Chapter 357 Prelude to Death (2 in 1)

The atmosphere became weird.

It wasn't that there was no way to tamper with your own memories, it was just that even the most sophisticated Occlumency techniques are only easily done when altering memories from many days before, whereas if it had only happened a short time ago or less than three days before, there was no way for the memories to be tampered without leaving many traces that can be found, even if you are a master Occlumen.

Especially since this was the memory that Jon had pulled out of himself in front of everyone around him and in plain sight.

Matthew's face remained as calm as ever as he took a deep breath and walked over to Jon's side, holding a clear glass vial in his hand.

"Give it to me, there will be someone from the judge's team who specialises in this will verify the memory, and if we do find some hint of anything that is against the rules in it, we will be sure to give you and Dumbledore an explanation."

Jon looked up at Dumbledore, who also looked at him and nodded gently.

So Jon shrugged his shoulders and slipped the memory into the vial that Matthew was holding.

"Well, I hope you can give an account for this after you've made some discoveries."

So that was the end of the incident about the dragons going berserk in the forbidden forest for now, Matthew certainly wasn't going to start examining the memory straight away in front of all these people here, some things just had to be kept out of the way of these reporters to be fair.

And at this time, all eyes were once again turned to the disoriented Emil, who still stood on the edge of the silver line, and Matthew asked once again.

"So, are you still going to continue the first tournament task? Mr Lestrange."

Emil looked up somewhat helplessly at his deputy headmaster, but Bonnesante didn't even bother to look at him, instead, his face was grim, and he looked down, thinking about something.

Finally, the boy could not hold on against the pressure any longer, and with his head hanging, he took the cloth bag containing the golden snitches in his hand and stepped out of the silver line at the edge of the forbidden forest.

The moment he stepped out, there were countless flashing lights all capturing the scene, which also represented the end of the first task of the Triwizard Tournament.

The three judges of the Confederation didn't waste any time, they came to Jon, Diane and Emil, took the bags from them and started to check the results of the tournament in front of everyone.

It ended with no surprises as Jon was, naturally, the one with the biggest haul, having retrieved a total of 216 golden snitches.

In fact, if it wasn't for those dragons chasing after him, he would have had more, but even if he had taken more, it wouldn't have added another half point to his score, it would have been the same regardless.

Emil's haul wasn't actually too bad either, finding a total of 148 golden snitches. He must have had some unknown help in the Forbidden Forest, otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to do this at all based on his own strength, which was actually similar to Diane's.

Diane, needless to say, had come straight towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest after rendezvousing with Jon, had caught 86 when she met him, and naturally only had 86 now at the end of the first tournament task.

According to the results, Jon received 70 points for being first, and counting his 30 points for finishing second in the time ranking, he is now in first place with a total of 100 points.

Diane was third on the scoreboard with only 30 points, but at the last minute, Jon pushed her and allowed her to finish first and get 40 points in the time ranking, bringing her into second place with a total of 70 points.

Emil, on the other hand, was second with 50 points and finished third in the time ranking and got 20 points, ending the tournament with a total of 70 points, which tied him with Diane for second place.

It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't the result Emil was expecting, and the worst he could have done was to have tied with Jon for first place, as he had thought at the start.

At the bottom of the ladder was of course Draco, who had been eliminated at the start of the tournament, and even though he was out at the start, he still had a guaranteed 20 points and now ended up at the bottom.

But it wasn't a bad thing for him after what happened in the Forbidden Forest, and he hadn't intended to get any good results in this Triwizard Tournament task from the very beginning.

Just as Matthew was finally announcing the results of the first task, the sky suddenly lit up with a miserable green light!

The light reflected on everyone's faces as the nearly ten curses, representing death, were shooting straight at a giant dragon in the sky!

Barty Jr. was going mad with anger!

His arm had obviously been burned by the dragon's breath and a burnt smell was still coming from there.

Dragons had never been a scary creature to wizards, and for wizards who had been a part of the magical world for thousands of years, there were hardly any magical creatures in the world that they could fear anymore, just as the muggles of normal society had reached the top of the food chain.

But all this was based on the fact that the wizards had effectively kept these species in captivity in the name of protecting the dragons, and had hordes of professional dragon slayers to hunt them down and kill or capture them even when they did have a controlled population of dragons in the wild.

But right now there were only about thirty adult wizards in Hogwarts Castle, and seventeen or eighteen dragons were attacking the castle, so on average two of them were struggling to deal with one, with none of them having had any special training in dragon fighting, so the situations were only going to get tougher.

Alecto was lying on the ground, wailing like a bound-up slaughtered pig.

Her body was torn and ragged, with burns everywhere, and she herself had not yet recovered from the Cruciatus Curse from Barty Jr. and was forced to lie on the ground and roll around.

Yet Barty Jr. still didn't allow her to leave this dangerous place, with a simple reason, whoever stepped out of the Tower should die!

He was truly practising what he said, just three minutes earlier a professor teaching a first-year flying class at the Half-Blood House had flinched and tried to escape down the Astronomy Tower, Barty Jr. responded with a bolt of Killing Curse without saying a word.

It was both frightening and somewhat justifiable that such madness had struck him.

Anyone who has absolute loyalty to Voldemort is basically insane, and if he wasn't insane, then he wouldn't be Barty Crouch Jr.

But even if they were desperate, they had little success against these dragons, and there was no way to do much effective damage to them.

Even if some of the Pureblood House professors and Aurors could use a Killing Curse, but the power of the killing curse they cast could only deal with humans, in the case of the dragons, they could only make their noses bleed or become more insane.

Barty Jr. knew this couldn't go on like this, he had sent someone specifically to seek help from Voldemort at the start when he found out about the dragon riot, but the castle itself was very problematic and Voldemort would have a lot of trouble getting here, especially between the start of the school year and the end of the semester when the students stayed in the castle.

Now whether he could make it until Voldemort's arrival, he didn't know, but there were really going to be casualties in the Astronomy Tower. As frantic as he was and as ruthless as his words were laid down, what little sanity he had was also telling him that the Professors in Hogwarts Castle couldn't really all die in this simply pointless battle to defend the castle.

If it came to that, not to mention the reputation of the British wizarding community and Voldemort himself, their entire power would be devastated!

Barty Jr. clenched his teeth so tightly that he couldn't even feel the pain in his burned left arm, and his roar, which was tinged with some hoarseness, carried throughout the Astronomy Tower.

"Those who can use a killing curse, aim it at the Ukrainian Ironbelly directly above there!"

He intended to organise the existing force of defence, at least to make the situation less difficult, and the one that had been most active and hit their group the hardest from the beginning until now was the Ukrainian Ironbelly.

The Professors on the Astronomy Tower heard him, the killing curse is not something anyone can master, it is not just about having that killing intent in the heart, there is also a threshold for the magical power and the level of 'will'.

There were only about eight or nine people on hand who could use the killing curse, and they all raised their wands together at the sound of Barty Jr.'s voice!

"Avada Kedavra!"

The incantation of the killing curse rang out from the Astronomy tower, and the nearly ten ghastly green curses even overpowered the golden-red light of the dragon's breath, illuminating the night sky and shooting straight at the Ukrainian Ironbelly.

The threat of death stimulated the dragon's brain, but it was the largest of all dragons, and at such a close range it could not be avoided!

So, none of the killing curses missed the mark, all of them hitting its world-famous Ironbelly.

In the next instant, the Ukrainian Ironbelly's wings stopped spreading, the light of life was fading from its bloodshot eyes, and its huge body plummeted to the ground!

The timing of the curse was very clever, just as the dragon was flying away from the castle, otherwise, even if it had been killed, the impact of its fall would have been enough to crush everyone in the tower into mush.

After the dragon's body fell to the ground, the entire area encompassed by the Hogwarts school trembled violently for a moment.

The students hiding in the castle didn't know what had happened, but such a horrific noise made them scream, and even the surface of the normally silent, mirror-like Black Lake leapt up with countless splashes and ripples!

Barty Jr. breathed heavily, his face showing some relief, no matter what, now at least they had the means to kill these dragons.

But the relaxation on his face hadn't lasted more than a few seconds when the next moment an even more violent tremor made the whole castle begin to shake!

The magnitude of this shaking was so great that it even gave many people the illusion that the castle was about to collapse!

The death of a Ukrainian Ironbelly made the remaining dragons who were still alive even more frenzied!

They rushed collectively against the centre of the castle's surface, so much so that the magic that protected the castle itself became shaky as if it might break at any moment.

And there was another Ukrainian Ironbelly left in the sky which, after seeing the death of its fellow kin, let out a furious roar and the blazing dragon flame thus covered the entire Astronomical Tower!

The heat instantly enveloped everyone, who had just used a collective killing curse and had no time to react to unite again to resist with a general counter-spell.

Despair gripped Barty Jr.'s heart, and he simply failed to understand how things could have come to this point.

Wasn't this their ploy against that little mudblood? Why had the bitter fruit ended up on their own heads?

Just when he was already planning to close his eyes and wait for death, the burning sensation suddenly just disappeared!

Barty Jr. opened his eyes in bewilderment, and then he saw the man whom he regarded as a spiritual pillar standing in the centre of the Astronomy Tower.

He was dressed in a modest dark green robe, the night breeze raising the hem of his robe and making him look distinctive compared to everything else around him.

The man's face did not look well. He looked up at the dragons spreading their wings in the sky and lightly raised the wand in his hand.

No one heard the incantation, but in the next instant, a green glow lit up everyone's face!

The Ukrainian Ironbelly that was shooting a jet of sparks in its throat, preparing for its next dragon's breath, had its body just completely stiffened!

It had taken nearly ten men from the Barty Jr. group to kill a dragon but with a silent spell without a single incantation. One had died.

None of the living Hogwarts professors showed any disbelief on their faces, they just looked at the man with endless worship and respect.

He simply seemed omnipotent.

After killing the Ironbelly Dragon, Voldemort flicked his wand and the dragon's body, which had been positioned directly above the Astronomy Tower, fell to the other side as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer.

He turned his head with a cold gaze and looked all around at the people present, then without saying a word, he turned into a black mist and flew towards the sky!

In just under a minute, the flock of dragons that had surrounded Hogwarts Castle were falling from the sky like raindrops.

The scourge of dragons, which more than thirty elite wizards could do nothing about, was not even a problem in front of him, and the crushing of the magical hierarchy that had allowed him to launch what was the equivalent to a dictatorship over the British magical community also meant that he had almost no rivals in the world.

And after resolving the troubles that the castle had faced, Voldemort did not return to the Astronomy Tower, nor did he go to see Dumbledore, he made no contact with any of them, and just made his way to the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle, all alone without a sound and still in his black mist form.

He stood up in front of the blank wall and soon a wooden door appeared abruptly into existence, he flew in, opened the flap door, went through the secret passage and eventually arrived inside the Slytherin Chamber of Secrets.

Upon entering the chamber, his entire face was expressionless as he finally opened the stone door with the two snakes carved into it and made his way to the room that housed a statue of Slytherin himself as well as a room filled with magic runes.

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