Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 513 Rice: It's time to show you what real magic is.

The four heads of Hogwarts and Headmaster Dumbledore gathered in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Umbridge's body was now covered with a white sheet, and because she had been beheaded, her already short stature now appeared even smaller.

Covered by a white cloth, it was even difficult to tell whether she was placed horizontally or vertically.

"It wasn't dark magic, it was a cutting spell." After analyzing Umbridge's cause of death, Professor McGonagall came to a startling conclusion: the cause of death of the high-ranking Deputy Minister of Magic was actually the simplest and most basic cutting spell.

This is a spell that young wizards at Hogwarts will encounter in their first year. Basically, every wizard knows how to use it, but normal people use this spell to cut potatoes, onions, and other vegetables and fruits. Who would use it to behead someone!

And how can an ordinary cutting spell have such great power?

A look of surprise flashed across Dumbledore, Flitwick, and Snape's faces, but Helga remained calm.

She was mentally prepared for today's scenario. Salazar had already been very lenient with his three old friends by not killing all the students present.

This may be related to the fact that the students in the class were from Gryffindor and Slytherin, and Godric was also present.

"Notify the Ministry of Magic first." A hint of weariness flashed in Dumbledore's eyes.

The recent troubles had truly left him physically and mentally exhausted. After learning the details of the situation from the students present, his first reaction was to have the Ministry of Magic intervene to calm Fudge down and prevent any further misunderstandings.

Dumbledore's response wasn't wrong, but the problem was that the current minister was Fudge.

Nowadays, Fudge has fallen into a state of utter depravity.

In a sense, he was Voldemort's most capable Death Eater, successfully holding Dumbledore back for a whole year, giving Voldemort the most valuable time to develop.

But Dumbledore had no choice, because Umbridge had died at Hogwarts, and he had to notify the Ministry of Magic.

Fudge was shocked and furious when he heard the news.

Without hesitation, he summoned all the Aurors in the entire Auror office. At the same time, he also called in a reporter from the Daily Prophet.

He even brought Dementors from Azkaban.

Once everyone and the monsters had arrived, he led this large group of people in a grand procession towards Hogwarts.

But as soon as he arrived at the gates of Hogwarts, he encountered what he considered a rude awakening: Dumbledore refused to let his Dementors into Hogwarts.

"Intolerable!" Fudge's face flushed red. "Does he think Hogwarts is his private property? I am the Minister for Magic, and I have the right to decide who my guards are!"

The expressions of the accompanying Aurors all changed slightly.

As the elite of the wizarding world, the Aurors possess a certain pride. Minister Fudge's blatant distrust of the Auror office was infuriating. Moreover, the more capable an Auror was, the more intense their resentment became.

However, despite Fudge's deep resentment, Dumbledore's attitude was unusually resolute: Dementors would not be allowed to set foot in Hogwarts.

Everyone still remembers the chaos the Dementors caused at Hogwarts two years ago, so this is a perfectly reasonable demand.

After exhaling into the air for a full minute, Fudge glared fiercely at the Daily Prophet reporters and instructed them to write every single word of his ordeal in tomorrow's press release.

After deploying the Dementors at the entrance of Hogwarts and instructing them to wait for his return, Fudge led the Aurors and reporters into Hogwarts.

Rice glanced at the Dementors lingering outside the school gate, a ruthless glint in his eyes.

He really couldn't stand it anymore. What's the difference between this behavior and letting your pet dog poop in front of someone else's house?

Rice pulled out the snake-shaped magic wand.

Rowena is right, he is indeed much weaker than before, and his once-proud domain is no longer usable in this world.

But it would be a grave mistake to think that losing a mere domain would turn him into a venomous snake without fangs. As long as his essential nature as a wizard remains unchanged, he is still Salazar Slytherin.

Why was Umbridge killed by such a simple, even childish, spell? Why didn't she dodge? Was it because she didn't want to?

Rice felt that if he could figure this out, his strength would suddenly increase to a higher level.

"Let me think... what was that spell called again? Oh, right—Patriot!" Rice raised his wand and, as the book said, casually awakened a few happy memories from the past. A silver python floated down from the tip of his wand and began to slither across the ground.

"Interesting, interesting!" Rice looked at the python coiled up in front of him, its head raised and its tongue flicking out, and couldn't help but feel extremely pleased. The bad mood that Fudge had brought him was dispelled a lot.

"The person who invented this spell is a real genius!" Rice teased his guardian spirit, then pushed it toward the Dementors.

"Go, let me see how you differ from other magic!"

Upon receiving the order, the Guardian rushed toward the two Dementors at lightning speed.

The sudden appearance of the guardian spirit terrified the two Dementors. They tried to escape, but how could the guardian spirit, which had received orders from Rice, let them get away?

The silver python swam with astonishing speed, reaching the Dementors' sides. Then, with a flick of its head and a sweep of its tail, it tightly bound both Dementors.

The Dementors, caught by the Guardian, let out a piercing scream, while the python contracted its body with all its might, causing the bones of both Dementors to crack.

Rice nodded repeatedly as he watched the Patronus easily subdue the Dementors.

He thought the spell was quite good; it could not only capture Dementors, but also be summoned to amuse himself.

Under the powerful strangulation, the two Dementors finally could not withstand it and disappeared into two wisps of black smoke after two explosions.

"Very good." After cleaning up the trash in front of his house, Rice concealed himself and disappeared from the spot.

Fudge was unaware that the guards he had brought with him had been killed by Rice, and he was standing before Umbridge's body, weeping.

"Dolores, I'm too late!" he cried as he tried to put Umbridge's head back onto her neck.

As a wizard, Fudge doesn't need surgical sutures or anything like that to stitch things up; a simple spell is enough to glue the head and neck together.

Even though Fudge has restored Umbridge's physical body, the high-ranking official of the Ministry of Magic is already dead.

Her soul might already be on the reincarnation train, traveling back and forth.

After wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes and then subtly cleaning the bloodstains from his hands with magic, Fudge glared angrily at the Hogwarts teachers standing before him.

"So who murdered our dear, dedicated Dolores?!"

Snape raised an eyebrow and said with a puzzled tone, "It was Rhys Lint. More than twenty people witnessed him arguing with Professor Umbridge and then using magic to cut off her head."

"Huh?!" Fudge's face showed an incredulous expression. He never expected that the murderer would be that kid from the Lint family.

He found it utterly absurd. During the summer holidays, Les Lint's uncle, Lucius Lint, had donated a large sum of money to the ministry; their family were staunch supporters. He knew the boy well and understood his character—how could he possibly do such a thing?

Fudge thought for a second and then came to his own conclusion.

The Soul-Stealing Curse! It must be the Soul-Stealing Curse at work!

The Imperius Curse, a universal excuse, becomes more convincing the higher the suspect's status.

After the Mystic's downfall, his followers, except for the die-hards, mostly used this excuse to escape punishment. Especially those wizards from pure-blood families, who could basically be released on the spot simply by claiming they had been subjected to an Imperius Curse and were forced to do so.

Lucius Lint, old Crabbe, old Gore—they all used this reason.

But today Fudge truly believes that Rhys Lint has been cursed with an Imperius Curse, and that the suspect is standing right in front of him in the line!

"Has Les Lint been acting strangely lately?" Fudge didn't ask the professors in front of him, but turned to the students who had been called over.

"Yes!" Pansy Parkinson eagerly stepped forward and told Fudge everything about Rice's unusual behavior on the Hogwarts Express.

"As expected!" Fudge had no more doubts. Rhys Lint had been cursed with the Imperius Curse long before he even entered Hogwarts.

His gaze swept over the group of teachers led by Dumbledore, as if he couldn't trust them at all.

This angered the professors at Hogwarts.

"Connelly, are you suspecting that we cast the Imperius Curse on Les Lint?" Professor McGonagall asked bluntly.

"Ah, well, it's a certainty that Rhys Lint was cursed with an Imperius Curse." Fudge couldn't say what he was thinking directly, mainly because he had no evidence.

However, his thoughts were written all over his face, so it didn't matter whether he said them or not.

Soon after, more Slytherin students reported that Rice and Godric's relationship was somewhat unusual.

"Their relationship isn't usually... well, it's not that good..."

Although it was phrased in a roundabout way, Fudge still understood.

Godric and Rice used to have a bad relationship, but it suddenly got better after the start of the school year. There must be something fishy going on!

He walked up to Godric, who looked at him with a half-smile and pulled his wand directly from his pocket.

Fudge was so startled that he almost called for the Aurors to capture the red-haired boy.

"Minister, you can check my wand to see if I actually cast the Imperius Curse on Rice." Godric gave Fudge a disdainful look.

With such a lack of courage, does he even deserve to lead the British magical community?

Moreover, he didn't need a wand to teach Fudge a lesson.

"Uh..." Godric's honesty put Fudge in a difficult position, while the professors at Hogwarts also lost their temper.

"Connelly, don't be ridiculous! Do you really think Godric Longbottom would use the Imperius Curse to control Rhys Lint?!" Professor McGonagall's angry voice echoed through the classroom, and Fudge's face gradually turned red.

"No, this, how could this be?! Minerva, what do you take me for? Never mind, now is not the time to talk about these things..." Fudge wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and gave instructions to the Aurors who accompanied him.

"It's said that Rice fled towards the Forbidden Forest. Hmm, let's investigate first." Fudge said to Scrimgeour, the Auror's chief of staff, as he walked outside, "Let's issue Rice's arrest warrant first, emphasizing that we want him alive."

For the sake of the Lint family's gold gallons, Fudge added.

Scrimgeour nodded, then led his Aurors to escort Fudge toward the Forbidden Forest.

After searching the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they found nothing, but Fudge was satisfied because he felt he had accomplished something.

On his way out of Hogwarts, he spoke at length to a reporter from the Daily Prophet, sharing his views.

Fortunately, with the help of magic, the quill pen can record Fudge's words on its own; otherwise, it would really hone the reporter's professional skills.

Upon exiting the gates of Hogwarts, Fudge immediately discovered that the Dementors were gone, and he flew into a rage.

"Where are the Dementors? Where are the Dementors! I commanded them to wait for me here, but now even the Dementors won't obey my orders?!"

Fudge, blinded by anger, failed to see the problem, but the Aurors did react.

"Minister, I'm afraid it wasn't the Dementors that disobeyed your orders, but rather that someone banished them." Scrimgeour's voice quickly calmed Fudge down.

Without a second's hesitation, Fudge immediately shouted, "It was Dumbledore! It must have been Dumbledore!"

At this point, he had abandoned all logic. Even though Dumbledore had been under his nose for most of the time, Fudge still pinned all the blame on Dumbledore.

Rice narrowed his eyes as he watched Fudge's disgraceful state not far away.

He uncorked a small potion bottle in front of him, and a wisp of smoke emitting a faint green glow rose from it.

Rice drew his wand and waved it gently. A breeze blew from the tip of the wand, carrying the smoke toward Fudge's location.

Fudge was speaking rapidly to the reporter, while Kingsley in the crowd suddenly sniffed.

Rice noticed Kingsley's subtle movements and frowned immediately: the Aurors weren't as depraved as he thought, but it wasn't a big problem.

Kingsley had already sensed something was wrong. Without thinking, he shouted, "Everyone, hold your breath—"

The next moment, a series of explosions came from beneath the ground beneath their feet.

Dust flew everywhere, and the scene was chaotic.

Rice no longer concealed himself; he revealed himself, pointed the tip of his staff at Fudge's throat, and chanted the incantation—

"Torn apart!"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Update delivered, goodnight everyone~

The next update will be at midnight tomorrow night.

(End of this chapter)