It Was Indeed Him

Chapter 48: It Was Him After All

"Charles, listen to me!"

In the abandoned classroom, Harry meticulously explained the Gringotts heist, the room guarded by the three-headed dog, his suspicions about Snape, and the question of who Nicolas Flamel was to Charles.

Charles pondered for a long time after listening, gaining a flash of inspiration.

If someone really threw Whomping Willow flies into the second greenhouse, they must have had a motive, otherwise, they wouldn't have risked expulsion to do it.

Starting from motive, the greenhouse only contained herbs for Hogwarts Herbology class and the plants he had cultivated himself. Currently, no one seemed to have a motive to damage the Herbology class, but to damage his own cultivated plants, the motive would be revenge.

Charles had spent last night filtering through everyone in Hogwarts who might have a grudge against him. Eleanor's suitors could be ruled out; they just saw him as a child. Snape had no deep-seated hatred for him, making it impossible for him to sabotage the Herbology class. Voldemort would only do such a thing if his head had been kicked by Hagrid. That left only one person.

He remembered Malfoy's inexplicable, provocative smile when he had just returned to the castle. Recalling it now, he might know what happened, and he had a motive for revenge.

Charles only suspected, lacking further evidence to confirm it, so he prepared the Truth Serum to be used once evidence was found.

Now, he decided, just as Harry and the others suspected Snape, to assume Malfoy was the culprit first and then look for clues.

Harry saw Charles deep in thought and assumed he was pondering what he had just said.

Unexpectedly, Charles said to him, "You guys look into this. I have something to attend to."

With that, he left the abandoned classroom without looking back, leaving the trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione looking at each other in bewilderment.

Malfoy had been knocked unconscious in the Quidditch stadium explosion today and was still hospitalized in the school infirmary. It was a good opportunity to act.

However, it was too late now. Dumbledore could go to the kitchens for his bedtime drink at any moment, and he would check on students who were hospitalized.

Charles checked the contents of his Bag of Holding and found that the Polyjuice Potion he bought in Knockturn Alley before the semester had been used up on Halloween night. To be absolutely safe, he had to find a new one.

"Polyjuice Potion?" Eleanor frowned, looking at Charles. "This potion... involves many issues. What do you need it for?"

Charles hesitated, then said very seriously, "I'm sorry, I can't tell you, but I promise I won't use it for anything bad."

What he was about to do was dangerous. If he were caught, he might end up in Azkaban, so he wanted to keep Eleanor out of it.

Eleanor looked into Charles's determined eyes and pointed to the shelf next to the laboratory. "There's a bottle of Draught of Living Death there."

Charles said, "Thank you."

After speaking, he put on a pair of gloves, walked to the shelf, found the bottles labeled Draught of Living Death and Polyjuice Potion, and then dripped two drops of Draught of Living Death into Eleanor's teapot.

Eleanor poured herself a cup of tea and smiled at Charles, saying, "The floor is very cold now."

After saying that, she drank the tea without hesitation.

Charles carried the sleeping Eleanor to her bed and settled her down. Then, he selected a hair from the ones he had prepared earlier to put into the Polyjuice Potion.

Just then, he hesitated. After thinking for a moment, he put the Polyjuice Potion into his Bag of Holding, swapped it for the old man's wand, put the Bag of Holding under the bed, put the Draught of Living Death in his pocket, took out the house-elf magic-infused insoles which served as a Portkey, adjusted the coordinates, and then walked out of the laboratory.

The castle was quiet at night, with only the sound of Filch's patrolling footsteps and Peeves' singing occasionally breaking the silence.

The school infirmary office was brightly lit, with shelves filled with all sorts of potion bottles. Madam Pomfrey was quietly reading a book, not noticing a drop of water silently flying into her teacup.

She yawned, picked up her teacup, and took a sip of the slightly cool black tea. Two seconds later, she slumped over the desk and fell asleep.

In the adjacent ward, a potion bottle appeared out of thin air. A drop of Draught of Living Death was dripped into the mouth of a sleeping student, who wouldn't wake up for a long time.

Malfoy was in the next bed. He already felt fine, but Madam Pomfrey insisted that he, like the person who had hit him, must stay for observation overnight.

He had already fallen asleep but suddenly felt a strange taste in his mouth and woke up.

"What's your name?"

The sudden voice startled Malfoy, but he found that the sheets wrapped his body tightly, making it impossible to move even his neck.

The voice seemed familiar, but its emotionless tone was terrifying and strange.

"Draco Malfoy."

Malfoy had been force-fed the Truth Serum and couldn't lie, but he could choose not to speak. However, the Malfoy family's long-standing prominence relied on knowing when to back down, so he answered every question.

The voice, as cold as liquid nitrogen, asked, "What bad things have you done recently?"

Malfoy immediately recounted the bad deeds he had done during this period, most of which involved bullying classmates.

"I hate Smith very much, so I bought a piece of wood with Whomping Willow flies and threw it into the greenhouse where he grows flowers..."

Charles heard what he wanted to know, but time was running out.

"Homenum Revelio!"

Dumbledore's voice echoed in the ward. Where there was nothing by Malfoy's bed, a blue figure appeared after the spell, followed by a figure in a Hogwarts uniform.

"Charles?"

Dumbledore was taken aback, not expecting it to be him, but the next moment he sternly asked, "Who are you?"

The person by the bedside looked identical to Charles, not just similar. However, their demeanor was completely different—cold and ruthless, reminding Dumbledore of Grindelwald and Voldemort.

Charles bowed to Dumbledore in a very old-fashioned manner, saying with some emotion, "Albus Dumbledore, long time no see. You've gotten old too."

Dumbledore's eyes fixed on the figure, and the Elder Wand was pointed at him. He asked again, in an even sterner voice, "Who are you?"

"Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place," Charles said slowly. "You can call me Steve Rogers."

"We should have met long ago, but the day I went to find you, you were in the barn. I didn't want to disturb you, so I planned to visit another day. Unexpectedly, I had more important tasks soon after, and we could only meet today."

Dumbledore's brow furrowed even more deeply. If the other party had brought up other matters, it would have been fine, but mentioning the barn and implying knowledge of what happened inside made it impossible to gauge the other party's true intentions.

Charles continued, "We respect you greatly and have no intention of becoming your enemy. Although our visit today was an intrusion, no one was harmed. My compensation will satisfy you."

"I'll ask Mr. Malfoy one question and then I'll leave. I suspect this is a question you also want answered."

Dumbledore's face darkened, and the tip of his wand glowed, but he cast no spell.

"Mr. Malfoy," Charles asked, "was it a blue cube that caused your house to explode? It looked like crystal, with a core emitting light outwards."

Malfoy immediately replied nervously, "No, I don't have anything like that at my house!"

At this point, Dumbledore asked, "Then what was it?"

He was puzzled by this person's origin. They seemed to belong to some organization, so whatever they were risking an invasion of Hogwarts to find must not be a simple item.

Charles replied, "I don't know. We wanted to invite you to research it that year, but just as I was preparing to visit you again, it was stolen. The last time it appeared was on June 30, 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia, and its whereabouts have been unknown since."

"We suspect it was created by wizards from another planet."

Without waiting for Dumbledore to say or do anything further, Charles said, "I must be going. I suggest you take a look at Advanced Dark Magic Revealed."

With that, he activated the shoe-inlet Portkey and vanished from the infirmary.

Dumbledore simply watched him leave, his brow deeply furrowed.

He went over to check on Malfoy and asked what had just happened.

Malfoy recounted everything truthfully, including the bad things he had done.

At this moment, Charles appeared in Eleanor's laboratory. He immediately went to the study, poured a cup of tea containing Draught of Living Death, and held it in his mouth. He casually dropped the teacup on the floor, then went to the bedroom, took off all his clothes and shoes, folded them neatly, and placed them at the foot of the bed. He put the old man's wand into the Bag of Holding and placed it on top of the clothes. He cast two cleaning spells on himself, and finally lay down beside Eleanor in a pose of bidding farewell to a deceased person before swallowing the tea.