The Mastermind Behind the Scenes

Meanwhile, in a cellar bearing the Flint family crest, Carbot Flint lightly tapped a stack of parchment with his wand.

"We need more... authentic medical records." His pale fingertips brushed over the image of Sagreles teaching inside the crystal ball. "Have Mrs. Nott tell everyone that her daughter's injured arm was scratched by the troll in class and diagnosed with permanent magical damage."

Another tall figure emerged from the shadows, his face coming into view. "Will that be enough to drive him out of Hogwarts?"

"This is only an excuse..." A trace of contempt flashed across Carbot's face, though the other man clearly didn't notice. "The Board of Governors can use it to pressure Dumbledore, and tomorrow I'll have the Daily Prophet publish calls to 'dismiss the dangerous individual.' Then we'll have members of the pure-blood families temporarily take their children out of Hogwarts..."

He paused and glanced at the other man. "Cornelius Fudge has already sent Dumbledore a letter. As long as we keep expanding the impact, driving him out of Hogwarts won't be difficult. And once he leaves Hogwarts, without Dumbledore's protection... Heh!"

"I hope it's as you say..." The figure stepped fully out of the shadows, his towering body leaning slightly forward as he said coldly to Carbot, "Otherwise, you'll pay the price for this!"

"Hmph, you'd better worry about yourselves!" Carbot paid no heed to the threat. "He may be a mudblood, but he's not easy to deal with..."

"That won't be your concern..." Another gray-haired woman emerged from the darkness. She pushed the tall man aside, then softly told Carbot, "You only need to do your own part..."

She gently ran a hand over Carbot's collar, but he calmly took a step back. The gray-haired woman's smile didn't fade, though a flicker of coldness passed through her eyes.

"So when do you plan to leave?" Carbot asked coldly.

"Until he leaves Hogwarts, I don't think any of us will be leaving."

"You mean you're going to stay at my estate the entire time?" He looked incredulous.

"Where else could we go?" the gray-haired woman answered with a smile.

Carbot's face darkened, but he suppressed his anger and turned to leave. "The moment he's expelled from Hogwarts, you must leave this place immediately!"

The man and woman slowly retreated into the shadows without replying.

Once he left the cellar, Carbot immediately stopped hiding the disgust on his face. He took out his wand and cast a Cleaning Charm on his collar, but apparently that wasn't enough, so he had a house-elf bring him a new coat.

"A bunch of filthy creatures..." he muttered continuously as he wrote to the editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet.

Inside the headmaster's office, Sagreles held a newspaper with a calm expression.

Dumbledore smiled and handed him a letter bearing the seal of the Ministry of Magic. "It seems we've fallen into new trouble again."

Sagreles didn't take the letter. He looked at the newspaper and silently noted the editor-in-chief's name—Barnabas Cuffe.

"The Board of Governors currently demands that all outdoor practical lessons be suspended..."

"Professor Dumbledore..." he calmly interrupted the old headmaster. "Since when did you start running errands for Fudge?"

"Sagreles, you can't be so harsh to an old man..."

Sagreles raised the newspaper in his hand. "Then you can't go looking for fault with me just because some dog decided to bite me!"

"I wasn't blaming you in any way," Dumbledore said with a smile.

"Then what's the point of me sitting here?"

Without waiting for Dumbledore's reply, Sagreles tossed the newspaper onto the desk. "Forget it. I'll handle it myself!"

"No, Sagreles..." Dumbledore sat up straight, his expression finally turning quite serious. "As headmaster, this is something I ought to handle... and right now, you need to calm down."

"I'm calmer than anyone." Sagreles rose calmly to his feet and looked down at Dumbledore. "You may not know this, but I cast spells on myself every day just to keep myself calm!"

"Even so, I still hope you'll leave this matter to me..." Dumbledore said earnestly, looking into his eyes.

"Professor Dumbledore, perhaps you have your own methods, but I didn't spend all these years painstakingly pursuing the true essence of magic just to play political games with others..." Sagreles tapped the letter and newspaper on the desk with a finger. "You should understand what I mean, but these people clearly don't. So I need to teach them a proper lesson."

With that, he ignored Dumbledore's attempt to continue speaking and turned to leave the office.

Sagreles' expression remained calm as he descended the spiral staircase, but inwardly, he was deeply displeased.

Back in Azkaban, they had promised him that as long as his teaching kept the students safe, he wouldn't be interfered with by those absurd review committees.

But things had only just begun, and Dumbledore had already thrown the problem at him.

If Dumbledore truly wanted to handle it himself, why call him here to discuss it? To test his attitude? Or ask for his opinion?

Perfect. He had a few minor grievances with those incompetent officials at the Ministry of Magic, so this time, he planned to teach them a lesson—make them instinctively run far away whenever they saw or heard his name in the future.

Sagreles recalled the exaggerated reports in the Daily Prophet and softly murmured the editor-in-chief's name. "Barnabas Cuffe..."

The next moment, his figure vanished into thin air.

Moonlight shattered into silver scales across the River Thames. As Sagreles stepped onto the marble stairs of the Daily Prophet headquarters, an intense wave of magic swept through the building.

The mahogany door to Barnabas Cuffe's office began to carbonize the instant it met Sagreles' gaze. When his fingertips traced the gilded inscription on the door—"Truth Above All"—a mocking smile crept onto his lips.

"Good evening, Mr. Cuffe." Sagreles casually greeted the editor-in-chief, who had his head buried in a pile of manuscripts.

Barnabas Cuffe looked up in confusion. He put on his glasses and looked at the visitor, only then noticing that everything around him had begun to turn to charcoal. The pile of documents in front of him had even burst into roaring flames, yet everyone inside the Daily Prophet seemed completely oblivious.

Everyone appeared to be busy with their own work, turning a blind eye to the bizarre scene.

As a wizard, Barnabas desperately wanted to use a Muggle phrase to express his feelings: This isn't scientific! Of course, it wasn't magical either! At least, he'd never heard of any spell capable of doing this.

"I suppose introductions can be skipped, seeing as all the reports about me were personally written by you..." Sagreles sat down directly in front of him.

"Still, I heard that you seem to have some... objections to my teaching methods."

Cold sweat instantly seeped down the back of his neck. Barnabas Cuffe shot to his feet from behind the desk, only to discover that the protective spells he had so carefully arranged were completely useless.

His first instinct was to flee, but he gave up immediately. Then he began shouting into the corridor, screaming madly for help. Next, he tried to placate the ill-intentioned Sagreles. Finally, he even attempted to draw his wand and resist, but his trembling hand couldn't cast a single effective spell.

Daily Prophet employees bustled back and forth outside the glass windows, yet not one of them noticed him. Everything felt like an absurd dream.