Following the question from that cold voice, the room fell into silence for a moment.
Frank put his right ear against the door to hear better.
"...Don't worry, Master. I will kill him with my own hands, if he doesn't know what to do."
After a moment of silence, the man named Barty Crouch replied coldly, with a chill in his voice.
"Very good, of course I believe you can do this... But, what I mean is, it's better to catch him if you can - compared to a useless corpse, a living senior official of the Ministry of Magic is obviously
More useful, isn't it? He can do so many things."
Frank's expression gradually became solemn, and he accurately heard the words "Ministry of Magic", "corpse" and "official".
Maybe there were some secret words that he didn't understand, but based on Frank's experience, it was clear that the people in the room were extremely dangerous.
If there wasn't a clumsy play being rehearsed there, then he might have just bumped into the scene where a group of criminals were planning to kill. Frank clutched his crutches tightly, held his breath, and listened more intently to the conversations coming from the other side of the wooden door.
.
"Are you planning to use the Imperius Curse to control him?" Barty Cratchit asked softly.
"That is of course the first choice, but if he is too stubborn..."
The cold and sharp voice laughed softly, and Frank felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up one by one.
"The Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the former Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he has too many secrets waiting to be discovered. And when he loses his function, his body will become the most wonderful warning. A warning to those who are heartbroken.
You lucky guy, it is such a stupid thing to go against the Dark Lord. I will give this honor to you, just like I personally killed my stupid and filthy Muggle father decades ago..."
Etc., etc--
It was as if a tight string suddenly broke in Frank's mind.
Barty Crouch...the master...Tom Riddle...killed his father...decades ago...
He suddenly remembered the only person he had seen near the Riddle House on the day the Riddle family died.
It was a teenage boy he didn't know. The boy had black hair and a pale face. Others in the village said they had never seen such a boy, so the police unanimously concluded that Frank had made it up out of thin air, but he knew
, he did see the mysterious boy...
Speaking of which, decades ago, long before the Riddle family died, a shocking scandal occurred in Little Hangleton Village!
The son of a squire in Little Hangleton village eloped and got married to Merope, the daughter of a homeless man. At first, the news shocked all the villagers of Little Hangleton, but a few months later, Tom Riddle returned to
Riddle House, but without his wife.
Rumors abound that Tom Riddle insisted that he had been "cheated" and "blinded."
At that time, the villagers were speculating whether Merope had lied to Tom Riddle and pretended that she was pregnant with his child, forcing him to marry her. Unfortunately, the woman never returned to Little Hange.
Suddenly, people can't find more people to ask.
But if...if...
The woman named Merope was not lying, or she was pregnant with a child during those months.
By the way, that homeless man, what is the name of Merope's father?
Frank searched hard through the dusty memories.
Marvol Gondor? Or Marvol Gaunt?
Wait a minute, that boy Rhodes, how did he pronounce the name of the owner of the house he saw?
"...Tom Marvolo Riddle." Sheriff Rod's somewhat nervous voice sounded in Frank's mind at the right time.
On the steps outside, Frank suddenly realized that his hand holding the crutch was soaked with sweat.
It was obvious that the man with a sharp, cold voice, the man whom Barty Crouch called his master, was probably the black-haired boy he saw beside the Riddle Mansion, the one who was abandoned by old Tom Riddle.
The child - he killed the elder Riddle decades ago. After disappearing for many years, the young Riddle, who had turned into a criminal leader, was planning another horrific murder in front of his eyes.
Frank knew what he had to do. It was time to call the police.
He wanted to sneak out of the old house and go straight to the phone booth in the village, or he could take a picture of the door panel of Rhodes' house.
But the voice that seemed to be "Little Tom Riddle" started speaking again.
Frank stayed where he was, as if frozen, trying to concentrate and listen.
"It's almost time... You can go to the Ministry of Magic... Except for Old Crouch, all those who resist will be killed directly. Of course, the most important ones are the prophecy ball and files. If you can't take them away, destroy them all -
I still have many servants who are well hidden, and some are still waiting for me to save them. Go ahead and teach the Ministry of Magic a lesson first, and then...it's the turn of that old guy Dumbledore..."
Frank's heart suddenly sank, and the crutch in his hand was about to break, just like when he held the rifle on the battlefield.
The criminals are about to take action, they are about to come out!
There is only one road leading to the main road outside the Riddle House. No matter whether those guys leave through the front door or the back door, he will definitely not be able to outrun those with good legs with a bad leg. Beads of sweat began to appear on Frank's forehead.
The hand holding the cane was shaking.
boom!
boom!
boom!
At this moment, a series of sounds like coarse salt being sprinkled on a fire suddenly came from the room.
Frank was horrified to find that the orange firelight lingering around the house turned into a strange green in an instant.
At least a dozen, oh, more than one, maybe more whispers sounded from various locations in Riddle House - all of them happened to be where fireplaces were built - whether it was a "fake fireplace" or a real fireplace - the room quickly
After quieting down, Frank suddenly had a strange idea, a ridiculous idea... Those people can leave through the flames in the fireplace, maybe this is also the way they came?
Frank didn't understand what was going on.
He knew it was all crazy, but there seemed to be no other explanation.
Frank tried hard to suppress the fear in his heart, carefully moved his legs, and walked back to the front door along the original path.
No one chased him out, but the fire in the Riddle Mansion had not extinguished, but the green fire was gradually dissipating into orange. He could vaguely see a figure shaking by the window. The criminals gathered there were obviously
Not all left.
Although his whole body was shaking violently, Frank still clutched his crutches and limped along the mountain road toward the center of Little Hangleton Village.
For decades, the label of "murderer" was like a scar that never healed, tormenting him every moment.
He had no longer even expected to be cleared of suspicion. Until tonight, what he heard... If his guess was correct, and if the police acted quickly enough, maybe he would have a chance to clear his mind before he lay in the coffin.
Get rid of the stain that tortured him for the rest of his life.
…………
"The old Muggle has left..."
In the distance, on the second floor of Riddle House that Old Frank couldn't see.
A middle-aged wizard removed his finger from the blinds and his voice returned to its original state.
"Well, fortunately, he didn't choose to break in just now——"
Frank shrugged, breathed a sigh of relief, and looked curiously at the wizard standing by the window.
"So, that voice just now...is the voice of your British Dark Lord? It sounds really uncomfortable -"
As the wizard responsible for guarding and maintaining the scene, after activating the portkey teleportation point and lighting the fireplace, his remaining job is to sit quietly in the corner and enjoy the "drama performance", and if necessary, cast the forgetting spell or other spells to avoid
An unexpected break-up occurs.
"Well, it's almost the same... I also imitated the scenes in the memory material——"
The middle-aged wizard spread his hands and said with some uncertainty, "Anyway, there is such a thick door and so many years have passed, so it doesn't matter if it is slightly different. After all, the Dark Lord can't jump out and deny it.
, right? In addition, I am not British, I just studied at Hogwarts. I was born in Vienna, and my mother is British, so I have a little talent in language."
"I still don't understand, well, I'm not discriminating against Muggles, I just think..."
Frank glanced at the dancing orange fire in the fireplace on the other side of the room to make sure his verbose uncle hadn't emerged from it.
"That's just an ordinary Muggle old man. Even the Muggle police may not care about what he says. We solemnly weave scenes and dialogues like this, but it always feels like we are doing something useless. No matter how you think about it,
, what a Muggle old man overheard is too unconvincing in the wizarding world! If you want to mislead the British Ministry of Magic, wouldn't it be more convincing to choose a wizard?"
"Can I understand that you are questioning Miss Fool's decision, or..."
The middle-aged wizard raised his left eyebrow, rubbed his wand and said softly, "Do you think these things insult your talent?"
"I'm not, I, I just-" Frank explained anxiously.
Ever since he carried out the "invitation" mission in the former Soviet Union, he subconsciously wanted to understand the purpose of the mission. According to Mr. Alexei's words, when people live in the world, understanding why they do something is better than
It is more important to figure out how to do something.
If he doesn't want to be a screw all his life, then he must try his best to understand the value of his task.
"It's very simple, because when people judge whether an information is credible or not, the primary point is not the source of the information."
At this moment, a girl's voice sounded, like a wind chime blown by the forest wind, interrupting Frank's words.
The two wizards in the room turned around and saw "Miss Fool" gently opening the door and walking in.
As if a young queen had come to her territory, the girl's eyes slowly swept across the room, and finally landed on Frank's anxious face.
"What they want to believe is the most important thing. People are always arrogant and conceited. To a certain extent, the testimony of Mr. Frank Bryce is even more powerful than that of Albus Dumbledore."
——After all...he doesn't even understand what a 'Muggle' is."
"Miss Fool's" lake-blue eyes were as charming and alluring as before, but the tone on her lips was full of arrogance and coldness.
"From now on, try to move through the Floo network every three minutes to confirm that the fireplace network is closed - destination, the British Ministry of Magic. Once you successfully arrive at the Ministry of Magic, it means that the 'Dark Wizard' who invaded the Ministry of Magic has arrived.