It was already half an hour after everyone returned to Hogwarts. Thanks to the horse-shaped water monster that Qiqi had tamed, everyone was finally sent back successfully, except for the "lucky guy" who was knocked unconscious by the coma spell at the beginning. ", the other red-haired pirates became the appetizers of the horse-shaped water monster, and the "lucky guy" was also controlled by Hagrid and was ready to be handed over to Dumbledore.
When Hagrid came to Dumbledore and quietly told others that he had been rescued, Dumbledore's face turned cold and he couldn't help but snorted. He had already discovered that things were not that simple.
The Ministry of Magic obviously had too strict control over the scene, almost to the point of military blockade. Even Dumbledore was helpless. He was pestered by officials from the Ministry of Magic, and the professors at Hogwarts were also asked to return to the castle early. , I can only "hint" Hagrid to see if he can help, and "Old Barty" obviously underestimated Hagrid. In his eyes, non-pure-blood wizards are garbage, let alone a half-giant (actually Most wizards consider half-giants to be as mentally retarded as trolls).
It was already late at night when Dumbledore walked into the living room with a gloomy face, but officials from the Ministry of Magic, deans of various colleges, Karkaroff and Maxim were all there. Maxim looked very angry and was talking He had a huge quarrel with "Old Barty". After all, Maxim was French and he didn't really need to give face to the British Ministry of Magic officials.
"You are kidnapping! Naked kidnapping!" Maxim pointed at old Barty's nose and cursed. She was nearly three meters tall, like an adult scolding a child: "If Catherine makes any mistakes, I will definitely sue her." Get on the Wizengamot!"
Old Barty obviously looked down on Maxim as much as he looked down on Hagrid. He just said coldly: "Miss Catherine volunteered to participate in the competition as a rescue target. This was personally approached by Mr. Bagman (Director of the Sports Department of the Ministry of Magic). !”
Bagman on the side had a serious expression and said to Maxim: "Please do not make baseless slanders against the Ministry of Magic. Every rescue target participating in the competition has adequate security and has obtained my authorization... "
"Where are the people? I asked you where are the people?!" Maxim panted like an angry cow, as if Bagman was going to kill him if his answer didn't satisfy her.
Dumbledore was followed by Scrimgeour, the director of the Auror Office. His face was even more gloomy, and he looked at everyone with eyes full of vigilance and suspicion.
"Please be quiet, ladies and gentlemen!" Dumbledore said in a somewhat cold tone: "The people have been rescued. They floated to the north shore, and the faculty members who were feeding the Pegasus discovered them."
Maxim suddenly rushed in front of Dumbledore. Dumbledore nodded to her, pressed his hand down, indicating that she was fine and that he would wait and see.
Both Old Batty and Bagman had uncertain expressions, but Old Batty was the first to say: "Ah ha, congratulations. Although I didn't get good results, I finally returned safely! Amazing!"
Scrimgeour said nothing, looking coldly at his old boss (Old Barty had been transferred from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to the Department of International Magical Affairs), folded his arms in front of him, and held his right hand tightly inside. Clutching the wand.
Snape calmly closed the door to the living room. Karkaroff looked at his actions, frowned, and stepped back, tightening the cane in his hand.
"I'm afraid they are all seriously injured. Ms. Pomfrey is now in charge of treatment. At the same time, an outsider, a wizard who fears the Dark, was discovered! I'm afraid the Ministry of Magic has made huge negligence in the management of the scene! "Dumbledore stared at "Old Barty" and said.
Old Barty's eyebrows twitched slightly and said: "Is there still this matter? Rufus (Scrimgeour's name), then you have to investigate this matter thoroughly. This is related to the international credibility of the British Ministry of Magic!"
Scrimgeour said coldly: "The suspect has been controlled. According to the evidence collected at the scene, at least six dark wizards pretended to be staff of the Ministry of Magic and sneaked into the game with the purpose of setting up a trap for Kelly White. Trap, five of them have been buried in the belly of the fish, Mr. Crouch, all personnel arrangements of the Ministry of Magic are under your personal command, I am afraid you must have an explanation for this matter!"
"Old Barty" had a face full of surprise, as if it was the first time he heard about this matter. Then a surge of anger surged between his brows, and he said angrily: "Rufus! I hope you I know what you are talking about! You are actually suspecting that I am collaborating with the dark wizard! This is naked slander and frame-up!"
"The Mr. Barty Crouch I know is of course jealous of evil. He is a flag and a symbol in the fight against dark wizards! But the truth is always easily obscured by certain fogs. Sometimes these fogs are magic, and sometimes they are Potion... please place your wand where we can all see it! Mr. Crouch!" Scrimgeour snapped.
Old Barty was furious, but the way he looked at Scrimgeour, it was no joke. This old lion never showed respect to others. If he felt it was necessary, the moment before he opened his mouth to cast a spell, Scrimgeour would give himself an inglorious spell that would make him foam at the mouth and possibly become incontinent. As head of the Auror Office, Scrimgeour cast spells quickly and hard, second to none in the Ministry of Magic.
"Maybe I can help a little bit." Snape, who had been silent all the time, said in an unpleasant tone: "In the last two competitions, I will find that my private potion raw material warehouse has been damaged. When it comes to theft, the missing materials include lacewings, sapweed, and the skin of the African tree snake, which are all raw materials for Polyjuice Potion. I guess someone is preparing the Polyjuice Potion and pretending to be another person to get to us. between!"
Everyone present exclaimed and looked at the people around them with vigilance in their eyes. They couldn't help but guess who was the fake. However, everyone immediately surrendered to Old Barty, because the only way to turn into him was to turn into him. , in order to manipulate the personnel of the Ministry of Magic to the greatest extent and let the dark wizards sneak in.
Snape continued: "But he may not know that after the first raw material was stolen, I added some new things to the supplementary materials. If someone uses my materials to prepare the polyjuice potion, I will be very worried. It’s easy to make him show his weakness!”
With that said, Snape quickly took out his wand and pointed it in the air: "Looking ugly!" (It should be Snape's own spell)
As Snape's wand emits a faint yellow light, it suddenly shines on everyone in the living room. Everyone can't help but feel a little nervous, and more than a dozen eyes are focused on Old Barty.
But Old Barty's expression remained normal, and even calmed down, looking confident. Just when everyone was a little surprised, thinking that Snape's spell had failed or their guess was wrong, suddenly a scream rang out in the spacious hall.
Mr. Bagman, who was not far from Old Batty, suddenly changed his expression. The muscles on his face trembled violently. In the surprised eyes of everyone, his nose became bigger and rounder, and it actually grew into a nose. The pig's nose was only three inches long. Then, his ears also began to change, turning into two palm-sized pig ears. Although they were standing upright, he turned into Zhu Bajie alive.
"It turns out it's you!" Scrimgeour, who was the director of the Auror Office, was the first to react. He quickly took out his wand and hit Bagman, who had turned into a pig face, with a "Stoop!" )"
But "Bagman" also reacted quickly, but instead of taking out his magic wand, he took out three black things and threw them around. If Bai Lin was there, he would definitely recognize them at a glance. Those were clearly three grenades used by the Muggle army! While throwing out the grenade, "Bagman" dwarfed and fell to the ground.
Scrimgeour's coma spell was narrowly avoided by "Bagman", but three grenades had already fallen on the ground. Dumbledore suddenly had a bad premonition. He waved his hand and was immediately enveloped by several defensive spells. around.
Three grenades exploded violently, but the explosion was covered by Dumbledore's defensive spells, and the shrapnel was blocked one after another. Not many people flew out, otherwise the few people closest to the grenades would have been killed on the spot.
Maxim, who was closest, still had his legs and arms scratched by several pieces of shrapnel, while Professor McGonagall, who was closest on the other side, turned into a cat at the critical moment and escaped.
Although the grenade did not hurt anyone, three large holes were directly blown out of the floor. Then the entire floor began to collapse. "Bagman" fled and fell down along the collapsed floor.
"Hold him before he gets away!" shouted Scrimgeour.
Those present were all powerful wizards, Dumbledore of Hogwarts and the heads of the four major colleges - McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, Pomona, as well as Karkaroff and Maxim. A headmaster, plus several officials from the Ministry of Magic, are so powerful. How could they let this fake Bagman escape so easily?
But in the process of falling, Bagman, regardless of what room was on the lower floor, released the "Fire Curse" directly in the air, and suddenly a flame spread in all directions. He was going to make a life-and-death incident.
Scrimgeour and Snape jumped down first, followed by Dumbledore and Flitwick. The Fire Curse may be an almost unsolvable existence for others, but for Dumbledore and Flitwick, Flitwick, two masters of spells, naturally knew the counter-curse of the Fire Curse, the "Ending Curse".
But the next floor turned out to be the office of the castle administrator Filch. Although his office was not big, it was filled with many cabinets. Originally, there were many messy boxes and sundries hanging from the ceiling, which he had confiscated from students over the years. He didn't even know the use of some of the "prohibited items" that came. They were probably not textbooks anyway, so they were confiscated.
Pigman Bagman's fire spell quickly ignited the "contraband" piled everywhere. There was actually a box of magic fireworks from the boss. As you can imagine, by the time the pursuers landed, they were already in a colorful mess. In the light of fire.
"It's over!" Flitwick yelled at the surrounding flames, but it had little effect. Part of the fire was stopped by the spell, but some of the flammable objects they lit were still burning, and even burned more and more intensely. .
"Swallowing the Starry Sky: Sign in to Become a God"
"Clear spring - eruption!" When Dumbledore landed, he waved his wand, and a spring of clear water gushed out from there. It was like turning on the fire sprinkler in the room, and the spring water suddenly poured down like rain.
"Collapse!" Scrimgeour cast the Stunning Curse again in the direction of Bagman, while Snape cast "Expelliarmus!" towards Bagman.
Bagman was once an outstanding player, very agile, and when he became this person, he also had his physical fitness. After falling, he performed a juggling tumbling action, avoiding various boxes, tables, and obstacles. The object also miraculously avoided the curse of the two masters.
Old Barty jumped down from another big hole, blocking Bagman's retreat. He seemed a little angry, pointed his wand directly at "Bagman"'s head, and shouted: "Ice Arrow!"
A bolt of snow-white frost energy condensed into an arrow that was heading towards "Bagman". It seemed that he didn't expect Old Barty to appear in front of him, or perhaps he didn't dodge the spell, and the ice arrow was inserted directly. On his shoulder, before his donated blood could flow out, his upper body had frozen into an ice sculpture.
Theoretically speaking, using the Freezing Curse to deal with the dark wizard who cast the Fire Curse can be regarded as a targeted counterattack. There have been many successful cases in history, but "Bagman" was obviously unlucky, and a large floor collapsed. It came down and hit his frozen head.
There was a loud noise, and in the rain, the flames and light of the magic fireworks finally went out, and Bagman's head was smashed to pieces, and even half of his body was broken into pieces. He was too dead to die.
Seeing the blood flowing out from under the big stone, Snape frowned slightly and whispered to Dumbledore: "Dead... If the person who drank the polyjuice potion dies while the potion is taking effect, his body will not change. When we go back, the body will still look like the disguised person, I’m afraid we won’t know who he is!”
At this time, a young man also jumped down from the building, landed next to Scrimgeour, and said a few words in his ear.
Scrimgeour was furious, and Dumbledore and Barty Sr. walked towards him with questions on their faces.
Scrimgeour said: "The red-haired pirate who was captured committed suicide in the temporary prison cell. He hit his head on the pillar and turned it into an exploding watermelon!"
Old Barty also looked furious and shouted at Scrimgeour: "Rufus, we must investigate this matter thoroughly!"
Everyone looked at the office that was almost burned to ruins and the roof that collapsed in half, and then looked at the corpse of the fake Bagman in the ruins. Everyone felt like a big stone was weighing on their hearts, making them breathless. .
"Oh my God!" said Maxim, "I wish these terrible things would end here!"
Karkaroff and Snape looked at each other, with very complicated emotions in each other's eyes.
