After returning to Hogwarts, Adrian had Ray observe the owls' movements every morning.
Almost every few days, a package would be delivered to Quirrell's office. This meant that Adrian's conjecture in Knockturn Alley was most likely correct.
And according to Adrian's observations, Quirrell's mental state was very unstable. That was probably because Quirrell was using some magical materials to sustain his life.
Of course, Quirrell still roamed the Forbidden Forest at night, trying to hunt unicorns.
After all, the effect of unicorn blood was much better than the items Lucius had given him.
There was even one time when Adrian and Hagrid were patrolling at night and had almost caught that figure, but he got away.
Another night, Hagrid and Adrian were patrolling the Forbidden Forest together.
In the original story, around this time, Quirrell would deliberately lose a dragon egg to Hagrid and then extract the three-headed dog's weakness from him.
However, this time things seemed different; Hagrid hadn't received the dragon egg yet.
When Adrian mentioned dragon eggs.
"Ah, dragons," Hagrid sighed wistfully. "I wonder where Professor Kettleburn got Torch from?"
"Who knows," Adrian said casually.
Hagrid's eyes sparkled with longing as he said, "I've dreamed of raising a dragon. I've even thought of a name—Norbert. What do you think, Adrian?"
It seemed that Hagrid truly hadn't received a dragon egg at this point.
But that was normal, considering how much the original plot had already changed.
"Oh, right," Hagrid seemed to remember something and turned to Adrian, saying excitedly, "I haven't seen Torch for several months. Can I go see him this weekend? He must have grown so big!"
"Uh..." Adrian turned to look at Hagrid and said, "Didn't I tell you that Torch was taken away by Professor Kettleburn?"
Hagrid immediately stopped in his tracks, and his lantern fell to the ground with a clatter.
"What?" he said in panic. "You didn't tell me this!"
Adrian couldn't help but stop as well, explaining, "About three or four months ago, he left England."
Hearing Adrian's words, Hagrid picked up his lantern again and asked anxiously, "Will I be able to see Torch again?"
Although Adrian wanted to say yes, he honestly told Hagrid, "Probably not."
Hagrid immediately became dejected, saying in a low voice, "You should have told me earlier, so I could have said goodbye to Torch."
Seeing Hagrid as downcast as a several-hundred-pound child, Adrian couldn't help but show an apologetic expression.
After all, Professor Kettleburn's notification had come urgently, and Adrian had immediately packed Torch into a briefcase and given it to Professor Kettleburn.
Until the patrol ended, Hagrid's mood remained very poor. It seemed that not being able to see Torch final time truly made him very sad.
The good news was that the Forbidden Forest was quiet tonight, with no suspicious traces found.
Adrian returned to Hogwarts Castle at one o'clock in the morning.
Despite the late hour, Adrian still encountered Filch on patrol. Filch was quite energetic, still patrolling at one in the morning.
He even mistook Adrian for a student out after curfew, which made Adrian feel like he was back in his student days.
In the past, when he was out after hours, he would encounter Filch, except back then he had to hide from this annoying fellow.
Finally reaching his office door, Adrian suddenly noticed a crumpled note wedged in the door crack.
He frowned as he pulled out the note; the jagged torn edges indicated it had been hastily ripped from a book or notebook.
The note hadn't been there when he left his office that afternoon.
Well, maybe it had?
He had never paid attention to the gap in his office door before.
As Adrian pondered when the note had appeared, he pushed open the door.
The office showed no signs of having been disturbed.
After sitting back in his chair, Adrian looked at the note.
The writing on the note was crooked and jumbled, very difficult to decipher, as if written in extreme panic.
Finally, after several minutes of deciphering, Adrian pieced together the content of the note:
[
Please save me, drive him out! He has forcibly taken over my body, I don't know what to do, save me, you can do it, like before!
]
A truly desperate message.
Adrian held the note in silence for a moment.
The identity of the person who wrote this note was obvious.
Who else could it be but Quirrell himself? It seemed that Voldemort must be seizing control of Quirrell's body.
Something must have happened during this time that caused Quirrell and Voldemort to fall out.
Adrian could almost imagine the origin of this note:
Voldemort wanted to take complete control of Quirrell's body, Quirrell was unwilling, so Voldemort began using some method to forcibly occupy Quirrell's body. Finally, Quirrell remembered that Adrian had once used a golden apple to force Voldemort out of his body, so he took advantage of Voldemort's inattention to write this note, place it here, and ask Adrian for help...
But Quirrell might have mistaken the recipient of his plea for help; Adrian was not the kind-hearted person he thought.
Perhaps if he had sought help from Dumbledore, his chances of survival might have been greater.
Adrian casually crumpled the note into a ball.
"Incendio!"
He waved his hand, and the paper ball instantly turned to ashes.
How could Adrian possibly help Quirrell? Although Quirrell might have been bewitched by Voldemort into allowing him to parasitize his body.
But regardless, Quirrell had done it.
When Quirrell chose to trust Voldemort, his fate was already sealed.
Even if his soul was erased by Voldemort, he had brought it upon himself. There was nothing worth sympathizing with.
Besides, Adrian had already used up the apples with the "purification" property that he had on hand.
Ah, thinking of this, Adrian suddenly realized that he needed to cultivate more plants with the "purification" property.
After all, forcing Voldemort's soul out of a Horcrux required purification potion made with this property.
If he found another of Voldemort's Horcruxes in the future and didn't have purification potion on hand, it would be troublesome.
Over the next few days, Adrian continued to secretly observe Quirrell's every move.
Finally, at the beginning of May,
When Adrian encountered Quirrell in the corridor again, he used the Wisdom Tree to analyze Quirrell's current state.
[Analysis failed...]
This time, there wasn't even any information about Quirrell.
It seemed that Quirrell had been completely taken over by Voldemort. And Voldemort must have used some method to evade magical detections.
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