"...So, is this actually trouble you’ve brought upon yourself?"
"What nonsense is that?! What are you talking about?!"
William jumped up, slapping the table hard, and shouted, "How can you slander soone so recklessly?"
"What slander? But you did say yourself that you wiped out half of the poacher camps in North Africa—and even raided that vault."
Grindelwald imdiately said.
William’s face turned red, veins bulging on his forehead, he argued, "That doesn’t count as a raid, I hardly touched any corpses! Besides, I thought nobody wanted that vault?" He then uttered more puzzling words, like "A gentleman remains steadfast in poverty" and such, making Grindelwald burst into laughter.
"Alright, enough arguing."
Dumbledore took off his glasses, rubbed his brow, it was too noisy. The second event of the Eight-Team Tournant wrapped up rather well, with the four decryption stone tablets in the central tower naturally assigned to the four champions who entered the maze, while the champion from the Magic Institute, who hadn’t even left the initial room, was left to run ineffective alongside—
Everyone seed to have subconsciously forgotten a certain Quidditch star who was knocked out by the river, a result of William’s charm effect—he needed to ensure the third event proceeded smoothly, Voldemort was still warily holed up in his lair, and to lure him out, things needed to continue developing—
Also, broadcasting the tournant really raked in money, though it truly accounted for only a small part of the reason (certainly).
Now, it was the evening after the tournant ended, the zero-generation Dark Lord, the first-generation Dark Lord, and the first-generation White Lord were gathered in the Hogwarts Headmaster’s Office having a eting—
To discuss how to deal with the second-generation Dark Lord...
"Ahem."
William nodded and stopped joking, "Now it’s completely confird, Voldemort and this... wizard from Africa, let’s call him Black Ghost, have ford an alliance—although with Voldemort’s insane personality and complete lack of integrity, cooperating seems rather baffling—but there’s no helping it, that’s how madn are, we can’t fathom his thought process."
"His goal..."
"Revival, clearly, that type of possession might cause Voldemort so pain or discomfort, so he urgently craves revival—this likely requires Harry’s involvent."
"...Why are you two looking at ? Even though I was once a black wizard, I haven’t studied that kind of magic, okay?"
Grindelwald crossed his arms, evidently this forr Dark Lord was unaware of any resurrection rituals involving Harry Potter.
"Sigh..."
So, the three forr pinnacle combatants of the wizarding world sat there facing each other, montarily at a loss—Dark Arts is a vast domain, and with Horcruxes around, the choices for Voldemort, who retained his soul, were nurous, after all, he wouldn’t die, he was like an indestructible cockroach, occasionally crawling out to bother soone.
No one can guarantee they’ve mastered all magic in the world, and Dumbledore was no exception.
"Then there’s the issue of the mole—regarding why my na ended up in the Goblet of Fire, we’ve found out, Alastor Moody, at the ti, a ghost was hiding within him using a thod we previously couldn’t detect—of course, now it’s no longer a problem, I’ve studied it and determined making a dedicated Sneakoscope serves as a warning, it can be hung by the entrance of the Great Hall."
William waved his hand, bypassing the topic of Voldemort’s revival, "But aside from that, the mole Voldemort planted within the castle clearly hasn’t been caught, the headmaster of Durmstrang..."
"Karkaroff? He was indeed a forr Death Eater, who turned traitor to save himself by betraying other Death Eaters."
Dumbledore frowned, since they were having a "behind closed doors chat," the elder’s deanor was naturally not as... gentle as in public; his light blue eyes revealed a very clear disdain, evidently, he wasn’t fond of this capricious forr Death Eater.
"I must say, William, if it’s Karkaroff, the likelihood of him betraying Voldemort definitely exceeds that of obedience, unless..."
"Unless, soone is keeping an eye on him."
William caught the implication in Dumbledore’s unfinished sentence, confidently nodding, "Not just him—Voldemort is familiar with our tournant rules, aware of our procedures, he even knows that once the champions enter the tower beneath the Black Lake, I can’t quickly aid Harry, while also allowing that ’Black Ghost’ to block —"
"Can you truly not assist quickly?"
Suddenly, Grindelwald asked curiously.
"Fake, I can go wherever I want."
William decisively shook his head, he certainly wouldn’t leave behind precautions, "But ’I can’t provide sufficient protection once the champions enter the tower,’ is what I say to others."
"Who did you tell?"
"The range isn’t wide, and they’ve mostly been excluded from suspicion—in the event’s conclusion, I took the temporarily made Sneakoscope and waved it around them, there was no reaction."
"Could it be your technique is poor?"
"I want to hit you."
William said expressionlessly.
"Ahem... so, Albus, what do you plan to do?"
Grindelwald coughed twice, awkwardly changing the subject — sotis it’s like this, when you’re under soone else’s roof, you have to lower your head.
"...Let’s see."
Dumbledore shook his head, ultimately not providing a guideline — of course, this didn’t affect William much. He certainly couldn’t just listen to Dumbledore in everything, and now he was polite in front of him because he was still the headmaster. Once he steps down one day, you’ll see —
Alright, just kidding, Dumbledore is actually a good friend.
Just as William tactfully prepared to leave and give the space to the other two, the office door suddenly knocked.
"Dumbledore, that person —"
Snape hurriedly walked in from outside, his black cloak gleaming under the warm light.
...
The Gryffindor Common Room celebration banquet lasted until midnight before it ended awkwardly.
This ti, Professor McGonagall uncharacteristically did not co out to stop it. Perhaps he too was happy that Harry got the second place in the second task — yes, second again, Koldovstoretz’s Alexander took first place this ti, and Cedric’s score was not high, which resulted in, although Harry was second both tis, if you add up the points from both matches, he beca first place —
Thus, the entire Gryffindor fell into euphoria, they gathered together to celebrate until the silver crescent hung on the treetops —
"Hey, Harry, take this, keep it safe —"
Fred, who had drunk himself drunk on butterbeer, squeezed beside Harry — though drinking butterbeer, which tasted almost like cream soda, Harry didn’t really believe it could make people drunk. Of course, maybe Fred was pretending, but he indeed achieved his goal after getting himself drunk — Angelina agreed to be his dance partner.
"What is this?"
Harry looked at the small bottle in his hand, sowhat puzzled at the light pink liquid inside.
"Love potion."
Hermione’s voice ca from the side.
"Yes, you won’t find this anywhere else —"
Fred blinked happily, "The effect lasts for 24 hours, regardless of your target — you know what I an, it doesn’t matter who it is. If you’re unsure, trust , this can give you a hand — hey, Harry! I don’t want to see our Gryffindor champion go to the ball all alone!"
"...Using love potions is against school rules."
Hermione’s voice held obvious annoyance, clearly she didn’t like the ans Fred was suggesting, "Does Senior William know about this? You took his investnt to develop... this kind of thing?" she glared, sitting up from the sofa.
"Hey, keep your voice down, Granger, there’s another bottle here!"
Fred exaggeratedly opened his mouth wide, "Don’t be so rigid, maybe you should take it," he said, putting the small bottle in Hermione’s hand, "you could feed it to — I think you know, this is really high-grade stuff. We purified it for half a month, it could even make an elephant fall in love with you —"
"..."
Harry could swear he saw an emotion nad ’moved’ on Hermione’s face —
"No! I would never do such a thing!"
Hermione said righteously, while putting the bottle into her pocket, she sat back on the sofa, covering her flushed face with a book.
Fred laughed and left, leaving Harry sitting on the sofa, staring at the love potion in his hand, slightly dazed.
"How about I help you give it to Ginny?"
After a while, Hermione seed to snap out of her daydreaming state, her face back to normal. She looked at Harry, who seed to be pondering sothing, and asked.
"Of course — no, don’t tease , Hermione, I was thinking about sothing else."
Harry sighed, putting the love potion on the table rather helplessly.
"What? Tell , you seed preoccupied at the party —"
Hermione knew it was her turn to step in now. She was used to playing the role of a confidante, even needing to get familiar with this business — she hadn’t given up on establishing a little elf rights protection front.
"I... saw Voldemort again."
Harry looked around. Not many people were left in the common room now, and most didn’t pay attention to him.
"When?"
Hermione subconsciously widened her eyes — is things so serious? Could you wait a bit? I want to get so popcorn.
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