Volume 5: The Burning Golden Flame Chapter 315 War of Words
"Nick? What are you doing in the boys' bathroom? Ghosts need to use the bathroom too?"
"What? You also know the story of me being cast as the culprit for 17 killing curses! Fine! Although I don't think this is anything to brag about, since so many people want to know, it doesn't matter if I tell it again!"
"No... did you hear my question? I don't want to hear it! Nick, you've been telling everyone about it for almost a week! Don't say..."
" When I blocked the first killing curse, it was Jon who discovered it accidentally! He was carrying me on his back at the time, and naughty Gabrielle wanted to draw a turtle on my face. In order to stop her, Jon moved me to face him. That's how I saved his life in return..."
What was the most difficult thing for Hogwarts students during this time?
That is to listen to Nick bragging about how he blocked 17 killing curses.
This glorious experience even exceeded the number of times he had boasted about his knighthood in the past. He would want to tell it ten times whenever he met someone.
At first, the students were happy to listen because Jon had such a huge impact on them that night.
In front of the dark devil, he personally killed his two capable subordinates, leaving him helpless. Many people wanted to know about Jon's experience in the Arctic.
But no matter how much I wanted to know, I couldn't help but show off to everyone Nick like he was a megaphone.
Of course, this had no effect on Jon.
The experience in the Arctic maze was not a secret, so he had no reason to mind Nick not telling others about it.
These days, he has been paying attention to the piece of mandrake in his mouth. Compared with the last time when he accidentally drank it along with the milk due to lack of experience, this time was undoubtedly much smoother.
He persisted for more than twenty days without any problems, and just as Jon was waiting to end this one-month cycle, he took the leaf out of his mouth on the full moon night and started the next step.
A light early summer rain covered the whole of Lyon.
The clear night sky was obscured and the moonlight was blocked by thick dark clouds, which meant that Jon had failed again.
The night when Jon takes the leaf out of his mouth must be a clear night sky and there must be a full moon. Only when these conditions are met can Jon put the leaf into the crystal bottle and then fill it with saliva.
And even if he thought of leaving Lyon temporarily and going to other areas with moonlight, it would not work. The place where he took out the leaves on that night and put them into his mouth must be consistent, and the deviation cannot be too big, otherwise it will cause the final potion to fail.
Such harsh and luck-dependent conditions left Jon with no choice. Holding the leaf in his mouth for a month was in vain. He could only ask Lily for another mandrake leaf and hold it in his mouth.
In just this one month, a lot of things happened in the wizarding world.
First, the existence of the Slytherin portrait was reported by the Starlight News, a subsidiary of the Wu Ping Line.
Even though there is now a bet on the Triwizard Tournament as the orthodox affiliation of Hogwarts, with the support of the portrait of Salazar Slytherin himself, it can effectively combat Voldemort's theory of pure-blood superiority which is the basis of his rule.
After all, even our ancestors who once insisted on the pure-blood theory have openly stated that pure-bloods should never be superior to others. This is a fatal blow to the basis for the pure-bloods to occupy a high status in public opinion.
As soon as the news was published in the Star, most newspapers across Europe followed suit and quoted it.
Although many wizarding governments were more inclined to support Voldemort on the day of the Triwizard Tournament, the majority of wizarding people were still overwhelmingly opposed to the policies currently being implemented in Britain.
Needless to say, the Muggles would never support it. As for the half-bloods, they are not blind. It seems that now that a group has become slaves, they have become the beneficiaries, but the pure-bloods have also become superior. No matter how they whitewash it, half-bloods are also the objects of oppression.
Unless they encountered the same situation as the British and French mixed-race people, and were succumbed to Voldemort's powerful personal power and had to accept the status of second-class citizens, who would want to go from equality to inequality?
Therefore, even though most of the high-ranking officials in the magical government tended to support Voldemort, among the wizarding public, as long as the war had not yet spread to their country and there was no violent oppression, no one would be willing to admit that pure-bloods were inherently noble.
There is more explosive news about Slytherin's remarks.
As the ancestor of the Slytherin family, Salazar personally admitted that Voldemort was a descendant with his own blood, but the pure-blood leader whose real name was Tom Riddle was actually a half-blood!
This does not require any other proof. Just finding out Voldemort's background is enough to be considered ironclad evidence.
Because although there are more than the twenty-eight recognized pure-blood wizard families in Europe, there is definitely no one with the surname Riddle!
The pure-bloods who had followed Voldemort since their school days had always believed that Riddle was not Tom's real surname, and that he must have a more noble and distinguished family background.
Even Voldemort himself believed this until he found his Muggle father's family.
This news caused an uproar.
The man who promoted the theory of pure-blood superiority and won over a large group of pure-blood families for this purpose, and who was respected by them as the leader, was actually a half-blood?
If this matter were to be confirmed, it would be equivalent to making Voldemort's theory self-defeating.
If the purebloods are truly superior, then what are you as their leader?
For a time, the fact that Slytherin stood on Dumbledore's side and the question of Voldemort's bloodline became a hot topic throughout Europe.
Dumbledore chose this time specifically to spark such public opinion and he also deliberately found the right opportunity.
Just as he and John had analyzed, Voldemort's actions since this year seemed to be trying his best to maintain the normal holding of the Triwizard Tournament.
In such a situation, directly using Slytherin's portrait to expose his past is equivalent to forcing him to make a choice.
Should he fight again or continue to swallow his anger and wait for the start of the Tri-Widget Tournament?
If he can't stand this and breaks off with her, he will have to bear the consequences of breaking his blood oath.
If he chooses to swallow his anger, then this wave of public opinion will be like a sharp knife stabbing into his kidneys. His bloodline is in jeopardy. How is he going to maintain the foundation of his rule?
In fact, regarding the issue of Voldemort's bloodline, Dumbledore's side has always held a key means.
But this information would have been of little use if it were revealed during the period when Hogwarts was still in exile in Britain, because at that time Voldemort had won a completely overwhelming victory.
The Order of the Phoenix also has no channels for speaking out, so even if it were to make this matter known, it would lack evidence. Even if some of Voldemort's own people knew that their master had problems with his bloodline, they would only keep this idea to themselves.
But the situation now is completely different.
The war between Dumbledore and Voldemort reached a turning point on the night when the wizarding front attacked the reformatory.
Voldemort, who used absolute force to implement a high-pressure policy, began to reveal various problems in his rule after experiencing a failure.
And that night, in front of so many people in Europe, John stabbed Bella's chest with the basilisk's fang, which was equivalent to slapping Voldemort in the face.
In this situation, of course, the only thing to do is to give the fallen dog a beating, expose all the problems that Voldemort had previously hidden, and further force his situation.
As for Voldemort, after the issue of Slytherin and his own bloodline was exposed, he quickly fought back.
Just as Dumbledore guessed at the beginning, Voldemort certainly had no intention of falling out. He had previously maintained the holding of the Triwizard Tournament, and with his current temperament, he would not be so impatient to abandon all his previous arrangements.
However, he did not just sit there in silence and wait for the pressure of public opinion to come upon him.
Dumbledore has a propaganda outlet, but Voldemort, who has been operating in the UK for more than ten years, can certainly use public opinion to counterattack.
He used the simplest and most effective method, directly denying the authenticity of the portrait of Slytherin that Jon brought back from the Arctic maze in the Daily Prophet, saying that it was forged by Dumbledore himself and was a scam.
Regarding this point, the authenticity of Slytherin's portrait is indeed not so easy to prove. After all, it is not Slytherin himself or the ghost he left behind.
Of course, there is a possibility that magical portraits are forged. As long as the Daily Prophet insists that the portrait in Witch Flat's hand is a forgery, no matter what Dumbledore's people say, they will not be able to produce better evidence.
As for Voldemort's own bloodline, it is actually very simple to find the death certificate. Not all members of the Gaunt family are dead. Before Voldemort ruled Britain, he had an uncle who was imprisoned in Azkaban.
But after he took over the British Ministry of Magic, the last direct male of the Gaunt family just disappeared.
No one knows whether Voldemort killed him to silence him like he killed his father and his family, or hid him away secretly, and the orphanage where he lived before had long been closed.
The only people who knew Voldemort's true identity were Dumbledore, who brought Voldemort out of the orphanage, and Slytherin himself, who had the portrait.
Now that the Daily Prophet has insisted that the portrait is fake, they have of course also emphasized that all the news coming from the Slytherin portrait are lies!
The Starlight and the Daily Prophet started arguing with each other over the air. The editors of both newspapers wore out countless quills as they began to curse each other's shamelessness.
One side denounced Voldemort for being ungrateful and even deceiving his own ancestors, and said that the pure-bloods he led were a bunch of shameless villains from top to bottom.
One side cursed Dumbledore for making up anything, even daring to forge the portrait of Salazar Slytherin. If the real Salazar knew about this, he would be so angry that he would crawl out of his coffin and kill him with a killing curse.
The report in the Daily Prophet would inevitably reach the ears of Slytherin's portrait which was already hanging on the wall of Dumbledore's office.
He was not an old man with a good temper, otherwise he would not have had such a quarrel with his best friend Gryffindor over the issue of bloodline a thousand years ago.
After hearing that his identity was judged to be a fake, he directly cursed Voldemort, causing Phoenix, who has always had a foul mouth, to shrink his neck.
Public opinion in the wizarding world was also in complete chaos.
Now it is not a question of who has scolded whom between the Daily Prophet and the Star, but which side the other wizards in Europe are willing to believe.
However, even though the two sides were quarreling so fiercely in the newspapers, the preliminary preparations for the Three-Power Tournament were still going on in reality.
The first thing is about the selection of referees for the match.
In previous Triwizard Tournaments, the referees were basically the principals of the three magic schools and the officials in charge of the event from the local Ministry of Magic.
Given the current situation, even if the competition is held in the UK, no one from the British Ministry of Magic will be allowed to join the refereeing team in the end. That would be tantamount to handing the championship directly to Voldemort's side.
After repeated arguments and mutual concessions, the referee team was determined to have one person each from the two Hogwarts schools, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang, plus three wizards selected by the International Confederation of Wizards, for a total of seven people.
Having the International Confederation of Wizards send someone to act as a referee is also a result that both parties can accept.
The position of President of the International Confederation of Wizards has remained vacant ever since Dumbledore was defeated by Voldemort ten years ago.
This organization does not actually have much real power, it just provides a platform for communication for magical governments around the world.
It is precisely because there are all kinds of wizards within the structure of the organization that it is difficult to reach a consensus. As for the disputes currently taking place in Europe, most people are still in a mood to watch the fun.
This time they were chosen to send three people to act as referees, and there were also identity restrictions on the wizards sent.
The rule recognized by both Voldemort and Dumbledore is that the International Confederation of Wizards cannot send any European wizards to serve as referees, and can only select wizards from other continents.
Once the referees are determined, issues regarding the competition events will naturally be easy to resolve.
Normally, there would only be three events in the Triwizard Tournament, and now with the inclusion of people from the International Confederation of Wizards in the judging panel, there are exactly three forces involved.
Each force will choose one content for the competition, which will then be partially modified and integrated by people from the International Confederation of Wizards, and ultimately all the competition will be finalized.
