Archaeologists at Hogwarts

Chapter 380 Conversation

379 Conversation

"If I understand correctly, after a brief period of comfort, Halbo showed his fangs again and plans to attack you, Harry, right?"

"This should be the case, Mr. Er. And he has already done this once, and it was under the nose of Professor Heimer."

"That doesn't sound good. No wonder you're in such a bad mood. What do you think, Toby?"

"I?"

Toby exaggeratedly looked at Harry and Dumbledore sitting on the sofa opposite him.

"I'm just curious why your conversation has to be held in my office? This is my office!"

"Don't be so stingy." Dumbledore said gently: "Where else do you want me to go? I no longer have an office in Hogwarts. Are you willing to drive me away again?"

ah?

Harry felt as if he had heard something extraordinary. He quietly lowered his head and tried to reduce his sense of presence.

"I didn't say that." Toby's tone was still very dissatisfied.

"In this case, it seems that we have no other better method in a short time."

Dumbledore left Toby alone, he turned to look at Harry again and said: "Tell me how you feel, Harry, what do you think of this matter?"

What else could Harry think about? He had no idea what to do and had been following Professor Heimer's instructions.

These troubles are not something he can bear alone.

Dumbledore seemed to have expected this. He said with concern: "If it's really hard to talk, what about James? Do you want to meet your father? I can give him a long vacation at any time.

.”

"He knows?" Harry asked in surprise, with a somewhat panicked expression on his face.

"Not yet." Dumbledore said truthfully: "I haven't thought about how to tell him the news. After all, Haierbo is not only related to your own life, he also had an affair with James - maybe this word is not

So accurate - but he also [worked] with James for a long time. There were times when I needed to be concerned about his feelings as well."

Toby couldn't help laughing, it sounded a bit like a sneer.

"[Colleagues]? Thank you for coming up with this word. Wouldn't it be better to just say subordinates? Why, is James still afraid of admitting this?"

Dumbledore turned to look at Toby, the expression on his face was also a little cold.

"But sometimes, words can cause more harm than black magic. You still don't know how to take care of other people's feelings. How could you say it so directly in front of Harry?"

Toby immediately retorted: "This is the biggest difference between you and me. I really don't understand why you have to hide it. If it were me, I wouldn't do this. Otherwise, I won't know myself until the end."

What is the matter with death, at least let me be mentally prepared in advance."

"Really?" Dumbledore said calmly: "Are you really not going to hide anything from others? Then how did I meet Grindelwald at the Shrieking Shack, and why do I want to go to the Ministry of Magic now?

,Aren’t these all caused by you?”

Harry looked to his left at Toby and at his right at Dumbledore.

"Otherwise, I'd better go back first."

He suggested cautiously: "I feel better now, okay?"

From the sound of his tone, even if the two of them disagreed, he would probably get up and run away immediately, not wanting to get involved in the quarrel at all.

To Harry's relief, they finally agreed and did not continue to embarrass him.

After Harry left, the room was quiet for a short while.

Toby picked up the cold lemonade glass, moved it to his mouth and took a small sip.

After he put down the cup, he finally broke the silence and asked: "Is the transfer to Azkaban complete?"

"That's right." Dumbledore, who was sitting opposite him, actually showed a hint of fatigue: "Although it was very troublesome, fortunately we moved them all away. Not many people know where they are hiding, and even if they knew, they probably wouldn't be able to find them.

- It’s okay to tell you, Delia Island, you should know this location, the five-legged monster lives on this island.”

Toby nodded and said nothing, but his eyes were still staring at Dumbledore.

"I know what your real concerns are."

Dumbledore sighed rarely: "Voldemort escaped. No one found him, and no one thought that he could have been hiding in Azkaban. If Old Barty hadn't discovered the anomaly in advance, there's no telling what happened to him.

How long are you going to hide there?"

Toby held the water glass with his palm a little harder.

"What a pity. Otherwise we would have had the opportunity to use him to research Horcruxes."

Dumbledore shook his head and said: "Now I feel more and more that this is a trap. Halbo's purpose is really obvious - it happened that when Harry had a problem, he let us know about another person who had made Horcruxes.

Wherever the person appears, it’s really a coincidence.”

"I guess he has already guessed that you will not be able to resist doing this, try to catch Voldemort, and force him to find out the specific method of making Horcruxes. Then compare it with Harry."

Toby disagreed with Dumbledore's statement.

"Then what can we do? Turn a blind eye to all this?" He sneered and wrote: "If I lived with this attitude, I would have died long ago without a complete body."

But the expression on Dumbledore's face became even more serious.

"Look, he has even figured out your character."

For a moment, this left Toby speechless.

"Forget it, don't mention him."

Toby put the water glass on the table angrily and made a bang: "Let's think about how to help Harry get through this difficulty first. He has become more and more dangerous. There is only one way now.

He was saved."

"I know." Dumbledore had expected this. He raised his head and met Toby's gaze.

"Occlumency, it's the only way."

Toby nodded silently.

If you want to avoid the impact of Horcruxes on Harry, Occlumency is the only magic that can help Harry.

But the problem is that this magic is too complicated, even for adult wizards, it is difficult to learn it. And Toby is not optimistic that Harry can do it.

Although Harry has learned how to be a devil, he has not been able to summon his Patronus until now. This is difficult to prove how superb his magical talent is, at least it has not reached the benchmark identified by Toby.

"I saw in McGonagall's letter that you planned to let Slughorn teach Harry?"

Dumbledore mentioned Toby's previous thoughts: "And this is not your real purpose, because you know very well how difficult it is. What you actually want to do is rely on Harry's identity - that is, Lily's son

, use him to get close to Slughorn, and extract from him the specific methods of making Horcruxes that Slughorn learned about, so that you can compare them?"

"That's right."

Toby's voice was a little hesitant. He still had a key question that he didn't say, but Dumbledore asked it immediately.

"I am very satisfied that you have figured out where Horace learned the Horcruxes from. But the question is, do you also know that he taught Voldemort the Horcruxes?"

"Has this been confirmed?"

"Not yet." Toby took two deep breaths and said: "Well, so far I can't see any signs that can prove it, but Slughorn confided another thing to me-Lily once

I asked him how to make Horcruxes, and Lily learned about Horcruxes from Snape, so she couldn't help but want to ask."

Dumbledore obviously knew this news for the first time.

He stared at Toby for a while, and then said: "Thankfully I'm back, otherwise I don't know how long you would have kept it secret from me. You still haven't given up your plan to seek revenge from Severus, and now I have another reason for you."

Already."

Toby neither admitted nor denied, but his silence already told the answer.

That's right, how could he give up on this matter? Even without the influence of searching for Halbo's clues, he would still find a way to find Snape and punish him for his betrayal.

Dumbledore sighed again and fell into a long silence.

——

Harry has been sitting on the bed in a daze since he returned to the dormitory. He has nothing to do now but take out the golden egg he got from the previous round and play with it.

There is a groove on the top of this golden egg, which can be easily pried open.

But after prying it open, there was a magic circle inside, which looked very mysterious—that is, it was difficult to understand.

This is a puzzle that Professor Haimer left for the warriors. Only after solving it can we know the content of the next round of competition.

Harry was wondering where Fleur and Krum still had headaches. They had never taken ancient magic classes, so they had to seize the time to learn it from scratch.

For this reason, Ms. Maxim also made a righteous protest, the content of which was almost the same as before, saying that Professor Heimer was showing partiality to the warriors of Hogwarts.

Then Professor Heimer actually admitted it.

However, he promised that he would not interfere with the official content of the second round. This magic circle was the last remaining problem for him, so after careful consideration, Ms. Maxim accepted the proposal.

It was really difficult for Harry to understand Ms. Maxim's actions and what exactly Professor Heimer had done in Beauxbatons.

Staring at the magic circle floating on the surface of the golden egg, Harry's eyes gradually became distracted, and his thoughts wandered to nowhere.

Just at this moment, Ron, who had just finished class, rushed back in time.

He opened the door, took a careful look at Harry who was in a daze, and after hesitating for a while, he called out: "Harry. Harry?"

Harry came to his senses suddenly.

He pretended that nothing happened and asked, "What's wrong? Did that crazy woman ask you to call me back?"

Ron's mouth opened wide: "I didn't know you would call her that - no, we have finished class, you. Do you want to go out for a walk or something? Let's chat by the way?"

His intention to unlock Harry was very obvious.

"Hermione will come too."

Well, of course there will be Hermione.

"It's still not possible."

Harry suddenly felt tired of explaining this matter. He threw the golden egg aside and gave Ron an impeccable reason.

"I'd better go find Qiu. I haven't looked for her much since the game ended."

——

"Albus, why are you here?"

In the Potions Office, Slughorn looked at the visitor standing outside the door in surprise.

"Should I call you Minister now?"

He looked very happy when he said this.

"I don't think there is any need to be so hostile between us."

Dumbledore refused with a smile: "Just call me by my name. Are you preparing for lessons?"

Slughorn looked back at the snacks on the coffee table, the honey water filled with ice cubes on one side, and several magazines on the other side.

"Ahem, of course." He made all these things disappear very calmly, and replied seriously: "Of course, I am preparing lessons - no, you are not the principal now, and I don't need to make a report to you -

-Is there a problem?"

He finally reacted, and easily changed the disappeared things back, picked up a crispy biscuit and enjoyed it slowly.

"Just catching up with old friends."

Dumbledore naturally sat on the other side of the coffee table and said, "I think there should be no problem, right?"

Slughorn grunted, but he still pushed the plate full of snacks towards Dumbledore's hand.

"As long as you don't scare me like you did today, there won't be any problem."

But Dumbledore did not pick up the snack and enjoy it.

He was still looking at Slughorn's glasses until the other person's eyes began to dodge.

"But I have a problem."

Dumbledore changed his attitude and said that it happened so suddenly that Slughorn's arm froze when he picked up the water glass.

"There is one thing that I noticed very early on."

Before Slughorn could accept his change, Dumbledore continued: "Many years ago, you noticed a change in my attitude towards you, and then decided to leave Hogwarts on your own."

"It wasn't until this year's vacation, when I decided to leave Hogwarts, that you decided to come back to teach. I think you love this profession, and it is easy to satisfy you, especially since you can be transferred at will.

The resources of the students—the prerequisite is that they are good enough.”

"What do you want to say?" Slughorn did not expect that Dumbledore would expose this unspoken secret so suddenly, and his tone trembled.

"What I want to know is simple, Horace."

Dumbledore said calmly: "That's what you care about. Don't tell me it's nothing. We both know it's impossible."

Slughorn immediately became angry: "No, nothing, don't worry about me - the worst I can do is leave Hogwarts, there's no need to use this method to force me to leave - I'll leave now, that's fine

Bar."

He packed his luggage very quickly and was ready to leave the office with his suitcase in almost the blink of an eye, without hesitation at all.

But just as he was about to open the door, a familiar yet unfamiliar voice suddenly came from behind him.

So strange that he thought the person sitting on the sofa was no longer Dumbledore.

In other words, this is the real Dumbledore.

"You may have forgotten that I am no longer the Headmaster of Hogwarts, but the Minister of Magic."

"Although the guarding of Azkaban has forced the Ministry to reduce its manpower, I think there is still no problem in arresting a problematic old professor."

"Don't make it difficult for me, Horace."