Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 336 Awakening

"You lied to us last time, and you expect us to take your orders again?" Grindelwald scoffed.

"That wasn't deception, just improvisation," the black-robed priest said. "I pointed out his location to you, but I didn't anticipate that you wouldn't be able to kill him. I found another opportunity and went to the other battlefields. My enemy isn't just Murphy Darkholm."

"Who are you?" Dumbledore asked. "If you want to cooperate, we should at least know the identity of our partner."

"I am not one of your collaborators," the priest in black said. "I am merely offering a reminder."

"Then we should at least know who your enemies are?" Grindelwald said. "If we help you stop Murphy, how can we guarantee that you're on the wizards' side?"

"In this world, I have three enemies. They are all individuals capable of breaking the oath's validity and must be eliminated," said the black-robed priest. "My highest interests are entirely aligned with those of the wizards, and that is why I exist."

"What evidence do you have to prove this? How can we believe you?" Grindelwald asked.

"Trust is not the basis of this matter; I share the same goal as you. But if the path of eliminating Murphy Darkholm fails, I will continue to pursue other means. Preventing the breach of the oath is my entire mission."

"Other methods, you mean witch hunts like those of hundreds of years ago?" Dumbledore asked.

"Reducing the number of wizards is also a form of protection if necessary," the black-robed priest said.

"You said there are three individuals who could break the oath's validity, and Murphy is clearly one of them. Who are the other two?" Dumbledore asked.

"Milian the Oathbreaker, Riddle the Disobedient, Murphy the Deviant," the black-robed priest said, looking at the two opposite him. "All wizards who reach this level are under the watchful eye of the system. Gellert Grindelwald was once one of the most dangerous targets of this watchful eye, but the wizarding community corrected this mistake itself."

"Originally, Riddle and Miriam's mistakes would have been corrected within the wizarding world itself. But the appearance of the Anomaly shattered all of that. He is the source of everything, leading the wizarding world to the brink of destruction."

"This is the last warning," the black-clad priest said. "Destroy the antenna."

"This will be the last chance for the wizards to make corrections internally."

……

The priest in black left them an address and then left.

"Albus, you're not planning to do what he says, are you?" Grindelwald asked, looking at the pensive Dumbledore.

"We didn't have a better choice, did we?" Dumbledore said. "We were already prepared to do this; he just gave us some clues."

"I don't trust that guy," Grindelwald said. "What appears before us is just a puppet; its true form is hiding somewhere we can't reach, and we don't know its real purpose."

"I do have some guesses about this," Dumbledore said. "The reason why the witch hunts hundreds of years ago led to the formation of the Law of Wizardry Secrecy was certainly not solely due to those Muggle believers. Wizards had far too many ways to avoid being killed by Muggles."

"Some trivial actions would not be enough to get all the wizards to agree on passing such a law—especially since the passage of this law would cut off the livelihoods of many people."

"I have seen that reason mentioned in snippets of some literature: the witch hunts really did a huge blow to the wizarding community."

"At that time, some very powerful 'knights' appeared in the church. They not only had ways to identify wizards, but they could also resist most spells. Some priests also had special abilities. They could even use a kind of magic called divine magic, which was stronger than the magic of wizards."

"It was their continued hunting that led to a decline in the number of wizards in England to less than two thousand at one point."

"That priest we just met was that kind of person. You should have felt the danger emanating from him too."

"So, they were once our enemies who hunted us," Grindelwald said. "And we're actually going to join forces with an enemy to deal with a fellow wizard?"

"You're right," Dumbledore said with a wry smile. "That's what we have to do. Because we must ensure that the wizards keep that oath; the consequences of the secret being exposed are something none of us can afford."

"For the greater good," Grindelwald laughed sarcastically. "So what are you planning to do? Murphy probably won't just let us destroy his 'antennae'."

"I'll hold him off; the task of sabotaging the antenna can be left to the members of the Order of the Phoenix," Dumbledore said.

"You yourself?"

"If it's just about restraint, I should be able to manage on my own. Gellert, I know you're not happy targeting Murphy, and that's not your responsibility. You've wasted too much time; go do what you want to do."

"That sounds like a last will and testament."

Dumbledore remained silent; he was indeed prepared to die.

"If it were forty years ago, no, even twenty years ago, I would have turned and left. But now... it's too late, Albus. There's not enough time for us to do much more. I want to leave the only future I have for the most important people and things, even if it means dying together."

……

White Weasel Mountain.

Sirius was cleaning the room. He used magic to fly blankets and sheets out the window and hang them on the clothesline outside.

It's late May now, and Hogwarts is about to have its holidays. He needs to prepare for Harry's return home.

It is now early summer of '94, and Harry is a third-year student, about to enter his fourth year.

Since Lucas's death, Harry has changed a lot. He has become much more taciturn, and sometimes Sirius feels that there is a dark personality inside him. He practices magic desperately and has begun to develop an interest in dark magic.

Sirius Black often encountered advanced dark magic content in the books he read, far exceeding what a typical third-year student should be exposed to.

However, while this made Sirius somewhat uneasy, he wasn't too worried. After all, who hasn't dabbled in one or two dark arts when they were young, and Harry was almost at the age of rebellion.

While he was doing housework, he suddenly felt a burning sensation in his chest.

Sirius was startled and reached into his inner breast pocket to take out an orange-red feather.

The feather vibrated, and suddenly some flames appeared on it, forming a line of text in the air.

"Dusk, battle, extremely dangerous." The words appeared for a moment and then disappeared. Then, the feather turned into a door key.

This is an urgent notice from the Order of the Phoenix. The text indicates the time and the general type of mission, but for the sake of secrecy, it does not mention the specific mission objective or location. Those who wish to participate in the mission can directly reach the location using a portal key made of a phoenix feather.

Sirius frowned. Since Kingsley's visit, he had been sending messages to the Order of the Phoenix from time to time, and had returned to the Order to some extent.

But this is the first time a combat mission has been communicated through such an emergency contact method.

He hadn't participated in combat for a long time, and the moment he saw this mission, his adventurous spirit almost stirred.

But after glancing at the "Extremely Dangerous" label, he sighed.

Forget it, let's hand this task over to someone else for now. He doesn't want Harry to come back and find that he's missing an arm or a leg.

(End of this chapter)