In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 473: If, Soft doesn’t work, use hard

It's not that an easy victory is bad, and Jon himself knows very well that in fact there is nothing wrong with what these straw men like Hunter think about certain things.

The war between wizards, the small fights between such people at the bottom alone can not establish the situation, whether it is the Alliance led by Grindelwald more than fifty years ago, or Voldemort eventually ruled the United Kingdom more than ten years ago, the key to the victory is in the last single duel.

Like that incident in the past of Grindelwald, when the Alliance was unprecedentedly powerful, after losing the duel with Dumbledore, even the biggest organisation faced disintegration.

The current situation is the same, the Witching Horizon has an absolute advantage and has even fought to Diagon Alley, but as long as Voldemort is still present, he has not stepped forward, which means the current victory is not enough to the extent of certainty.

But at this time it was obvious that the British Ministry of Magic had no way to resist the advances of the Witching Horizon, so what is Voldemort doing?

Just by reading the news in the newspaper, Jon of course couldn't figure out this matter, but Voldemort's matters didn't need him to worry about, all he needed to do nowadays was to complete the task Dumbledore had entrusted to him.

So in the following two days, he intentionally or unintentionally remained in the Department of Mysteries, to get close to the pureblood named "Dandy".

This middle-aged male wizard, who also came from the New School pureblood family, didn't seem like an easy person to get in touch with, even if he knew that Jon was already considered to be a member of their side, he still had a lukewarm relationship, as if treating him the same as those straw men like Hunter and warned him not to make trouble casually.

As it was, things were getting tricky for Jon.

Getting close seemed to be not working out a bit, and Jon, feeling that he couldn't hang himself on one tree, found a moment to start talking to Slughorn about it.

"I have a message from Dumbledore."

Before Jon could say a word, Slughorn was the first to speak.

"He got a piece of information that he doesn't know if it's accurate or not, Voldemort will most likely be leading the Death Eaters himself for a counter-attack starting a week after Christmas, and he's already pressured to do so."

Jon frowned at this point as well.

"Dumbledore gave us an appointment around this time as well, he said that we had to find the item before he and Voldemort duelled, and if Voldemort has personally stepped up to the challenge by then, then he is sure that he will be able to face him straight on as well; but, if we got that item he is sure to deal with Voldemort fully."

"How's it going on your end?"

Jon said shaking his head.

"Getting on their internal track is fine, but Hunter and his bunch of straw men don't know anything at all, and the ones who know a little bit about what's going on in the Department of Mysteries are supposed to be Dandy and his group. But I've been trying to get in touch with Dandy for three days now, and he doesn't have the slightest intention of talking to me about anything more, he's very tight-lipped, so I'm thinking that if the soft approach doesn't work, we'll just have to resort to hard one."

Slughorn caught Jon's point.

"You mean just give him a dose of truth potion?"

Jon nodded.

"Gonna have to find an opportunity to trick him into showing up alone, if any of those people really do know anything about what's in the Department of Mysteries, the odds are that it's going to be in the hands of Dandy are high, we need to start with him, it's just that we're going to need to take a few risks as well."

To this, Slughorn reacted decisively as well.

"Then you keep trying now, we still have a week until Christmas, I'll do some setups here, and if you don't get anything useful out of him after two days, I'll find an excuse to get him to come to my office alone, and you and I will control him together!"

After checking in with Slughorn and talking things over, Jon went on to try and communicate with Dandy, and then he realised that there are some differences between purebloods who are straw men and those who can do things, and Dandy was fundamentally different from those of Hunter.

He may not be a person who is capable of researching advanced magic, but he behaves like a professionally trained person, and through side conversations, Jon has also found out that when Voldemort had not yet ruled over the United Kingdom, he was a trained Auror of the British Ministry of Magic, and over the years, even if he had become a Death Eater, he hadn't been corrupted by the extravagance of his life.

It wasn't really an easy thing to get something from a person like him, and after two days, Jon had completely given up on being able to get anything out of his mouth; the current situation on the battlefield couldn't wait that long anymore.

He made an appointment with Slughorn and with four days to go until Christmas, Dandy was called into the head of the Department's office alone.

"I heard you had something urgent to ask me, Sir."

Dandy still had the most basic of politeness for Slughorn, who was also much more welcoming, as he asked the male wizard, who was arguably the head of all purebloods in the Department of Mysteries at the moment, to sit down, and then poured him a cup of tea as well as laying out some desserts.

"Dandy Crimson, I've been wanting to have a nice chat with someone as excellent as you for a while now."

After a few tasteless pleasantries, Slughorn said meaningfully.

"Well, Coles and the others were talking to me earlier, you guys seem to have some kind of different circle going on together, he also kindly invited me to join in, saying that it would give me unexpected surprises, I've been thinking about all those things these days, can you give me a detailed talk about it?"

Dandy frowned slightly, he certainly knew about the matter of Coles and others inviting him to join the circle.

But there was also a reasonable division of labour amongst the purebloods, work like this kind of socialising was basically left to those who only ate, drank and had fun, Dandy had never been involved in such things.

But a figure like Slughorn, his identity is really special, and now that he has shown his intention to join, Dandy feels that he shouldn't reject it.

Just before he opened his mouth to chat formally, he still glanced around the entire head office, and his eyes finally stopped on the door to the private bedroom.

Slughorn saw his wariness and smiled.

"Is it because you're afraid there's a third person in there? You can open it if you're unsure, I don't mind."

However, the more Slughorn spoke like this, the less Dandy would suspect anything more, as Voldemort's former Head, Slughorn's position was always a little more lofty.

"Did you notice the character and nature of our lord, who we currently serve, is different from the one we have pledged our allegiance to in the past?" Dandy asked, staring closely into Slughorn's eyes.

No one would be light-hearted when it came to chatting about something so close to amounting to treason.

Slughorn's face showed a timely bit of doubt and gravity.

And just then, the bedroom door quietly opened a crack, and a finger and a wand stuck out of it in unison!

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