Hogwarts: Who uses a crowbar in wizard duels?

"You're back, kids. Hmm? Draco's here too. Welcome, welcome."

When the group returned to the Order of the Phoenix, only Sirius Black remained; everyone else had left.

He greeted the group as soon as he saw them.

Is Uncle Arthur home?

Kevin gave a brief response before getting straight to the point, asking about Mr. Weasley's whereabouts.

"Arthur? He's going to work at the Ministry of Magic today, he's definitely not here."

Sirius said matter-of-factly.

"That's perfect. I need Uncle Arthur to help me get some information from the Ministry of Magic."

"By the way, Sirius Black, did you know that Bella is dead?"

Kevin nodded, then suddenly turned to Sirius and asked about Bella.

"Bella is dead? When did that happen?"

Sure enough, even Sirius was completely unaware of this.

Bella is Sirius's cousin, though they haven't been in contact for a long time.

"It was over a month ago, the day after Voldemort stormed the Ministry of Magic, that he was executed."

Kevin spoke slowly, and Sirius was clearly surprised, not expecting Bella to have been dead for so long.

Bellatrix, as Voldemort's confidante, had a more infamous reputation among the older generation.

That's why Sirius was so surprised that such a person had died silently for over a month before he learned of it from Kevin.

"That's why I wanted to ask Uncle Arthur for the details of this matter."

As Kevin spoke, he pulled out paper and pen, quickly wrote a letter, burned a phoenix tail feather, and sent it to Mr. Weasley.

Harry, standing to the side, asked with some confusion.

"Kevin, is that Death Eater named Bella particularly special?"

Kevin went to Lucius today to ask about Voldemort, and after returning, he suddenly wanted to find Bella.

"Hmm...it's not particularly special, but it's not ordinary either."

"actually..."

Kevin slowly recounted his conversation with Lucius to the group.

Upon hearing that Voldemort had entrusted something to Bella, the group suddenly realized that Kevin had gone to investigate clues about Horcruxes.

The clues now point to Bella, but Bella is dead, and she died quietly more than a month ago.

So Kevin wanted to investigate Bella's death again, wondering why it had been so quietly committed.

"Well, it doesn't seem like a big deal. It's just the execution of a death row inmate. The Ministry of Magic doesn't need to report it to us, does it?"

Ron, who was standing to the side, thought about it for a while, but still couldn't see anything wrong with it.

"No, that's not what I care about."

"Instead, Voldemort's unusual intrusion into the Ministry of Magic some time ago, at the cost of expending valuable spies hidden within the Ministry, was to rescue a group of seemingly insignificant death row inmates."

"But unfortunately, Bella, the most important one, the one Voldemort valued most, was not rescued."

"Not only were they not rescued, but they were also executed at lightning speed the very next day, without a single word leaking out, as if they were afraid of being discovered."

After listening to Kevin's suggestive explanation, even the most clueless among them sensed something was amiss.

But for a moment, something didn't feel right; everything seemed perfectly reasonable.

The Ministry of Magic's prison had just been broken out, so it seems reasonable for the Ministry to hastily execute the remaining death row inmates.

"Compound decoction".

At that moment, a voice rang out.

It was Professor Moody. He had somehow appeared in the Order of the Phoenix and had overheard Kevin's words.

As a victim of Compound Soup in the previous two years, and having captured countless Death Eaters and witnessed the dark side of the world, Moody immediately guessed that Bella might have been replaced by Compound Soup.

Professor Moody's words instantly enlightened Harry and the others.

Yes, is it possible that the person who was executed wasn't Bella at all?

Instead, she was transformed into Bella's appearance by the compound decoction!

That's why they had to be executed at lightning speed to prevent their true forms from being revealed.

As for why there's been no news at all, that remains to be seen. Perhaps they're worried about being discovered?

Kevin nodded to Professor Moody; the change of personnel for the compound decoction was also Kevin's guess.

At present, this possibility is very high.

With Bella's death, the group of death row inmates Voldemort rescued will draw everyone's attention away, so no one will care about a Death Eater who is already dead.

So he asked Mr. Weasley to confirm some details in order to be certain of his conjecture.

If this conjecture is correct, then Voldemort went to great lengths to rescue Bella while doing so without attracting their attention.

Then the credibility of Lucius's information would be greatly increased.

Could it be that the last Horcrux is really with Bella, and if Bella is dead, it's very likely that it won't be found, or that it will be discovered by the authorities?

That's why Voldemort had to rescue Bella.

Oops, it's been discovered by the authorities...

The Gringotts corruption scandal reported a couple of days ago!

Kevin felt something was wrong, and suddenly remembered the news in the newspaper a couple of days ago.

With a wave of his hand, he pulled out an old newspaper from a corner, dating back two days.

Looking at the response regarding Gringotts above: 【Fairies never break their contracts!】

"Do you think it's possible that the protagonist of this story is Bella?"

Kevin pointed to the news in the newspaper.

Several people gathered around; they had all read the newspaper a couple of days ago.

Professor Moody was the first to react.

"You mean, after Bella escaped, she immediately went to Gringotts, took all the treasure, and cancelled Gringotts' operations?"

Kevin nodded and continued, "Then this situation arose, with both sides sticking to their own stories and each claiming to be right."

If that's the case, Voldemort's grand prison break, coupled with Bellatrix's quiet execution...

Could it be that this was done to avoid some trouble and reduce the possibility of being discovered when going to Gringotts to collect the treasure?

This reminded everyone of the conversation between Kevin and Lucius.

One of the possibilities is that Bella might be hiding things in Gringotts' vault.

As is widely known, Gringotts is an absolutely neutral location.

Even if it were the notorious Voldemort who tried to open the vault, the goblins would still open it for him.

So Voldemort first broke out of prison, making the entire wizarding world aware of the incident.

This made it known to everyone in the wizarding world that many Death Eaters had been rescued.

After that, he took Bella to Gringotts to retrieve the items from the vault.

The fairies may not know whether Bella was rescued or not, or even if she was captured in the first place.

But they knew that Voldemort had brought a Death Eater dressed in prison clothes after his prison break.

It's quite obvious that this Death Eater is probably the real person. A quick check should be enough to let him pass.

The fact that Bellatrix was executed was definitely something Voldemort was deliberately keeping quiet about because there were still Voldemort's influence within the Ministry of Magic.

The purpose was to prevent the fairies from knowing that another "Bella" had died at the Ministry of Magic.

After all, if someone is executed and then reappears in Gringotts, the goblins certainly won't let her into the vault.

Although Voldemort could force his way in, the fairies would most likely be unable to stop him.

But this goes against Voldemort's original intention of keeping his activities secret.

Thinking this, Kevin took out paper and pen again and wrote a second letter to Mr. Weasley, asking him to also investigate whose treasury was embezzled in this Gringotts corruption case.

Although we've guessed pretty much everything, we still need to confirm the important points.

I'll report back to Dumbledore later.