Chapter 651
Secret Meeting
Chapter 651 Secret Meeting
Draco pressed his forehead against the cold stone wall, the night wind blowing in through his open collar, his scarf dragging on the ground, covered in dust.
—Like Malfoy's pride, it has become unrecognizable.
Draco could put on a nonchalant act in front of others, but when he was alone, he buried his face in his hands and couldn't help but cry.
Amidst the faint sobs, a white ghost floated out of the toilet. She tilted her head and looked at the boy crying softly for a while. The excitement on her face disappeared, and behind her thick glasses, her eyes were filled with sympathy and understanding.
The ghostly Myrtle approached Draco, floating beside him, and asked gently, "What's wrong? Why are you crying? Did someone bully you?"
Draco was startled by her voice, hurriedly wiped away his tears, and roared fiercely, "Get out of here, Myrtle!"
"Don't do this." Myrtle moved closer and said softly, "Tell me what happened? I can help you..."
"What can a ghost like you do for me?" Draco sneered. "Can you teach those bastards who bullied me a lesson?"
"Of course I can! I hate guys who bully their classmates!"
Myrtle passed through the wall and came back, saying boastfully, "How do you want me to teach them a lesson? How about splashing them with water while they're using the toilet? That way everyone will think they wet their pants!"
Draco gave a sneer with a grim expression: "What kind of lesson is this? I want them to suffer a hundred times worse than I did... I want them dead!"
"I understand, I understand. There are some annoying guys that you wish you could make them disappear from the face of the earth forever."
Myrtle nodded repeatedly, then sighed and said, "It's a pity that neither you nor I have that ability..."
Before she could finish speaking, her eyes suddenly lit up.
"That's right, I remember now! I know some people who know that kind of magic!"
"What magic?" Draco asked, bewildered.
Myrtle winked playfully, "Of course it's... the terrible black magic!"
As she spoke, she suddenly rushed in front of Draco and made a hideous face.
The boy's heart stopped in shock, and his expression tensed: "Dark magic? You mean those people from Durmstrang?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk."
Myrtle wagged her finger and said smugly, "Of course not! They're all Hogwarts students. It started several years ago, and Dumbledore hasn't even noticed yet!"
"Hogwarts has a group like this? How could they have kept it from Dumbledore?" Draco asked suspiciously. "How did you know? You didn't make it up, did you?"
"Of course I know!"
Myrtle snorted, "plop," and jumped into the toilet, then rushed out again, only her upper body emerging from the toilet bowl. She grinned and said:
"Look, I often hide in here and eavesdrop on the students' secrets. I know much more than you think!"
Seeing the girl in the toilet, Draco felt a chill run down his spine. He couldn't help but take a step back, wondering if he had ever said anything unspeakable in the bathroom.
In his short life of just over a decade, Draco Malfoy hadn't had time to accumulate many heavy burdens in his heart. At this moment, the most vivid image in his mind was the embarrassing sight of himself secretly crying just now.
"Don't tell anyone what you just saw, Myrtle!" Draco commanded immediately.
Myrtle popped out of the toilet with a "whoosh," splashing water on the floor around it. She floated in front of Draco, and the faces of the human and the ghost were very close.
The ghost reached out and touched the boy's reddened eyes, its fingers passing through his head.
"I won't tell anyone!" Myrtle whispered her promise, then said excitedly, "So this is our secret?"
“…Yes.” Draco leaned back and nodded vigorously. “Don’t tell anyone. Take this secret to your grave.”
“Of course… I promise.” Myrtle suddenly became melancholic again: “I know why you don’t want others to know, because I used to be just like you are now, sensitive, lonely, and always bullied. Until later, I died…”
Seeing that Myrtle was about to burst into tears, just like her name suggested, Draco quickly interrupted her and asked, "By the way, who do you think teaches dark magic at school?"
Myrtle sniffed, looked up at him, and asked, "You want to know?"
“Of course!” Draco replied without hesitation.
He had always been fascinated by dark magic and had even longed to attend Durmstrang, but his mother, Narcissa, disagreed.
“Come with me,” Myrtle said, extending her hand. “They have an event tonight, I can take you to see it for yourself.”
Draco symbolically reached out to grasp Myrtle's hand—but actually only felt a chill pass through his hand—before the ghost disappeared through the thick stone wall.
Draco: "...?"
A dozen seconds later, Myrtle suddenly popped out of the floor again: "Sorry, I forgot you can't walk through walls. Wait, I'll find you a way out..."
Before Draco could speak, she plunged into the toilet and vanished instantly.
Draco: ...
Even if there's a hole in the toilet, does that mean he can crawl into it?
……
"The cloak Mr. Grindelwald gave me?" Wade said. "Of course I still have it. Do you need it?"
“No, it’s what you need.” Antoine said mysteriously, “Put on that cloak, and I’ll take you to a fun place—I only discovered after all this time that Hogwarts has such fun activities.”
"What event?" Wade asked, not particularly interested.
“Dark magic… the Unforgivable Curse.” Antoine said with a laugh, “In Dumbledore’s territory, it’s unbelievable—want to see it?”
"The Unforgivable Curse?"
Vader paused for a moment, then found his cloak, put it on, and pulled up the hood, immediately blurring his face.
Antoine then drank a bottle of compound decoction and transformed himself into the appearance of a student.
He was wearing Salem College uniform underneath, and a cloak of similar color to Vader's.
The grass has finally turned a bit greener recently, but the temperature is still very low, and there are many students wearing heavy cloaks, their attire not particularly striking.
Led by Antoine, the two continued walking towards the lower levels of the castle.
Seeing Antoine skillfully navigate the stairs to the basement, Wade couldn't help but remark, "Aren't you a professor at Salem? How come you're almost more familiar with this castle than most Hogwarts students?"
“When you’re on the opponent’s turf, it’s basic to be familiar with the terrain as much as possible, dear Belby,” Antoine said casually.
"Belby?"
"From now on, you are Belby."
"How did you discover this interest in dark magic?" Vader asked curiously.
Antoine thought for a moment before saying, "If I had to put it in a way, wouldn't it be that like attracts like?" "Although you've also learned some dark magic, you only use it as a tool for researching magic. As for those who are truly immersed in it, I can tell at a glance—"
"Because there are just too many guys like that in the UMNO party."
"So correspondingly, they also believed in my disguised identity—because appearance and age can be faked, but magic cannot! Nor can the feeling of using magic."
Upon hearing this, Wade gave Antoine a deep look.
Being able to gain the trust of that group while being an out-of-school student must have shown more than just a grasp of dark magic, right?
So what exactly did Antoine do to be accepted as one of their own?
The thought had barely crossed Vad's mind when he suddenly remembered those who had been killed, burned to ashes, or tortured to the point of near death by the UMNO.
He had witnessed that scene more than once in Grindelwald's Grey Castle.
Regardless of whether those people deserved their fate, members of the Malay Party had no psychological barriers to using black magic.
Perhaps it was because the school environment was too peaceful and tranquil that Wade momentarily forgot who was in front of him and even developed some unnecessary worries.
Wade shook his head inwardly, putting aside his inner turmoil, and watched as Antoine tapped on a painting on the wall, his finger circling twice on the body of a snake in the painting, tracing a strange symbol.
The snake's eyes glowed slightly, and then the painting was opened, releasing a damp, putrid smell.
……
The ghost emitted a faint, eerie glow in the dark pipes, barely illuminating its surroundings.
Draco was crammed into the narrow pipe, his robes covered in spiderwebs and suspicious slime, and his hair smeared with the corpses of insects.
With each step he took forward, he could hear his own rapid breathing echoing in the tube.
"Are you sure this is the way?"
Draco gritted his teeth and casually slammed down a small spider that crawled past him.
"Of course!"
Myrtle floated easily in front of him, most of her body overlapping with the pipe.
She turned her head and held up her finger: "Shh—"
The usually loud and boisterous ghost whispered, "It's just ahead. From now on, don't say a word, lest we be discovered."
Draco asked in a low voice, "I'll keep quiet, but are you afraid of being discovered?"
“I’m not afraid,” Myrtle said with a smile, “but what if they find out I’m eavesdropping and move to another place?”
Draco was about to say something when Myrtle immediately raised her finger again. He shut his mouth and silently and carefully crawled forward a short distance.
A rustling sound came from below, and Draco froze. Myrtle stretched out her hand and pointed to a rusty barbed wire fence in front of them.
Draco cautiously approached and, through the mesh, finally saw the scene inside the room.
A dozen or so people wearing black cloaks stood in the room. Most of them had their hoods pulled up, and their heights varied, making it impossible to tell their genders or ages.
Draco only recognized two people—Crawb and Goyle. Their large size made them stand out in the crowd, and they were so familiar that Draco could recognize them even without seeing their faces.
Goyle seemed more interested in subtly slipping the chocolate from his pocket into his mouth, while Crabbe stayed close to another man in black robes, constantly engaging him in conversation.
Every time Draco sees a similar scene, he feels that his former sidekick may have changed—when did that silly guy become so ambitious?
He glanced at Myrtle, whose ghost gestured for him to wait there, then made a gesture Draco couldn't understand before drifting away on its own.
Draco: ...
Wait, come back!
How am I supposed to get back later?
He roared inwardly, but unable to make a sound, he could only quickly recall the way he had crawled over.
How many turns did he make?
I can't possibly become the first student at Hogwarts to starve to death trapped in the pipes, can I?
Draco cautiously turned his head to look at the path he had come from, and seeing the traces of his crawling along the bottom of the pipe, he felt relieved.
Just as he finally managed to find a more comfortable position, three more people entered the room below, and the door was then locked and closed.
At that moment, a man in a black cloak opened his arms and said in a friendly tone, "Come closer to me, Nott... and you, Belby... We are brothers, don't be too distant."
Everyone moved closer to him, forming a large circle around him, before the man in the black cloak spoke again:
"Although I've said it many times, I'll repeat it again—"
“Grindelwald is old, the mysterious man is dead, Dumbledore is insane, and the Ministry of Magic is weak and incompetent.”
"Brothers and sisters! The future of the magical world will belong to us! The world will belong to us!"
"To achieve our goals, we need to harness all available resources, master the magic our enemies possess, abandon blind loyalty and folly, set aside weakness and morality, and fight to build a true dawn!"
"We must confront our greed, acknowledge the burning desires of our souls, and demand that all the money in the world flow toward us, that the Minister of Magic kneel before us to kiss our rings, that the most beautiful people grovel before us, and that the world be molded into the shape we desire!"
"We are not anyone's remnants or vassals, we are the future!"
Another man in black robes raised his glass at just the right moment: "A toast—to a future where we can do as we please!"
The others also chimed in, "To the future!"
They drank the wine in their glasses, their breathing becoming noticeably heavier, as if they were thrilled by the world they had envisioned.
On everyone's fingers, a ring glittered in the candlelight, its skull seemingly grinning.
Draco's heart skipped a beat, and he reached out to touch his empty fingers.
There was once a similar ring there.
But later...
Draco felt a bitter taste rise in his mouth again as he recalled the days he spent in solitary confinement in Professor Snape's office.
For a whole year, he was either helping Professor Snape deal with all sorts of disgusting potion ingredients or doing odd jobs for other professors and cleaning for Filch. Every time he returned to his dormitory, he was exhausted and still had to find time to do his homework...
During that time, Draco had absolutely no extra energy to participate in extracurricular activities; the only thing he could relax on was Quidditch training.
In reality, they couldn't relax at all; the training intensity of Slytherin was not much less than that of Gryffindor.
Moreover, since Harry Potter enrolled, Slytherin has lost its record of consecutive Quidditch championships, and they have been under much more psychological pressure than their predecessors.
In short, during those days, Draco Malfoy was forced to gradually lose contact with the Necromancer's Guild, which he had only recently joined, and later even lost his ring somewhere...
Looking down at the mysterious crowd, Draco's eyes flickered, and he slowly touched the finger where he had once worn the ring.
(End of this chapter)