A day at Hogwarts.

Chapter 648 Another Prison Break

The greatest fear does not come from pain, but from the unknown.

A wizard who knew nothing about dentistry felt as if he were walking through a dense, misty forest during an examination, unable to see far ahead but hearing the roar of a fire dragon.

"It turns out he's a well-trained Death Eater!" Blake paced angrily in the living room, repeatedly pounding his left hand with his right fist. "He insisted that he was sent by the Mystic to find Charles's mother, and even claimed that Charles's father was the Mystic. It's obviously a lame excuse!"

Black felt a strong sense of frustration. This operation had consumed a great deal of energy from the members of the Order of the Phoenix and the Aurors. They had hoped to pry Dolohoff open his mouth and get some clues about Voldemort's hiding place or his next plan, but it turned out to be like punching cotton.

Dumbledore sat quietly on the sofa, his eyes deep and calm, showing no anger at not being able to get a response.

He touched his fingertips together and pondered for a moment.

Dolokhov's stubbornness was within his expectations. Voldemort's core followers were all carefully selected and extremely loyal, especially those who had served in Azkaban.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, then so be it,” Dumbledore’s voice was soft, but carried an undeniable determination. “He has other uses.”

Black stopped and looked at Dumbledore with a puzzled expression, but the old headmaster did not offer any further explanation.

Dumbledore looked at him, smiled, and said, "I suggest you learn to play chess. Ron is a good teacher."

Blake shrugged helplessly. Needless to say, it was another old man's usual saying, such as "think three steps ahead before taking one."

Dolohoff was re-imprisoned in a heavily guarded room in the Hogwarts dungeons, and it took Gripping a lot of effort to get a word in with him and offer him some free samples.

However, late the next night, just as Rapunzel was preparing to discuss a big business deal, a group of Death Eaters launched a swift and fierce attack on Azkaban.

With a clear objective and ruthless methods, they successfully abducted Dolokhov after creating some chaos.

The next morning, on the banks of the Thames in London, a cold wind blew by, carrying the fishy smell of the river.

Dumbledore, Scrimgeour, Moody, and several elite Aurors stood on the shore, silently watching the pile of clothes on the ground—Dolokhov's robe, trousers, shoes, and all the other clothing he was wearing when he was abducted, now lying wet in the mud, with some torn pieces of cloth beside him.

Moody broke the silence, his voice hoarse but with a hint of comfort as he said, "Albus, don't worry about it too much."

"This little setback is nothing to us."

"The Death Eaters are cunning, but history and facts prove that we will find their tails again sooner or later."

Dumbledore did not respond immediately.

He bent down and gently touched the robe with his wand. His eyes were sharp, as if searching for something, but in the end, he simply straightened up and sighed softly.

Before handing Dolokhov over to Azkaban, he secretly placed an extremely subtle and concealed locating spell on several of Dolokhov's clothes. Ordinary wizards would not be able to detect it, and even Grindelwald would have to be very careful to find it.

This time, the intention was to use this opportunity to trace Voldemort's lair.

It now appears the spell has been discovered. All the clothes, both enchanted and unenchanted, were left by the riverbank. The other party clearly saw through the trap; the traces of magic were cleanly and efficiently isolated, and the plan has completely failed.

Scrimgeour also said, "At least we have some clues." "Yes, a setback," Dumbledore said calmly, but his mind was rapidly assessing the situation.

The fact that they saw through it so quickly and so thoroughly conveys a certain message.

Shortly after Dumbledore returned to the headmaster's office at Hogwarts, Snape entered silently like a ghost.

His complexion was more sallow than usual, his hair was starting to get a little oily, and his expression was as gloomy as the weather.

“Headmaster,” Snape’s voice was low and flat, “the Dark Lord has sent a message through the Dark Mark.”

"Dolokhov has been successfully brought back to Malfoy Estate."

Dumbledore turned around and stared intently at Snape.

This was a crucial part of his plan: he deliberately arranged for Dolokhov to be sent to Azkaban, a place that seemed more reasonable and harder to break out of prison, and placed a location spell on his clothes, the intention of which was obvious.

He then "inadvertently" revealed this "secret" plan to Snape, a double agent, who then relayed it to Voldemort.

Now, Voldemort has commanded his men to rescue Dolohov, and sure enough, they have found traces of Dumbledore's magic on his clothes.

This perfectly confirmed the accuracy of Snape's intelligence, thus greatly increasing Voldemort's trust in Snape.

"Did he believe it?" Dumbledore asked softly.

“Yes,” a complex emotion flashed in Snape’s eyes, “the Dark Lord is very pleased with this.”

He believed that your scheme had been thwarted, my loyalty had been proven once again, the voices against me had disappeared, and some people had apologized to me for having previously doubted my loyalty.

"I should go now," Snape said before leaving.

Not long after, in the magnificent yet gloomy hall of Malfoy Manor, Dolokhov sat slumped at Voldemort's feet, sobbing as he lamented to his master and the Death Eater comrades around him.

“Master…they…they used the most despicable means!” Dolokhov’s body trembled slightly, not feigned, but a genuine reaction as he recalled that experience. “They took me to a white room, and there was a madman in a white robe!”

"He...he forced my mouth open and poked around in it with some cold, gleaming metal objects!"

"That sound...like a demon grinding its teeth!"

"I don't know what he did to me, my teeth... I feel like they're going to fall out at any moment, or something terrible will grow in them! It's more torturous than the Crucifixion, Master! Because I don't know what will happen next!"

He described the horrific experience incoherently, while the Death Eaters around him wore expressions of fear.

However, Dolohoff's tragic fate and Voldemort's "brilliance" in personally seeing through and breaking Dumbledore's positioning magic gave the dark forces gathered at Malfoy Manor a twisted boost to morale.

Severus Snape stood in the shadows, listening to Dolokhov's lamentations, his face still bearing that usual, unfathomable, indifferent expression.

(End of this chapter)