Chapter 163 Wormtail's Efforts

"Peter spent a good part of the year hanging out in the back of the wagon, and he found a perfect moment when you weren't in the wagon to sneak in using some little items that the Dark Lord gave him."

Lily handed a bone of some unknown creature, as well as a very worn-looking box to Dumbledore's hands.

"That bone was enchanted with powerful dark magic, with the help of this, Peter temporarily avoided the outer layer of the wagon's defence and broke in. After that, he used this box to hide, and he was indeed the one who instigated the Weasley's third son to betray at the very beginning, and at that time he had been on the wagon for a long time, during which he discovered the boy's dissatisfaction with his circumstances as well as his family's choices."

"At the time Arthur and Molly were sent to France to make contact with Bella, who was pretending to be Roland, the Dark Lord was at the most critical point of pulling the strings of the top pureblood wizards in the French magical community that time. If Arthur and Molly's intelligence statistics in France proceeded smoothly, even with the cover-up of Bella and these people, there was a good chance that they would find something wrong."

"To avoid the risk of this, the Dark Lord ordered Peter to use the Weasley children on the wagon to create confusion and draw Arthur's attention away from them as much as possible."

"Percy then became his best breakthrough, and instead of having a conversation with Percy directly, he gained his friendship by sending Percy letters in which he recognized his talent and pushed his buttons for him being looked down upon by his own brother on the wagon and crushed by the underclassmen over his head."

"What really made Percy decide to betray and trust this 'pen pal', whom he had never actually met, was a letter of appointment issued by the British Minister of Magic themselves."

"This letter of appointment was received in the summer when Percy was at home, in the middle of which I suspect there was a face-to-face communication between him and Fudge personally using floo powder, and Peter was still in the wagon at the time, he just acted as a middleman."

"After returning to the wagon, Percy expressed his determination to defect, Peter had also proposed that if he made some 'merit' on the wagon before he defects, he could get better treatment after joining the Ministry of Magic, but this offer was rejected by Percy. "

Lupin followed up on Lily's words.

"The Dark Lord's initial purpose was accomplished when Arthur and Molly got word of their son's betrayal, returned from France, and voluntarily stepped down from all their positions to avoid suspicion, handing over all the French tasks to Sirius."

"And after Percy's incident, we all found out about the problem of someone lurking on the wagon and conducted three full-scale searches."

Lupin looked at the small wooden box that was already in Dumbledore's hands.

"At first, we thought there was some kind of slip-up in your search on the wagon, thinking that we had failed to notice some places that would hardly draw our attention, but after checking Wormtail's memory, as well as retrieving this box from his body we realized that it was this thing that helped him hide on the wagon."

"A box with an extremely powerful concealment and confusion spell enchanted on it, the enchantment must have come from the hand of the dark lord, it can even evade your detection, and Wormtail did not always hide in one place. He prepared a total of three hiding spots, one in the astronomy classroom at the roof of the wagon, one at the axle at the bottom of the wagon, and one under the wooden steps at the back of the exit of the wagon. Once he sensed that one of them was no longer safe, he would start moving."

"There were also those rat hairs that Jon found in the charms' classroom earlier, which he had deliberately left behind. The dark lord also found out later that you let Sirius go to France in place of Arthur and Molly, and he ordered Wormtail to reveal his identity as a way to lure Sirius back."

"In response to this, although Wormtail was extremely resistant in his heart, he still did not dare to disobey that man's order. This time he targeted Jon, from Percy he knew that you trust this student, and also through Jon's previous deeds in Hogwarts Castle he discerned his boldness. So he took the initiative to expose the clues related to himself in front of his eyes. After that, as expected of him, Jon did not ignore the clue as normal students would do, and took the initiative to report to you."

"This matter also achieved the effect that the dark lord expected, it was me who wrote to Sirius, after getting the news, he discarded his duties in France and returned directly to Britain, we had completely lost the last chance to learn about the dark lord's layout in France and to stop him from that moment onwards."

Sirius' face was a bit unsightly, the pleasure of killing Wormtail to avenge his friend had disappeared by now, they were simply being played with.

Wormtail is familiar with their characters well, their every step of the reaction all calculated by him.

Dumbledore stared at the wooden box in his hand, his gaze was calm as he shook his head and said.

"He completed his task so well, but in the end, his Lord still chose to abandon him."

"Because dark lord has always known very well that Wormtail has never really been loyal to him." Lupin said with a calm face, "As Wormtail himself said before he died, his submission to the dark lord only stemmed from his own fear of him, not from any personal admiration for him or agreement with his pureblood theory."

"The dark lord had seen exactly what was in his heart and was squeezing the last bit of residual value out of him by having him carry out this mission on the wagon."

"Wormtail also foresaw this, but he had no choice but to please his lord whom he feared the most, and from the moment he chose to betray us, there was no second way out for him."

As he said this, Lupin's brow furrowed slightly.

"Now the only point of regret is that I did not get much information from Wormtail's mind, about what exactly is the next strategy that the Dark Lord is going to carry out against us after completely grasping the power of France."

Dumbledore looked up at the sky with a deep gaze.

"This, too, does not need to know from Wormtail's memory. He is holding the uppermost power in France, but that does not mean that he has complete control over the French magical community."

"According to his previous means of controlling Britain, there will definitely be a bloody crackdown next, especially since the number of Muggle wizards in France is currently high, and if he wants to solidify his pureblood supremacy theory, he has to control the number of Muggle wizards to a certain extent. Neither so much that it is too much of a threat to his rule, nor so little that no one is oppressed and the lowest level of slaves are missing."

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