In the Thinking Room, Felix passed him a cup of tea.
“It’s getting real here,” Dumbledore said curiously, taking a light sip of the amber liquid, “What kind of tea is this, I don’t think I’ve ever had it before.”
“Ordinary tea, you and I will taste it differently.” Felix said as he sat opposite of Dumbledore, and at that moment, they are here all alone.
“How much time do we have?” Dumbledore asked with a smile.
“Two and a half minutes,” Felix rubbed his head, “five minutes at most if you really need it.”
“That’s at least a quarter of an hour.” Dumbledore said with a slight nod.
Felix stared at him and rolled his eyes as he crossed his legs and said slowly, “Two things, one to appease the four schools and one to track down the man behind the curtain.”
Dumbledore’s long fingers interlocked in front of him, “Do you have any insight?”
“The first matter is pretty much solved, it mainly depends on your opinion.”
“My opinion?” Dumbledore said with a smile.
“The Goblet of Fire contract can not be broken, this one will pressure them, but it will create a problem, Hogwarts’s reputation will plummet, and we will lose our honour abroad -”
“This is the scenario that I do not want to see.” Dumbledore said decisively, “We need to make certain compromises.”
“There are two ways, one is to strengthen the opponent, the second is to weaken ourselves. The former is not desirable, after all, each school has different demands.” Felix said calmly.
“Then we have to choose the latter, let’s talk about the second thing, which is the key point.” Dumbledore said, “Who do you think they are targeting?”
“It could only be Harry, that’s the most likely possibility.” Felix suddenly thought of a point: “Sirius mentioned to me during the World Cup, Harry’s scars …”
“I know about it, and Sirius wrote to me.” Dumbledore brought up the subject, he said in a quiet voice: “Back to the Goblet of Fire, I had suspected that Harry used some means to bypass the restrictions of the Goblet of Fire, but when Miss Granger appeared, I knew it is impossible.”
“Is that possible, bypassing the restrictions? I always thought there is a powerful confusion spell for that. …”
Dumbledore laughed: ” The person who made the rules of the Goblet of Fire is a human being, a human being would leave loopholes, and frankly, I’m a little disappointed with the people in the shadows, the tactics are too obvious.”
Felix nodded, that’s true, it might be more mind-boggling if they were able to find loopholes in the rules. But for now, everyone knew the Goblet of Fire had been artificially tampered with.
The difference is that the other four schools think it was Hogwarts that tampered with it, and even if it wasn’t, Hogwarts still took advantage of it.
“So, it is Voldemort?”
” Well, it is, Voldemort.” Dumbledore said softly, “From what I know of him, although, it was unlikely that he did it personally.”
“He must have some helpers, the one who attacked Harry with Peter Pettigrew, and maybe more.” Felix followed the headmasters’ train of thought: “He once ruled over a small part of England, it should not be difficult.”
Speaking of which, his mind wandered. The deadline he had left for Lucius Malfoy is before Christmas, but now that the situation has changed, he can’t possibly afford to wait any longer. Besides, according to the feedback from the Rain Swallow Patronus, the mysterious antique seller also seems to be inextricably linked to Malfoy Manor …
“No, Felix, you don’t know him, Voldemort uses power as the foundation for domination. Losing his power, he lost the restraint he had on his men.” Dumbledore said with a sigh, “I visited his peers and staff at the orphanage one by one over the summer, and the more I got to know, the more I became aware of his nature.”
Felix thought about it: “So he has been hiding in the Albanian forest all these years, also related to this? He didn’t trust anyone after he lost his power… No, I should say the batch he trusted were all locked up in Azkaban … until Peter Pettigrew found him!”
“You hit the nail on the head.” Dumbledore agreed with him.
Felix, however, frowned, “Can we be sure who tampered with it? Theoretically, all four headmasters and the professors they brought with them have a chance, even those in Hogwarts …”
The scope of this would be too large.
“Igor Karkaroff used to be a Death Eater.” Dumbledore said calmly, “That’s why I had to stop Alastor.”
“Could it be him?” Felix is not quite convinced, Karkaroff’s reaction is too real, even if he wanted to clear his name of suspicion, there is no need to react so hard, with the other three schools’ feelings being mutual in this.
On the contrary, Moody … past scenes flashed quickly, some suspicions are more plausible than not, but he could not produce any evidence.
“Karkaroff’s unlikely, he betrayed his former master after the war, by offering a list of Death Eaters.” Dumbledore said: “I personally think for now Voldemort will not bother to find him.”
“What about the Imperius Curse? Polyjuice Potion?” Felix asked probingly, he did not think about saying anything about that guy but wanted to see Dumbledore’s attitude.
“You don’t understand what I mean yet, Felix. If it is Voldemort, he will not show his weak side to his betrayer who once was kneeled before him; he will be more willing to announce his name after his resurrection and let the traitor live in fear day and night until he dies quietly in a shadowy corner.”
Felix nodded, is this the pride of the Dark Lord? As he said lightly, “As far as I know, Professor Moody claimed to have been attacked before he was enrolled …”
Dumbledore’s eyes sharpened as he looked over.
“… I also noticed that he carries a curved flask with him, but I haven’t seen him open it once, is he being a bit paranoid that he would be thirsty?”
Dumbledore watched him, and after ten seconds or so, he said calmly: “It is only your speculation, Alastor’s nerves are more sensitive, and he never touched any suspicious food, this is a matter of general knowledge. I’ve known him for more than half a century, even before the time of Voldemort; I know him well enough, and yet I don’t find anything suspicious about him.”
“We can’t do anything to a man out of speculation.”
“It’s ‘you’ who won’t make a move on someone out of speculation.” Felix said with deliberate emphasis.
Dumbledore fell silent.
“Dumbledore,” Felix said, “We should not let potential threats stay around,” his tone lowered, “or at least test things out.”
A moment of silence followed –
“What are you going to do?”
“Imperius Curse, Polyjuice Potion, and memory modification are the three ways I can think of, but the third method cannot be verified for now without immobilizing Professor Moody.” Felix said, and he brought others into the picture to make it seem like he wasn’t targeting Moody that much: “Of course, it works for others as well.”
“Assuming that they are not willing to become Voldemort’s lackeys.” Dumbledore added.
“That’s right, if it is willing, my means are very limited, the dark wizard who dares to do plot in front of your eyes, will certainly be on guard against the Legilimency,” Felix also felt the difficulties, ” Is it possible for me to search everyone’s memory a little by little, it is no different from stripping a person naked, right? ”
If he made a mistake, he would only be creating deadly enemies for himself.
Why do wizards value their memories? Because their fears are justified, wizards literally have the means to modify, falsify and erase other people’s memories.
“I’ll handle this, Felix, I’ll talk to Alastor.” Dumbledore said in a calm voice, “Imperius Curse, Polyjuice Potion, I will check both of them, but probing memories, I disagree, that would be the greatest humiliation to Alastor.”
“But …”
“I am not okay with using any overkill methods without more obvious evidence.” He said without question, “Other than that, if he’s okay with it, I intend to have him keep an eye out for suspicious people around him …”
Felix shrugged, “I’ll wait for your answer.” He snapped his fingers, dispersing the magic, and the two returned to reality.
In the room, Madame Maxime is staring at him, she looks exasperated, her black silk satin-clad bust heaving dramatically, as if she will throw a fist at him in the next second, but she probably thought of the fact that he also is a school board member, which barely holds her back.
She remained silent, and Karkaroff finally relaxed from Moody’s shadow at this moment and said impatiently, “What is the minor issue? What is the solution, you guys have been staring at each other for half a minute without saying anything, don’t think you can muddle through like this. If there is no good solution, then let go of Durmstrang’s restraints and allow them to use any means-”
“Headmaster Karkaroff,” Felix said, looking at him, “your students are not as restricted as one might think-”
“What do you mean?” Karkaroff stared.
“I have a question, is Durmstrang a school that produces dark wizards?”
“That’s slander! Mr. Crouch, did you hear that?”
“Hear me out,” Felix stared at him, “it’s true that Durmstrang is most open-minded in its approach to dark magic. But it doesn’t mean that Durmstrang is a school that ‘exclusively’ teaches dark magic, which only takes up a very small part of the content of the curriculum, or at least I don’t see much of it in your textbooks …”
” Dark magic is most widely used in the field of dueling, but aren’t you guys also teaching them the basic spells like disarming charm? Stunning spell? Shield charm?”
Felix said slowly: “Dark magic is only an effective add-on, but it will never be the mainstream of a magic school with open enrolment, even if you like dark magic more, you should’ve nevertheless beware of this point!”
Karkaroff could not speak.
If he admitted that Durmstrang used dark magic as the main teaching content, then tomorrow the reputation of the school would be completely infamous. As a headmaster, he had to stand up for his and his school’s reputation.
Karkaroff said with a red face, “Dark magic is only a part of the Durmstrang curriculum – we also have the ability to solve its side effects, and there are special professors in the school who will evaluate the student’s learning progress and selectively teach them dark magic.”
That’s what has been said, but privately many professors turn a blind eye and don’t pursue it too far, which is why Durmstrang’s reputation for promoting dark magic is so well known.
The reason why Durmstrang has not become a concentration camp for dark wizards has to do with the school’s system. They do follow certain vetting standards, and the advantage of this practice is that even if there are students who practice dark magic privately, they don’t practice much because they don’t dare to use it publicly, and its impact on their minds is not that serious.
“Then what about the extra set of Champions from Hogwarts?” Karkaroff changed the subject very stiffly.
“It’s simple, since you all see it as an advantage to Hogwarts, let’s make it a disadvantage,” Felix lightly swept a glance at the Champions and Headmasters present, who were not concerned with whether there were dark wizards secretly coveting Harry or teaching issues of Durmstrang, they just wanted to know how to reasonably weaken Hogwarts before the tournament starts.
“Headmaster Dumbledore, Mr. Crouch, Mr. Bagman, I suggest that Hogwarts’ score be calculated according to the average value.”
————
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