HP: Azkaban's Outstanding Graduate

"Peter Pettigrew".

Sagles interrupted his pointless small talk.

He didn't sit down or approach Fudge's desk; he simply stood in the center of the office.

"Where is he?"

Fudge's heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand!

Here it comes! The problem he feared most was facing!

Cold sweat instantly soaked through his shirt collar.

"Peter...?"

Fudge forced down his fear, forcing a strained expression of grief onto his face. "Alas! Mr. Greengrass, it's heartbreaking that you're asking about this! That despicable traitor, that heinous..."

"Where is he?"

Sagles repeated himself, his tone unchanged, but the temperature in the office seemed to drop several degrees.

Fudge swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "He...he's become a walking corpse! Mr. Greengrass! On the eve of the trial, the Dementors...two extremely hungry Dementors went out of control! Drawn to Peter's sinful soul, they breached the defenses...and kissed him! This is a major security lapse in the Ministry of Magic! I've ordered a thorough investigation, and no one responsible will escape justice! Alas, although he deserved to die, it's truly a pity he couldn't receive a full trial..."

Fudge spoke quickly, trying to get away with official rhetoric and a pained expression.

He even took out a prepared copy of a document titled "Report on the Accidental Death and Aftermath of Peter Pettigrew," intending to hand it to Sagles.

Sagles did not look at the document.

His grey eyes gazed calmly at Fudge, his gaze seemingly piercing through Fudge's carefully woven lies and hypocritical expressions.

"Searching for the Soul" instantly invaded Fudge's unsuspecting consciousness, piercing directly into the depths of his chaotic mind.

Fudge felt a sharp pain in his brain, as if his shell had been forcibly torn open, and countless chaotic thoughts, images, and emotions surged out uncontrollably like a flood breaking through a dam:

In court, when Auror rushed in in a panic to report that Peter had been kidnapped, Fudge experienced a moment of rage and a feeling of dizziness.

He paced back and forth in his office like a caged animal, rubbing his temples, his face a mask of deep weariness and almost numb calculation: "...It must be covered up...It must...be dealt with..."

Then there's Fudge's roar at the editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet: "Go with this line! The Dementors are out of control! Peter is dead! Focus on the aftermath of the Ministry of Magic's restructuring! Understand?!"

Intertwined with this was Fudge's deep-seated fear of Sagrais, and a hint of twisted resentment: "It's him again. Are they planning to pull another Peter Pettigrew fake death act? He never comes here well..."

All the lies, all the cover-ups, all the fears and schemes were laid bare before Zagreb.

Sagres withdrew his gaze, as if the brutal "legendary thought-stealing" had never happened.

Fudge felt as if his bones had been removed; his legs went weak, and he staggered, only managing to stay upright by grabbing the desk for support.

He was breathing heavily, his eyes were unfocused, and his forehead was covered with beads of cold sweat. The intense pain and shame of being forcibly spied on still lingered in his mind.

"waste."

Sagles's calm voice finally revealed a hint of undisguised contempt and disgust.

He looked at Fudge's disheveled appearance as if he were looking at a pile of unrecyclable garbage.

"A criminal with nearly depleted magic, practically a Squib, was actually kidnapped in the heart of the Ministry of Magic, right under everyone's noses? And you, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, the only way you could think of to deal with this was to skillfully weave lies to cover up your incompetence and dereliction of duty?"

His gaze swept across the office, a symbol of the highest power in the British magical world, his eyes filled with nothing but cold mockery: "A bunch of useless incompetent idiots."

Fudge was so humiliated by the insults that he turned pale. Overwhelmed by fear and anger at being humiliated, he trembled all over, but couldn't utter a single word in rebuttal.

Sagres's all-knowing gaze made him feel as if he had been stripped naked and stood in the freezing cold.

Just then, the office door was suddenly pushed open!

Accompanied by the rapid sound of high heels clicking on the marble floor, a short, plump figure wearing a pink cardigan and a pink bow rushed in.

Behind her followed a group of tense-looking Aurors, each holding a wand.

Dolores Umbridge!

Her toad-like face flushed crimson with excitement and a twisted kind of courage.

His stubby thumb unconsciously rubbed his long index finger, and upon closer inspection, he realized that it was actually an exquisitely crafted prosthetic finger sleeve.

That was a "memento" that Sagles left for her last year.

At this moment, Umbridge seemed to feel confident that bringing the Aurors in would give him the strength to confront Zagreb.

"Greengrass!"

Umbridge's voice was shrill and high-pitched, filled with deep-seated hatred and feigned toughness, "Who gave you permission to trespass into the Minister's office?! This is the Ministry of Magic! Not Hogwarts! Minister Fudge's magnanimity doesn't mean you can disregard the law!"

She puffed out her chest, as if trying to boost her presence with that ridiculous pink outfit.

"Leave now! Otherwise, I will arrest you for obstructing official business and threatening a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Magic!"

The Aurors behind her swallowed nervously, their palms sweating as they gripped their wands.

They knew better than Umbridge how terrifying the man before them was, but duty called, and they had no choice but to bite the bullet and step forward.

Chapter 235 Don't Bark

When Fudge saw Umbridge leading his men rushing in, he seemed to have grasped at a straw. A glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes, and his back seemed to straighten a little, even though his body was still trembling slightly.

But Sagres's expression remained unchanged.

He didn't even turn to look at Umbridge; his gaze remained calmly fixed on Fudge, as if the intruders were just a swarm of buzzing flies.

Seeing that Sagrais ignored him, Umbridge became even angrier, raising his voice even higher: "Did you hear me?! Greengrass! I command you..."

Sagres finally turned his head, his deep gray eyes locking onto the incessantly chattering Umbridge.

Just a glance.

Umbridge's voice came to an abrupt halt, as if choked by an invisible hand!

As if being stared at by a venomous snake, her blood froze instantly, and an irresistible sense of fear surged into her heart.

Sagres spoke slowly, his voice calm yet clearly echoing in the deathly silent office, each word carrying a chilling killing intent:

"Dolores Umbridge".

He paused, his gaze piercing the other's wide, terrified pupils like an ice pick.

"If you say just one more word."

"I'll kill you."

His tone was completely calm, yet it made everyone present's heart skip a beat.

The only sounds in the office were Fudge's heavy, frightened breathing and the faint swallowing of the Aurors due to their nervousness.

Umbridge froze on the spot, her flushed face instantly turning deathly pale, the pink ribbon on her chest heaving with fear.

She opened her mouth, but dared not make a sound.

Sagrass stopped looking at her and turned his gaze back to the pale-faced Fudge, his voice regaining its previous cold calm: "Keep an eye on your dog, Fudge. If there's a next time, I won't mind cleaning up some trash for the Ministry of Magic."

After saying that, he ignored the silent crowd in the office and calmly left the minister's office, just as he had come.

Only when Sagles's footsteps completely disappeared at the end of the corridor did the stagnant air in the office seem to begin to flow again.

Umbridge felt utterly exhausted, her legs buckling. A nearby Auror reacted quickly, catching her before she collapsed to the ground.

Fudge slumped back into his minister's chair, covering his face with his hands, his obese body trembling uncontrollably.

After leaving Fudge's office, which was filled with lies, Sagrais did not leave the Ministry of Magic immediately.

The abduction of Peter Pettigrew was a huge dereliction of duty by the Ministry of Magic, and Fudge's clumsy cover-up only added fuel to the fire.

But more than pursuing Fudge's responsibility, Sagres was concerned with another question: how was a prisoner, nearly depleted of magic and under heavy guard, abducted from the heart of the Ministry of Magic? And who abducted him?

Using the information he had gleaned from Fudge's mind, he found his way to the temporary detention area beneath the Ministry of Magic.

It was even quieter than usual, with a sense of lethargy that followed the tension.

Outside the small cell where Peter had been imprisoned, two tense-looking Aurors stood in the doorway.

They were clearly just temporary reinforcements that Fudge had temporarily assigned to deal with the "Dementors going out of control" excuse, and it seemed more like they were just putting on a show.

Sagles did not disturb them.

A powerful confusion spell isolated him from the guards' senses, and he silently entered the cell.

The cell was extremely sparsely furnished: cold stone walls, a cramped space, and a rusty iron bunk bed.

The air was thick with the stench of sweat, but there was also a very faint smell of blood mixed in.

Sagres's gaze swept over the walls, floor, and door frame of the cell inch by inch.

Finally, he discovered the anomaly on the stone floor near the iron bed.

It was a cut about ten inches long!

The marks are very fresh, with sharp edges, clearly made recently.

The Ministry of Magic's cleanup crew apparently cast a repair spell, restoring the floor to a roughly level state.

But in Sagles’s eyes, this hasty repair was child’s play and utterly clumsy.

The stone texture covered by the repair spell was distorted and unnatural. More importantly, a faint smell of blood was seeping out from the "repaired" cut.

Sagres approached, his slender fingers tracing lightly over the slash marks.

"It's not a cutting spell..."

He immediately dismissed the most direct magical methods.

The marks left by the cutting spell will have obvious characteristics of magical energy dissipation. Although the edges of these marks are sharp, the inside is full of physical impact and tearing texture.

"Cold weapons?"

Sagres frowned slightly, quickly sketching out the moment the attack occurred in his mind: the prison breakers moved swiftly and had a clear target.

Judging from the depth of the cut, the angle of entry, and the clean and crisp trajectory of the force exerted, this was a seasoned veteran who was accustomed to using cold weapons.

A wizard infiltrates the Ministry of Magic's headquarters to break a prisoner, but instead of using more efficient magic, he chooses to use primitive physical strikes.

This unusual choice, like a lone lamp lit in the darkness, instantly illuminated Sagres's thoughts.

Who has such a thorough understanding of the structure and guarding of the temporary detention center, and can evade most magical detection?