"This Professor Lockhart... putting everything else aside, his Memory Charm is truly impressive." Allen silently admired him, quickening his pace even further.
He was actually a little nervous when he released the Memory Charm just now.
Although Lockhart's Memory Charm was powerful, he wasn't sure if the other side had any additional anti-oblivion measures when faced with such a complex situation involving transnational forces.
But it was clear that the other party was completely unprepared. After all, Allen's appearance was extremely abrupt, and it was a rainy night. He only instinctively wanted to go forward and ask, but he didn't expect to be ambushed by Allen.
Allen continued walking forward, and he noticed a figure looking out through the glass from behind the window of the used bookstore on the street corner.
The man's gaze seemed to be scanning the entire street, but he clearly didn't notice anything unusual about Allen.
Allen's Memory Charm was extremely precise, erasing only the Auror's memory of "a man in a black trench coat with a black umbrella passing by him."
Nothing else was moved; the Auror couldn't even remember why he was standing in front of the barbershop.
The rain pounded against Allen's umbrella, making a dense, thumping sound.
On the BT Tower in West End of London, a figure stands on the edge of the maintenance platform at the top of the tower, getting soaked in the heavy rain, looking down at the entire West End from a high vantage point.
The silver disc in his hand was soaked by the rain, but he didn't care. He still held the disc in his hand, his gaze sweeping over the streets shrouded in rain.
He saw the two moving umbrellas pass each other on Baker Street.
From his perspective, the rain was so heavy that everything on the street was compressed into blurry patches of color and outlines.
He saw two black umbrellas close together on a gray street, then they separated and continued moving in different directions.
He couldn't see who was under the umbrella, what they looked like, or what they were doing. He couldn't even be sure if there had been any contact between the two umbrella canopies.
But what he could see was that the Auror in the gray coat neither stopped nor made any attempt to intercept him.
He slowly nodded, categorizing the image as "normal".
One person on a rainy day brushes past another on a rainy day; this happens every minute.
He shifted his gaze from Baker Street and scanned the other streets.
After all, while Allen is most likely to appear on Baker Street, he could also appear in other parts of the West End.
He must not let his guard down.
Allen had already passed the corner at the end of Baker Street.
His boots splashed through a puddle, leaving a small spray. The hem of his trench coat was half wet, but the fabric didn't absorb water at all; the water droplets rolled off the surface of the fabric like dewdrops on a lotus leaf.
He quickened his pace. The brick walls on both sides of the alley looked tall and dark in the rain. Several old clothes hung on the clothesline overhead, stuck to the walls by the rain.
He folded up the large black umbrella, using the tip as a walking stick, and looked up at the sky as he walked. The rain showed no sign of stopping, but the wind had subsided a bit.
His plan was gradually taking shape.
How do we get the message to the Muggle government?
Going directly to 10 Downing Street and knocking on the door won't work; the doorman will just think he's a crazy person who got lost in the rain.
Should we write an anonymous letter and send it through normal channels?
That's too slow, and the flow of letters is unpredictable. If an inefficient clerk accidentally puts it under the desk and it takes three days to find it, by then it's too late.
Allen suddenly paused, remembering something—a newspaper supplement he had casually flipped through while writing the second book.
The supplement contained a very short news item, about the size of a small block of paper, about how the Muggle Prime Minister had mentioned the "phenomenal success of contemporary Great Britain publishing" in a public speech a few months earlier, and specifically named the Harry Potter series.
When Allen first saw that passage, he just found it amusing and didn't think about it too deeply.
But now, standing in the rain, propelled by Lucius's cunning, he suddenly realized the meaning behind that speech.
The Muggle Prime Minister wasn't just mentioning it casually; he was using that book to build his political capital.
Great Britain's economic situation at the time was not optimistic, and creating a global cultural craze would be a ready-made bargaining chip to boost public opinion for any prime minister.
"So..." Allen stood in the rain, looking at the streetlamp at the alley entrance blurred by the raindrops, and murmured to himself, "This Prime Minister needs this book more than I thought."
He didn't need to go to any high-ranking government officials, nor did he need to use any secret channels.
He only needed to let the Prime Minister know one thing: someone was targeting the author of the book, and those people were armed forces from outside Great Britain who had infiltrated London without prior notice.
Allen doesn't need to say this himself; he just needs to create a clear enough signal for the Muggle government's own intelligence system to discover it on its own.
Allen's eyes lit up again. He opened his wet umbrella again and turned to walk towards the other end of the alley.
"Then let's make some... noise."
Going directly to the Prime Minister's official residence would be too risky.
There must be plenty of plainclothes security personnel around 10 Downing Street. For a stranger like him to approach the official residence on such a stormy night, just appearing on the street corner would be enough to attract attention.
But what he needed to do was actually quite simple: he just needed to let the Muggle government know that foreign armed forces had infiltrated London.
The question then becomes: how to get this message into the ears of the Muggle government with minimal disturbance?
He couldn't just stand at the entrance of Downing Street shouting, "The international wizards are here to arrest me!" He'd just be mistaken for a madman and taken away.
He needed to create a scenario where those in charge of security would draw their own conclusions.
People are more willing to believe what they speculate, and once they reach their own conclusions, they are likely to believe them wholeheartedly.
Allen hesitated for a moment, then decided to teach the International Confederation of Wizards a lesson.
So many people ganged up on him; if he hadn't just happened to draw Lucius's political maneuvering ability, he wouldn't have been able to break the deadlock at all.
So, it's time to make a big splash.
Doesn't the International Confederation of Wizards want magic to remain unknown to the Muggle world?
So he did the opposite, not caring what would happen next, since it was the International Confederation of Wizards that came to arrest him first.
In the blink of an eye, a plan that was simple to the extreme yet flawless emerged in Allen's mind.
A slight smile played on his lips as he walked towards one end of Baker Street, holding his umbrella.