From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 339 Under the water
"Don't you understand yet, Dumbledore?" Fudge spitted loudly while sitting in the headmaster's office, "It is extremely dangerous to let werewolves live in the Forbidden Forest! I can't allow you to make the same mistake again!"

"Those poor souls in the Forbidden Forest, the lycanthropy curse on them has been cured. Not only can they control their transformation independently, but they will not lose their minds when in werewolf form. No one will become a new werewolf due to their bite." Dumbledore was very calm, in stark contrast to the shouting Fudge. He rested his elbows on the table and put his ten slender fingers together, with a somewhat smug smile on his face.

"Ridiculous!" Fudge immediately shook his head and asked in an incredulous tone, "Do you believe such a flawed statement? Although those werewolves can indeed maintain their sanity when transformed, it does not mean that they are safe and harmless. On the contrary, rational werewolves are more terrifying!"

Fudge waved his arms vigorously, as if he wanted to use this behavior to increase the persuasiveness of his words: "Originally, people only needed to pay more attention during the full moon, but now, these werewolves have become a threat all the time! Fortunately, they are just demonstrating. If they went to war with us..."

Fudge shrank his neck, as if a bloody war scene was unfolding before his eyes: "That will be another goblin rebellion!"

"I have to remind you, Cornelius," Dumbledore's smile disappeared, and his blue eyes released an unquestionable determination through his half-moon glasses, "The werewolves you mentioned now call themselves full-moon werewolves. They are not centaurs, goblins, or house-elfs. They are part of us, and they are wizards too."

Fudge stared at Dumbledore with wide eyes, but he soon began to feel uneasy and took the opportunity of coughing to look away.

"I beg you, Dumbledore!" Fudge seemed to be speaking in a humble tone, but in fact he had already issued an ultimatum. "At least let those werewolves hiding in the Forbidden Forest leave the school! If the parents of the students knew about this, how terrified they would be! The thousand-year reputation of Hogwarts would be ruined in an instant!"

"It seems that we have very serious differences in our concepts of right and wrong, Cornelius. I will never agree to expel them." Dumbledore said softly, but his determination was greater than that of a dozen Fudges piled together. "By the way, the students in the school have long known about the existence of werewolves in the Forbidden Forest. I believe their parents have also received the notice a long time ago. Although there are still complaints sent to my office, fortunately, no students from any college have dropped out because of this."

"Well, Albus, I hope you have really thought it through..." Fudge stood up from his chair and picked up his hat again. "In any case, the wizarding world will know the truth - you condone dangerous werewolves living in the Forbidden Forest. Although this will affect the reputation of Hogwarts, I have to do this for the sake of peace in the wizarding world."

"Then please do as you please, Cornelius." Dumbledore did not stand up to see him off, "But before you leave, I have one more piece of advice for you."

Fudge put his navy green hat on his thinning head and looked back at Dumbledore.

"Although we have made many efforts, we still have to regretfully tell you that Voldemort is likely to come back this year." Dumbledore said quietly, "I hope you can be prepared. Of course, we have been preparing for his possible return for a long time. If all goes well, he will not have any impact on the peace of the wizarding world. But if things don't go as we wish, then we must be prepared for a long struggle."

"Who?" Fudge asked. "Who do you say is coming back?"

"Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, known to the public as 'You-Know-Who'," Dumbledore replied.

"You have to be kidding." Fudge put on a businesslike smirk, a skill he had developed when he was Deputy Director of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. His superiors and subordinates liked some jokes that were not funny at all, and he had to pretend to laugh out loud in a funny way, which was exactly the same as the situation now.

"Voldemort is not dead. This is beyond doubt." Dumbledore did not intend to pay attention to Fudge's fluke. "We have made many efforts to prevent him from returning, but his methods are always beyond people's imagination..."

"Dumbledore!" Fudge interrupted, and Dumbledore paused and looked intently at the Minister of Magic.

The Minister hesitated for a long time, and finally mustered up the courage to ask: "Is this... a threat?"

"What?" Dumbledore obviously didn't understand. "Of course Voldemort is a threat, to all of us. Therefore, I advise you to put aside the Full Moon Werewolf in the Forbidden Forest for the time being. He is the biggest threat to peace in the wizarding world."

"No! No one can threaten me!" Fudge jumped away as if frightened, shouting, "The werewolves in the Forbidden Forest must be eliminated! Just wait and see! Dumbledore! I will never succumb to your threats!"

"My threat?" Before Dumbledore could finish his words, Fudge ran out of the headmaster's office as if he was escaping from a fire.

Listening to the rapid clatter of Fudge's heels against the stairs, Dumbledore let out an imperceptible sigh.

He looked at Fox the Phoenix on the branch and spoke to it softly, but it sounded like he was talking to himself: "Ivy never told me all his plans, but he promised me that he would destroy everything Tom had with his own hands... If there were any mistakes..."

Fox spread his gorgeous wings and glided briefly in the air, then landed on his shoulder in his light purple nightgown and chirped sweetly.

"No... Ivy is much more decisive than me... I'm afraid he won't give Tom a last chance..." Dumbledore gently stroked the big bird on his shoulder, "But it's good this way. There are too many people in this world who have been persecuted by him..."

----

"You said Karkaroff would take Krum swimming in the Black Lake?" Harry looked at the Weasley twins in front of him. "It's so cold... Why on earth would he do this?"

"Maybe it's to test his willpower." Fred took a piece of crispy bacon from the plate in front of Harry.

A week had passed since the Yule Ball and the new year had truly arrived. Although the holidays were not over yet, Harry had not yet found a chance to test Karkaroff.

However, he had discovered that neither Bagman nor Lucius seemed to be planning to return to the Ministry of Magic. They handled official business via owls in the room assigned by the headmaster, but there were obviously fewer owls flying into Bagman's window.

"You haven't figured out the secret of the golden egg yet, have you?" Hermione interrupted the conversation between Harry and the Weasley twins. "The first task is the dragon, and the remaining two tasks will be even more difficult! Maybe you will encounter a sphinx, a manticore, or a chimera! If you don't quickly figure out the clues in the golden egg, you might really die!"

"I'm trying, Hermione." Harry pushed his plate towards the twins, and they sat down. "Someone has tampered with the Goblet of Fire and wants to kill me in the Triwizard Tournament. If I just passively follow his footsteps, I might really die."

"Besides, investigating Karkaroff is not completely unhelpful to the Triwizard Tournament." Harry looked around vigilantly, then lowered his voice and said, "Karkaroff is a petty and despicable guy. He would never take Krum to do something useless. So I guess that the Black Lake must have some connection with the second project. Maybe the venue is in the lake!"

"Harry has learned some of your cleverness, Hermione!" George grabbed a croissant and stuffed it into his mouth, unable to stop sighing.

Then he choked on the freshly baked croissant and rolled his eyes.

"Maybe it's true," Hermione nodded with satisfaction, "I knew your brain was much better than Ron's! Then I think maybe you should put the golden egg in the water... maybe the noise inside will change... because it's obviously sending a message to the warriors. Maybe changing the environment will give us the real answer!" Ron blinked innocently after being touched by the mother bird, and forked a piece of potato with gravy from the plate: "Yeah, maybe if you put the golden egg in the water, you can hear the siren's song! Then drown in the sink like a sailor."

Hermione gasped and looked at Ron in shock. "I know what the noise in the golden egg is. It's the singing of mermaids! There is a tribe of mermaids living in the Black Lake! I read about it in Hogwarts, A History!"

The people at the table looked at each other, and they all felt that Hermione's speculation made sense.

"So Karkaroff taking Krum to swim in the Black Lake was another form of cheating?" Fred looked as if he had guessed it a long time ago.

"Have you forgotten that he was once a Death Eater? Even if he really put Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, I wouldn't be surprised at all!" George said indignantly.

"Maybe the second task requires you to search for something at the bottom of the Black Lake..." Hermione was not affected by the Weasley brothers and was still thinking about the dangers Harry might face.

"That's easy!" Fred put a piece of fried fish into his mouth, "We just need to take Harry to take a bath, and he will understand everything! Just use that, my good brother!"

"Got it!" George jumped up from his chair, his cheeks puffed up, and said to Ron and Harry, "You two will go to the sixth floor and find the statue of Boris the Confused, and wait for us at the fourth door on his left. Of course, remember to bring your toiletries!"

"Are you guys up to some mischief again?" Hermione grabbed Fred's robe and looked at them both with the same eyes as Professor McGonagall.

"How could that be!" Fred raised his hands innocently, "I was just taking them to take a bath!"

After saying that, the two brothers winked at Harry and rushed back to the Gryffindor Tower.

----

"George said that's the prefects' bathroom." Ron and Harry walked together in the corridor on the sixth floor. "Look at that statue."

The statue Ron was pointing at was a confused looking wizard with a pair of dueling gloves on his hands that were worn backwards.

"That should be him." Harry saw the name on the base of the statue - Boris the Confused. "The fourth door on the left... but I don't see George and Fred."

Ron walked forward and pulled the door lock, which was obviously locked. He turned around and was about to say something when the tightly closed wooden door opened and he fell in.

Behind the door was, of course, Fred.

He waved at Harry, "Come in! Don't let anyone else see us!"

The wooden door closed behind Harry, and he finally understood why Ron, who went in first, didn't make any sound - this was an exaggeratedly luxurious bathroom, and every item in the room was made of snow-white marble, even the rectangular swimming pool in the middle.

A diving board jutted out from the edge of the pool, and next to it were about a hundred golden faucets, each with a handle inlaid with a different colored gem, not much different from the gems used to keep score in the hourglass in the foyer.

The windows were hung with snow-white linen curtains, a pile of fluffy white towels was placed in a corner, and there was only one painting on the wall, in a gilded frame. It was a golden-haired mermaid sleeping soundly on a rock, her long hair blowing across her face, trembling slightly with every breath she took.

"How did you know such a great place?" Ron couldn't help asking.

"Marauder's Map." Fred pointed to the parchment spread on a pile of towels. It was folded into many different pages and looked unusual.

"This is... Hogwarts!" Harry had already seen the dense footprints on the Marauder's Map and the names floating next to them. "It can show everyone's location!"

"Great! So this is why you can always find all kinds of secret passages!" Ron said jealously, "I'm obviously your brother, but you two have been hiding it from me!"

"You are indeed our brother who eats the most." George was taking off his robe. "You haven't made any special contribution to our cause, why should you know?"

"What about Harry?" Ron asked.

"That's exactly what we're going to talk about next." Fred had already stripped himself naked and was the first to splash into the swimming pool. "Come on, be honest! The ancient Romans loved to talk business in the bathroom!"

"Is it because of Moony Magic Unlimited?" Harry understood everything. Before the Christmas ball, he not only met his father and godfather in the Forbidden Forest, but also learned about the company from them, including the investment in the Weasley twins.

"That's right," said George. "As soon as we heard the name of the company, we decided to join it! This map was made by your father and some of his friends. If Moony is Professor Lupin, who are Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail?"

"Sirius, my dad, and... Peter Pettigrew," Harry answered.

"We're not surprised at all," Fred replied. "They made this map. They've taken great care of us during our years at Hogwarts!"

　thrilling

　　
　
(End of this chapter)