Hogwarts: This holy light is righteously evil

What displeased him was not Cornelius Fudge's proactive counterattack, but rather the supporters of his own camp.

He recently discovered that among his supporters, there is always a small group who can accurately occupy important pages in the Daily Prophet, and the content they publish seems to be speaking out for him and praising his style of doing things.

However, a closer look reveals that the trickery involved goes far beyond what is apparent.

These reports, ostensibly praising his impartiality, repeatedly mentioned his past incorruptibility, specifically his act of personally sending his own son, Barty Crouch Jr., to Azkaban.

While seemingly highlighting his impartiality and incorruptibility, each mention inadvertently awakens the wizards' memories of that incident, indirectly reminding everyone that he could be so ruthless as to punish even his own son, demonstrating his cold-blooded methods.

What bothered Barty Crouch even more was that these reports, while praising him, would always find time to attack Connelly Fudge.

Despite being described as taking a break, the force and sharpness of the attack far exceeded the intensity of the anonymous attacks he had faced before!

Those words were scathing, full of sarcasm and slander, making Cornelius Fudge seem utterly worthless, as if he weren't even qualified to be an official in the Ministry of Magic.

Most damagingly, these reports maliciously attacked Cornelius Fudge's Hufflepuff origins, mocking Hufflepuff wizards as mediocre and incompetent, merely following the rules and lacking any leadership skills.

It even implied that someone from Hufflepuff's family was unfit to head the Ministry of Magic!

Such remarks undoubtedly stirred up a hornet's nest.

Barty Crouch knew that Hufflepuff had a large number of wizards in the British wizarding world, no less than Gryffindor. They were always united and hated it most if anyone belittled their house.

The targeted report caused an immediate uproar upon its publication.

Countless Hufflepuff wizards were thoroughly enraged. Those who were originally neutral put aside their prejudices and took the initiative to stand on Cornelius Fudge's side, publicly expressing their support for Fudge's candidacy for minister in order to protest against those who denigrated Hufflepuff.

Suddenly, a wave of support for Cornelius Fudge swept through the wizarding world. Fudge, who was originally at a disadvantage, saw his popularity skyrocket, showing a trend of surpassing Barty Crouch.

Barty Crouch held the latest issue of the Daily Prophet, clutching the newspaper tightly, his face terribly grim.

He studied the reports word by word, those that seemed supportive but actually harbored malicious intentions. His unease grew stronger, and a terrible thought gradually became clear in his mind.

These people are not genuinely supporting him; they are not supporters at all, but enemies who have infiltrated his camp specifically to harm him!

He immediately ordered his trusted confidants to secretly investigate those who published the reports, hoping to find out who was behind them.

But before the investigation could yield results, more negative news followed.

His close associates reported that, after interviewing and investigating ordinary people, they found that many wizards who originally had a good impression of him and even planned to vote for him now felt hostile towards him because of these strange reports.

The public's discussions gradually took a turn for the worse. Some complained privately that Batty Crouch was too cold-blooded and ruthless, even sending his own son to Azkaban. They said that if such a person became a minister, he would probably be even more incorruptible and even inhumane.

Some even bluntly stated that those who support Barty Crouch are too extreme, daring to belittle even Hufflepuff, which shows that Barty Crouch himself is not as impartial as he appears. If elected, he will inevitably favor his supporters and suppress wizards from other houses.

Many wizards have made it clear that this incident has completely changed their minds, and they will never vote for Barty Crouch when electing Minister of Magic in the future.

Even if they still acknowledge his abilities, they cannot accept that he has such extreme supporters, and they cannot accept that someone is using his name to belittle their own academy and their peers.

Barty Crouch listened to all this feedback, and his frustration and anger grew stronger.

He finally realized that he had fallen into an elaborate trap!

Those reports that seemed to support him were actually destroying his reputation and undermining his supporters little by little. At first, he mistakenly thought this was a turn of events that would benefit him and did not realize the conspiracy behind it.

At this moment, he was both furious at the enemy's treachery and cunning, and regretful for his own negligence.

The campaign was suddenly plunged into an unprecedented crisis.

There are quite a few wizards who harbor ill will toward Barty Crouch and have made it clear that they will not vote for him.

However, closer observation reveals that most of these people were not initially firm in their stance, but were deliberately swayed by others. There were always a few individuals with ulterior motives who took the lead in publicly expressing their dissatisfaction with Barty Crouch and spreading negative rumors, which led those wizards who already had some reservations about him or whose stance was wavering to gather together and form a force against him.

Barty Crouch knew that when people are extremely angry, the worst thing they can do is have someone incite them.

Once someone ignites the fuse of emotions, the previously scattered discontent will converge into a raging tide. Driven by emotions, people will do all sorts of irrational things, and the situation will only become more difficult to control.

While Barty Crouch was certainly angry at those who harbored ill intentions and incited public sentiment, he was more concerned about the enemies lurking within his own ranks.

Those people, cloaked in support of him, secretly do things that harm his interests and damage his reputation, making them more terrifying and troublesome than external opponents.

Even the usually calm and composed Barty Crouch could not contain his anger at this moment. He became impatient and ordered his confidants to speed up the investigation and find those who were lurking in the camp and causing trouble in secret.

After the investigation, he found himself in a dilemma. Most of these people were writers who wrote reports and spoke out for him. He could not deal with them with overly harsh measures. He could only grit his teeth and order them to be expelled from his campaign team to completely cut off their possibility of continuing to cause trouble.

He couldn't help but curse inwardly, wanting to get rid of these outwardly righteous but inwardly wicked guys as soon as possible.

These people appear to be loyal to him and do their best to promote him, but they harbor malice in their hearts and specialize in stabbing him in the back. They are like those dumplings that look white on the outside but are already rotten and black on the inside. They look harmless, but in fact, they will cause endless trouble!