Hogwarts: My name is the Unforgivable Curse...

Chapter 297 The Warriors' Exchange

"Ken?"

Fleur and Krum paused for a moment, looking at Avada, who appeared relaxed and nonchalant: "Is there something you need?"

"That's right."

Avada pointed to her room with feigned distress: "The faucet in my room seems to be malfunctioning, and I don't have a wand right now. I probably can't fix it by myself..."

As he spoke, he subtly raised his arm—on which was adorned with a badge made by Dumbledore.

"……All right."

Fleur and Krum exchanged a glance, and then, like Avada, tried their best to appear relaxed or disdainful, as if they were really dealing with a trivial daily task, while also expressing their contempt for Ken, thinking, "How come he can't even handle this little thing?": "We'll help you."

"I am extremely grateful."

Avada smirked, opened the door, and stepped aside to let Fleur and Krum go in first. Then he stepped into the room himself and closed the door behind him. With a crisp click of the door locking, the door completely separated the space inside and outside the room, and the expressions that the three warriors had deliberately made earlier vanished in an instant.

"I've confirmed it. Crouch and Dumbledore are right. The badge really doesn't monitor us when we're in the room."

Avada first examined Fleur and Krum's badges, confirming that they would still automatically block surveillance even when located in someone else's room, before continuing, "The investigation team is lying. Ludo Bagman's cause of death was not the so-called fairy at all. That fairy dagger was probably just a cover-up—his real cause of death was most likely the Killing Curse."

"As expected."

Krum nodded, not too surprised: "I observed the scene of his death. Although I was too far away to see clearly, it was still not hard to see that Bagman did not resist before he died, and did not even realize that death was coming—if it was a killing curse, it would make sense."

"But why is it a killing curse?"

Fleur frowned, apparently having already investigated Bagman's death scene beforehand: "There should have been quite a few students outside at the time. If it was a killing curse, the perpetrator would have chanted the incantation, which would have been overheard. I always thought it would involve first using a petrification curse to immobilize the victim, and then stabbing them with a dagger; that would have achieved the same effect..."

"It's the Killing Curse, or some other spell that works on the same principle as the Killing Curse."

Avada said firmly, "I have a special talent similar to yours, which allows me to see things that ordinary people cannot. I have also seen what creatures killed by the Killing Curse look like... Believe me, I am not mistaken about this."

"Then how do you explain the chanting of incantations?"

"This has been my question all along—but that's not the point. The point is that those so-called 'investigative teams from Britain' are now highly suspicious..."

He glanced subconsciously towards the door, then gestured for Krum and Fleur to sit further inside, his voice involuntarily lowering: "You may not know, but the restart of this Triwizard Tournament is itself a conspiracy, a conspiracy against Dumbledore—he told me this himself, and my purpose in participating was to protect the Hogwarts students at his invitation. He told me he could handle everything himself, but now it seems that's not the case..."

"Is that so?"

Both Hibiscus and Krum were startled.

"The mastermind behind the conspiracy was a British extreme pure-blooded individual."

Avada continued, "If you had paid attention to what Dumbledore did a few years ago, you wouldn't be surprised by this situation at all. And according to the intelligence Dumbledore received, this conspiracy could even have cost him his life—so now that you know that, what do you think of those 'British' investigation teams?"

"Confirming whether someone was killed by a Killing Curse isn't difficult; it only requires testing the remaining life force in the corpse. Even we can do that now, so there's no reason for a professional investigation team not to check—and if they knew Bagman died from a Killing Curse, they wouldn't have suspected the goblins first!"

"……I see."

Furong nodded seriously: "If that's the case, it explains why, even though the competition is held in Durmstrang, two Englishmen were invited to be referees, even at the cost of breaking the tradition of the championship."

"And our current principal is also British."

Krum nodded in agreement, but then his tone revealed a hint of dissatisfaction and doubt: "But if Dumbledore knew all along that this was a conspiracy, why didn't he stop it from happening in the first place, instead letting Ludo Bagman die and putting us, the focus of the competition, in danger?"

"So now I'm telling you these things."

Avada explained somewhat helplessly, "At first, Dumbledore and I both thought that with his strength and wisdom, perfectly thwarting this conspiracy would be a piece of cake. So, the others and I just needed to enjoy the surface peace, and Dumbledore would handle the underlying crisis—but Bagman's death taught me that Dumbledore probably wasn't that all-powerful. Moreover, he didn't show any signs of 'everything going according to plan' or leave any hints after the incident, which can only mean that the situation had developed beyond Dumbledore's expectations."

"Moreover, the three of us are clearly being targeted, as evidenced by the rather coincidental suspicions surrounding us. That's why I need to let you know the truth, so that you'll at least have a better chance of protecting yourselves in the upcoming crisis. And if you're willing..."

"You want us to cooperate with you and take the initiative to find out the truth?"

Fleur raised her chin slightly: "I don't want to get involved in your messy British squabbles—I'm only here to compete for Beauxbatons."

"But we seem to have no other choice now."

Krum glanced at Fleur: "Ken is right. We're very likely being targeted now—a referee who suddenly died happens to be connected to all three of us, and even Ken, who wasn't originally involved, has been placed in the most suspicious position. And we don't have wands now, we're being watched..."

"I remember Durmstrang was your territory, wasn't it?"

Fleur looked at Krum with some surprise: "Don't you have any confidence in your school at all?"

"You don't understand Karkaroff."

Krum ignored the hint of provocation in Fleur's words and said seriously, "He himself is from England, and supposedly has some shady background. Moreover, his usual behavior is completely different from what you've seen these past few days. Many people even consider him the worst principal in Durmstrang's history... If he really turns a blind eye to Durmstrang's crisis, or even gets involved himself, I wouldn't be surprised at all."

"We're in this together now."

(End of this chapter)