The mastermind behind Hogwarts

Chapter 113 Dumbledore Tells the Truth: Bill's Mission!

Upon hearing "Nymphadora," Tonks suddenly froze, blinked, covered his mouth with both hands, and took a deep breath: "Merlin, how could this be? Oh no, I forgot this is a school! I've become a murderer! No!"

Tonks seemed to realize she had made a big mistake, and she covered her face and squatted on the ground.

Upon hearing these words, Professor McGonagall swayed. The owls of Hogwarts had suffered a catastrophe unseen in a thousand years, but they were clearly no match for the young wizards of Hufflepuff.

The professors noticed that Tonks and the others seemed to realize their mistake, and lowered their heads in silence.

"They seem to have calmed down. To prevent..." Professor Snape glanced around, his lips twitching, "to prevent something like this from happening again, I suggest feeding them a calming agent."

The words were spoken very softly, only the professors and Moriarty could hear them, and Professor Snape took out a large crystal bottle from under his robes.

Moriarty turned around, took the remedy, and softly called out, "The goblet is flying here."

Then, he uncorked the bottle, poured some soothing agent into a wine glass, walked over to Tonks, bent down, and gently patted her shoulder.

"Nymph, it's nothing. The board members invest a lot of money in the school every year, and this amount will increase exponentially in recent years. I'll have them get a new batch of owls for the school right away."

"Really? Moriarty?" Tonks looked up and asked pitifully. Moriarty saw that her eyes were red and nodded seriously, "Don't worry, it's okay, I promise."

Moriarty's composure gave Tonks confidence. She slowly stood up, and Moriarty handed her a wine glass: "This is a remedy. I hope you can drink it and then have a good night's sleep."

Tonks took the glass, glanced inside, tilted his head back, and drank it all in one gulp. Then he frowned and said, "It tastes really weird."

Now that she had calmed down, she immediately realized how absurd everything she had done was. "Moriarty, what should I do? I made snake soup out of the Slytherin symbol, braised lion's head out of the Gryffindor symbol, and I killed more than a hundred owls!"

The students of all three houses must hate me, hate Hufflepuff! Oh no, how could I have done something so incredibly stupid?

Tonks shook her head in regret, clutching her hair—which had turned pure black—and Moriarty felt that if she continued like this, she would go bald.

"Stop, Nymph!" Moriarty grabbed her arm, feeling its smooth, cold texture, unlike human body temperature. But Moriarty pulled her arms apart and said gently, "Things aren't too bad yet, there's still time to fix them. You can fix them."

"Really? Will Headmaster Dumbledore expel me?" Tonks looked past Moriarty and at the professors.

In fact, Dumbledore and his companions were taking care of the Hufflepuff students, speaking gently to them and giving them soothing medicine.

Except for Diana.

The elf teacher leaned against the wall, revealing her exquisite curves, and looked at the scene in the kitchen with a cold smile on her lips.

Tonks didn't want to look at Diana, and then she heard Moriarty say to her, "Think about how this happened—you just wanted to cook a meal, how did it escalate to targeting three houses? That's the key!"

"I can't remember! It was as if it happened suddenly, I just wanted to do it." Seeing Moriarty narrow his eyes, Tonks became anxious: "Really, you have to believe me, I'm not lying."

"I know, Nymph, you're not lying." Moriarty nodded slowly, closed his eyes, and exhaled. "No one is lying! But the events that have occurred tell us that something must have happened in the castle."

"Dumbledore, Diana, if either of you knows anything, you must tell me! This is not a request, but a demand from Slytherin!"

Moriarty opened his eyes, and his cold gaze told everyone that he was not joking.

Starting from when Keith insulted Snape, three incidents occurred at Hogwarts in just two days. Whatever happened in the castle, it's certain that the students started acting strangely!

Dumbledore simply said, "Come with me."

He instructed the four directors to escort the badger cubs back to the common room, then glanced at Moriarty and walked out of the kitchen.

Moriarty bid farewell to Tonks and followed Dumbledore, with Diana also coming along. The three of them walked into the Headmaster's office.

Dumbledore sat down behind his desk and conjured two chairs for Moriarty and Diana. The chairs were soft and had backrests and armrests.

"Ever since we tasted that cockroach pile together last time, I've been looking forward to our next conversation, and I've prepared fruit toffee for it."

Dumbledore tapped the table lightly, and a silver tray appeared out of thin air. It was made of silver and filled with a large pile of candy.

Moriarty reached for one, peeled off the wrapper, and popped it into his mouth, saying as he chewed, "The fact that you have the leisure to eat candy proves that things aren't so terrible, or haven't gotten that bad yet?"

"I have faith in my students," Dumbledore replied, seemingly unrelated to the question. He also ate a piece of candy, a satisfied expression on his face. However, he quickly finished it and turned to Moriarty, saying, "Remember the portrait of the Headless Horseman?"

"I remember, what's wrong?" Moriarty asked calmly, a strange light flashing in his eyes, without revealing that he, Lilith, and Jericho had encountered the Headless Horseman.

"In fact, this isn't the first time the Headless Horseman has appeared. Back in late December of last year, there was a huge celebration at the castle. Yes, you know, the day your name was written in the Pen of Acceptance and the Book of Admission."

Dumbledore looked at Moriarty and said, "The Headless Horseman also appeared that day, but not in front of everyone. It appeared very discreetly in the Merlin mural and was discovered by a student."

"Who?"

"You must know him," Dumbledore said mysteriously. After eating a piece of grapefruit toffee, Dumbledore shook his head, disgusted by the sourness. "I'll remember this flavor and never eat it again."

Moriarty picked up a grapefruit toffee, slowly swallowed it, and then pondered, "That student was Bill Weasley?"

If it's Bill, then it makes sense that he wasn't at school for the entire last year. He was ordered by Dumbledore to investigate vampires, and Greece was Bill's first stop.

Dumbledore, unaware that Moriarty already knew Bill was going to Greece, praised him, saying, "It is indeed Bill! You are even smarter than I thought."

"So, what did the Headless Horseman say to Bill?" Moriarty remembered that the Headless Horseman was a bit talkative and would definitely not miss the opportunity to strike up a conversation with Bill.

"Yes, it did," Dumbledore nodded. "It made a prophecy about Bill."

"prophecy?"

Bill initially thought it was just a prank by the Headless Horseman, or some idle gossip, but the Headless Horseman's words came true.

Dumbledore stopped eating the candy. His eyes gleamed, and he began to tell Moriarty everything: "The Headless Horseman told Bill that the shores of Lake Avalon would suffer a calamity brought by vampires. The elves there would become abnormal—unmotivated in everything they did, sometimes going mad, sometimes filled with weariness of the world. In the end, the race would kill each other and perish in this world."

Bill has one very obvious advantage: he is never arrogant and is very down-to-earth in everything he does.

Although he didn't find it fun, he immediately told me all about it, so I went to visit the high priest of the elves.

Dumbledore looked at Diana, his meaning all too clear: she was the High Priestess of the Elves.

Diana winked at Moriarty, but there was little smile in her green eyes. She said calmly, "After receiving the information from Headmaster Dumbledore, I closely observed the movements of the elves in my tribe. I was saddened to find that my people, just as the Headless Horseman said, began to hate life without warning and gradually became irritable. Sometimes they would even point their bows and arrows at their own companions!"

However, most of the time he just stayed quietly, doing nothing, as if waiting to die.

Diana looked at Moriarty: "This is why I came to Hogwarts. I hoped to solve the elf disaster at its source, but I never expected that something similar would happen at Hogwarts."

She then looked at Dumbledore and said, "I'll say it again, be prepared. The students nowadays are just averse to studying, but once they become cynical and negative, they'll be left to die."

"As for resolving what happened between the elves and Hogwarts... well, I'd rather not call it a disaster at Hogwarts, it was more of an unexpected accident."

Dumbledore frowned slightly. "When it comes to solving problems, I always believe that we should find out the truth first. The Headless Horseman told Bill that the elven disaster was caused by vampires, so I sent Bill away from the school. He spent the whole last year investigating vampires in various European countries."

"Did you find anything?" Diana seemed dismissive, clearly displeased that Dumbledore had sent a student to investigate.

"Well, if you can call discovering an increase in vampires a discovery, then I think I'm getting close to the truth now that I've discovered another person is also investigating vampires." Dumbledore smiled.

"Who?" This time it was Diana who asked.

(End of this chapter)