that appeared to be some dark wizard's personal research notes from long ago, centuries past judging by the aged, leather binding and the faded, brownish ink that had oxidized over time.
In truth, Adrian knew from his own experience and studies that most books about the so-called "soul" were written purely to deceive gullible people.
A profound-sounding term like "soul magic" combined with rambling, pseudo-philosophical text filled with deliberate obscurity and deliberately obscure language could easily pique the interest of a curious wizard seeking power or information.
Then the author could snatch gold Galleons from his pocket through promises of transcendence, immortality, or forbidden knowledge.
It was a tale as old as magic itself, the fool and his money.
Apparently, during some period in the distant past perhaps the 1600s based on the publishing dates he'd seen—such fraudulent books had been extraordinarily popular in certain circles, almost a cottage industry among unscrupulous writers.
Every third-rate wizard with a quill had written one. This meant that most of them were hollow shells without real content or value, filled with plagiarized philosophy and invented rituals, with very few possessing genuine research merit.
Separating the real from the fake required expertise.
The research notes in Adrian's hands, however, seemed to have some legitimate research value based on their actual content and the rigor of the methodology described.
If for no other reason than the fact that this book appeared to contain an extremely well-concealed and cleverly crafted dark magic curse woven skillfully into its very pages, protection magic of a sophisticated kind.
Simply put, when you turned to a certain specific page, you would suddenly experience an overwhelming, irresistible, physically urgent need to use the toilet immediately.
And by the time you returned from answering that urgent biological call, you would have completely forgotten your original purpose and reason for reading, thereby overlooking that particular notebook entirely and moving on to something else.
What a malicious little curse, Adrian thought with admiration.
Still, discovering such a cursed book hidden in Hogwarts' Restricted Section wasn't particularly surprising given the section's long history.
The library had accumulated dark and dangerous knowledge for over a thousand years, and not all of it had been properly catalogued, examined, or even read by current staff. Some books had sat undisturbed for centuries.
Who knew what other dangers lurked on those shelves?
The book was titled The Research Notes of Emeric Sawle in faded gold lettering embossed on the cracked spine.
Though Adrian had never heard this particular name before in all his studies of magical history and dark arts practitioners, he wouldn't underestimate it for that reason alone.
History was full of obscure but genuinely brilliant wizards whose important work had been forgotten by later generations, lost in the shuffle of time. Fame and actual ability didn't always correlate.
One particular passage captured his full attention:
"The soul represents the upper limit of a wizard's potential. Although soul strength cannot directly equate to a wizard's practical power in any given moment, all the truly powerful wizards who have left their indelible mark on history, who have genuinely changed the world, always possessed souls that were extraordinary in their magnitude, integrity, and strength.
As for those misguided fools who choose to split their souls, like Herpo the Foul who pioneered the practice in ancient Greece, while splitting his soul didn't diminish his immediate power and even granted him a form of eternal life through his Horcrux, he could never advance any further beyond that point."
Therefore, strengthening one's own soul is what matters most for true advancement beyond ordinary limits!
This is the secret the great wizards understood!"
This passage was somewhat fragmentary and rambling, seemingly the notebook author's own passionate thoughts scrawled hastily in margins during a moment of revelation, and Adrian barely managed to piece together its general meaning from the archaic phrasing and outdated terminology.
But the core idea was clear.
As for the content that followed on subsequent pages, it appeared to be a complex, multi-step potion recipe written in small, cramped handwriting that was difficult to read.
According to the author's own enthusiastic introduction, this particular experimental potion could enhance and fortify the user's soul power.
However, Adrian strongly believed this potion recipe was most likely fraudulent or at least dangerously incomplete, because many of the ingredients mentioned were ones he had never even heard of in all his studies.
But none of that mattered for his current purposes.
The reason Adrian paid such close attention to this particular passage wasn't the fraudulent recipe but the underlying theory.
He found himself agreeing strongly with this basic viewpoint about souls and their relationship to magical potential.
Although he had never deeply studied the abstract concept of "soul" he could vaguely sense one important thing through his unique connection with the Tree of Wisdom: his own soul seemed to be somehow different from others.
This feeling was extremely difficult to articulate precisely, more like an intuition.
More importantly, this sensation seemed to have emerged only after he had fully understood and mastered the Binding Charm, after he'd crossed that crucial threshold of magical understanding. Only then, after that breakthrough, could he dimly perceive this difference in himself.
It was as though the advancement had opened new senses.
Voldemort was widely acknowledged as perhaps the greatest expert at manipulating souls in the modern era. He was even capable of resolving to split his own soul repeatedly.
The act was considered the ultimate violation of natural law.
Adrian couldn't help but suspect whether Voldemort had also somehow come to understand, perhaps recently, the critical importance of maintaining a complete, unified, powerful soul for true advancement.
Whether he'd realized, perhaps too late, that his fragmentation had been a terrible mistake that had permanently capped his potential.
Whether he was now desperately trying to undo what he'd done.
If that were truly the case, then Voldemort's objective would be quite obvious: through some special method or dark ritual, reunify his split soul and perhaps advance even further beyond his current capabilities.
It would explain why he'd risk everything to come here.
Unfortunately, some of the Horcruxes had already been destroyed by Adrian. And Voldemort would probably never be able to restore his soul completely to its original, whole state now.
After thoroughly checking through all the books over many hours, Adrian finally stretched his somewhat stiff back with pops along his spine.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the tension of hunching over books for hours.
The clock on the wall pointed to midnight.
Just as he was preparing to rest, to finally get some desperately needed sleep after this long, exhausting day, a crumpled piece of paper suddenly squeezed through the narrow window gap with a soft rustling sound.
Adrian warily picked up the paper, immediately suspicious of anything arriving at this late hour through unconventional means.
He unfolded it carefully and saw written on it in large, crooked, hasty letters: "Come to the Forbidden Forest—Hagrid."
It was definitely Hagrid's handwriting.
Adrian was immediately puzzled and concerned by this strange summons.
Why would Hagrid send a message at this late hour using this particular method? And why arrange to meet specifically in the Forbidden Forest at midnight of all places and times?
He grabbed his wand from the desk where it lay among the books, pulled on his outer robes against the night chill, and immediately left his office without hesitation.
Hogwarts tonight was exceptionally quiet.
The torches in the corridors seemed dimmer than usual, their flames were flickering weakly as though struggling against some invisible force or presence.
As he passed a large portrait of a sleeping knight in full armor, slumped against a painted tree, a lazy voice suddenly emanated from the canvas, startling him slightly: "Hey, wandering around the castle this late at night, are we? Bit unusual for a professor."
Adrian stopped and glanced up, noticing that the knight in the portrait was watching him with half-open, bleary eyes, leaning heavily on his sword. His face showed curiosity.
"Something urgent," Adrian answered briefly.
"Oh, suit yourself then, I don't care either way." The knight yawned widely, showing teeth in an exaggerated stretch. "Not my business what living folk do at ridiculous hours. I'm just a painting."
He closed his eyes to return to sleep.
Adrian found this somewhat exasperating—if he genuinely didn't care, why bother initiating conversation at all?
Portrait inhabitants were strange creatures, bored and seeking entertainment.
He strode quickly across the courtyard. The night breeze carried a sharp chill that brushed insistently against his robes and face, making him pull the cloth tighter around himself.
When he reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest, he found Hagrid waiting there with a lantern held high in one hand.
Fang was bouncing around energetically beside him.
"Hagrid?" Adrian called out.
Hearing his voice, Hagrid turned around quickly and waved with his free hand. "Ah! So, you got my message then. Come quickly."
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