Chapter 697 Horace Slughorn
The village of Barberton may seem large, but it is actually not small at all. The group walked for more than ten minutes before Dumbledore finally stopped in front of a dilapidated house.
"Oh! God, God!" he exclaimed.
Kyle and Harry followed his gaze.
The first thing they saw was a carefully maintained path with neatly manicured gardens on both sides of the path, but what was incompatible with these was the house that looked like it had been blasted by a blasting spell.
The front door was reduced to a floor of broken wood, with only a small piece the size of a table left, hanging crookedly on the door frame.
Dumbledore looked around and whispered: "Kyle, Harry, pull out your wand and follow me."
He walked cautiously up the garden path, followed closely by Kyle and Harry.
Then Dumbledore pushed open the front door, wand in hand.
"Flashes of light."
The situation in the room was worse than outside. It was a mess. It seemed that everything had been turned out. A piano fell to the ground and the keys were scattered everywhere.
There were also broken vases, glass shards, and various mats and other things scattered everywhere on the ground.
In addition, there was a large blood stain on the wall that was dazzlingly red.
"Something terrible must have happened here," Dumbledore said softly.
But the nervousness in his tone had disappeared, and now it was a bit... well, artificial.
"Yes." Kyle nodded and said, "Harry, can you help move the piano to the armchair? I feel like there should be something underneath."
"Huh? Oh, okay."
Although Harry didn't understand why he put the piano on the sofa, since Kyle said so, he must have a reason.
So Harry obediently pointed his wand at the piano.
The piano slowly floated up, and then, under Harry's command, landed on the inverted armchair.
The next second, the armchair screamed, "Ouch, take it away!"
Harry was startled, his hand shook, the spell was interrupted, and the piano fell heavily.
The screams became louder, sounding like mandrakes that had just been pulled out.
Dumbledore waved his hand in time and moved the piano aside.
"Good evening, Horace." Dumbledore said with a smile, "It's okay with you."
Harry stared with dumbfounded eyes. In the blink of an eye, the armchair turned into a fat, bald old man squatting there.
He held his waist, narrowed one eye, and looked at Dumbledore with tears in his eyes.
"That's a piano, why didn't you stop them..." He struggled to get up, "Do you know how painful it was?"
"I'm sorry, Horace," Dumbledore said, "but it's not my fault. There are absolutely no flaws in your Transfiguration, and I didn't find any."
"Although you said that..." The fat old man glanced at Dumbledore angrily, but he didn't seem so angry anymore.
"Well, there's really nothing we can do about it. I should drink some Felixir in advance."
He sighed heavily, and the tips of his beard on both sides stood up.
"Want us to clean it up for you?" Dumbledore asked.
"Please, I really need to rest for a while."
Dumbledore smiled and nodded, "How about Kyle, Harry, leave it to you? Oh, I forgot to introduce you to you, this is my old colleague, Horace Slughorn."
"No problem, Professor," Kyle said, waving his wand.
The furniture jumped back to its original position one by one, the broken vases and glass returned to their original appearance in mid-air, and the keys on the ground returned to the piano...
On the other side, after Slughorn heard Dumbledore's words, the man suddenly stopped rubbing his waist and immediately looked at the two of them with his round eyes.
His eyes immediately fell on Harry's forehead and the lightning-shaped scar.
"Oh, could he just be..."
"Yes, Harry Potter." Dumbledore said with a smile, "There is another one you should have heard of, Kyle Chopper, the youngest recipient of the Order of Merlin, formerly a second class... "
"Wait, what does this mean? I haven't heard of a new first-class medal in the magic world recently."
"Oh, this is inside information. Connelly seems to be interested in boosting the morale of the wizarding world." Dumbledore said calmly, "Being the youngest recipient of a first-class medal is a good topic."
While they were talking, the whole room had become completely new, and even the blood stains on the wall had fallen into a small glass bottle.
Kyle looked at the bottle.
Well, the fire dragon's blood is stained with dust and is no longer suitable for brewing potions... What a pity.
Kyle slipped the bottle into his pocket.
"Oh, that's my last bottle." A trace of distress flashed in Slughorn's eyes, but he didn't care about it at the moment.
"Don't think you can convince me with this, Albus, I've said it many times before, the answer is no."
When he said this again, his eyes glanced at Kyle and Harry from time to time.
"Will he really get a first-class medal?"
"It's just that Connelly has this idea." Dumbledore said, "Okay, let's not talk about this anymore. Why don't you buy me a drink? Just think of it as a way to reminisce about the past."
"Just one drink, then," said Slughorn. He stood up, took a few glasses from the shelf, and poured a little more mead into them.
There was really only a little bit, probably just below the bottom of the glass. It was obvious that he wanted Dumbledore to finish the drink quickly and then leave.
Kyle and Harry also mixed in a glass. Of course, it wasn't much, maybe just a mouthful.
"Thank you." Dumbledore took the cup and didn't seem to mind at all. Instead, he took a sip happily. "It tastes really good. It doesn't look like a product from the Leaky Cauldron."
"Of course, this is the treasure of the oak barrel bar. It uses the honey of the Three-tailed Bee." Slughorn said proudly: "I stopped by when I went to Romania before and bought it from the boss at a big price. .”
Oak barrel bar?
Kyle always felt that the name sounded familiar, and then he suddenly remembered it after hearing about Romania.
The bar at the gathering place next to the Fire Dragon Sanctuary seems to be called this name... Strange, didn't Charlie say that their signature is brandy?
Kyle picked up the cup in confusion and took a sip, then put it back down.
Very good, now it is certain that Slughorn has been treated as a fat sheep.
He had drank honey from the Three-tailed Bee at Newt's place. Let's put it this way, there was no trace of that unique sweetness in this wine.
It’s not surprising that the oak barrel bar is operating normally... Chris was also tricked at first and bought two bottles of fake brandy, but later Charlie took it to exchange for two bottles of real brandy.
Kyle put the cup down silently without breaking it.
I don't know if it was because he had been tense these past few days. After taking a sip of wine, Kyle suddenly felt a little sleepy and sat there in a daze.
Not knowing how much time had passed, he suddenly heard someone calling his name.
"Kyle...Kyle..."
"Ah, what's wrong?" Kyle suddenly woke up and turned to look at Harry who was pushing him.
Dumbledore went somewhere, and there was only one person left next to him.
"Nothing." Harry said, "Mr. Slughorn just asked you which house you are in."
"Sorry, I didn't hear it." Kyle looked at Slughorn and said, "It's Hufflepuff."
"Oh, we are in the same house as your father." Slughorn didn't care, "But I like your mother better. She is smart, rational, and confident... She was the pride of the entire Slytherin at that time."
He took a sip of mead, as if falling into some kind of memory, "Of course, as a teacher, I shouldn't favor students, but I just prefer her.
"I still remember that in order to seek justice for your father, she sent a fifth-year student into the school hospital for a week, and then blocked him in the common room, scaring him so much that he didn't even dare to leave the dormitory.
"Such abominable behavior would have led to a detention, but I didn't do it. I just deducted ten points from her."
"Ah, please don't misunderstand me."
Slughorn quickly added: "I'm not encouraging you to violate school rules. The main reason is that there was a reason. The student said a very vicious curse word to her friend in front of her, and that word is absolutely not allowed to appear. In school.
"Your father wanted to reason with you, but he was ridiculed indiscriminately. To be honest, I still insist that he brought the consequences to himself."
"Of course, I still say that I don't encourage you to violate school rules."
Harry found that Slughorn had been looking at him intentionally or unintentionally while he was talking, and it seemed that this matter had something to do with him.
But just when he was about to ask, the other party directly changed the subject.
Probably feeling that it was not appropriate to discuss this topic with students, Slughorn stood up and said, "Come on, I'll show you my students."
He brought the two of them to a cabinet, pointed to some photo frames on it and said:
"These are, you'll see Barnabas Guffey, the editor of the Daily Prophet, who is always interested in hearing my opinions on current affairs...and your father, Kyle, who was He is also one of my favorite students, and I have always felt that he has all the qualities that a Hufflepuff should have... Oh, here he is."
Slughorn pointed to a photo frame, "Your mother was originally there, but then for some reason, she disappeared from the photo... You can definitely understand why, right?"
Kyle nodded.
It should be because Diana entered the Department of Mysteries, but he didn't know the more specific reason.
Slughorn introduced a few more names, basically all of them were well-known people in the wizarding world.
Kyle was looking at the picture and Harry was talking to Slughorn.
"I think that as long as Dumbledore is the principal, the school staff will be safer than most people. It is said that Voldemort will only be afraid of him..."
Harry suddenly shouted, startling Kyle.
Slughorn seemed to be thinking about his words.
"Speaking of safety..." Kyle walked over and asked softly: "Harry, do you know how Umbridge is doing?"
"I don't care what happens to her..." Harry said with a stiff neck, and sighed after a moment, "Well, I didn't expect someone like her to insist on opposing the Death Eaters, but the newspaper only said She was attacked, but what happened next, I don’t know.
"But I heard from Ron that St. Mungo's is now surrounded by Aurors, especially the ward where she is."
Slughorn fell silent again.
He must admit that this incident also touched him quite a bit. Umbridge was attacked by Death Eaters at St. Mungo's and under the eyes of so many wizards. What about him?
Since he has not joined the Death Eaters, he cannot be regarded as a friend by the Death Eaters. In this case, it may be safer to be next to Dumbledore...
Just as he was thinking about it, Dumbledore walked into the room just at this moment.
"You're back, Albus." Slughorn came back to his senses and said, "Why have you been gone for so long and you have a stomachache?"
"No, I looked through those Muggle magazines," Dumbledore said, "Okay, Harry, Kyle, we've been bothering Horace for a long time, it's time to leave."
"You're leaving?"
"Yes." Dumbledore said, "It's already very late now. Kyle has to go to work at the Ministry of Magic tomorrow morning. If it's any later, it may affect his rest."
"Wait, going to work at the Ministry of Magic?" Slughorn couldn't help but said, "So that's true, he was hired under unusual circumstances?"
"Of course." Dumbledore nodded, "Didn't you read the newspaper? He has been in the position of senior assistant minister for nearly half a year."
"Senior Assistant Minister who has not yet graduated..." Slughorn muttered to himself, his eyes flashing.
"Goodbye then." Dumbledore walked to the door. "Although it is a pity that I can't work with you again, you can always go back to Hogwarts to visit if you want."
"Goodbye," Harry said with a wave.
As soon as the three of them walked out of the room, they heard a shout from behind them.
"Okay, okay, I'll do it!"
Slughorn ran out breathless, "I must be crazy, but yes, I would like to go back to Hogwarts."
"That's great," Dumbledore said with a smile. "Well, Horace, we'll see you on September first."
"Okay, no problem." Slughorn muttered: "I'll ask for a raise..."
"Well, I'm sorry, it's not my fault." Dumbledore turned to look at Kyle, "In fact, someone can save me fifty Galleons a month with just one word."
"Really?" Slughorn's eyes brightened.
Although he didn't know what was going on, the principal's salary was deducted as often as he wanted, which meant that Kyle had real power and not just one position.
"It doesn't matter." He said with a smile, "It doesn't matter about the salary. I just...miss my old colleagues a little bit. How about Minerva and Filius."
"It's all good." Dumbledore said with a smile.
"Then we'll see you on September 1st." Slughorn said with a wave of his hand.
The three of them set foot on the path outside again.
"Professor Dumbledore..." Harry asked softly: "That Slughorn, why did you suddenly agree?"
"You should call him Professor Slughorn now." Dumbledore corrected: "I think he must have seen the benefits of returning to Hogwarts."
"benefit?"
"Yes, like you and Kyle."
Dumbledore continued: "Slughorn likes material comfort, and he also likes to make friends with famous, successful, and powerful people. But he is special. The people he makes friends with all come from his student days. Walk up.
"And he has a very unusual ability to always pick people who will succeed in all walks of life."
"That's it." Harry nodded, "No wonder Kyle agreed immediately after knowing that he was a senior assistant minister."
"You are one of the reasons for this," Dumbledore said. "The Boy-Who-Lived, or as the saying goes in the newspapers now, the Savior..."
Harry couldn't help but shudder when he heard this title. He didn't like this title, and he didn't feel like he had done anything.
It's just that someone translated what he said before about the mysterious man's comeback.
They walked a little further.
"Okay." Dumbledore stopped, turned around and said, "I may become very busy later. If you are in a hurry, Newt can find me."
Kyle nodded, "I understand."
"So, do you need me to send you back?"
Kyle could see that Dumbledore seemed to have something to say to Harry alone, so he shook his head.
"No, Professor, I can just go back by myself."
After that, he waved to the two of them and disappeared.
