The UK is not very hot this year, but it is very dry. While there is plenty of sunshine, there is very little rain.
But perhaps because the magic in the manor has been adjusted accordingly, all the guests wearing black suits saw that the sky was very gloomy when they walked in, and even the wind began to blow. Presumably, in a while, the next scene in the manor will happen. Rain is not an unforeseen event.
Considering that the weather was unnatural, one can imagine how bad the owner of the manor was feeling. Generally speaking, a venue filled with adults cannot be too quiet, but when everyone stepped into the venue decorated with flowers, they unconsciously stopped talking and put on a more serious expression. He is serious and his posture is more upright.
Gaunt Manor is supposed to be a beautiful place with sunshine and green shade, many small gardens and small houses. It is built to be vast but exquisite, luxurious and lively, better than many historic manors. Not long ago, r also enjoyed a rich afternoon tea in the rose garden as a guest. At that time, the garden could be said to have beautiful scenery, pleasant climate, and relaxed and harmonious atmosphere. But now...
r didn't raise his head rashly, but maintaining a posture while looking around was a trick that all Slytherins knew. At this moment, the guests were standing in the courtyard covered with lilies in order. Each of them looked like they were made out of the same mold, wearing black clothes and black hats, with solemn expressions. Some people even had expressions of grief on their faces, as if what died was not a snake but their parents and children. Seeing this, R wanted to sneer and turn away - but soon, what he saw made him even more excited. Something to sneer at.
As the main person in charge of this ceremony, LiusMalfoy slowly walked to the front of everyone after finishing sorting out the arrival of the guests. He wore a robe made of expensive fabrics but without any embroidery or jewelry. Like many ancient rituals, he wore a hood on the robe and wore black silk gloves on his hands. Before he formally spoke, as his eyes moved, R quickly found his mother, and she came with Lius as expected.
Today, she was also wearing a black robe, her gorgeous blond hair was tied neatly, and a piece of black gauze hung from the black hat, covering her face that was somewhat incomprehensible in sadness and joy. She sat next to her sister, her hands clasped on her chest like a devout nun. She neither spoke to her sister nor stared at her husband, as if the outside world had nothing to do with her.
humble. r couldn't help but want to use this word to describe his mother. Such a young and submissive Naissa doesn't have the aura of being a mother or Mrs. Malfoy. She is just like a fragile flower, blooming quietly here, making her familiar yet strange. As far as he knew, his mother became Mrs. Malfoy directly after graduation. Before giving birth to r, she had no other pleasure except taking care of the manor and participating in social activities.
This is a path that many women from pure-blood families will take. R has thought so since he was a child, but now he can't help but feel a sense of unfairness - Naissa's life can be said to be tied to Lius, and Lius is now He was willingly serving as an obedient dog to a Dark Lord and a future madman. Even in the distant future, he would force his son to surrender to this madman, completely ignoring that Betrix kidnapped Naissa first. They should find another party. revenge.
As much as r respected and loved his father in the past, he hated his father now.
Thinking of this, he grinded his teeth silently in his mouth, then forced himself to take his eyes back, and then forced himself to think about the current situation.
Unlike Harry, every time he attended a social event, he would take note of the faces of purebloods with prominent surnames - almost all of these faces appeared here now. This shows that whether he is truly afraid or just coping with the situation, this funeral for a snake has a strong appeal. This can explain two things. One is that the Dark Lord's reputation is more powerful than what is revealed. Second, it seems that many people know how important this snake is to the Dark Lord, so important that many people think that if the excuse does not come, then they may be unlucky.
But the strange thing is that until now, r has not seen Riddle. as the person conducting the funeral and the deceased
"Friends and relatives", this is quite unreasonable and rude - r thinks that with the tact shown by Riddle now, this kind of thing should not happen. Isn't this man just trying to show off by holding such a funeral and asking so many wizards to attend? Shouldn't he come out and say some embarrassing words or harsh words to intimidate those who may be detrimental to him?
At this time, Liuus cleared his throat. He stood in front of everyone, surrounded by lilies, and spoke his condolences in a steady and heavy tone.
"Today, we are here to witness the passing of a woman. From the past to the present, she has been a good friend, a good partner, a loyal subordinate, and a considerate family member..."
That's right. r thought indifferently. To the Dark Lord, this snake was indeed very considerate and loyal, and at the funeral of such a "good" snake, its owner stopped showing up at all after paying for it and calling the guests.
The speech was not long, and Liuus finished it quickly. Then, he nodded slightly at the guests and said, "Thank you very much for coming today. On behalf of Mr. Gaunt, I would like to express my most sincere respect to all the distinguished guests. If there is any slight slight, please forgive me - that person Your Excellency is still immersed in grief, and I really cannot meet you today. I hope you can understand."
Of course, the guests would not refute or agree at this time. They all maintained the same heavy expressions and nodded to show that they "understood."
Lius was also very satisfied with this situation. As soon as he stretched out his hand, the manservant handed over a lily that he had prepared, and the young head of the Malfoy family placed it in front of the tomb himself. Then, he glanced around and stepped aside, while the other guests began to lay flowers in order.
These lilies were prepared in advance, and each guest received one after entering the venue. Of course, some guests would also prepare other expensive lilies—r would not have known such details if he had not asked Regulus. Riddle seems to be particularly fond of lilies, and deliberately buried his pet under the lilies. He also erected a white statue based on the photo of his pet during his lifetime instead of erecting a tombstone.
What makes R feel subtle is that in this process, the K family was ranked second according to family status. But before Mr. K stood up, the housekeeper came over and said something to him, and Mr. K glanced at him casually.
"Please join us, Mr. Bagshot." Mr. K. whispered, "This must be the first time you have participated in such an event in England. Considering that your relatives here did not come and that you are a friend of Regulus, as As an elder, it is very reasonable for me to lead you and my sons forward to lay flowers."
These words are not groundless. As a student with a not-noble surname, on such a solemn and status-conscious occasion, if we had to sort out the order, the boy would probably have to be last in line to present flowers, which would be a waste of time and lose face. The K family took him with them to save time and also to provide protection. They told everyone that even though he was not from a high family background, he was the one the K family supported.
r secretly grinded his teeth several times, his face neither sad nor happy. After Mr. K whispered his thanks, he followed Regulus with his head lowered. He stepped forward to present flowers according to the procedure, and then faced the gaze of many people. , followed Regulus, returned to his seat under the guidance of the valet, straightened his back slightly, and only stared at his knees.
This helped to improve his status in Slytherin, and even social status, but it also made him more visible. r found that he had never hated this thing so much - borrowing someone's power to improve his status! This false identity should have been buried at the bottom of Slytherin, not by the side of the K family's son!
He scolded Harry eight times in his mind.
…………
"...Ah...sneeze! Ah sneeze!"
Harry wandered near a few trees close to the crowd, sometimes landing on the window edges and eaves like swallows, but for some reason, he suddenly sneezed several times during the process, which took him a long time to maintain his balance. If he hadn't stood far away, these sneezes would have made him the most noticeable person in the entire solemn occasion.
I am sick? Harry guessed,
And decided to take a few cold medicines when I went back.
While jumping and wandering around, he listened attentively to the movements of the entire manor. Long before the funeral ceremony began, he heard many people whispering to their families, saying how much the owner of the manor valued his snake, what a big impact the snake's death would have, and so on.
These conversations were sometimes repetitive, but Harry still listened to them and understood them carefully.
It is a pity that what these guests know is limited to the superficial and inner parts. For example, some people only heard some news - similar to Nagini being a pet raised by Riddle himself and not often. Appearing in front of people, or how long and big it is, and how frightening the rumored venom is. More in-depth news is that it can swallow a living person whole, and its venom can kill an adult man almost in a short time. It is Riddle's "secret weapon", and now he is dead like this, Riddle Must be very angry.
That's right, "killed". This was the only piece of information Harry had heard so far that was considered useful to them. Other in-depth information may still be a secret now, but reporters in later generations wrote everything they could dig out in their reports, either to attract attention or to combat Death Eaters and the Dark Lord.
Thinking about it this way, it is a very strange thing that they did not find any news about the "guardian". This is much more exciting than the news about the Dark Lord's pet.
However, when he thought about what happened to the K family and R that day, Harry felt that it would be best if the weirdness in it was not reported.
He shook his head, regained his composure, and looked toward the courtyard to watch music again. When he saw the guests finishing their flowers one by one and walking towards the pure white little palace, he guessed that they would still be dining and talking inside, so he jumped down from the tree and followed them in. In the room, he shifted the focus of listening away from the many guests - since it was a murder or assassination, Riddle would definitely not publicize it. Everyone knew it. Even a person like Harry who had no interest in politics knew that if he let If the enemy feels weak and incompetent, trouble will follow.
He had to look for clues from other places and using other methods.
Harry wandered around several corridors and then went to the hall where the buffet was arranged, and began to pay attention to the conversations and actions of the footmen, butlers, and house elves.
The lilies consumed are ordered from outside…
The demand for lambs remains undiminished…
A total of 43 families came to attend the funeral...
The newly produced sweet wine needs to be taken out a little more...
It is prudent to ask the owner what to do with the carpet in the study lounge...
Um?
Hearing this, Harry felt that he had grasped a clue. He thought about it and confirmed that when r came to visit, all the carpets in the study were exquisite and bright, and had not faded. If it needs to be replaced, either it has been damaged beyond repair, or Riddle has had a sudden change of mood and is dissatisfied with the existing carpet.
If the carpet was damaged, it might be a clue - if Harry could use this to know how Nagini died, then part of the mission would be accomplished.
"Carpet..." Harry muttered in a low voice, chewing on this key word, and stood there without speaking for a long time.
After thinking for a while, he finally gritted his teeth, dodged toward a corner, pushed open a window inconspicuously, and easily climbed out from there.
…………
When Lius was finally freed from the chatter of the crowd, he anxiously took a glass of wine. When the cold and hot feeling of the wine invaded his lips and tongue, and entered his stomach, he felt that the anger that was pent up in his chest was extinguished.
He was responsible for the overall layout of the hall, so he quickly found his own seat - next to a high-backed chair next to the owner. He sat down, stretched out his glass anxiously, glanced aside, and motioned to the nearest footman to bring him more wine. The latter bowed deeply and poured wine for him
.
When the manservant raised his head, Liuus took another look at him. He has always disdained to take a second look at the servants in the mansion. The housekeeper will be responsible for remembering each servant and checking his details. However, compared to other people, this male servant is a bit familiar to him - —He was chosen by Riddle himself because he has a pair of relatively rare green eyes.
However, even so, this manservant was still not handsome or beautiful, and Liuus' impression of him ended there.
"Leave the wine bottle," Lius nodded to the nearby table, "Don't let anyone disturb me."
The footman did so, bowed again, and went to serve the others.
Lius finally calmed down completely after drinking his second glass of wine. He did not look at anyone or observe anyone, but looked at a certain window casually, staring at the garden scenery outside the window and thinking deeply.
Even though he appeared decently in front of all the guests today and even presided over the ceremony, he seemed to have done a very decent thing - generally speaking, only relatives have the right to preside over the ceremony.
No one knows that compared to this dignity, Liuus actually hopes that Nagini will come back to life from the underground. Even if it eats a few people alive, it can make his master laugh and take care of a few "missing" people. Muggle follow-up affairs. It's much easier than dealing with the master's bad temper.
The words he gave today were no excuses. Several families with prominent surnames under Riddle knew how important this snake was to him. It was almost as important as Mr. Evans, whom Liuus had never met before. For Riddle, losing Nagini was more than just losing a handy tool. The fact that it was killed also aroused Riddle's anger that he had not experienced in recent months and hit him deeply. It even caused him to have an old illness - and this last point cannot be known to outsiders. Yes, old illness. Old illness. Lius chewed the word over and over in his mind.
When Nagini was suddenly assassinated - or rather, when his master's study was suddenly attacked, he was not in the main building of the manor, but when he arrived in a hurry and scolded everyone to stay away from this room By that time, the scene was already very ugly.
All the glass windows in the room were smashed into pieces, and the heavy curtains were also burning with terrible fire; the comfortable sofas, an entire wall of books, tables and chairs that were originally placed here were all blown to pieces. Wrecks were scattered in every corner of the room; the carpet made of woolen and gold threads absorbed enough blood and venom, blooming into strange colors and shocking shapes, and in the center of the traces, the The majestic snake in the past was lying there. There was no bleeding wound on its body, but it was all black and not breathing.
When he saw it, Liuus was shocked - he didn't need a St. Mungo's doctor or a potions master to know that this snake had been poisoned.
A highly venomous snake, which can be said to be the most noble snake in the UK, was poisoned to death in front of its owner!
There was only an intact armchair beside it, and Riddle sat on it with his left elbow on the armrest, supporting the side of his head.
There was no expression on his handsome face, just purely pale and bloodless. His unhuman eyes stared at Nagini on the floor, motionless, as if real blood had solidified inside.
"call--"
Thinking of this, Liuus couldn't help but pour himself another glass of wine, and even tapped the wine pot with his snake staff, causing it to pour another glass of wine into the cup. To this day, that image is still rolling in his mind, and every detail is clearly visible and lingering.
At that time, he stood at the door, dumbfounded. It could be said that he was frightened by this scene. He had witnessed many people being tortured or died, but at this moment he did not dare to move, and he would never ask what happened to the corpses of several male servants piled in the corner of the room. If it weren't for a few minutes later, Riddle's magic suddenly began to rage in the room like a violent wind, which shocked him and woke him up. He wouldn't even have the consciousness to close the door to prevent more wizards from entering.
Gaunt Manor
There are not only valets and butlers here, many officials from the Ministry of Magic, members of various associations and even big businessmen come in and out of here. Merlin knows how leaky these people are. What can make these people keep secrets forever? Money, but death.
This terrifying magic storm, initiated by one of the most powerful people in Britain, swept around the room for about ten minutes. Everything within the field of vision that Liuus could see seemed to be pressed down by an invisible weight. The glass It shattered into powder, the window frame cracked with a crack, the wall lamps and crystal chandeliers that were still intact exploded, and the metal products were bent by invisible hands, and finally broke. The fragments of these things were mixed together, and the storm formed by the magic flew everywhere, destroying fragments of tapestries, wallpapers and books. Lius even had to lie on the ground and constantly cast protective spells on himself to avoid being affected.
And such a silent and tragic venting finally ended with Lius' father yelling.
"To
Thinking of how busy he had been taking care of all this these past few days, even Liuus couldn't help but rub his temples and felt dizzy. He was burdened with a number of important matters including a funeral, holding a funeral, and handling affairs. Even if it sounded like he was being "entrusted with important tasks," he wouldn't be happy.
He couldn't help but sigh and cast his gaze somewhere in the hall. There, a person specially invited by him was talking to the youngest son of the K family——
——The beautiful Francis Bagshot, who was not of high birth, but was overly valued and attracted the attention of many people early on. There is such a person here, and if he deliberately protects him from the head of the K family, he will surely attract the attention of many people, so that they will pay less attention to the things behind the funeral. Next, it would be best for something else to happen somewhere else or someone else, such as some important officials from the Ministry of Magic, to overshadow this matter...
Lius just sipped the sweet wine with each sip, looking out the window and thinking about what he should do next.
However, he didn't notice at all that outside the window, which he thought was empty, a boy in a black cloak quietly climbed up a tree and slipped away without touching the ground.
…………
With a beating heart, Harry tightly covered his mouth, left the floor-to-ceiling window in the hall, and lurked back in the tree. As soon as he touched the tree trunk, he couldn't help but retched.
This was the first time that he had used his ability to "spy" information so completely: he turned into a male servant with the same green eyes, and when pouring wine for Liuus, he looked at him and gave him a hint, and then He quickly put on his cloak and returned to the window. When Liuus unconsciously followed the hint and looked towards the window, thinking about what happened in the past few days, he spied on his thoughts and gently urged him to keep thinking about it. Those pictures, recall those details.
Maybe it was indeed inappropriate to do so, and he got his retribution immediately - the corpses of the male servants and the corpse of the snake named Nagini in Lius' memories were all so "vivid" on his mind Even if there were only images in his mind, Harry could smell blood from them. What is even more unforgettable than these is Riddle's blank expression and mechanism-less scarlet eyes.
There must be something about this man that is no longer "human".
Harry swallowed, suppressed his nausea, stood up, and began to move along the window sill and treetops by jumping lightly between several supporting points. He repeated all the information in his mind several times to ensure that he would not miss any information. Discomfort aside, the risk was worth it - first of all, even if he still didn't know who killed Nagini, the cause was clear.
In this matter, Liuus was right. Even if Harry came to see it, he would see at a glance that the snake died of poison.
Secondly, he also got additional information: Riddle seemed to be suffering from some serious illness. Normally it is completely invisible, but once his emotions fluctuate too much, or he is affected by unknown factors, he will feel like a child or a madman, suffering from a splitting headache and losing control of himself.
From this point of view, for Riddle, Nagini is indeed
It is a very important existence. Harry was shocked at the impact it could have - no, of course he didn't think animals couldn't be man's best friends! But we're not talking about Nina, Ron, or any other animal lover! However, after thinking about it, Harry found that he didn't believe this statement so much, because among the information he collected, there was also this piece of information: this terrifying creature that Harry thought had eaten people was raised by Riddle since he was a child, and It is also a snake, and it is not surprising at all that it appears in a Slytherin bloodline.
However, Harry shook his head and temporarily put all these complicated thoughts elsewhere.
If possible, he had better think of a way to find out who killed Nagini——
"!"
A sudden coldness hit him hard. Harry shuddered and subconsciously wanted to run away quickly, but his body refused to obey and his feet were stuck in place!
He looked keenly at the window sill he was standing on, and then he saw that under the soles of his feet, there was a red light representing magic!
Harry broke out in a cold sweat - someone had put a warning spell on this place! Once someone breaks into a certain range, they will be stuck in place!
In an instant, several thoughts crowded into his head, each one shouting for him.
what happened? ! I'm just walking around outside the house! I didn't go into the study! Harry pulled out his wand and tried to undo the spell, wondering where he had come. Before he could try the third spell, a window creaked open above him.
Immediately, a voice sounded that made his blood run cold, causing him to subconsciously tighten his cloak and not dare to move.
"Harry?"
He heard the owner of the manor above his head, his voice as light as the wind. He couldn't hear any joy or sadness, but to him, it was like the devil whispering in his ears:
"Are you coming back to visit Nagini?"
