Hogwarts: Starting as a Serpent Demon

This year when he started school, he planned to find a way to kill Little Pettigrew. Anyway, in the magical world, he was considered a dead man, and no one cared whether he lived or died.

At most, Ron might shed a tear for him.

But what about Voldemort? Should he just remain a remnant soul forever?

No, Witt needs him to come back to life. Now that Witt has more power than Voldemort, he needs Voldemort to come back to life.

Without villains and in a peaceful and prosperous era, how could Witt quickly become Minister of Magic and President of the International Confederation of Wizards? Without these two achievements, how could he unlock his third combat slot?

By raising a bandit, one can enhance one's own status. Voldemort was the bandit that Werther planned to raise.

By taking in Rabastan and having him revive Voldemort, we can achieve our goal while also keeping an eye on Voldemort.

Who would have thought that a loyal servant who had escaped from Azkaban and started searching for his master was a traitor?

Rabastan wasn't a coward like Peter Pettigrew; he actually served time in jail for Voldemort.

However, Witt cannot be certain of Rabastan's loyalty to him at this moment.

After all, the other party had just betrayed Voldemort.

“If you can betray Voldemort, you can betray me too,” Witt said coldly. “How can I trust that you won’t betray me?”

Rabastan said almost without hesitation, "I am willing to let you leave a magical mark on my heart."

This magical mark is different from the Dark Mark. Voldemort's Dark Mark can only be used for perception, communication, and alerting, and has no offensive power.

Voldemort doesn't need to be lethal, because the only one who can be lethal is Voldemort himself.

If he can sense where the other person is, killing him is just a matter of minutes.

Conversely, if it is a magical mark that can control the life of the other party, then it is clear that the other party is to be used as a slave, which is very detrimental to the expansion of the Death Eaters.

Voldemort needed the Death Eaters to believe that the Dark Mark represented honor, not enslavement.

That was Voldemort's true objective.

What Rabastan is now having Witt print is the latter.

The magical mark representing a slave is similar to the hand Voldemort gave to Peter Pettigrew, only less severe. This spell requires Witt to give the order, rather than killing automatically.

This magic is powerful, but if someone is determined to betray and is not even afraid of death, then even the best magic is useless.

Just like Regulus.

However, after a moment's thought, Witt nodded in agreement.

He felt that Rabastan wasn't the kind of person with a strong will, otherwise he wouldn't have betrayed Voldemort before.

"Since that's the case, I'll spare your life."

After imprinting the magical mark on Rabastan, Witt gave the order: "Go to Europe and practice Occlumency. In the future, I may need you to infiltrate Voldemort's inner circle. You'd better be careful, or someone will die."

Infiltrate Voldemort's side?

Labastan's eyes widened suddenly as he looked at Witt in disbelief.

But Witt had no interest in listening to his pleas for mercy. He simply used the key to send him to Europe, believing that if the man didn't want to die, he would definitely practice Occlumency diligently.

***

The day after the attack on the Ministry of Magic and the escape from Azkaban.

News reports began to flood the media, and letters of inquiry poured into the Ministry of Magic like snowflakes.

Countless people want Fudge to step down.

The Ministry of Magic was attacked, one prisoner of Azkaban died and another escaped, and Umbridge died tragically, her soul being sucked away by the Dementors.

The wand left behind by Witte gave Umbridge hope, but also pushed her into despair.

Her Patronus Charm was clearly no match for the hordes of Dementors roaming the skies above Azkaban.

She must have died in despair and pain.

However, this gave Fudge an excuse, since he sent Umbridge to Azkaban to strengthen the defenses, even though he did it while under the influence of the Imperius Curse. Fudge could boast that he had foresight.

It was Umbridge's incompetence that led to the errors in his orders, not his incompetence.

Anyway, Umbridge is already dead, and a dead man won't appeal for himself.

At the same time, Lucius unusually sided with Fudge and rallied many pure-blood families to support him.

And so, Fudge weathered the storm, and Lucius successfully rose to become a member of the Ministry of Magic.

He was appointed as the deputy director of the logistics department of the Magic Office.

The fifth day after the incident.

Having finally finished dealing with everything, Fudge began his operation.

Lucius arrived at Hogwarts dressed in the robes of a Ministry of Magic employee. He was there on Fudge's orders to visit Dumbledore.

“Professor Dumbledore,” Lucius said with a fake smile, “Fudge would like me to give you his regards and ask you a few questions.”

Dumbledore stopped what he was doing and calmly said, "Please speak."

Fudge didn't come, and Lucius came to represent him. This obvious political signal was all too easy for Dumbledore to understand.

However, Dumbledore didn't quite understand why it had to be him.

Dumbledore truly couldn't understand why Fudge was targeting him. Since 1945, Dumbledore had refused countless invitations to become Minister for Magic.

He even refused the president of the International Federation of Wizards once.

Now that he's over a hundred years old, all he wants is to be the headmaster of Hogwarts, and he poses no threat to Fudge.

Why would Fudge target him for no reason?

Dumbledore could not understand this.

"Minister Fouché wants to know why you suddenly went to France five days ago."

“Grindelwald has escaped, and only I can subdue him.”

"So, has Grindelwald been imprisoned? I heard you met with him," Lucius calmly asked the next question.

Dumbledore couldn't reveal the Blood Pact, and no one would believe him anyway, so he had no choice but to lie.

“I made a mistake; it was just a trap he set.”

“Alright.” Lucius quickly read Dumbledore’s answer and continued, “One last question, what do you think of the recent rumors circulating in France?”

"Someone discovered all the property taken by the Azkaban fugitive at the Lestrange family's residence in France. Mr. Fudge believes that this series of events is a conspiracy orchestrated by the French Ministry of Magic, a humiliation of England by France."

"What's your opinion?"

“That’s impossible, Grindelwald…” Dumbledore was interrupted by Lucius before he could finish speaking.

"Okay, I've received a definite answer. Goodbye."

Did Fudge want the truth? No.

Although he survived this ordeal, his popularity among the public in the Ministry of Magic plummeted due to the previous events, with many believing he was seriously incompetent as Minister of Magic and needed to step down.

In other words, the position under his buttocks was only temporarily secured, not completely safe.

At this point, Fudge needed to divert public attention with something, and the theft of the Lestrange family's vault was the best answer at this stage.

They shifted internal conflicts to external sources to distract the public.

Instead of letting the public condemn them, they should shift the focus to condemning France.

Yes, it was all a French conspiracy.

At this point, Fudge came to ask Dumbledore about his purpose in order to gain his support.

As long as Dumbledore is willing to support his statement, it means that Dumbledore is still on his side. For Fudge, the answers to the first two questions are not important; what really matters is the last one.

Dumbledore could certainly see what Fudge meant. Under normal circumstances, he would have supported Fudge, but this incident involved Grindelwald.

If tensions are escalated between France and Britain, Grindelwald's escape could be overshadowed by the conflict.

Dumbledore even suspected that Grindelwald had orchestrated the whole thing.

This ability to orchestrate interconnected conflicts is so perfectly in line with Grindelwald's style of doing things.

He wanted to warn Fudge to be careful of Grindelwald.

Unfortunately, Fudge clearly didn't want to hear that.

Chapter 91 The New School Year

At the Ministry of Magic, Fudge watched Lucius write down the words, his anger mixed with fear.

That was Dumbledore, after all, the greatest white wizard in the wizarding world today. Fudge didn't think he could defeat him.

"What should I do?" Fudge asked Lucius anxiously.

Fudge's trust in Lucius reached its peak after Lucius retained his position as Minister of Magic.

His trust in Dumbledore has even surpassed what he initially placed in him.

Because Lucius was not qualified to compete for Minister of Magic, as he had been a Death Eater, even if the Ministry of Magic pardoned his crimes and acknowledged that he had been controlled by Voldemort with the Imperius Curse, he would still be ineligible.

But the fact that he was a Death Eater is undeniable.

Lucius still bears the Dark Mark left by Voldemort on his arm.

The Ministry of Magic would never allow someone with the Dark Mark on their arm to become the new Minister.

Therefore, Lucius posed no threat to him, while Dumbledore was plotting to seize his ministerial position and had already taken action.

For Fudge, there was no need to choose which one to believe.

“What Dumbledore said isn’t important; what matters is what he did,” Lucius said with a smile. “He went to France himself and didn’t return for a whole day. He also let Grindelwald escape.”

“We can embellish the whole story a little. Professor Dumbledore discovered the French conspiracy and went to investigate beforehand, but he didn’t expect the French to be so ruthless as to dare to openly attack the Ministry of Magic.”

"He even deliberately released Grindelwald in order to stall Professor Dumbledore."

"Think about it, if it weren't for the French Ministry of Magic interfering, Dumbledore would probably have captured Grindelwald long ago. After all, Grindelwald was no match for Dumbledore fifty years ago, and he would be even less of a match for Dumbledore now."

"How could a wizard who has been imprisoned for fifty years possibly defeat the 'great' Professor Dumbledore?"

"This was all a French conspiracy."