Close Friends

The next day at noon, when Albert woke up, the space beside the bed was already empty. After getting up, dressing, and going downstairs, he found Isabelle sitting in the dining room, holding today's newspaper and staring at something.

Albert walked over, wrapped an arm around her shoulders from behind, and looked down at the paper. "You don't look very happy."

"Look at this..." Isabelle handed the Daily Prophet to Albert. The headline read: "Terror at the Quidditch World Cup," accompanied by a flashing black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark hanging above the treetops.

"Looks like something bad really did happen at the World Cup." Though Albert said so, he was not particularly concerned. He had anticipated the chaos at the World Cup long ago.

"What happened?"

Albert did not think this alone should have caused Isabelle such a reaction. After all, they had known about it beforehand.

"Mother went over early this morning to help out. Our tent wasn't burned down, but..." There seemed to be a trace of unease in Isabelle's voice. "Someone went into our tent after we left."

"Strangers?" Albert narrowed his eyes.

"When Bit was packing up the tent, he used the Revealing Charm inside and found the footprints of two strangers."

Isabelle knew exactly what that meant.

In that kind of chaos, no one would have run into their tent for no reason. And if one considered why Albert had done what he had, it was obvious that whoever had entered their tent meant them no good.

What worried Isabelle was what those people might have wanted to do to them. There was a good chance they had come for Albert. As for who they were, it was not hard for Isabelle to guess. Certain pure-blood wizards had disliked Albert for quite some time,