Chapter 78: Dumbledore’s Powerful Connections
Time always slips away quickly when one is not paying attention.
In Vaughn’s memory, the blizzards seemed like yesterday. As a result of being engrossed in Memory Magic and various meetings, in the blink of an eye, the ice on the Black Lake had thawed, trees had sprouted tender buds, and the mountains surrounding Hogwarts had gradually regained their lush green color.
Today was also a rare good day, and the spring sunlight suddenly became bright.
Hermione, from somewhere, found a picnic blanket. The girl hummed a cheerful song and laid out the food brought from the dining hall on it.
After not seeing her master for two days, Guo Guo Cha, after rubbing against Vaughn repeatedly, was gradually attracted by the environment and chased several transparent-winged butterflies, hopping around on the grass.
Vaughn lay on the grass, snapped his fingers, and a cluster of blue magical flames ignited between his fingers.
Then it floated into the air, meeting the still slightly biting spring breeze, swaying and providing a bit of warmth.
In the Black Lake nearby, the giant squid also poked its head out from under the water, its thick tentacles stirring up waves.
It was truly a rare moment of relaxation.
Gazing at all this, Vaughn became a little lost in thought.
After an unknown amount of time, Hermione lay beside him, quietly taking his hand.
Vaughn turned to look at her, and she instinctively averted her gaze, staring at the cluster of magical flames above.
“I can do that spell too,” she said.
Then she wanted to hit herself on the head, wondering why she always acted so competitive.
Vaughn chuckled, and Hermione’s embarrassed cheeks turned crimson.
“Let’s not talk about magic today,” Vaughn smiled, “otherwise this lunch will turn into a schoolwork discussion.”
Hermione bit her lip and quickly racked her brain, thinking of something to say.
But after thinking and thinking, she found that her usually sharp mind seemed to have rusted.
She sadly realized that apart from studying, there seemed to be nothing she and Vaughn could talk about.
Fortunately, Vaughn seemed to sense her embarrassment and suggested, “We could talk about your family.”
“Uh, my parents are both Muggle dentists. Do you know what a dentist is?”
Seeing Hermione ready to give a lecture, Vaughn could only say helplessly, “Let’s talk about magic then. When you went home for Christmas, did you perform magic for them?”
“Yes,” Hermione smiled shyly. “I performed Transfiguration, the Levitation Charm, and the Fire-Making Spell for them. I also received a letter from the Ministry of Magic, warning me not to let other Muggles see it, or they would expel me from Hogwarts.”
Vaughn shrugged. “They were just scaring you. Even if a spell is seen by a Muggle, the Ministry has no right to expel an excellent student.”
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Speaking of which, what is a Trace, and where is it?”
Since receiving the warning letter from the Ministry of Magic at Christmas, she had immediately gone to the library upon returning to Hogwarts to find out why the Ministry knew she had performed spells.
Unfortunately, she could only find the word “Trace”; there was little other specific information.
“A Trace is a type of monitoring magic, or rather, a magic contract with little binding power. It’s not in our wands or our bodies. Instead, on the day we receive the Hogwarts acceptance letter, once we confirm our enrollment, we implicitly sign a contract. This contract allows the Ministry to locate our approximate position and detect magical power fluctuations around us.”
Hermione, being very intelligent, immediately spotted a loophole. “Meaning, if there are many wizards near where I live, the Ministry won’t know I’m casting spells?”
Vaughn nodded. “Exactly. So you see, I never worry about the Trace.”
“That’s nice…” Hermione envied.
After a moment of silence, Vaughn suddenly heard her softly ask, “Then… Vaughn, can I visit your house during the summer holiday?”
Vaughn turned his head. The spring sunlight cast a hazy outline around the girl’s profile.
It also made her expectant, anxious, and shy brown eyes sparkle like gems.
He smiled. “Your eyes are like mine and Ginny’s.”
“Hm?” Hermione was confused. She knew who Ginny was but didn’t understand why Vaughn would suddenly say that.
Then, she saw Vaughn close his eyes and softly say in the gentle light and wind, “Ginny would like you very much.”
Immense joy instantly filled the young girl’s heart.
Her heart pounded furiously. Hermione tried hard to control herself.
After the surprise, anxiety resurfaced. She even started asking and answering herself, “Your family are all wizards, how should I dress to be appropriate then? Also, how do I get to your house? By train or car? No… places where wizards live, these things might not exist…”
Vaughn chuckled.
“There’s still plenty of time before the summer holiday. I’ll pick you up then!”
“Oh…” Hermione quietly moved her cheek closer to the grass to dissipate the heat.
“By the way, Mr. and Mrs. Granger can come visit too. They probably don’t know what wizard families are like yet, do they?”
“Can they?”
“You can write and ask them. I’ll take some time during my meetings to help deliver it to your parents. Do you have any token or anything? Otherwise, they might think I’m a con artist.”
Hermione couldn’t help but laugh.
Then, Vaughn heard her quietly say, “I’ve told them about you. They’ll know when they see your hair…”
“Oh—”
“…What ‘oh’?”
“Nothing, I just feel like someone has been eyeing me for a long time.”
Hermione blushed and quickly got up. “The food has gotten cold, let’s eat!”
Vaughn lay down for a while longer before getting up. The wind from the lake ruffled his fiery red hair. He watched the blushing girl arrange the food and wave to him.
……………………
“Mr. Vaughn Weasley, I saw in the ‘Werewolf Affairs Committee’ charter that the committee will temporarily not accept any donations from individuals or organizations, nor will it accept financial allocations from the Ministry of Magic. You are attempting to maintain the purity of the committee’s organizational structure, but I want to know, how will those poor… poor and kind people sustain themselves? How will they afford the monthly Wolfsbane Potion?”
At night, the Wizengamot administration.
This large conference room, located on the second underground level, served as both the Wizengamot’s office for daily affairs and its meeting hall for major decisions.
With a tiered classroom-like structure, it was filled with wizards dressed in dark red robes.
In the center of the room, a lectern stood high. Vaughn, also dressed in dark red robes, stood behind the lectern, facing the entire Wizengamot’s questioning.
He glanced at the old wizard who asked the question and immediately recalled his name: Alred Travers, from a Pure-blood family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Truly deeply entrenched Pure-bloods.
However, the Travers family was somewhat opportunistic. They had many branches; some maintained Pure-blood pride, while others flirted with Muggles. This was not due to severe internal divisions, but rather a survival strategy.
By having branches align with Pure-bloods on one side and Muggles on the other, they spread their eggs across multiple baskets, ensuring that the Travers family could continue regardless of future changes in the Wizarding World.
“As long as they’re not here to make trouble.”
Thinking this, Vaughn answered loudly, “Your question is excellent, Mr. Travers, but I must point out that the poverty of werewolves is not due to their laziness, but rather their circumstances and public opinion that forces them to stay away from people. Now, with Wolfsbane Potion, they can return to society and support themselves through labor and work.”
“But your concerns are also somewhat valid.”
Vaughn spoke eloquently. “According to our investigation, there are currently over 2,000 werewolves in England. Excluding Greyback and his lackeys, and only counting those who can be absorbed as wanderers, there are at least over 1,600. About three-fifths of these are Muggle-born, Squibs, and cubs born to native werewolf couples, who are undoubtedly not suited to live in the Wizarding World. The current scale of the Wizarding World cannot immediately accommodate these thousand people.”
“Our temporary plan is to divert these werewolves to Muggle society. The vast population of Muggles is sufficient for them to find jobs quickly and temporarily solve their survival problems.”
At this point, Vaughn paused. Seeing the wizards begin to whisper and discuss his words, he said with some helplessness, “Yes, it seems you’ve also noticed the problem – Muggle currency is worthless in the Wizarding World.”
“We have, of course, considered this. Therefore, once the committee is established, I will push for the committee to form an internal foundation. The initial funds will be provided as loans by myself and Dumbledore to the foundation to operate Muggle gold, and then this gold will be used in cooperation with Gringotts to cover the initial Wolfsbane Potion expenses.”
Of course, this was a temporary measure.
Although Vaughn’s impression was that gold prices in the 1990s had great potential, the Wizarding World’s economy was fragile due to its population size.
No matter how much the goblins at Gringotts liked gold, they couldn’t exchange it indefinitely. Otherwise, a large influx of gold could lead to the collapse of the Gold Galleon system.
This was a problem Vaughn had considered even before he began preparing for the “Werewolf Affairs Committee.”
Moreover, he was quite pleased to see this problem arise.
The Wizarding World was too closed. He wanted to slowly pry open a crack to allow more contact between the Wizarding World and Muggle society.
Vaughn paused, giving the generally elderly Wizengamot members more time to understand the meaning of his words, before proposing another solution: “…On the other hand, I hope the Wizengamot will allow the Werewolf Affairs Committee and the Department of International Magical Cooperation to reach an export agreement regarding Wolfsbane Potion.”
As soon as this proposal was made, the Wizengamot members exchanged glances. Many instinctively looked towards a corner.
There sat a thin wizard, about 50 years old.
Barty Crouch, once a formidable figure who gained fame during the wizarding war over a decade ago, now the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.
He was also a member of the Wizengamot.
Barty Crouch clearly hadn’t expected the Werewolf Affairs Committee to involve him. He looked at Vaughn in surprise, his lips moving as if to say something, but ultimately remained silent.
People around were whispering.
Everyone remembered that the newspapers had been propagating for some time that Vaughn Weasley harbored ambitious intentions to tear down the Ministry of Magic.
Was he now declaring war on Fudge?
Otherwise, why would he request cooperation solely with the Department of International Magical Cooperation?
More importantly, the leader of this department was a sensitive figure like Barty Crouch.
This had to make many people speculate!
Seeing that the situation was getting somewhat out of control, Amelia Burns, who was presiding over the meeting, had to use the Amplifying Charm to call for order: “Order!”
The immense sound wave suppressed the buzzing discussion.
Once everyone sat up straight again, Amelia looked at Alred Travers, who had asked the first question. “Mr. Travers, do you have any further objections or questions regarding Mr. Weasley’s answer?”
Travers shook his head. “No, Madam Burns, I am satisfied.”
“Then, the questioning session continues. Next member, please!”
Saying this, she glanced across. An old witch opposite understood the signal and stood up. “Mr. Weasley, I would like to ask about your plans for the further development of Wolfsbane Potion. Will the Werewolf Affairs Committee operate on a regular basis?”
“Yes, for now, Lycanthropy—I prefer to call it the werewolf virus—cannot be completely solved. For the next version of Wolfsbane Potion, I plan to first address the issue of werewolf transformations during the full moon… Therefore, based on the current trend, the Werewolf Affairs Committee cannot just be a temporary existence; it may need to continue for many years.”
“Next… Mrs. Malchick, you may sit down to ask your question.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Weasley…”
Under Amelia’s chairmanship, the meeting proceeded in an orderly fashion, and hours passed quickly.
It was late at night when Amelia announced a temporary adjournment to continue the next day.
A group of people in purple robes chattered as they left the conference hall. Vaughn also let out a sigh of relief. As he descended from the high platform, Amelia walked up to him, a smile appearing on her stern face:
“You’ve worked hard, child. Would you like to come to my office for a bite to eat?”
“Yes, thank you, Madam Burns.”
“Call me Amelia. I’ve seen you interact with Albus, and you weren’t this polite.”
Amelia’s office was also on the second underground level.
On the way to the office with Amelia, Vaughn encountered many Ministry officials. Everyone who saw him couldn’t help but stop and stare.
If this floor wasn’t part of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Amelia wasn’t the head of the department with great authority, officials from other floors would likely have rushed over.
After interacting with her for a while, it became clear that Amelia was not stern in private and occasionally enjoyed a joke.
Just like now, back in the office, she brought out two drinks and a few plates of dried fruit, and smiled at Vaughn, “You’ve been quite the talk of the Ministry lately. They’re calling you a 12-year-old ambitious schemer trying to destroy the Ministry.”
Vaughn shook his head. “That wasn’t my intention, but the Ministry’s system is too backward, and Fudge is a standard politician. If I don’t want the Wolfsbane Potion I’ve developed to become a political tool, and if I don’t want werewolves to be used as weapons, I can only find a way to make the Werewolf Affairs Committee independent!”
Although through more than a month of interaction, Amelia already knew that the child before her was deep-thinking and not simple.
However, hearing him say this now, she instinctively comforted him, “Don’t worry, Dumbledore supports you, and we all support you.”
Looking at Amelia’s matter-of-fact expression as she said this, it was as if Dumbledore was her superior although in terms of the Wizengamot’s organizational structure, that was indeed the case.
Vaughn thanked her on the surface but sighed inwardly.
This was the influence of the world’s greatest white wizard. Even if Dumbledore, out of fear of power, secluded himself in Hogwarts and didn’t want to participate in conflicts, as long as he stepped forward, countless people would respond to him.
Some agreed with his ideals, some simply admired him, and some, like Fudge a year ago, tried to latch onto the “White Lord” to bolster their own political capital.
In recent days, through various meetings, Vaughn had encountered many veiled overtures, including today’s.
In Vaughn’s opinion, the so-called questioning session was a place where things could easily go wrong. If the questioner deliberately made things difficult, they could drag on for days over trivial matters.
In the morning, he had been troubled by a member of a Pure-blood family, but by the evening, the meeting had been controlled by Amelia the entire time, with only Travers asking a relatively meaningful question.
And when Vaughn’s answers were sensitive, Amelia would immediately take control, giving no one else an opportunity to attack.
No wonder everyone liked to get close to power…
With a cheerful mood, Vaughn chatted with Amelia over drinks.
“…The questioning session has two more days. Although there was a minor incident this morning, I can assure you that similar situations will not occur again. Of course, you also need to restrain yourself. You shouldn’t have involved Barty Crouch when you answered Travers earlier.”
Amelia advised, “He was once a strong contender for Minister for Magic, and always a major concern for Fudge. Look, Fudge, barely a year into his term, couldn’t wait to toss Crouch into the Department of International Magical Cooperation… that place clearly indicates he doesn’t want him involved in English affairs.”
“You might not have any other intentions by proposing cooperation, but outsiders won’t see your ideas as so simple. People always prefer to complicate a simple matter. For example, they might think you intend to team up with Crouch to overthrow the Minister of Magic.”
Vaughn smiled and nodded, his smile revealing nothing of his further thoughts.
Amelia didn’t know either.
But as she had said before, if Dumbledore supported Vaughn, then she would too!
She heard Vaughn ask curiously, “So, is Crouch really in a bad way now? I saw him saying nothing at the meeting, and he looked very old. Is it just because of his son that he lost some support? It shouldn’t be that devastating to him, right?”
“It’s not just political reasons,” Amelia sighed. “For a politician, losing power is temporary. His current state is more due to his family.”
“The outside world rarely knows that young Barty Crouch died in Azkaban. Not long after, Crouch’s wife also passed away due to grief and longing for her son, her spirits depressed… The death of his wife and son completely broke him. Since then, he has become low-key and doesn’t want to deal with many matters.”
Vaughn listened silently, scoffing inwardly.
It seemed Barty Crouch had hidden it very well. For so many years, no one had discovered that his low-key demeanor wasn’t truly due to being deeply affected.
It was also because he abused his power. To fulfill his dying wife’s wish, he used Polyjuice Potion to switch her and young Barty.
Therefore, the one who died in Azkaban was not young Barty Crouch at all, but a mother who died in her son’s place.
The real young Barty was currently being controlled by Crouch with the Imperius Curse and kept at home!
Seemingly sensing Vaughn’s interest in Crouch, Amelia had to remind him, “You’d better not think about trying to win Crouch over; it’s useless. He has lost all ambition now.”
“Also, after the incident last time, Fudge has been quiet. This is because the Wizengamot has not yet made a decision, and he cannot participate in Wizengamot affairs. But no one believes he will swallow this insult, so it’s best not to give him any ammunition. Trying to win over Crouch would be more detrimental than beneficial!”
Theoretically, her judgment was not wrong.
In the eyes of many, Crouch had become a useless person, even a laughingstock. To politicians, such a self-indulgent fellow had lost his remaining value.
Vaughn gave a smile that met her expectations. “Thank you for your reminder. I was just curious.”
They chatted for a while longer, and Vaughn politely declined Amelia’s invitation to stay, then got up to leave.
After all, they would meet again tomorrow.
Taking the elevator out of the second underground level, Vaughn didn’t go to the fireplace area to use Floo Powder but instead walked slowly out of the Ministry of Magic through the underground passages.
The Ministry of Magic was actually not far from Muggle society. Directly above, on the ground level, was Whitehall in London, a very famous street.
Most Muggle government departments were concentrated on this street.
Vaughn cast a Banishing Charm on himself to prevent his archaic Wizengamot robes from attracting Muggle attention. Then, using his magically enhanced eyes, he observed the nearby buildings and found a public restroom that had also been subjected to a Banishing Charm.
That was the staff entrance, where Ministry employees could be transported to the fireplace area through the flush toilets.
This somewhat mischievous method was clearly resisted by most staff, for example, Arthur greatly disliked it. However, some obedient individuals strictly adhered to the Ministry’s regulations.
Just like the young man ahead, who was short and stout, holding a newspaper, looking like he was easily bullied.
Just like before, the short, stout young man holding the newspaper, who looked easy to bully.
