Hogwarts Card System.

Chapter 360: The Third Confluence of Stars

After all, it is not a large organization with a strict hierarchy, and the atmosphere within the Order of the Phoenix is ​​still very relaxed.

Although Dumbledore's tone was a little heavy, everyone soon relaxed.

There are too many difficulties in this world and they are used to it.

Even if they had to fight Voldemort, they had already done it.

These old magic warriors have been able to pay attention to the enemy strategically and despise the enemy tactically.

So everyone laughed easily amid Sirius and Lupin's jokes.

Then the food was served quickly and we chatted while eating.

Ted: Voldemort or something... Let's order first!
Everyone is happy now, except Snape, who is always gloomy and never smiles all year round.

He didn't stay for dinner either, he left before the meal started.

Although I don't want to say this, after Snape left, the atmosphere seemed to be more harmonious and everyone became more active.

Hagrid stroked his slicked-back hair and neatly trimmed beard and said with emotion: I never thought that I have become more handsome than the school idol back then!
When Tom was in school, it was no exaggeration to say that everyone loved him, just like Ted the Fair.

What was Hagrid's situation like at that time? Don't even think about it. It brings back tears.

Let's put it this way, he was expelled from school in the third grade and didn't have a single good friend, so he could only stay with those magical animals.

At that time, Hagrid was a big, stupid guy who was not aware of his great strength, loud, fussy and sloppy, and did not know many etiquettes.

His father was a terrifying man who dared to have sex with a female giant and successfully left her offspring. Although he took good care of Hagrid, he died when he just started school.

This is a homeless child... It makes me cry just talking about it.

Back then, Hagrid was despised by everyone, was falsely accused, had his wand broken, was fired, and could only work as a gamekeeper...

Now he has become a new man. He has become Dumbledore's most trusted person, the professor of Protection of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts, respected by all students, published articles in professional journals, and is in love with Madame Maxime, the headmaster of Beauxbatons!
And the senior Tom who framed him back then has now turned into a monster that looks neither human nor human, with only four of his five facial features left.

Everything is unpredictable, fortunes change, and the path of life is full of vicissitudes!

Of course, you also have to meet good people.Don't be afraid that good things will not happen, just be afraid that there will be no good people.

Malfoy is feeling a bit like this now!
Fight Voldemort, are you serious? Us?!

Malfoy's face was somewhat pale.

Because of his father's words and deeds, he was more afraid of Voldemort than anyone else.

But Harley kept holding his hand under the table.

If there hadn't been this meeting, they would probably have taken advantage of the holidays to communicate more, avoiding Sirius.

……

Although Ted didn't say anything, he actually felt a certain amount of pressure in his heart.

The first few years were easy because Voldemort hadn’t actually done anything significant at that time.

But even in the books, things start to look grim when Voldemort is resurrected at the end of the fourth year.

Moviegoers can all feel that after Voldemort's resurrection, you need to brighten the screen when watching the Harry Potter series because the style is a bit too dark.

This is no longer a children's fairy tale. Or rather, it is the beginning of a return to the dark fairy tale era of the early ancient times.

The original book begins with the death of Cedric.

He is luckier this time and will not be involved.

This time it was Karkaroff who died...

Ted is somewhat worried about his friends...he has to find a way to improve their strength!
The situation is different now. Voldemort was resurrected ahead of time, and he also obtained some magic that did not belong to this world, and he also got the snake staff, which is much stronger than in the original book!
It would be fine if his strength just improved, but the main thing is that he also has brains.

He even took a two-pronged approach and sent people to rescue his group of diehard Death Eaters.

Now, as long as he does something and makes it look like he is doing well, those peripheral Death Eaters who escaped the reckoning in the past will immediately gather around him.

He returned to the peak moment of more than ten years ago when he was able to call the shots and stir up blood and rain in the British wizarding world.

"However, most people still don't believe that Voldemort is back. That's what Dumbledore said!" Harry complained.

Hermione put a piece of steak on Ted's plate and said, "After all, they are not like us. They knew from the beginning that Voldemort was not dead."

As Ted cut into the steak, he said, "It's normal that people don't believe that Voldemort has resurrected. Most people only believe what they want to believe and are unwilling to understand what is really going on. It's instinct to subconsciously seek benefits and avoid harm."

Hermione happily took the cut of steak from Ted's plate.

Ron, with a meat pie in his mouth, muttered, "Can Voldemort's Horcrux really be immortal?!"

Jerry and Malfoy both pricked up their ears, looking very interested.

Who doesn’t want to live forever!
Ted glanced at his friends and the adults who were quietly observing them, and said, "At the end of last summer vacation, Nicolas Flamel and his wife passed away. Before that, I studied alchemy with him for two months..."

"He once told me that only a fool would think that death is the worst thing in the world."

"Existence is meaningful, but immortal existence is meaningless."

"I know what it is to be alive. To live is to exist and then to die. It is a complete process."

“Whenever you are afraid of death, remember this: death is a gift. What you should be afraid of is eternal life.”

After hearing this, everyone was thoughtful.

……

Here, Dumbledore has begun to gather strength and prepare to fight the Death Eaters led by Voldemort.

The first task at present is to confirm the number of Voldemort's Horcruxes, which probably needs to be investigated since decades ago when he was still in school.

Who was the first person he killed? Moaning Myrtle!

So where did he learn about Horcruxes? This should be a crucial clue.

The head of Slytherin at that time was Horace Slughorn.

Dumbledore began to prepare, and even the International Confederation of Wizards had secretly made preparations - because this time Voldemort had obviously extended his hand to Ilvermorny in North America, and this was no longer a "civil war" in Great Britain.

However, the British Ministry of Magic is still talking nonsense!

Probably something like this:
Minister, Voldemort has risen!
Fudge: Calm down!
In the first stage, we declare that nothing happened.

In the second stage, we say maybe something is happening, but we shouldn't take action.

Stage three, saying maybe we should take action, but we can’t do anything.

Stage 4: Maybe we could have done something at the time, but it’s too late now.

It's an ancestral art!

The phenomenon of Muggles spreading wizardry appeared~
The Daily Prophet said everything except the Dark Lord.

Even the news of the Azkaban prison break began to be suppressed, and was relegated to the corners of pages four and five.

Why did Fudge try so hard to deny Voldemort's return?

For two words, stability!

To put it bluntly, even if Voldemort really came back, this matter cannot be told!
The price of acknowledging Voldemort's return, besides the loss of stability, is most importantly that you have to fight Voldemort.

Is Fudge willing to lead the Ministry of Magic to fight Voldemort and the Death Eaters? Of course not.

I had no hope of re-election, as I had less than a year left in my term.

As a result, old man Sykes lost his horse, but he didn’t expect it to be a blessing!

I only earn a few hundred Galleons a month, why would I risk my life with you guys?
The current situation is extremely unfavorable for the wizards of the Order of the Phoenix who are ready to fight Voldemort to the death.

We are not at an advantage in terms of combat power to begin with, and if we fall into a disadvantage in public opinion, no one will help us.

You may even be labeled as making trouble out of nothing, alarmist, and spreading panic, which would be really difficult to deal with.

If you don't occupy the public opinion position, the enemy will. Voldemort may even use public opinion and the Ministry of Magic to deal with the Order of the Phoenix.

It is said that those who are in the right will have many supporters, while those who are in the wrong will have few.

Then, black becomes white, and white becomes black. That is really funny.

Therefore, we must not relax in this regard. We must unite all the forces that can be united...

It is now impossible to count on The Daily Prophet, the official media of Great Britain.

The best thing Fudge did in recent years was to keep the Daily Prophet in his hands.

The Daily Prophet is the mainstream media in the wizarding world, or the official media in Muggle terms. It mainly reports on political and business trends, social news, sports events, etc.

Of course, some entertainment gossip will be involved occasionally, and most of the articles on this subject are written by Rita Skeeter.

The Daily Prophet was not the mouthpiece of the Ministry of Magic at the beginning, and even many of its early articles were mostly criticizing the Ministry of Magic. But as Fudge's ambition for power gradually strengthened, his further control over social media eventually took over this key mouthpiece.

According to what Ted asked Rita Skeeter in his dream, the current president and editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet are both Fudge's people.

He even sent a short, fat, pink old lady to supervise - all articles and pictures to be published in the newspaper had to be approved by her.

Fudge has really learned the essence now!

But you can't give up!

Ted also holds the most powerful propaganda tool in his hands - the Magic Network Utopia!

Not to mention Fudge, even if Dumbledore and Voldemort joined forces, they couldn't snatch this thing from Ted.

Now, the magic network has been built all over Europe. Except for very remote places where signal towers and ground magic network have not been built, people can log in to Utopia without delay in other places.

Even Egypt has the Internet now...

However, the utopia alone is not enough. For conservative and backward adult wizards, the status of print media is still irreplaceable.

Besides, Ted couldn't openly go against Fudge and the Ministry of Magic, or Dumbledore would laugh his head off.

I play as a support, not a pioneer.

Therefore, we have to put on a new layer of skin and find other ways to spread information.

At least print media is indispensable. In fact, there is already an alternative, the last street magazine in the wizarding world, "The Quibbler".

Before the holiday, The Daily Prophet had been expounding on and reasoning about how ridiculous it was that Voldemort had returned, but The Quibbler had a large article narrating that Voldemort had already returned.

There are even a lot of "inside stories" written about it! They are really detailed!
If it hadn't happened to mention the inside information that Ted knew, I would have thought they had some exclusive inside information.

You can say that Lovegood, the editor-in-chief of The Quibbler, is just trying to get attention, but he really believes that Voldemort is back!

Then it’s you!

Use "The Quibbler" as the print media's public opinion front!

Of course there are difficulties.

Although the content of the Daily Prophet is high-sounding, at least its attitude is not absurd and it is backed by authority.

"The Quibbler" is a bit like the street literature in the Muggle world.

As the name suggests, this is a magazine that advocates opinions that go against the mainstream voice.

The main reason why everyone treats these contents as jokes is that the style of this magazine is too absurd, or in today's terms, it is a marketing account.

You can imagine that many Western marketing media outlets are saying: Hitler is resurrected, Bin Laden is not dead, the Apollo moon landing was fake, the United States is controlled by lizard people, and the Freemasons control the world...

It’s really difficult to make most people believe the views of “The Quibbler”!

Ted: No, I'd better find another way. How about radio?!

But before Ted could transform the magic radio, something even more unexpected happened.

……

On the second day of the Phoenix Order meeting, when Ted was tinkering with the magic radio, a mountain with an altitude of about 1,200 meters suddenly appeared in Switzerland!

It appeared alone at the end of a mountain range, suddenly after a heavy fog in the morning.

Nothing much had happened that day.

But after all, there are people living there for decades, and they are very familiar with the surrounding environment.

Suddenly there was a thousand-meter peak. I didn’t notice it that day, but I found it the next day!
Could it be that Yugong moved the mountain to Switzerland? !
So some young people from the small town who didn't know what was happening formed a team to go on an adventure, and they immediately discovered a team of fifty orcs!

The kind of orcs with grayish-white skin like rock and very ugly appearance, although much shorter, but cruel and bloodthirsty, have mastered certain metallurgical and construction skills, and can tame terrible wargs.

Needless to say, the six young men from the small town who were exploring were killed that same day. The small town not too far away also had no chance to escape and was attacked a few hours later.

The good news is that the local sheriff is a veteran who has participated in the war. He has a drawer full of war medals. Although he is in his fifties or sixties and has begun to enjoy his retirement, the habit of preparing for war has been deeply rooted in his bones!
It was under his leadership - and mainly with the support of his family's arsenal - that the residents of the town fought off the first wave of attacks by the orcs.

But there were many caves on the mountain that suddenly appeared, and there were obviously countless orc monsters in them.

There were even taller orc warriors among them, wearing simple armor and holding large knives. When small-caliber bullets hit their bodies, they would tremble and continue to charge!

Before more orcs rushed into the town, a hundred or so people in the town, led by the sheriff, took a car and made a strategic transfer.

Behind them, some strong orcs even rode on huge ugly wolves to chase them, and some of them could use bows and arrows, shooting several townspeople to death.

The sheriff even saw a terrifying monster over three meters tall through the telescope!

About five or six hours later, the Swiss local security forces arrived in the town.

Sure enough, some orcs had not left yet and were looting everything.

Then modern firepower fought against the alien barbarians.

With the help of heavy machine guns and portable rocket launchers, the human army managed to repel the orcs.

But after chasing him to the foot of the mountain, he didn't dare to go any further. If he really chased him into a cave, it would be hard to say.

What’s more, this mountain is not on the map!

This kind of thing is not only happening in Switzerland.

In the territories of Spain and Portugal, a large river suddenly appeared, connecting the two countries' territories. The water flow was not small, and it directly turned many low-lying areas into reservoirs!

It turned out that there was a giant anaconda that was more than ten or twenty meters long in the water!
There is also a huge rift valley more than ten kilometers long between Poland and Lithuania, where many unknown giant birds of prey build their nests...

In short, it seemed that all of a sudden, a lot of terrain that did not belong to this world squeezed in!
According to incomplete statistics around the world, there are more than twenty such sites, large and small!
The Wizarding Union gave a direct conclusion - it is very likely that the third large-scale celestial conjunction is about to begin!

(End of this chapter)