The Chosen Eagle Conquers All

Harry genuinely believed Dumbledore when he said that.

Because Dumbledore was indeed not very interested in fame and fortune, a fact that has been proven by history.

If he wanted to be Minister for Magic, he probably would have taken the position long ago.

Fudge couldn't see this, which is why he always held a great grudge against Dumbledore.

Even someone like Ron, who lacks political acumen, could see Fudge's problem, but Fudge himself was oblivious.

Perhaps this was the inevitable reason for his downfall.

In fact, Gellert was not particularly interested in power. He and Dumbledore were quite similar in some ways— Gellert was pursuing For the Greater Good.

At least that's what Gellert himself thought, and that's what his Saints followers thought too.

"And what about you?" Cassandra looked at Veratia. "Are you power-hungry?"

"Of course." Veratia's lips curled into an undisguised smile. "Power is a woman's best beauty elixir. Do you remember what was written in my Notebook?"

Cassandra thought for a moment, but couldn't remember.

"AEIOU, right?" Harry suddenly said.

"Five vowels?" Cassandra smirked. "Riddlers and stuff like that... are annoying."

"Aquia Electa Iovinia Vincit," Veratia said, "The Chosen Eagle Conquers All."

"Heh." Cassandra narrowed her eyes. "Such an undisguised ambition... But I must admit, Grindelwald, your strength matches your ambition... So, why do you crave power? Is it to change the world, or something else?"

"I simply love power." Veratia crossed her arms. "Don't you think that a wizard like me should wield supreme power?"

"Narcissistic," Cassandra said with a shrug, offering a perfectly apt adjective.

But Veratia ignored Cassandra and just smiled.

Do you think Voldemort would believe what Dumbledore just said?

Harry looked at Voldemort and saw that the man lowered his head without a smile and took another sip of wine.

Dumbledore did not break the silence between the two, but waited with a pleasant expression for Voldemort to speak first.

"I've returned," Voldemort said after a moment, "Perhaps a little later than Professor Dippet had hoped. But I've returned to reapply for the position he said I was too young to hold. I've come to ask for your permission to return to this castle to teach. You know I've seen and done much since I left, and I can teach your students things they can't learn from other wizards."

Dumbledore stared at Voldemort over his cup for a moment before speaking.

"Yes, I know you've seen and done a lot since you left us," he said calmly. "Rumors about what you've done have also reached your alma mater, Tom. If even half of them are true, I'll be very sorry."

Voldemort remained expressionless and said, "Greatness breeds envy, envy breeds resentment, and resentment breeds lies. You know this, Dumbledore."

"You call what you've done 'great,' is that it?" Dumbledore asked gracefully.

"Of course," said Voldemort, his eyes burning red. "I've conducted experiments that may have pushed magic to unprecedented heights—"

"It is some magic," Dumbledore calmly corrected him, "Some. But in others, you are... excuse my frankness... pathetically ignorant."

Voldemort laughed for the first time; it was a disdainful, mocking laugh, an evil expression more terrifying than rage.

"Old argument," he said softly, "But Dumbledore, nothing I have seen in the world proves your famous point: that love is more powerful than my magic."

"Perhaps you're looking in the wrong place," Dumbledore cautioned.

"Then where is there a better place than here— Hogwarts —to begin my new studies?" Voldemort said. "Will you let me back? Will you allow me to share what I have learned with your students? I will give myself and my talents to you, to be at your command..."

From that moment on, Harry began to notice Voldemort's subtle actions.

He reached into his pocket, and although he didn't take out his wand, he was still making some small movements.

Dumbledore seemed completely oblivious to Voldemort's subtle actions, continuing to verbally torture Voldemort.

But in fact, when Voldemort came to Hogwarts to apply for a job, he didn't seem to have any intention of getting past Dumbledore. He had other purposes for coming here.

And this purpose is quite obvious.

That is to curse the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts.

"He's really wicked," Harry remarked. "He doesn't want anyone else to have what he can't have. How can anyone be like that?"

"That's why he's Voldemort, Harry," Cassandra said with a smile. "You've grown up surrounded by love—even though your aunt and uncle didn't love you as much, you had the greatest and most selfless love from your parents, so you can't understand what Voldemort did."

"And then there's the love of Tsundere Young Lady," Veratia teased from the side. "That young lady has known you since your first year. At first, she only approached you because you're a time traveler, but she still..."

"Shut up!" Cassandra roared angrily.

"No way." Veratia winked mischievously. "This Tsundere Young Lady is still attracted to the Scarhead Veela —who came up with that nickname? It's damn fitting for Harry..."

"Your brother." Harry rolled his eyes, changing the subject. "So what we need to do now is to remove this curse from the position—but the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor doesn't have a physical form, and it's not quite the same as Anne's situation. How do we remove it?"

"There are no curses that come out of thin air," Veratia thought for a moment, then said, "I think Voldemort must have placed the curse somewhere we don't know about..."

"So what do we do next?" Cassandra asked. "Are we just going to search aimlessly like headless flies?"

"We could go check out the Room of Requirement," Harry suggested. "I remember that after leaving Dumbledore's Headmaster's Office, Voldemort went to the Room of Requirement and put the Horcrux made from Ravenclaw's Diadem there?"

"Do you think he would place a curse on the Room of Requirement?" Veratia raised an eyebrow. "Unlikely. You just saw it yourself; Voldemort had already completed the curse on the position while he was talking to Dumbledore."

A silence fell between the three of them.

"Let's back out first," Harry suggested. "Let's talk to Professor Dumbledore first. I think... well, many hands make light work."

Veratia and Cassandra accepted his proposal, and the three of them withdrew from Voldemort's memory world.

Back in the room, Dumbledore approached and asked with concern, "How was it? Did you find anything?"

Harry plopped down on the sofa, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.

"It's almost certain that Voldemort placed Dark Magic Curse on this position during your job application process."

"What we need to do now is find the node of his curse," he continued.

"Over the years I have tried to break the curse of the Defense Against the Dark Arts, but without any leads," Dumbledore sighed. "I'll have to trouble you with this matter."

"Who told us to be your seniors?" Veratia said with a smile, stating a seemingly absurd but true truth.

The matter has to be put on hold for now. To find clues about the Dark Magic Curse, we need to go back to school.

In the next two days, Dumbledore and Veratia will be attending the International Confederation of Wizards Congress to discuss with some countries how to deal with Voldemort's crisis.

In fact, many countries' Ministry of Magic didn't take Voldemort seriously at all.

Not everyone experienced Voldemort's reign of terror like the Britain wizards. Most people just went about their lives as usual during that time. After all, no matter how arrogant the Death Eater were, they couldn't leave Britain to cause trouble in other countries.

They haven't even completely conquered Britain yet, and going to other countries is clearly just asking for trouble.

On August 3, the International Wizarding Congress officially convened in London.

Originally scheduled to be held in Stockholm, the venue was changed to London, Britain, because it was a discussion about Britain Dark Wizard.

At the International Wizarding Congress, the first thing to be proposed is to elect a new president.

The previous president Dumbledore, was expelled from the British Ministry of Magic, so the position of president was automatically cancelled and has been vacant for the past few months.

There were actually only a few people participating in the election. The conference adopted the principle of secret ballot, Dumbledore ultimately defeated Veratia by a narrow margin of 108 to 106, and was re-elected as the president of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Veratia was actually quite unhappy after receiving this result.

Before the meeting, she was confident of victory and believed that she was the obvious choice to President of the International Confederation of Wizards.

However, Dumbledore's victory dealt her a heavy blow.

"Young people shouldn't have it too easy," Gellert told Harry privately. "Young people who are too successful are prone to making a big mistake."

Harry discreetly recorded Gellert's words on his phone and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because that's who I am, Scarhead Veela." Gellert looked up at the sky at a 45-degree angle and said with a touch of melancholy, "But that's all in the past. We should learn from the past."

Wow...

For a moment, Harry even considered deleting the recording.

This Gellert... isn't entirely hopeless, is he?

See, you're acting impulsively again.

"And what about you? What lessons did you learn?" Harry asked.

"The lesson I learned is—" Gellert paused for a moment, then said, "If I could do it all over again, I would definitely keep my sister away from you, Scarhead Veela!"

Harry gritted his teeth inwardly.

He deleted the rest of the text, leaving only the part where Gellert commented on his sister's failure to be selected.

I hope the cockatoo is alright.

A day has passed since the president of the International Confederation of Wizards was elected.

After discussion, it was decided that how to deal with the Voldemort crisis will be discussed in detail tomorrow.

Veratia was clearly not in a good mood when she returned to Grimmauld Place, Number 12. She sat on the sofa, staring out the window, lost in thought.

Harry sat down beside her and took her hand in his. He didn't know what to say to comfort her, but he knew he needed to be there for her.

"So what if you didn't get elected? Grindelwald?" Cassandra stood to the side, arms crossed, and said with a look of disdain, "Look at you, anyone who didn't know better would think you'd never be elected in your life... Who are you trying to impress with this whiny attitude? We didn't come here to put up with your attitude!"

"It's not because I lost the election." Veratia glanced at Cassandra. You know how effective it is to talk about your rival. "It's just that I've realized some of my shortcomings, and I think I need to work on them."

Cassandra smirked and reached out to pull Harry up.

"Potter." She raised her head, her delicate chin facing Harry, her swan-like neck so white it made one want to bite it. "Let her have some peace and quiet. You come with me, I have something to tell you."

"What is it?" Harry didn't stand up; his bottom was heavy, and he remained seated on the sofa.

"That's an order!" Cassandra's face darkened. "Potter, come with me!"

Harry had no choice but to leave the Living Room with Cassandra.

As soon as he walked away, Gellert came up to him with a sheepish look on his face.

"I told you, Scarhead Veela are the most unreliable, weren't they, sister?" He began to sow discord between his sister and brother-in-law. "You didn't believe me before, thinking I was trying to drive a wedge between you—now you finally understand, don't you?"

Veratia didn't even look directly at her younger brother; she was just staring out the window, lost in thought about what had happened at the International Confederation of Wizards that day.

In Teacher Wang's words, "Teachers may not remember who gave them something, but they must remember who didn't."

Today at the International Confederation of Wizards, although it was a secret ballot, Veratia could still guess who voted for Dumbledore and who voted for her.

How exactly should she try to win them over? Veratia began to ponder. Was it because these people didn't like her political platform?

"Actually..."

Anne's voice suddenly rang out.

Veratia slowly shifted her gaze to Anne.

"I think there's a strong possibility that most people voted for Professor Dumbledore because of his age," Anne said boldly. "And Veratia, your disadvantage lies precisely in your age—you're just too young, which is a natural disadvantage."

As the saying goes, those involved are often confused, while bystanders see things clearly. After Anne explained it to Veratia, she finally understood what was going on.

(Although I drank a bit too much, I can't keep taking leave... so I rushed back early to write this.)

(End of this chapter)