Chapter 508: Long-Lasting Peace
"It's really too much. He didn't get hurt in front of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but he got hurt here."
"..."
"Corporal punishment of students should be moderate. I'm so old, and you still beat me..."
"..."
Walking out of the abandoned classroom, Loren gasped in pain from the red and swollen flesh he pulled while walking. The hissing sound made the little witch who did it look a little shy, and she turned her head away unnaturally.
Hermione looked at the crooked way the man beside her walked. Although she knew he was pretending to be pitiful, she still softened her heart. She quietly took his arm and helped him walk to the dormitory.
It was already very late. Fortunately, the Fat Lady had just been woken up and had not fallen asleep again. She didn't curse. After entering the portrait hole and passing through the dim public lounge, she had to walk the rest of the stairs by herself.
Someone got the upper hand and pecked the girl on the lips when they said goodnight to each other on the stairs, and ran to the attic dormitory at a brisk pace, without any trace of the pain just now.
Hermione pursed her lips and tensed her face, but she finally gave up, and a slight arc appeared at the corner of her mouth.
Pushing open the door of the dormitory, Harry and Ron had returned. Maybe Mrs. Weasley sympathized with Harry's tossing all night and asked him to come back and rest early.
"You're back, Loren?"
"I'm back. How do you feel, Harry? Didn't you go back to the school infirmary?"
"No, I told Madam Pomfrey that I could sleep more comfortably in the dormitory."
Madam Pomfrey obviously believed the wrong person. Not only did Harry not sleep well, but he was also dragged by Ron to chat with Seamus and Neville about Voldemort's return. Ron explained the whole process vividly, and his excited expression seemed as if he was not the one who experienced this incident, but him.
Loren listened to his long talk while taking his things and washing up. He explained it very measuredly. He did not mention that everything was in Dumbledore's plan. He only focused on Voldemort's resurrection after completing the ritual with the help of Bellatrix, and did not mention the names of the Death Eaters.
He was also vague about Harry and Cedric's escape. He did not mention the twin wands and the protection magic left by Harry's mother, let alone Loren's participation.
Loren washed up and lay down on the bed. The different sleeping posture from usual made him unable to sleep for a long time. The curtains on the four-poster bed did not have a soundproofing effect. The chatter of Ron and others came in, which felt pretty good.
Seamus lamented that he was still a student who had not graduated, and Hogwarts was far away from the battlefield. He claimed that he had many ideas to deal with the mysterious man and the Death Eaters, but unfortunately they were not useful.
Neville said he could convey it to his parents, and by the way, he told the story of fighting against the Death Eaters that he heard from his father.
The last time Voldemort and the Death Eaters wreaked havoc on the wizarding world, Hogwarts often had dropouts. Students were safely attending classes in the castle, but when they were dining in the hall, they could receive news of attacks on their family members at any time.
Generally speaking, professors would advise students to endure the pain and persevere, because if they drop out and go home, they might also be on the list of obituaries tomorrow morning.
"The entire British wizarding world, all non-pure-blood wizards are shrouded in a shadow of fear and anxiety..." Neville said.
This is not entirely correct, because pure-blood Auror families also need to be vigilant at all times, and even use magic to protect them if conditions permit, and entrust the secret of the Fidelius Charm to absolutely reliable people.
Compared with those Death Eaters who wear hoods and masks on the surface, August Rookwood is more creepy. He is a Death Eater spy lurking inside the Ministry of Magic. He bribed many Ministry of Magic employees and organized a thorough intelligence network to pass valuable information to the Death Eaters.
Many people exposed their hiding places and lost their families due to Rookwood's tricks.
"..."
Harry touched the scar on his forehead and wondered if Peter Pettigrew was also a member of Rookwood's intelligence network. Otherwise, how could that timid guy get in touch with the vicious Death Eaters? It couldn't be that Voldemort personally found him and persuaded him to join.
Harry stared blankly at the candlestick with a faint flame and asked softly, "Will we experience this too... Is the war about to start again?"
"There should be a period of peace and stability. The rest depends on how the Ministry of Magic responds." Loren rested his chin on the pillow, his voice lazy.
"Why, hasn't Voldemort been resurrected?"
"Because the power of the Death Eaters has not yet fully recovered..." Loren answered casually, "The Death Eaters that can be gathered now are less than half of the original ones. If they foolishly stand up to the Ministry of Magic, they will be easily disintegrated by the Auror team... It's okay to only lose wizards, but the hypocritical groups who escaped the trial that year are all worth a lot, and their wealth will be transformed into resources to resist Voldemort."
"So they will find a way to release the Death Eaters imprisoned in Azkaban?" Ron inferred uncertainly.
"This requires careful planning. Even before rescuing their suffering accomplices, Voldemort can only hide." Loren glimpsed their confused expressions with his peripheral vision, paused and explained, "Think about it, if the Ministry of Magic confirms that Voldemort has returned, there are a group of vicious gangsters in the prison, and the Dementors guarding Azkaban are the natural accomplices of the Death Eaters, what should they do first?"
"Deal with... the prisoners of Azkaban?" Seamus opened his mouth and widened his eyes. Both Harry and Seamus felt a little incredible.
Ron thought for a while and added in a low voice: "It is also possible to re-liquidate those who escaped the trial that year."
"So the Death Eaters will lie dormant and wait for a suitable opportunity, waiting for them to restore their power to deter the magic world in one fell swoop." Loren paused and continued, "In addition, because of the accident in the process of murdering Harry, and because of his fear of Dumbledore, Voldemort will also find a way to strengthen his strength, or... use another way to deal with Dumbledore."
"He couldn't defeat Headmaster Dumbledore more than a decade ago, and he can't do it now!" Ron said firmly.
"So cherish it, we can still have a long and stable life."
As Loren concluded the above analysis, several roommates breathed a sigh of relief, and Harry felt more at ease. He fantasized happily: "Now that the Ministry of Magic has our reminder, it will definitely be able to prepare in advance. Maybe they will soon be able to disintegrate the power of all Death Eaters, leaving Voldemort alone, and then the Aurors will besiege Voldemort under the leadership of Dumbledore..."
"No matter how powerful he is, can he deal with hundreds of wizards at the same time?"
The same scene appeared in front of Neville and Ron: "At that time, as long as Principal Dumbledore can resist his attack, the others can drown Voldemort with a spell..."
In a simple and beautiful fantasy, the roommates gradually fell asleep.
The candle in the candlestick by the wall burned to the marked scale, the thin bronze pick fell to cover the rope core, and the weak firelight quietly extinguished.
Loren looked at the dark room and smiled softly. Yes, it was so easy.
...
The headmaster of Slytherin, with a stern face, stood beside the operation table filled with potion instruments in the storage room, holding a transparent glass medicine bottle in his hand. If the red liquid in the bottle had not been evenly poured on the toad specimen, his motionless appearance might have been mistaken for a statue in the corridor of the castle.
The shriveled and stiff specimen became full again, and even the sound of the heart pumping blood could be heard from inside. Then the "resurrected toad" mechanically licked the liquid spilled outside, without chirping, jumping, or even blinking. This ball of flesh and blood seemed to be just an empty shell.
It could only make the flesh and blood move, without any vitality.
He considered himself a wizard with little empathy and never gave extra mercy. He lived in Spider's End Alley in his childhood and suffered enough insults and beatings, but it was also there that he met the person he would remember for the rest of his life... Later, he went further and further away from her. His closest friend married and had children with the person he hated the most, and then was implicated by him and his family was broken up, leaving only a stupid son.
After that night, his patronus changed.
But he never felt that he was the same as Dumbledore. He was once an ambitious Slytherin graduate, a vicious Death Eater... a mean professor of potions. He thought he had not changed much in decades.
If he could use someone else's corpse to complete the experiment and make even a tiny contribution to the resurrection potion he had been thinking about, he would not hesitate at all.
Barty Crouch's fresh corpse was a good experimental material. His soul was devoured by the Dementors and his body was vacant for nearly ten months. It was not until tonight that Voldemort devoured all the vitality in his body and turned it into a skeleton.
Why didn't he use his corpse?
In order to prevent the Ministry of Magic from checking the corpse and finding abnormalities and causing unnecessary trouble?
In order not to attract the attention of Barty Crouch Jr.?
"..."
Severus Snape asked himself for a long time, but he could not get an answer.
The wand waved, and the toad died again and was burned to ashes. The invisible whirlwind rolled up the ashes and fell into the waste bucket, mixed with other potion residues, and there was no difference.
Snape's black eyes moved, and he walked into the shadow shrouded in darkness with an expressionless face.
There was only one thing he knew very well:
I will die again and again to understand that life is endless.
...
Early in the morning, the principal's office.
"Albus, today is a rare weekend. I hope you have a convincing reason to end my vacation so hastily in the early morning and call me to Hogwarts!" Cornelius Fudge, wearing a pinstriped suit, handed the purple hat to the staff behind him, waved his hand and asked them to leave the office and wait outside the door, shouting impatiently.
Dumbledore gave Professor McGonagall a look, indicating that she should take the others away. Soon there were only two people left in the spacious office.
"Some unexpected circumstances occurred in the third event of the Goblet of Fire Tournament..."
Dumbledore wore crescent-shaped glasses, and his deep blue eyes showed no thoughts. He spoke slowly and steadily, "During last night's competition, Harry, one of the warriors, was abducted by Alastor, who was disguised as Voldemort... Harry seized a golden opportunity and returned to school by chance to tell us the truth."
Fudge was dizzy after hearing this, and the horror left on his face could not fade away for a long time. He stared at the white-bearded headmaster in front of him and shouted, "Is this a pastime? Stop joking... I must tell you, Dumbledore, this is very bad!"
Dumbledore was silent for a long time, looking at the funny expression on his face through the crescent lenses, and said in a deep voice: "Harry can undoubtedly tell this experience in more detail, and even use a pensieve to display this memory... Little Hange Crouch's body still exists in Dunton's cemetery. If you still don't believe it, you can open Barty Crouch Jr.'s grave and take a look! Let me tell you, Barty Crouch Jr. has helped Voldemort recover him. body, he has made a comeback."
"What can memory mean? There are forgetting spells and false memory spells. I have been an intern in the memory cancellation team for a period of time. No one knows better than me..."
Fudge murmured softly, his eyes rolled around, and there was even a thin layer of sweat on his head. He looked at Dumbledore for a long time, and a smile actually appeared on his face: "You can't really believe all this, Dumbledore. Don’t be kidding, maybe the evidence you listed does exist, but it can only show the mistakes Crouch committed..."
"How can you accept a child's words completely? You know that little wizards of this age want to be in the limelight all day long..." Fudge always had a weird smile on his face, "Stop talking, I will go back and investigate!"
"..."
Dumbledore sat on the chair behind the desk and sent Cornelius Fudge away an hour ago, but his funny smile and those words were always replayed in the mind of the white-bearded old headmaster.
He thought that maybe he should take out this memory. It occupied his brain too much and even made him feel a slight pain in his temples.
Although he had anticipated this outcome and hid all plans in his narrative, he was still inevitably disappointed in Fudge.
…
The little wizard who got up early found that the castle auditorium had been re-decorated, with gorgeous Hogwarts banners hanging on the walls, red and gold colored ribbons fluttering dazzlingly, and the dome constantly creating all kinds of wonderful glare and falling snowflakes in the air.
Looking at the auditorium decorated in Gryffindor style, Seamus brought exciting news. The Goblet of Fire award ceremony will be held together with the year-end party, and tonight will be a feast.
The little wizards of Beauxbatons and Ilvermorny were happily looking forward to having similar end-of-year parties in their schools.
The little wizard from Durmstrang looked unhappy. Everyone had just learned the bad news. Their headmaster Karkaroff claimed that he had to leave in advance. They were entrusted to Hogwarts and would be taken care of by Ravenclaw. The headmaster, Professor Flitwick, led them back to Durmstrang.
After breakfast, the Ministry of Magic staff who kept coming in and out of the castle made them feel even more uneasy.
Principal Karkaroff won't be arrested for breaking the law, right?