The mastermind behind Hogwarts

Chapter 78 Taking the Initiative (Please add to your favorites for comfort)

"I can't believe that the person standing in front of me is actually the heir of the Selwyn family, the one who has shown an affinity for dark magic since childhood!"

Lucius glanced at old Selwyn; Soldaya challenging Moriarty was definitely not part of their plan!

Old Selwyn's face turned ashen. He looked at Soldaya with a mixture of sorrow and anger. His grandson hated his son!

Merlin, does the Selwyn family still have a future?

"Mr. Moriarty, I am very sorry that such a rude and barbaric thing happened at my banquet. I am willing to pay for your unhappiness."

Lucius glared fiercely at Sordaya. "No one can lay a hand on Malfoy's friend!"

Soldaya chuckled dismissively. "Lucius, you're such a show-off!" he thought. "If even one punctuation mark out of ten of his sentences is true, we should thank Merlin."

This knowing smile caught Moriarty's attention; in Soldaya, he saw a reflection of himself.

Moriarty began to look directly at the boy before him. He had long, glossy black hair with curls at the ends, a handsome face with thin lips, and a focused look in his amber eyes, with a few glints of light flashing deep within them.

"Mr. Lucius, true Slytherins are fearless in the face of challenges and have never been protected by anyone. This is a family rule established by our ancestor Salazar since the first goblin rebellion." Moriarty said this while staring at Soldaya. Before Lucius could answer, Soldaya interjected, "Very well, you agree! This is the wisest choice you've made."

"Let's duel," Moriarty said calmly, glancing at the surrounding crowd. "You are all witnesses."

A series of low gasps came from above. Lucius and Fudge exchanged a glance. Things had developed to this point and were becoming increasingly unpredictable.

"Why did you agree to this duel? Your strength far surpasses that of a sixth-year student at Hogwarts!" Arthur shouted from the crowd. His three sons had said that, apart from Bill and William, no student at Hogwarts was a match for Moriarty.

"The outcome of this duel was decided the moment Soldaya Selwyn challenged me," Moriarty gestured to Soldaya, indicating he could attack at any moment. "This is Slytherin seniors instructing their incoming juniors! It's also the Slytherin head's lesson to his pure-blood juniors!"

"You look down on me? Heh heh heh..." Soldaya laughed like a goose honking as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world, and then attacked without warning: "Heart-Piercing Bone-Scraping Strike!"

No one saw how he drew his wand. A reddish-black light shot out from the tip of the wand and flew towards Moriarty.

"Oh..." The ladies gasped in surprise. An 11-year-old child had used the Unforgivable Curse?

Fudge's face darkened as he used the Unforgivable Charm in front of the Ministry of Magic officials.

Old Selwyn was deathly pale. "Oh no, that child stole my wand!"

The people's reactions were irrelevant to Moriarty. He slowly pulled his cedarwood wand from beneath his robes, and only when the Cruciatus Curse was almost upon him did he chant, "Crusader!"

A bright red light streaked across the air, shattering Sordaya's spell. Sordaya hadn't expected the Crucifixion Curse to be neutralized by the Crucifixion Curse, and for a moment he forgot to defend himself. After being hit, he flew backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing into several chairs before finally stopping. His wand also flew out and landed at Moriarty's feet.

Moriarty's eyes narrowed, and he picked up the wand. At this moment, Soldaya kept turning over and over, sometimes arching like a shrimp, sometimes curling up into a ball, but no matter how he struggled, his body began to convulse.

Soldaya's face contorted in pain, and he gritted his teeth, refusing to utter a sound. He looked at Moriarty, his eyes filled with resentment and terror, then at his grandfather, his eyes turning to hatred.

It seemed that only the desire to become stronger and hatred enabled Soldaya to overcome the excruciating pain. Moriarty nodded to himself, noting that this willpower far surpassed that of many adult wizards.

However, Moriarty had something more important to do. He took old Selwyn's wand in his hand and examined it, a gesture that made old Selwyn nervous.

"Snap!" Moriarty broke the wand in two!

"Mr. Moriarty, that's my wand!" Old Selwyn approached Moriarty, seemingly demanding an explanation. He was furious and even a little panicked.

"I know it's your wand, but your grandson lost it to me—I won the duel! I have the right to do what I want with it!" Moriarty said firmly, patting old Selwyn on the shoulder, making the old man's hunched back even more. "Don't think I don't know that letter from the Gaunt family was written for me by your master! Let me tell you—two weeks ago, you used this wand to control a quill pen and wrote that letter in a dimly lit basement!"

As he spoke, Moriarty closely observed the expressions of Lucius, Crabbe, Goyle, old Foley, Burke, and other purebloods who had once been Death Eaters. However, it was clearly unnecessary, as old Selwyn was already drenched in cold sweat and knelt down!

"How...how did you know?"

"How would I know?" Moriarty chuckled softly. He had only tried to trick old Selwyn, but he hadn't expected him to fall for it.

"I didn't know it was you at first, but I knew that the person who wrote to me on behalf of the Gaunt family must be a Death Eater! I was going to investigate them one by one."

Moriarty blatantly scanned Lucius and the others. No one who was scanned by him dared to meet his gaze. Let alone stop Moriarty, they even hoped that Moriarty would be kind enough to stop talking!

"And your grandson gave me the opportunity to discover you!" Moriarty pressed the tip of his wand against old Selwyn's head. "Originally, I would have killed you! But for the sake of our shared pureblood status, and for Mr. Fudge's sake—"

Moriarty nodded to Fudge, who was immediately flattered.

"Therefore I forgive your disrespect," Moriarty said dreamily, "but no one can make up for your debt to Soldaya. You are destined to die, and the one who kills you will be either your master or your grandson!"

Old Selwyn let out a heart-wrenching sob and crawled to the ground.

Moriarty felt no sympathy; he remembered.

In the battle of the seven Potters, there was a Selwyn who chased after Harry and Hagrid. Later, it was this same Selwyn who lent his wand to Voldemort. In the end, it was also this same Selwyn who tormented Luna's father, Lovegood, a complete Death Eater, who is now imprisoned in Azkaban.

Soldaya's father was none other than Selwyn, which explains why Soldaya hated his father and grandfather so much.

Moriarty lifted the Cruciatus Curse on Sordar and placed the broken wand in two places beside the grandfather and grandson, a gesture with profound meaning.

He then ignored them and walked towards the crowd, clapping his hands, which startled everyone.

"Mr. Lucius, I put on a great show for everyone. Could you please give me a glass of wine to quench my thirst, preferably a Bordeaux vintage?"

"Ah, ah~ yes, that's right, of course I will!" Lucius nodded somewhat confusedly, subconsciously heading towards the kitchen, but suddenly blinked and realized what he was doing, shouting angrily, "Dobby? Come out and pour drinks for the guests!"

Lucius realized he had unknowingly followed Moriarty's orders and was secretly annoyed. Moriarty had the upper hand and wouldn't let this opportunity slip by.

As expected, Moriarty took over the reins of the banquet and announced loudly, "Now, please have the representatives of the Twenty-Eight Holy Purebloods, myself, and Mr. Fudge stay. Everyone else, please leave!"

He waved to the group of children huddled together without any hesitation, as if he were their elder.

"Go on, go out and have some fun! This isn't something you can discuss! But Soldaya can stay."

Draco and the other children ran off quickly without their parents telling them, seemingly eager to get as far away from Moriarty as possible.

As Neville ran out, he tripped and fell six times, tears streaming down his face. They seemed to have forgotten that Soldaya was still lying on the ground.

Moriarty looked at Soldaya and smiled knowingly: "I propose that, since old Mr. Selwyn is no longer fit to participate in the discussion, Soldaya should replace him as the Selwyn family's representative!"

No one objected.

The purebloods on Arthur's side were not familiar with old Selwyn, while the purebloods on Lucius's side began to think about how to devour the Selwyn family completely.

"Alright, Soldaya, if you can still stand, come sit down here!" Moriarty said casually, and sat down first on a black chair.

Soldaya stood up without a word, clutching his chest. He didn't even glance at his grandfather on the ground, but walked straight to Moriarty and sat down beside him.

Fudge rolled his eyes and walked over to sit on the other side of Moriarty.

Lucius, unwilling to have his dominant position taken away, went over and sat down opposite Moriarty, with the purebloods of Voldemort's lineage sitting around him.

Moriarty began counting the number of people.

Lucius – of the Malfoy family.

Narcissa – The Black family.

Mr. Greengrass – The Greengrass Family.

Theodornot's father—the Nott family.

Pansy's father—the Parkinson's family.

The owner of Bokinbok store, Bokinbok—the Bokinbok family.

Old Traverse – The Traverse Family.

Arthur, Augusta, and other purebloods of Dumbledore's lineage followed closely behind.

Arthur – from the Weasley family.

Molly – the Pwett family.

Augusta – The Longbottom family.

Mrs. Abbott – The Abbott Family.

Mr. McMillan – The McMillan Family.

Kingsley Shaker – The Shaker family.

Horace Slughorn – The Slughorn Family.

There are fourteen purebloods under the command of the Black Demon King and the White Demon King, plus the Selwyn family represented by Soldaya, making a total of fifteen.

The seven pure-blood representatives—the Shafiq family, the Yaxley family, the Rozier family, the Roll family, the Lestrange family, the Caro family, and the Avery family—were imprisoned in Azkaban.

The Bulstrode family had no representative—the only family related to the Bulstrode family, the Potter family, had only Harry Potter locked in his aunt's cupboard, so he obviously couldn't come either.

Voldemort of House Gaunt is still waiting for his destined one in the forests of Albania.

Therefore, there are nine pure-blood families that cannot come.

Four purebloods stood alone, forming their own faction and belonging to no other power.

The Crouch family representative is Batty Crouch.

Garrick Ollivander, a representative of the Ollivander family.

The Foley family representative is Old Foley.

The Flint family representative is the elder Flint.

At this point, the count of the twenty-eight holy races has been completed!

After reading this, you'll understand why I needed comforting words. Today was truly a disaster! It was pouring rain here, and I still had to go to another city. I was soaked for over an hour this afternoon, my shoes and socks were completely drenched. I bought a milk tea to drink back at the hotel to warm myself up, but it spilled all over my bag, and my computer, mouse, and charging cable all got wet. After drying them, I discovered the cable was broken. I almost short-circuited the power while using it, and the computer wouldn't charge. I typed this chapter on my phone tonight. And this hotel room was a rip-off! The lights weren't on, the shower water wasn't hot, and there wasn't even a door latch! Ugh, goodnight everyone.

(End of this chapter)