After a long while, Serafina finally said slowly, "I wish I could tell you the whole truth, but unfortunately... I don't actually know the full picture myself."
Hawthorne could not help showing his disappointment—he had thought it was because Serafina did not yet trust him enough.
But then he heard the elderly woman say in a gentle yet heavy voice:
"Because the crucial clue came from a memory... but it is extremely unstable. Only one person can view it in its entirety, and once they do, it will completely shatter and can never be restored."
She closed her eyes slightly. "I did not think I was the right person to view that memory, because even if I knew what had happened, I would not have the ability to resolve it."
"And if I viewed it first before passing the memory on to someone else, I was afraid there might be losses and unconscious alterations along the way—"
"You know as well as I do that only memories from their original owner are the most complete and authentic! They can reveal not only what was seen and heard at the time, but also some... other things."
Hawthorne nodded slightly, unsurprised.
The Ministries of Magic of various countries rarely extracted prisoners' memories for trials, because there were simply too many ways to tamper with memories in the Wizarding World.
Serafina said, "So I decided to give that memory to someone truly capable of changing things... I had hoped Dumbledore would come."
"But unfortunately, because Voldemort was resurrected during the tournament, Dumbledore could not conveniently leave Britain. He could only entrust this matter to someone else."
For people like Serafina and Hawthorne, protecting their own memories and minds was an instinctive measure. As a result, they were barely affected by the magic Voldemort