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Chapter 1009: Opportunity
🕑 Added 2024-02-01 05:55:24 +0000 UTC"Mason, Potter, Weasley, seriously, what's going on with you?" said Professor McGonagall, her glasses perched lopsidedly on the bridge of her bony nose, scanning over Evan, Ron, and then finally landing on Harry. "Potter, I heard from Longbottom that you're in excruciating pain, rolling around in bed. Where does it hurt?"
"It's not me, it's the vampire Caresius. He's dying!" said Harry hastily, noticing the change in the expression on Professor McGonagall's face.
In fact, he found it a bit absurd to be talking about the elusive vampire at Hogwarts, about a guy he'd never even met.
Regardless of how absurd it seemed, it had indeed happened!
What if Professor McGonagall didn't believe it?
"Something happened, professor, we need to see the Headmaster." As soon as Harry finished speaking, Evan followed. "It's a matter on the Norwegian side."
Because the castle corridors had ears, confidentiality was poor; he couldn't mention sensitive words such as Voldemort, Horcruxes, or evil gods.
Evan believed that Professor McGonagall would understand. She must be aware of the activities of the Order of the Phoenix in Norway.
Sirius's previous intelligence could already explain a lot of things, combined with what Harry had seen. Voldemort killed many lives and split his soul, and made the statue of the evil god into a Horcrux. There were major changes in Norway and the vampires. These things needed to be made known to Dumbledore as soon as possible.
Evan wasn't too concerned about Caresius’s life, but he saw it as an opportunity, a chance for a major breakthrough.
Seizing this opportunity could not only thwart Voldemort's plot to gain power but also unravel the secrets left by Slytherin, especially now that Voldemort likely had made the statue of the evil god into his final Horcrux.
Of course, the premise was that they were fast enough and Caresius had not been killed by Voldemort and the evil god, so the rescue would be meaningful.
Voldemort must have known through the soul connection that Harry had seen it all.
But as Harry said, the weakness after the split soul could not be recovered for a while.
Voldemort couldn't leave that room or even move for a short period of time, and this was their chance.
The only question now was where that place was, and hopefully Dumbledore could figure it out from Harry's description.
If the Order of the Phoenix had been operating in Norway for so long but didn't even have this vital information, then they could only stay in Hogwarts and watch.
Missing this chance would put them at a complete disadvantage, facing the dual threat of Voldemort and the evil god.
And more importantly, if Caresius died like this, Evan was worried that the clues to the treasure key left by Slytherin would be interrupted.
The hint he gave: The shrewd Slytherin came from that swamp! He only believed in wizards with the purest blood, and Mudbloods couldn't get anything from him! The key to the treasure was a powerful one, kept deep underground by his cunning servants.
Evan originally speculated that Slytherin's insidious and cunning servants might be the goblins, and the deepest underground was Gringotts.
Now it seemed that this was not the case at all. After all, goblins had no connection with pure-bloods. Now it seemed to refer to the vampires.
The uniqueness of vampires also maintained the purity of their bloodline, and there was no possibility of it being tainted.
And that extremely powerful force, the treasure key he left behind, had also been guarded by vampires for generations.
If the clues were interrupted, Evan didn't know what to do. He might have to go back a thousand years and ask Slytherin himself, who wasn't very easy to get along with.
"Follow me!" said Professor McGonagall crisply. She only hesitated for a moment before choosing to believe them.
The group of people crossed the last few stairs in twos and three steps at a time, and came to the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.
“Fizzing Whizbee,” said Professor McGonagall.
The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside; the wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone staircase that was moving continuously upward like a spiral escalator.
They stepped onto the moving stairs; the wall closed behind them with a thud, and they were moving upward in tight circles until they reached the highly polished oak door with the brass knocker shaped like a griffin.
Though it was now well past midnight, there were voices coming from inside the room, a positive babble of them. It sounded as though Dumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people.
Professor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker, and the voices ceased abruptly as though someone had switched them all off.
The door opened of its own accord, and they walked in. The room was in half darkness; the strange silver instruments standing on tables were silent and still rather than whirring and emitting puffs of smoke as they usually did. The portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses covering the walls were all snoozing in their frames.
Behind the door, a magnificent red-and-gold bird the size of a swan dozed on its perch with its head under its wing.
“Oh, it’s you, Professor McGonagall … and … ah!"
Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk; he leaned forward into the pool of candlelight illuminating the papers laid out before him.
He was wearing a magnificently embroidered purple-and-gold dressing gown over a snowy-white nightshirt, but seemed wide awake, his penetrating light-blue eyes fixed intently upon Professor McGonagall.
“Professor Dumbledore, Potter has had a … well, a nightmare,” said Professor McGonagall. "He and Mason say..."
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” said Harry quickly.
"It's something about vampires," Evan also said. "Voldemort used a spell. He may have split his soul again. Caresius is currently in a state of death. Things in Norway have undergone major changes. We must act immediately to rescue Caresius, Professor, this is an opportunity."
Evan nudged Harry, indicating for him to explain the details. In this setting, there was no need to worry about being overheard.
“I … well, I was asleep...” said Harry and even in his terror and his desperation to make Dumbledore understand he felt slightly irritated that the headmaster was not looking at him, but examining his own interlocked fingers. “But it wasn’t an ordinary dream … it was real... I saw it happen... The vampire named Caresius, the one who had dueled with Evan at the Quidditch World Cup, suddenly appeared in a room filled with corpses and flesh. He wanted to destroy that statue, maybe it was the statue of the evil god, but Voldemort had completed the magic and fused with the statue a few minutes ago. He had reached an agreement with the monster inside, as long as he handed over Caresius and something to it, that monster was willing to help him gain strength and achieve immortality. I don’t know what this means, but Caresius was injured by the statue in the blink of an eye. The monster inside the statue wanted to devour him. He’s seriously injured and bleeding, sustaining himself with magic, but it won't last long, I can feel it..."
