The second Sunday after school started.
The busiest time had passed, and Adrian finally had time to research the blue gemstone and parchment he had obtained during the summer holidays.
First, to view the memories contained in the blue gemstone, he needed to borrow a Pensieve.
A Pensieve was a very rare magical object that allowed people to observe memories placed within it from a third-person perspective.
Because of the Pensieve's special nature and its susceptibility to misuse, most Pensieves were buried or destroyed along with their owners' wands when the owners died.
Hogwarts' Pensieve was an exception—it belonged to Hogwarts and had therefore been passed down through generations.
Carrying the blue gemstone and parchment, Adrian made his way to the headmaster's office at the topmost level.
After trying several passwords, Adrian successfully got the gargoyle to step aside.
This time the password was "Fizzing Whizzbees."
The stone statue slowly moved aside, revealing the spiral staircase that rotated upward behind it.
When he reached the door, Adrian discovered that there were voices of discussion coming from inside the office.
"Albus, I must once again point out—Gilderoy Lockhart may not be suitable..."
"Ah, Minerva, let's give this young man another chance..."
It seemed Professor McGonagall was discussing with Dumbledore that Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who had been chased out of the classroom by Cornish Pixies.
Although Lockhart insisted it was to train students' reactions to sudden incidents, this incident had already spread throughout the school.
Adrian knocked gently on the door, and the conversation inside suddenly stopped.
"Please come in." Dumbledore's gentle voice came through.
Pushing open the door, Adrian saw Professor McGonagall standing in front of the desk, while Dumbledore sat in a high-backed chair with a stack of documents on the table.
"Well," Professor McGonagall said when she saw Adrian enter, sighing, "I hope Lockhart can take Defense Against the Dark Arts more seriously... I should go. I think I need to grade students' assignments."
With that, Professor McGonagall turned and left the headmaster's office.
As she passed Adrian, she gave him an approving smile.
'If only Lockhart could be as reassuring as Adrian...'
As the office door closed gently, only Adrian and Dumbledore remained in the room.
"Good morning, Professor."
Adrian approached Dumbledore.
"Please sit down, Professor Westeros," Dumbledore interlaced his fingers, looking at Adrian curiously. "What brings you to visit my office on this beautiful Sunday afternoon?"
"Actually," Adrian's gaze swept over a small basin in the corner, "I'd like to borrow Hogwarts' Pensieve."
The Pensieve was kept in Dumbledore's office because Dumbledore often needed to organize his memories.
"Pensieve?" Dumbledore showed a surprised expression, looking at Adrian strangely. "Professor Westeros, I think you haven't reached the age where you need to use such a thing. Are you already worried about your memory?"
"Someone sent me a memory," Adrian answered honestly. "I need to see what's inside it."
Dumbledore nodded and gently waved his wand, causing the Pensieve to float slowly from the corner to the desk.
Adrian looked into the basin and saw it filled with silvery-white substance that seemed both liquid and gaseous.
"Ah, those are all my memories. Sometimes I use it to find misplaced sweets—just last week a box of Chocolate Frogs escaped from my memory."
Dumbledore said this while waving his wand again, causing the silvery-white substance to flow into a small bottle beside it. "Now there should be no problem. Please use it, Professor Westeros."
Adrian nodded and took the blue gemstone from his pocket.
Dumbledore looked at the gemstone filled with silvery-white memory substance in Adrian's hand and couldn't help but pause.
"Do you recognize this gemstone, Professor Dumbledore?"
Adrian keenly noticed Dumbledore's reaction, his fingers unconsciously stroking the cracked surface of the gemstone.
"No," Dumbledore shook his head slightly but continued staring at the gemstone in Adrian's hand. "But this gemstone's quality... is very special."
"Moreover," he paused, then continued, "this method of memory storage is very ancient. I think this should be at least five hundred years old."
"It seems to have quite a background."
Adrian shrugged, came to the Pensieve, and drew his wand.
He gently pressed his wand against the crack in the blue gemstone, and the silvery-white substance within began to be drawn out like silk threads, flowing into the Pensieve under his guidance.
Those memories flowed in the basin, gradually interweaving into a mist.
When all the memories had entered the Pensieve, Adrian looked at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore made a "please" gesture.
Adrian nodded and leaned toward the Pensieve.
The next second, Adrian felt everything spinning around him, as if he were being drawn into a whirlpool.
When he came to his senses, his vision had arrived in an unfamiliar room.
Looking around, rough stone walls were embedded with blue runes that Adrian couldn't understand, and there were constellation patterns projected on the ceiling that caught his attention. On the wall to his left, bookshelves were densely packed with rolled parchments.
In the center of the room stood a heavy oak table with a candle on it, along with a familiar blue gemstone and that roll of parchment.
Just then, the heavy oak door was pushed open, and a woman with black hair and black eyes walked in. She went straight to the back of the oak table and picked up the gemstone and parchment.
Adrian couldn't help but look at the woman's face—it was exactly the same as what he had seen in Nicolas Flamel's crystal ball and in the Albanian Dark Forest.
This was already the third time he had seen this woman's face.
However, although Adrian felt like he had seen her somewhere before, he couldn't remember where—it must have been a very distant memory.
The woman suddenly spoke, and her first sentence made Adrian's pupils contract.
"I am Rowena Ravenclaw," Ravenclaw's serious voice rang out, her eyes seeming to penetrate through time and space. "This is one of my memories."
Adrian's breathing almost stopped. He finally knew when he had seen this woman's face before.
During his school years, he had secretly entered the Ravenclaw common room.
And in the Ravenclaw common room, there was a statue of Ravenclaw herself.
After careful identification, Adrian finally realized that the appearance of the woman before him was identical to that statue.
In other words, what he was now viewing was a memory from Ravenclaw herself!
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