From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

"After all, there are so many people at the Ministry of Magic at noon—but you know, Headmaster, the grades of our students who get into the Ministry of Magic..."

William spread his hands – in any case, it was the previous students who couldn't unleash the Ironclad Curse, so it had little to do with him.

“In fact, compared to nighttime, this time of day is almost not part of their emergency plan for a sneak attack…” William checked the disguise again. “Honestly, if it weren’t for some unorthodox methods that would expose us, it would have been easier to take them down than we thought.”

"The Ministry of Magic has an employee entrance; we'll enter from there..."

William described his plan step by step, which always gave Dumbledore a strange sense of unease, though he couldn't quite put his finger on where it came from.

"By the way, how are you sure it's with the Auror?"

To maintain secrecy, Dumbledore even omitted his title.

"It's not confirmed, so we'll have to go to Minister Fouché's office to check."

The indestructibility of Horcruxes means they are easy to identify, whether the Aurors deal with them or Fudge tries to handle them himself—there is enough time.

"Let's go then."

Inside the staff entrance, Dumbledore nodded, and then easily blended into the Ministry of Magic with William.

"At first I was thinking of kidnapping someone, but then I realized that not silencing them wasn't their style, so I simply studied this identification spell a bit and used this channel."

William explained in a low voice, pulling out a simple map of the Ministry of Magic—it was covered in American-style vocabulary.

Dumbledore was at a loss for words...

-

"It smells so good..."

"This is... wait, it's poisonous!"

When a Ministry of Magic employee woke up from his afternoon nap and realized the problem, his eyelids were already drooping, and by the time he tried to sound the alarm, his wand was already feeling quite heavy.

"Damn it...it's daytime!"

As this thought came to mind, he slumped heavily onto the table and fell asleep.

Not only him, but the fragrance permeated the air along William's path, but William, who was holding a potion in one hand and arranging things with the other, looked puzzled.

"That shouldn't be happening. There should be someone who can immediately cast a 'bubble head spell' to control the situation and then come out to join me in creating this chaos..."

He glanced at the phantoms he'd unleashed around him, even considering whether he should just use potions to wipe out the Ministry of Magic—that would be far too careless…

Fortunately, before they arrived at the Auror's office, a Ministry of Magic employee who wasn't just coasting along finally issued a warning.

"finally…"

With a hint of joy, William waved his wand, and a pale white flame began to flash across the flammable magical materials he had laid out, bursting forth in a burst of fire.

The Auror who remained on duty finally realized something was wrong. He issued an emergency assembly warning and rushed out of the office while taking precautions, trying to calm things down.

However, just as he was anxiously preparing to head to the source of the fire, a sense of powerlessness suddenly arose, and then two spells struck him at the same time, depriving him of his last ability to resist.

Before he could struggle, a cool sensation appeared on his lips—damn it, truth serum!

He tried to resist, but lost all ability to resist after a spell was cast.

After a brief inquiry, William and Dumbledore released the Auror and exchanged a glance—they really were all in Fudge's office…

Let's go...

William, looking utterly remorseful, inflicted half of the Auror's body with wounds. Then, he secretly burned most of the map, placed it under the Auror, and finally turned and left.

Chapter 563 Investigating Oneself

Honestly, William had no intention of targeting Fudge at all.

It's true that he and Fudge had a minor disagreement about getting into Azkaban, but it didn't warrant creating a whole mess for Fudge and having Dumbledore come knocking on his door.

In truth, he wasn't very familiar with Umbridge either. If Umbridge hadn't instructed Rita to infiltrate his office, he wouldn't have bothered with the Ministry of Magic's petty squabbles. He hadn't even settled his own curse and the impending resurrection of the Dark Lord; how could he have time to concern himself with the Ministry of Magic's infighting?

But things are just so strange—Lucius has a Horcrux in his hand, Bellatrix has a Horcrux in his vault, and Umbridge, as the Death Eater who is the most well hidden, should logically have a Horcrux there!

Regardless of the fact that this thing not only has no effect but could also kill the user if actually used, just in terms of trustworthiness, Umbridge deserves at least one.

If Umbridge is in trouble, then the Aurors and the anti-codile family will naturally take care of it; their professional skills are still trustworthy. So, if Fudge's office doesn't have it, then the last Horcrux that exists only in speculation can only be found elsewhere.

William pondered his deductions while looking at the door to Fudge's office.

"To pull off this job would be enough to make Azkaban sit on the throne forever." He chuckled to himself, not making room for Dumbledore, and summoned a wisp of Fiendfyre from the air, which burned directly at the magical defenses of Fudge's office.

We're in a rush now, there's no time to dawdle. Besides, if we're going to frame the Death Eaters, we need to use some real dark magic.

However, casting this magic was a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut—although it was the Minister of Magic's office, the weak protective magic above it was almost completely devoured by Fiendfire in the blink of an eye.

There was no other way—the area was surrounded by Auror offices and striker offices, so even the minister's office only had the most basic security measures in place, focusing more on alarms, but what use were alarms now…

"boom!"

William kicked out, and the door, whose defenses had been completely breached, slammed into the wall with a loud crack.

"The Aurors will start returning to reinforce in about three minutes. I hope the defenses aren't too strong, or I'm afraid I'll have to destroy another office."

William spoke in a low voice, but the Fiendfire had already been released, only surrounded by magic to prevent it from spreading too much.

He was a little anxious at this moment—Dumbledore was a bit out of sorts, not at all professional in searching for items, completely unworthy of his title as the First Wizard.

'Seriously, Gringotts' invasion was a complete waste of time...'

William grumbled inwardly as he rapidly waved his wand, roughly overturning useless objects onto the floor. Drawers pulled out on their own as he waved his wand, then were lifted up, their contents slowly being emptied out. Once he confirmed they were useless, he simply ignored them.

After a slight pause, Dumbledore, who was being extremely polite while searching, began to mimic William's rough search with a strange sense of incongruity, even going a step further—his wand could lift multiple drawers and cabinets at once, causing even more items to fall to the ground.

'Thank goodness… Although I told the Ministry of Magic to increase security, Fudge's office wasn't heavily protected for easy access to items, otherwise it would have been completely destroyed.'

As William pondered this, he quickly rummaged through the cabinets, trying to spot any hidden compartments in the room.

"Over here!"

He put down the drawer he was controlling and walked toward an oil painting that had already fallen into a deep sleep—most oil paintings in the magical world have intelligence and early warning functions, and over the years, there have long been a lot of things that have put them to sleep.

He waved his wand and found that the painting hadn't moved at all. Confirming his suspicions, he quickly stepped forward and used his gloved hands to remove the painting, revealing a cabinet behind it—it had a password, was protected, and was very sturdy.

But it wasn't a big problem—William pulled out an empty pocket, stuffed the box inside, and tossed it to Dumbledore.

"This should be it. Apart from Umbridge's stuff, nothing else really qualifies..."

"We should go now, sir."

William urged Dumbledore on, and as Dumbledore activated Apparition, William pulled a large bag of powder from his pocket, scattered it on the ground, waved his wand, and ran away.

-

"What did you just use, Professor William?"

When Dumbledore and William appeared at the designated location, Dumbledore's expression seemed to soften considerably.

Although he wasn't worried about being cornered by Aurors or strikers, the real trouble would come if his identity were revealed.

“There are some traces of treatment. You probably don’t like the details, but I can only say that they are specially treated Floppy caterpillar eggs.”

William explained with a chuckle that although the operation was not risky due to Dumbledore's presence, the possibility of being implicated in a crime that could land Azkaban indefinitely if discovered was quite exciting.

To calm himself down, he pulled a slightly melted piece of chocolate from the inside pocket of his wizard's robe, squinted, and put it in his mouth.

'Very good... The flames will be extinguished, the infiltration will be investigated, and if the unconscious Auror isn't too useless, he'll discover what was left behind...'

'The shoes were smuggled from the US, as was the currency. Evidence such as loose hair might have been neutralized by the potion beforehand, making it impossible to trace…'

'I was a bit careless. I should have left some fur, as long as it wasn't my own... otherwise the map looks a bit too deliberate...'

'No one has ever seen what our wands look like. The potions we use for casting spells, though I concocted them myself, are classic versions, without any modifications. Even the cauldrons are ordinary cauldrons; there shouldn't be any flaws…'

'The final Flobber caterpillar will quickly hatch and explode, its magical slime covering everything and causing massive destruction...'

'...'

'Very good, I'd give it 80 points…'

William silently graded his own behavior, while Dumbledore looked at William with confusion, but couldn't see his chocolate at all.

???

Dumbledore wasn't in a hurry to open the last box he took—he planned to unpack it when he got back to Hogwarts.

So now he started to think about what exactly was wrong—if he remembered correctly, their original intention was to find Tom's Horcrux and then completely destroy any hope of Tom's resurrection?

But now, first Gringotts, then the Ministry of Magic—if he weren't the headmaster at Hogwarts, Hogwarts would probably have been thoroughly searched, and in a seriously illegal way…

However, there's no need to use this to prove that the professor is a bad person; he trusts his own judgment.

'But where's my chocolate?'

Dumbledore continued to look at William with a smile.

"That's about it. We need to change our location, Principal. It would be best to make it look like we're escaping—I secretly bought the key to the smuggling port using this fake identity, but that's unnecessary."

William, completely unaware of what Dumbledore was thinking, spread his hands. “Once we find a suitable location, we can remove our disguises and return to school. If feasible, I would appreciate your recommendation to investigate today’s riot at the Ministry of Magic.”

"... "

-

"Useless idiot, good-for-nothing!"

"How am I supposed to explain this to the people?"

Do you know what this phenomenon is?

"Even the U.S. Ministry of Magic isn't this humiliating!"

Fudge shouted loudly, and none of the people being reprimanded dared to utter a sound—although some knew that in America it was called the Magic Congress, they still remained silent.

However, Fudge wasn't as angry as he appeared.

The fact that Fudge wasn't in charge of defense, but the highly respected Barty Crouch, was a rather subtle but delightful surprise.

Furthermore, there were no casualties in this attack—which is good news, meaning there can be something positive to portray, making the current Ministry of Magic seem less incompetent.

Third, and most importantly, the items were taken away by the Death Eaters.

If it were a political enemy who took it away, he might have some concerns—but the Death Eaters were in a state of complete hostility, and their words were not credible at all; any evidence would become weak and powerless in their mouths.

But his anger wasn't entirely unfounded—those audacious Death Eaters dared to lay a hand on his Ministry of Magic!