Chapter 317 315 War of Words
Chapter 317 315. War of words
"Nick? What are you doing in the boys' bathroom? Do ghosts need to go to the bathroom too?"
"What? You also know the story of me blocking 17 killing curses by myself! Well! Although I don't think there is anything to brag about this matter, 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 have been telling everyone about it for almost a week! Don't say it"
"When I blocked the first killing curse, it was Jon who found it by accident! He was carrying me on his back at the time, and the naughty Gabriel wanted to draw a turtle on my face. In order to stop her, Jon moved me to his front, and that's why, in return, I saved his life"
For Hogwarts students, what is the most painful thing during this period?
That is to listen to Nick bragging about his deeds of blocking 17 killing curses tirelessly.
This glorious experience even exceeded the number of times he had boasted about his knighthood before. Whenever he met someone, he wanted to tell it ten times.
At first, the students were happy to listen, because the shock Jon brought to them that night was too great.
In front of the dark devil, he killed two of his capable subordinates with his own hands, and made him helpless. Many people wanted to know about Jon's experience in the Arctic.
But even if they wanted to know more, they couldn't resist Nick, who was like a loud speaker, showing off to everyone he met.
Of course, this had no effect on Jon.
The experience in the Arctic maze was not a secret that could not be told to others, and he had nothing to worry about Nick not telling it to others.
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 with milk due to lack of experience, this time is undoubtedly much smoother.
He has persisted for more than 20 days without any problems, and just as Jon was waiting to end this month's reincarnation, he took the leaf out of his mouth on the night of the full moon and started the next step.
A light rain in early summer enveloped the whole of Lyon.
The clear night sky was blocked, and the moonlight was blocked by heavy clouds, which meant that Jon failed again.
The night when he took out the leaf from his mouth, there must be a clear night sky, and there must also be full moonlight. 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 night when he took out the leaf and the place where he put the leaf into his mouth must be consistent, and the deviation cannot be too large, otherwise it will cause the final potion to fail.
Such harsh and luck-dependent conditions left Jon with no choice. Holding the leaf for a month became a waste of effort, and he could only ask Lily for a leaf of Mandrake again and hold it in his mouth.
In this month, many things happened in the magic world.
First, the Starlight News, a subordinate of the Wuping line, reported the existence of the Slytherin portrait.
Even though the Triwizard Tournament bet is now the orthodox affiliation of Hogwarts, with the support of Salazar Slytherin's portrait, Voldemort's pure-blood superiority theory, which is the basis of his rule, can be effectively attacked.
After all, even the ancestors who once insisted on the pure-blood theory openly stated that pure-bloods should never be superior to others, which is a fatal blow to the basis of pure-bloods' high status in public opinion.
As soon as the news of the Starlight was published, most newspapers in Europe followed suit and quoted it.
Although many magical governments were more inclined to Voldemort on the day of the Triwizard Tournament Warrior Selection, most wizards and people were still overwhelmingly opposed to the current policies implemented in the UK.
Needless to say, the Muggles could not support it at all. As for the half-bloods, they are not blind. It seems that they have become beneficiaries of a group of slaves, but the pure-bloods have also become superior to others. No matter how much they whitewash, the half-bloods are also the objects of oppression.
Unless they encounter the same situation as the mixed-bloods in Britain and France, and are succumbed to Voldemort's powerful personal power and can only accept the identity of second-class citizens, who would want to change from equality to inequality?
Therefore, even if most of the high-level officials of the magic government tend to Voldemort, among the wizarding people, as long as the war has not affected their country and there is no violent oppression, no one will be willing to admit that pure blood is born noble.
Regarding Slytherin's remarks, more explosive news is still to come.
As the ancestor of the Slytherin family, Salazar personally admitted that Voldemort is a descendant with his own blood, but the pure-blood leader named Tom Riddle is actually a mixed-blood!
This does not require other proofs, as long as Voldemort's origins are found out, it can be considered ironclad evidence.
Because there are more than the twenty-eight recognized pure-blood wizard families in Europe, but there is definitely no Riddle surname!
The purebloods who had followed Voldemort since their school days had always believed that Riddle was not Tom's real last name, and that he must have a more noble and distinguished family background.
Even Voldemort himself always believed this until he later 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 master, was actually a half-blood?
If this matter is confirmed, it will be equivalent to making Voldemort's theory self-defeating.
If pure-bloods are really superior, then what are you as their leader?
For a time, Slytherin stood on Dumbledore's side, and the question of what Voldemort's bloodline was was a hot topic throughout Europe.
And Dumbledore chose this time to trigger such public opinion, and he also deliberately found the right opportunity.
Just as he and John analyzed, Voldemort's actions since this year seem to be trying his best to maintain the normal holding of the Triwizard Tournament.
In such a situation, directly using Slytherin's portrait to copy his past is equivalent to forcing him to make a choice.
Do you want to tear your face again, or continue to hold your breath and insist on waiting for the start of the Triwizard Tournament.
If he can't stand this breath and tear his face, he will have to bear the consequences of the blood oath being broken.
If he chooses to swallow his anger, then this public opinion is like a sharp knife stabbing into his waist. His bloodline is in question. How should he maintain his ruling foundation next?
In fact, the issue of Voldemort's bloodline has always been a key means for Dumbledore's side.
But this information was basically useless when Hogwarts was still in exile in the UK, because at that time Voldemort had won an overwhelming victory.
The Order of the Phoenix also had no channels to speak out. Even if it was said, there was a lack of evidence. Even if some of Voldemort's own people knew that their master had a problem with his bloodline, they would only keep this idea in their stomachs.
But the situation is completely different now.
This war between Dumbledore and Voldemort had already reached a turning point on the night when the wizard's line attacked the correctional facility.
Voldemort, who used absolute force to implement a high-pressure policy, began to reveal various problems in his rule after a failure.
On that night, in front of so many people in Europe, John used the fangs of the basilisk to pierce Bella's chest, which was equivalent to a heavy slap on Voldemort's face.
In this case, of course, it is necessary to hit the dog when it is down, expose all the problems that Voldemort had hidden before, and further force his situation.
As for Voldemort, after the problems about Slytherin and his own bloodline were exposed, he quickly counterattacked.
As Dumbledore guessed at the beginning, Voldemort certainly did not want to tear his face. He had previously maintained the holding of the Triwizard Tournament. With his current temperament, he would not be so irritable to abandon all the previous arrangements.
However, he did not just sit there silently and wait for the pressure of public opinion to come.
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 counter.
He adopted the simplest and most effective method, directly denying the authenticity of the Slytherin portrait that John brought back from the Arctic Labyrinth in the Daily Prophet, saying that it was forged by Dumbledore himself and was a scam.
Regarding this point, the authenticity of the Slytherin 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 the possibility of forgery of magic portraits. As long as the Daily Prophet insists that the portrait in the hands of the witch flat line is forged, no matter what Dumbledore says, there will be no better evidence.
As for Voldemort's own bloodline, it is actually very simple to find a death certificate for this. The Gaunt family members have not all died. 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 disappeared just like that.
No one knows whether Voldemort killed him like he killed his father and his family, or hid him in secret. The orphanage where he lived before has been closed for a long time.
The only people who know Voldemort's true identity are Dumbledore, who took Voldemort out of the orphanage, and Slytherin's portrait.
Now that the Daily Prophet has insisted that the portrait is fake, they also emphasize that all the news from the mouth of Slytherin's portrait is a lie!
The Starlight and the Daily Prophet quarreled in the air, and the editors of both newspapers wrote countless feather pens and began to curse each other's shamelessness.
One side denounced Voldemort for forgetting his ancestors and even deceiving his own ancestors. The pure bloods he led were a bunch of shameless villains from top to bottom.
One side cursed Dumbledore for making up anything, even the portrait of Salazar Slytherin. If the real Salazar knew about this, he would be so angry that he would crawl out of the coffin and curse him to death.
The report in the Daily Prophet would inevitably reach the ears of Slytherin's portrait hanging on the wall of Dumbledore's office.
He was not an old man with a good temper, otherwise he would not have quarreled with his best friend Gryffindor because of bloodline issues a thousand years ago.
After hearing that his identity was judged to be a fake, he directly cursed Voldemort, which made Phoenix, who had always been not very clean-mouthed, shrink his neck.
The public opinion in the magic world was also completely messed up.
Now it is not a question of who cursed whom, the Daily Prophet or the Star, but which side other European wizards are willing to believe.
However, even if the two sides cursed so fiercely in the newspapers, the preliminary preparations for the Triwizard Tournament have been going on in reality.
The first is about the selection of referees for the competition.
In the past Triwizard Tournament, the referees were basically the principals of the three magic schools and the officials in charge of the local Ministry of Magic.
And in the current situation, even if the competition is held in the UK, the British Ministry of Magic will definitely not be allowed to join the referee team in the end, which is equivalent to handing the championship directly to Voldemort.
After repeated arguments and mutual concessions, the members of the referee team were determined to be one person each from the two Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang, plus three wizards selected by the International Confederation of Wizards, a total of seven people.
Letting the International Confederation of Wizards send people to serve as referees is also a result that both parties can accept.
Since Dumbledore was defeated by Voldemort ten years ago, the position of the president of the International Confederation of Wizards has been idle.
This organization does not have much actual power at ordinary times, but only provides a platform for communication for various magical governments around the world.
It is precisely because there are all kinds of wizards in the structure of the organization that it is difficult to reach a unified opinion. For the disputes that are currently taking place in Europe, most people are still in a state of watching the excitement.
This time, they chose to send three people to be referees, and there are 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 be selected from wizards in other continents.
After the referees are determined, the problem of the competition items will naturally be solved.
Normally, there will only be three items in the Triwizard Tournament. Now, including the people of the International Confederation of Wizards in the referee group, there are exactly three forces.
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 before all the competition is finalized.