In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 468: Department of Mysteries (2 in 1)

Jon followed Slughorn through the black door he had opened.

As soon as he entered, he noticed that inside was a large and cluttered office, with a dozen or so wizards sorting through the various parchments and scrolls that were piled up all over the place.

The robes they were wearing varied, but what was uniform was that in the chest position of the robes, each of them had a coat of arms embroidered on them.

This represented that all the people currently sitting on this level of the Department of Mysteries were of pureblood family origin.

And Jon had likewise keenly noticed that only a very small portion of these people's family crests belonged to the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the old-school Purebloods, and almost all of them were new-school Purebloods who had been promoted by Voldemort II after the war.

Slughorn led Jon through the large office without exchanging a single word during the time. The ever-smiling fat walrus simply greeted the purebloods that they passed by as they walked by nodding.

Then they came to a door by the wall of the large office with a metal nameplate on it - [Deputy Head's Office]

"Before I came here, there was never a Deputy Head position in the Department of Mysteries, it was created separately for me by the great gentleman."

The words finally seemed like they were addressed to Jon.

Jon gave a sneaky shrug, then said in a serious voice.

"That is a testament to our lord's love for you, Mr Slughorn."

The fat walrus laughed, and to an outsider, it looked like he was feeling comfortable with this flattery from Jon, and only Jon could see the cheerfulness in it.

They pushed the door open and stepped inside the office, Slughorn sidestepped as he entered, gesturing for Jon to walk in first, and it was only after Jon had entered that he carefully closed the door to the room, and then finally, by pressing something, a sound of a spring springing on the lock rang out.

Only after he had done this did he turn his head contentedly and raise an eyebrow at Jon. Then, with a wave of his hand the cupboard by the wall opened automatically and a box of Crystallised Pineapple flew out of it and finally landed on the desk.

At the same time, the teapot itself jumped up and poured two cups of black tea into the teacups that had just stood in line like soldiers.

"Relax, Jon. On the first day I got here, this place became completely my turf and no one will hear what we are going to talk about in here."

After hearing his words, Jon's entire body slumped into one of the sofa chairs without any sort of sitting position and then threw a crystallised pineapple into his mouth.

He chewed it twice before he was forced to drink an entire cup of tea; the stuff was just too sweet.

Slughorn sat down across from Jon with a smile on his face, he looked at Jon who was looking across the desk with an emotional look on his face as he stared at his face. This was the first time they had seen each other since they were separated that night in the wagon.

"Your name is circulating throughout Europe now Jon. You're more famous than even I am your teacher."

"If only they knew what kind of things you've been doing all these years, teacher, then they would definitely feel that Jon Green is not everything."

Jon's words were said seriously and were clearly not a compliment.

He had gone through a lot of dangers over the years, but Slughorn had always circled around the wolves and had continued to find opportunities to pass important information to Dumbledore, and quite a lot of the information concerning the battle situation had been passed out through his hands.

Slughorn's old face was on the verge of squinting together after hearing Jon's words.

"It's better not to say these unnecessary words. Did Dumbledore even tell you what he sent you over for?"

Jon nodded.

Slughorn pressed his back against the back of the chair.

"Actually, at first, I disagreed with him asking you to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and work with me on this secret mission. Because I felt that no matter how much you had done before, at the end of the day, you hadn't graduated from Hogwarts as a student. But after hearing Dumbledore say that you had learnt Animagus and that your shape-shifting form is a phoenix, I had no reason to refuse."

He looked at Jon.

"Did you master it with the ring?"

Facing Slughorn, Jon certainly had nothing to hide, and he removed the ring pendant that he had been wearing around his neck all this time, the four blue diamond-shaped gems on it shimmering in the light.

"That's right, teacher. On the third gem, I embedded the Animagus transfiguration magic. The first one, you know, it has the levitation charm on it, and the other two gems"

Before Jon could finish, Slughorn waved his hand to stop him from continuing.

"Don't tell me things like this, as I told you when I was teaching you the Occlumency magic. One should always deserve to keep some secrets of their own, I have them, Dumbledore has them, and of course, you need to have them as well."

Jon didn't refuse his kind offer.

"So, teacher, have you learnt anything from your time here these days?"

After getting down to business, Slughorn's expression sank into silence.

"I've been in the Department of Mysteries half a month before you, and in fact, Voldemort was already interested in having me stationed here before Dumbledore asked me to find a way to transfer into this department."

"The Snape thing had a big impact in the follow-up, and that concerned Voldemort now, whether or not he was going to choose to use the Horcrux, a highly flawed means of maintaining his immortality or not. But it's also like Dumbledore guessed, even if he's not as clear-headed as his other self, he still has a lot of consideration at the end of the day, and instead of just splitting his soul again, he asked me to try to decipher the kind of potion of longevity that Snape had made for the other Voldemort before."

"But the inner workings of that potion were apparently an extremely closely guarded secret of the other Voldemort. I replicated the kind of catalytic potion Snape made for him, but the potion itself doesn't actually have any semblance of being able to prolong one's life or immortality, it only speeds up the reactivity elements of that golden sand."

"That sand you brought back from Snape and handed it over to Dumbledore, we don't even know exactly where the other Voldemort got this stuff, neither the current Voldemort nor Dumbledore can figure out what it does. The only clue is that Snape along with the other Voldemort himself spent a long time in the Department of Mysteries back in the day."

The expression on Slughorn's face became serious as he spoke.

"Before, Voldemort also let Karkaroff come to the Department of Mysteries to investigate this matter, but after that, he found nothing, so after I took the initiative to apply for a transfer and expressed my desire to share his worries, he sent me here, and at the same time agreed with the others in the ministry who submitted a proposal to reorganise the entire Department of Mysteries in the meantime. Because he felt that the previous Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries were all old men who had followed the other Voldemort around and weren't worthy of his trust, he wanted to replace all the Unspeakables here with his own, and that's why it's happening now."

"But I'm sure you would have noticed that all the new recruits here had some sort of problem when you came over."

Jon nodded thoughtfully.

"I sensed it when I came up in the lift, that all these people reporting to the Department of Mysteries look like they've all been briefed in advance, and that they all know each other well, and that most of them are new-school purebloods, with only a very small percentage of them being old-school purebloods."

Slughorn said with immense seriousness.

"Because all of these people have all in fact turned their backs on the current Voldemort and have instead sought out the other Voldemort who has previously gone missing!"

His words caused Jon to blink slightly, but not feel as shocked.

For on the way to Britain with Lily to look for Snape, they had already established that a portion of the Death Eaters had found their other lord, or else Snape wouldn't have been able to get his hands on the vial of golden sand afterwards.

"So they're holding together like this and Voldemort can't even sense it now?"

"That's one of the problems." Slughorn said gruffly, "From the exchanges I've had with Voldemort's contacts, it does seem like he doesn't feel the change of hearts within the pureblood. But such a situation can be explained and also somewhat inexplicable. It can be explained because, ever since he realised that he was starting to age, he has been hidden behind the scenes and very few purebloods can see him, which naturally means that he lacks a channel of information about what's going on in the outside world."

"But from what I've learnt, the actions of these group of people who have been planning to turn their backs on this current lord of theirs have been bold, and they've enlisted a number of people within the Death Eaters, especially the new faction of purebloods who have been favoured the most by the other Voldemort. Logically speaking, with such a big action, even if Voldemort was not interested in dealing with the internal affairs of the purebloods, it was unlikely that he knew nothing about it. But the way he's acting nowadays, it's like he doesn't know anything about all of it."

Jon was lost in thought at this, he didn't know nearly as much about what was going on around Voldemort as Slughorn did, so, of course, he couldn't even begin to think of what the problem was.

Then Slughorn said seriously.

"The current level of the Department of Mysteries does not have a head. My position is nominally arranged as a deputy head, but in reality, I exercise the authority of the head, and other than me, basically, all the other people are in the same group. The person you're pretending to be, this pureblood from the Ollivander family, is also someone they intend to fight for and draw to their side. After all, among purebloods, there are also big and small, like the old-school purebloods, especially a family like Ollivander's that has monopolised the entire wand industry in the United Kingdom. It's certainly worthwhile to draw them in."

Jon said in a deep voice.

"Doesn't that mean then that our next move in the Department of Mysteries is going to be more difficult? Now that this place is full of the other Voldemort's people, who must have come here at the behest of their lord as well, whatever their intentions, they will be doubly concerned about the actions of those who have not yet joined them on top of their other tasks."

Slughorn said with a nod.

"That is why Dumbledore asked you to come. Next, I will give you the position of my assistant, mainly responsible for co-ordinating matters and information within the various halls of the Department of Mysteries to me, so that you will have access to all the various rooms here, and be less conspicuous in comparison to my position as Deputy Head of the Department. In the meantime, I'll be pulling some strings with the people they've come in contact with. Ever since I accepted my appointment in the Department of Mysteries I've been contacted by people trying to get me to choose between the two Voldemort to pledge my allegiance to. Your task is to go between the various halls and try to find the identical thing to the golden sand."

"In the meantime, if you also get approached by someone who expresses the issue of having to choose between the two Voldemort, you can drag it out as long as you can, and if you can't, then you can paralyse their wariness of you by agreeing to them first."

Jon had no problem with Slughorn's arrangement, he just frowned and asked.

"And what if I found the same thing later? Professor Dumbledore told me that I am expected to figure out what the hell this thing is for."

Slughorn said as he placed his hands on his belly, his index fingers tapping lightly.

"It's not going to be easy. If this thing is really important to the other Voldemort, then it must be a lot easier for him to get these Death Eaters, who are already fully on his side, to come here and do things than it is for us."

"I have an idea, teacher."

Jon said with a blink, the corner of his mouth suddenly curving up.

"Don't they want to pull you and me in very badly? So why can't we just say yes to them first, and then as companions, it's only natural that we learn something about their mission here at the Department of Mysteries, isn't it?"

Slughorn mused.

"It's not that I haven't thought about it, Jon, but my concern is what if joining them requires me to pay something? I don't think the other Voldemort is quite as crazy as the one here right now, and he certainly wouldn't trust verbal promises lightly."

Jon waved a hand.

"Leave the matter to me, teacher, it's only my first day here. Let me feel out the situation here first, and after that, we'll decide what to do next."

Afterwards, just as Slughorn had said, after all of the purebloods who had reported new arrivals for the day had all signed in, Jon was appointed to the job of Assistant to the Deputy Head and stayed in the Deputy Head's office, while everyone else was assigned to various halls.

It was obvious that many people had a different speculation about Jon's good fortune.

Because nowadays, there are only a few people in the Department of Mysteries who have not yet decided whom they should "pay homage to", and the Spike that Jon is pretending to be, and the Slughorn are the two most important ones among them.

The reason why Slughorn chose him as the assistant to the Deputy Head of the Department, in the eyes of the others, is a signal that he doesn't want to get involved with another Voldemort faction in the Department for the time being.

This brainstorming also in disguise gave a good reason for Jon and Slughorn, two people who had been unrelated in plain sight, to now be in contact.

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