Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 440 Seeking Advice from Dumbledore
After using the portkey found on Chief Avery to leave the underground cave, Mike quickly commanded the Los Santos Wizarding Corps and the ants to conduct a comprehensive search of the entire Avery Secret Realm.

Because the entire Avery Secret Realm was protected by anti-Apparition, anti-Apparition and Unmarkable spells, except for those high-ranking members of the Avery family who were already in high positions, the vast majority of members of the entire Avery family were trapped in the secret realm.

The main purpose of the joint search between the wizard group and the ants is to capture the survivors hiding in the secret realm. It is believed that with the help of native creatures such as giant ants, these people will soon be caught.

Of course, arresting people is only one of the goals.

Mike's other purpose is to collect the goods stored by the Avery family in the secret territory and the property of those wizard families.

As the strongest fighter present, Mike naturally did not leave the secret realm.

But he was not idle either. He took advantage of the time when the truth serum lasted and conducted a more detailed and rigorous interrogation of Chief Avery.

The results of the interrogation were similar to those in the underground cave, but Chief Avery also confessed some other things, such as that they had buried a huge treasure in this secret place named after their family.

Therein lies the wealth that the Avery family has collected over thousands of years.

Their ancestors obviously did not believe in Gringotts, which was founded by the cunning goblins, so they hid most of their belongings in this secret place, and only some scattered wealth was stored in Gringotts.

As for the actual value of the treasure inside, Patriarch Avery himself couldn't tell for sure, because there were simply too many of them, and the value of many things was difficult to estimate.

Mike then asked someone to go to the location he mentioned, and dug out a warehouse full of gold Galleons and various treasures.

After preliminary inspection, the value of this treasure house exceeded one million gold galleons!
This number really surprised Mike, Franklin and others, but after thinking about how the Avery family had occupied this secret land alone for countless years, Mike let it go.

But this is not the most important news that Mike got from Chief Avery. Mike never forgot that their purpose this time was to find Chris and the pendant box. From what Chief Avery told him, Mike deduced something very incredible, that is, the information obtained by Kingsley was most likely deliberately revealed by Chris or someone else.

Otherwise, there is no way to explain why Kingsley could easily know such a secret thing as the Avery Secret Realm, nor can it explain why the Slytherin pendant box that Mike wanted to find appeared here so coincidentally.

Although Mike still didn't know why Chris or others did this, after eliminating all possibilities, this option was the only one that seemed completely impossible!
Speaking of the pendant box, Mike checked it as soon as he left the underground cave.

But to Mike's disappointment, this pendant box was still not the Horcrux he was looking for. There was no trace of Voldemort on it at all.

Mike immediately concluded that it was a fake, but Chief Avery insisted that it was the real thing.

The reason he gave was that he liked this precious magical antique very much, so as soon as Chris gave him the pendant box, he found many famous antique masters to test the authenticity of the pendant box, and the result of the test was that the pendant box was indeed authentic.

This puzzled Mike.

You have to know that when Voldemort made the Horcruxes, he had not yet traveled to this world.

Therefore, the appearance of the Horcrux was not affected by his time travel at all, and there would be no changes.

But now, if this pendant box is authentic, then where did Voldemort’s soul go?

Could it be that Voldemort had retrieved it in time? Or did Slytherin create two lockets in the first place?
Looking at the pendant box in his hand that was shining green under the light, Mike's mind was now full of question marks.

He now really wanted to take the locket directly to Dumbledore, hoping that the knowledgeable Dumbledore could give him a correct answer.

It’s a pity that he has more important things to deal with in this secret place.

"Boss, the Ants and Los Santos Wizards have completed the search of Avery's Secret Realm."

Benjamin's words pulled Mike back from his deep thoughts. He calmly put away the pendant box, nodded expressionlessly and said:

"what's the result?"

"It's generally good. After two rounds of comprehensive searches, we caught a total of 323 rats, most of whom were elderly people and children, with only about thirty strong men and women. In addition to the treasure that Chief Avery gave away, I also found a large amount of property and goods. According to preliminary estimates, the total profit of the first wave of our operation will exceed million gold galleons!"

At this point Benjamin suddenly stopped talking. Mike, who was listening to the report, turned around in surprise and saw Benjamin with a frown on his face, looking constipated.

"What's wrong?" Mike asked concernedly, "Are you feeling unwell?"

Benjamin shook his head quickly, looking at Mike with a tangled face. After thinking for a long time, he stammered:

"Mike, although I hate to admit it, something bad happened during the search."

"They hid my Galleons?"

Mike suddenly raised his voice tone!

"Well, that's not the case. Our people are not fools. They know what will happen if they are found hiding the loot. And you will give them a lot of bonuses when you return anyway, so there is no need for them to do this."

"What bad things can you do?"

Mike was a little confused. He really couldn't think of anything worse than stealing the spoils that belonged to him.

In response to Mike's question, Benjamin hesitated and said:
"Of the 323 survivors, 110 were killed by them on the grounds that they were threatening. But in fact, they were killing innocent people indiscriminately. I saw it clearly. Many people were executed just for cursing them! This is not the worst. Some witches were violated before being executed. This is really... this is really..."

Benjamin was so angry that he couldn't speak.

Mike's face showed an expression of sudden enlightenment.

When ordering the Los Santos Wizards to join forces with the ants to conduct a search, Mike's original words were:

"Find all the survivors of the Avery family, and then find a temporary dungeon to lock them all up. If you encounter any threatening guys, just kill them directly."

Yes, it’s such a simple sentence.

This was an order Mike issued after careful consideration, because rationally speaking, killing all the prisoners was the best option for his subordinates, after all, they were technically enemies.

But it was too cruel to do so, so Mike finally chose to lock them all up first.

Mike thought he was doing a good job.

But he obviously forgot one thing when he issued the order, that is, the criteria for judging threats given to the executors of the mission did not prohibit them from doing shameful things to the prisoners. So, what Benjamin said happened as a matter of course.

Mike was not surprised at all about this kind of thing happening, because his subordinates were not rigid robots, but living humans. It was normal for them to do some things that tested the bottom line within the scope permitted by the rules to satisfy their own selfish desires.

And to be honest, Mike was already quite satisfied with their behavior.

Because until now Mike has not taken back their unlimited firing rights.

This means that if they wanted, they could even kill all the prisoners.

The fact that this kind of situation didn't happen showed that the wizards under his command were not that crazy yet.

Although he thought so in his heart, he couldn't say it to Benjamin. After all, the other party was obviously too naive.

So after a long time, Mike let out a long sigh, patted Benjamin on the shoulder and said:

"This matter is my fault. There was a loophole in the order I gave them. I must apologize to you. I'm sorry."

As he spoke, Mike gave Benjamin a small bow.

"I... That's not what I meant, Mike. I..."

Benjamin obviously didn't expect Mike to do this. After a moment of silence, he opened his mouth in panic to explain, but perhaps because he was too nervous, he stuttered and couldn't explain clearly.

Seeing this, Mike continued:

"Well, the mistake has been made and we must try to make up for it. How about this, I will leave all the prisoners to you. Of course, the general direction cannot be changed. They will still be kept working in the factory after their memories are erased, but the rest of the things like living conditions and material rations will be left to you to handle. In addition, I will also punish the wizards who made mistakes, such as confinement and fines. Do you think this is okay?"

"Of course, this is a good solution, but..."

"That's all, I have other things to take care of, and I hope you all can do your jobs well. After all, this is for the greater good!"

After saying that, Mike pressed the key in his hand, turned into a distorted afterimage and disappeared in the office.

When Benjamin heard Mike's last sentence, he stood up straight and pounded his chest as if by reflex, while shouting:

"For the greater good!"

After shouting, Benjamin became even more confused, because Mike actually left a lot of things behind and ran away!

Thinking about the huge amount of things he would have to deal with soon, Benjamin couldn't help but reveal a bitter look on his face.

"He always likes to be a hands-off boss. I am so miserable!"

Benjamin complained as he quickly left the office.

Completely conquering a new secret realm is not an easy task, and there is a lot of work waiting for him.

On the other side, after leaving the secret realm, Mike went straight to Dumbledore's forest villa.

The house-elf named Little Teacup or Little Teapot in the villa garden was very happy to see Mike coming and greeted him very attentively.

But Mike ignored him and rushed straight into Dumbledore's bedroom.

At this time, Dumbledore had escaped from the situation of lying in bed recuperating from his injuries, and was sitting at his desk, reading a newspaper and eating breakfast.

That breakfast looked very familiar, almost exactly the same as what I had at Snape's house.

Dumbledore ate with great relish. The early morning sun shone through the dense woods and the transparent glass onto his face, leaving a light pink hue that represented health.

Dumbledore was obviously startled by Mike's sudden intrusion. He was holding a fork with half a sausage stuck in it and was stunned for a moment. Then his wrinkled face opened up, revealing a bright smile and said to Mike:
"Mike, you are here. Severus just came here to give me a routine treatment. At my strong request, he also made me a breakfast. I have to say, it was so delicious that I was simply fascinated. Oh, by the way, would you like some?"

As Dumbledore spoke, he reached out to hand the half sausage to Mike.

But Mike obviously had no desire to eat. He completely ignored Dumbledore's kindness and took out the Slytherin pendant box from his arms and placed it in front of Dumbledore.

"Look at this, is it real?"

Seeing the locket, Dumbledore's expression became serious.

He put down his fork, held up the pendant box with both hands and examined it carefully in the sun. After a while, he looked at Mike in surprise and asked:

"Where did you get this?"

"I thought you had guessed it. The information Kingsley gave me led us to the deep hiding place of the Avery family, and this is where we found it."

"Yeah, that's right, I should have guessed it, Kingsley has already told me about it..."

Dumbledore's expression was a little strange, as if he was distracted. His pupils dilated rapidly and he kept muttering with his head down.

His voice became softer and softer, until even Mike couldn't hear what he was saying.

It was unknown how long it had passed before Dumbledore finally recovered from this strange state.

He slowly raised his head and looked at Mike with a complicated expression for a while, then asked in a very serious tone:
"May I know how the Avery family is doing now?"

Mike didn't say anything, he just looked at Dumbledore expressionlessly, just as he had done before when he was waiting for Dumbledore to speak.

The Avery Secret Realm is very important to Mike at this stage, so important that he has no intention of revealing any information about the secret realm to anyone.

But Dumbledore obviously misunderstood Mike's reaction. After waiting for a long time without receiving a response, the expression on his face suddenly became very sad.

(End of this chapter)