Chapter 461 The War Is About to Begin (2 in 1)

Slughorn left the room just in time to brush shoulders with Barty Jr. who was walking by.

They usually did not have much social interaction, not that Slughorn did not want to have contact with this always favoured person besides Voldemort.

Rather, Barty Jr. had always stayed in Hogwarts castle before, rarely had the time to meet and communicate with Slughorn who was working in the Ministry of Magic, and now after Hogwarts was gone, even if he had returned to the Ministry of Magic, he basically stayed on his own, although Slughorn had sent him invitations for a few private gatherings, he didn't respond to any of the invitations.

Waiting until the location of the corner of the stairs, Slughorn only slightly paused in his footsteps, watching Barty Jr.'s figure disappear behind the door of the room.

And after Slughorn left, Voldemort went into a contemplative state.

His wand was placed in a tray on the side of his armchair, and while he was thinking, his hand was subconsciously rubbing the surface of the skin on the back of his other hand, which had become noticeably rougher than it had been in the past.

It wasn't until a knock sounded on the door that he snapped out of that bout of contemplation.

"Come in."

As soon as Barty Jr. entered through the door, he dropped to his knees, then respectfully raised a small square box high above his head and handed it to Voldemort.

Seeing Barty Jr, a rare smile appeared on Voldemort's face.

No matter what time of year it might be, all of his most loyal servant's demeanour when dealing with him would be faultless.

Voldemort took the square box from him, and inside lay a blood-red stone!

"This Philosopher's Stone will temporarily slow my ageing. It is not a permanent solution, but it can be used as a temporary means. You have thought of everything, Barty."

"It is my greatest wish to help you, my lord."

Barty Jr. was ever so humble before Voldemort, and even though his lord had never asked him to do so, he was expressing the reverence in his heart in such a spontaneous manner.

"How are the others faring against the tide?" The smile on Voldemort's face narrowed.

Barty Jr. still had his head bowed.

"There's still some dissent circulating in the Avery and Carrow houses, but they seem to be just whining a bit and don't dare to really hold it against you."

"Hmph, they've forgotten their former ambitions now for the sake of this little gain in front of them." Voldemort sneered, "And only dare to do so much about this, but who knows if one day there will be someone who will give them the guts to do something about the situation."

Barty Jr. didn't utter another word in response to this comment, it was like he had a good sense of what to say and what not to say.

"What about Dumbledore's side? What's the news."

Voldemort leaned on the back of the armchair, his channel to learn about the outside world is basically relying on Barty Jr. He is ready to support Barty Crouch Jr. to the position of Acting Minister, to take control of the Ministry of Magic for him.

"The French side looks like they're actively preparing for the war. They haven't stopped since the end of the Triwizard Tournament, they've been preparing for it all along."

Hearing this news, Voldemort's face visibly darkened.

"He really underestimates me ."

The voice of this sentence was so low that it was not clear to whom Voldemort was speaking it, still the next moment he asked a different question.

"So have you heard anything new about the other side of things I've been asking you to keep an eye on before?"

***

It hadn't been exactly an easy enrolment year for Hogwarts, which had only begun to roll out over the summer holidays.

After all, all of the eligible Muggle students were still within Britain, and Dumbledore had no desire for Hogwarts to steal the Beauxbatons student population, so McGonagall, Lily and the girls still had to reach out to the new students, as they had done before in the days of the wagon exile when they had been wanted by the Ministry of Magic in Britain.

In the present admission, however, they wouldn't have to rush to catch the people before Barty Jr. and the others arrived, as they had to do before.

With the loss of the Book of Admittance and the Quill of Acceptance on Voldemort's side, they had lost access to the most basic information about those children in Muggle families who had the gift of wizardry and were no longer competitive with Hogwarts at all now.

This meant that McGonagall and Lily didn't have to erase the memories of the new parents, they just had to explain to them what was at stake and let them make their choices voluntarily.

And because they knew that there would be a war against the enemy this year, Hogwarts itself was not particularly eager to enrol students this term.

Every one of them was full of hope for the ensuing good future after the war, and when Hogwarts returned to Britain, the order of everything would continue, and even if they weren't enrolled in time this year, it would be the same if they enrolled a year later next year.

It was in this atmosphere that the new term of Hogwarts began.

Since last year, the opening banquet has been fixed in the great hall of this temporary school, and the old days of travelling around Britain in a horse-drawn wagon with Hagrid taking the students, and holding banquets in all sorts of open-air wildernesses, have become the topic of bragging for the old students and the gossip of the new students.

But whenever a new student showed a look of envy and said that the old students had had a really good life before.

They would be taught that all of this was actually just the bitter-sweetness of living in exile and that no one would like that kind of life where they lived in precariousness all day long and faced the prospect of being hunted down and killed.

It was best to settle down now and have a stable teaching ground at Hogwarts.

After moving up to the fifth year, Jon and his classmates began to be judged and elected as Prefects afterwards.

Neville was successfully elected as this year's Head Boy, Jon did not participate in the election, for him now, participating in student management is a complete waste of time, as after he was promoted to the fifth year, he did not even need to go to the normal classroom.

There was nothing the normal curriculum could teach him anymore.

With a lot of high-level magical knowledge, Jon could already match the results of a normal upperclassman in one semester during the time he studied under Grindelwald.

But apart from the spell of the ring, at the beginning of the fifth year, that is, after September, Jon started to follow George, Fred and the other new graduates of this year and began to train in professional Apparition magic.

Even though Jon could perform special Apparition even while in a human body, using only the form of changing the magic power in his body into the phoenix's unique magic power, it didn't mean that he didn't need to learn ordinary Apparition magic.

Because although the phoenix's special Apparition was basically without any limitations, and could go in and out freely even where there is an Anti-Apparition Charm, its manifestation was still too eye-catching after all.

Every time he used an Apparition, a golden-red light would be lit up, and the same light would be lit up after the Apparition had landed, which undoubtedly gave Jon an extra degree of recognition, as long as the golden light appeared that was when he was going to leave or come.

This kind of recognition was obviously something he didn't really want to get, should he really be needed on any battlefield in the United Kingdom, the result would be a flash of golden light and a crowd of Death Eaters shouting "Jon Green is here! Let's round him up!" Or "Jon Green's here, let's run!" Either way, imagining what could happen tells you that normal Apparition is something that needs to be learnt as well.

And for Jon who already managed to naturally have experience in Apparition after turning into a phoenix, it wasn't that difficult to start learning normal Apparition now, he was the fastest learner amongst the bunch of graduated students, and by the third day of his professional training, he could basically perform Apparition and Manifestation steadily, without a single splinch slip-up in between.

After graduating and joining Witching Horizon, the Weasley twins didn't join the front line of battle but were absorbed into the logistics research department.

The Weasley Orb they had previously developed had already become a mass-produced weapon within the Witching Horizon, along with some of the magical props that hadn't yet been considered a complete success that they had chatted about with Jon had also begun to undergo actual improvement and exploration.

Dumbledore obviously took the twins very seriously, not only giving them an expanded team but also transferring their dad Arthur Weasley to work with them as well.

Since Arthur himself had an unusual interest in improving various magical props, presumably these talents that George and Fred possessed were inherited from him.

From the start of the school year at Hogwarts, after September, the situation in the entire European magical world became more and more calm.

It was as if the war had completely ended, and the various magical newspapers didn't publish daily news about the predictions of when the Ministry of Magic of Britain and France would go to war as they did before but instead reported on some gossip that was basically placed in the most remote part of the newspaper's pages before.

Even the Spanish wizarding dailies were beginning to think about the possibility of starting the Quidditch World Cup this autumn, which had been halted last year because of the war.

Just when the vast majority of wizards in Europe thought that they could spend the rest of the year in a rare peaceful time during these years.

On the last day of October, the night that was supposed to be Halloween, inside Dumbledore's Headmaster's office in Lyon, France.

The Halloween dinner on campus hadn't ended yet, and even in the Headmaster's office, where the door to the room was closed, the sound of laughter could be faintly heard coming from the great hall side of the building.

Dumbledore was not celebrating Halloween like the other students at this time, nor was he reviewing any documents, nor was he having any more meetings with people.

He was just holding a letter in his hand, and the letter only had a short sentence on it.

"The preparations are complete."

Dumbledore slowly put down the letter in his hand, his gaze was as deep as a sea of stars in the candlelight.

The Headmaster's office was silent, even those portraits of successive Headmasters on the walls didn't make any sound, it was like they all knew what Dumbledore meant when he received this letter.

"What if our suspicions really are right?"

There was a rare note of frustration in his tone.

And the question was clearly being asked to the portraits on the walls.

"It's against the magical order, and I still think it's highly unlikely."

The one who spoke was the headmistress, Dilys, who was frowning tightly in the portrait.

"But even this magical order is something we've surmised based on history that has never had a precedent, whether it's a piece of truth or not, none of us know."

The Slytherin said in a deep voice.

"And now the only person who can help us corroborate this is right in front of us."

"Then everyone is screwed." Phineas barked, "But still, all of this is just speculation after all, and it has to be put into practice to make speculation into truth."

After hearing his words, it was as if he had offended some kind of public anger, the surrounding portraits all stared at him with glaring eyes.

"Shut up! No one will take you as mute if you don't open your mouth!"

"Why can't you say less at a time like this!"

"Those before don't matter, do you know what you're talking about now?"

"Get him off the wall! I'm afraid if I stay with him any longer I'll have my brain infected with idiocy as well!"

Phineas scowled as he listened to the reprimands and curses around him, and it was Dumbledore who eventually clapped his hands to stop the brawl.

"What Phineas said wasn't wrong, I had the same thoughts as him, you shouldn't blame him like that."

Dumbledore's words took the breath away from every portrait on the wall, every headmaster at Hogwarts for the last thousand years was looking at him in shock, even Phineas, who had spoken the words.

"I think that you should perhaps reconsider. Even if you go ahead and make the attempt, perhaps we still have more..."

The Slytherin didn't finish his words, to the point where he wasn't interrupted by anything, but when he got to the end of his sentence, he couldn't bring himself to offer anything better, and could only fall silent like that.

"You guys actually don't need to be like this, from the very beginning when I walked in front of you and announced to you that I am the new Headmaster of Hogwarts this session, haven't you already had unreserved trust in me?"

Dumbledore calmly lifted the vial of golden sand.

"Jon always said that I have a very bad habit of never giving my words straight away, that I just like to keep people guessing."

"But it's not that I like to leave people guessing, it's that some things are already predestined, and telling that predestined outcome ahead of time is just adding nothing but trouble to people. It's better to let them understand the causes and consequences on their own, and when it comes to the final step, they'll find more pleasure in looking back to the past than if I had just said it outright."

Most of the portraits on the walls bristled when they heard this, no matter what Dumbledore said, they all still felt that it was a bad taste on Dumbledore's part.

Not really hearing anyone give himself the benefit of the doubt, Dumbledore didn't really care as he stood up from his chair in his office with a wink.

"We can talk about validation later, and right now, no matter what, there's one thing that can't be changed. The war is about to begin."

----

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