Chapter 746: Imperius Curse

Slughorn wanted to conceal what happened today and pretend that nothing happened, but this was obviously impossible.

To a certain extent, the effect of the love potion is no different from that of the Imperius Curse. Both can make a person obey orders.

Even the risk of love drugs is smaller, because it has an antidote, so it is not illegal.

And Slughorn is a professor at Hogwarts. If he is manipulated into doing something, no one dares to imagine what will happen.

Therefore, after receiving the message from Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore rushed back to school that day.

At the same time, Kyle and Kangna were called to the school hospital again.

When they came to the courtyard, they also met Harry and Ron who had just come down from upstairs.

"What a coincidence." Harry said, "Dumbledore called you too?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Kyle said.

"So is the principal finally going to punish Romi Davanni?" Ron danced excitedly on the sidelines, "I went to see her today, and instead of apologizing, she even scolded me for stealing!"

Ron waved angrily, pulled a handful of branches from the bushes beside the yard, and threw them back as if they were all Romy Davanni.

Kyle glanced at him,

Thinking about it carefully, what the other party said is indeed not wrong. After all, her initial target was Harry, and Ron could be considered as ruining her good deeds?

Kyle always feels a little weird...

Several people quickly arrived at the school hospital.

The atmosphere here was very gloomy. Dumbledore stood there without saying a word, with no expression on his face.

Professor McGonagall and Snape were also there, and they were cooperating with Madam Pomfrey to check on Madam Rosmerta in the hospital bed.

Just like the two people in the morning, Ms. Rosmerta also fell into a coma. As for whether it was the effect of the coma spell, Kyle didn't know.

Harry and Ron were startled by the battle in front of them. When no one spoke, they shut their mouths and stood quietly.

Soon, a drunken Slughorn arrived.

"Albus..." Before anyone else arrived, a voice came from outside the door.

"I've already said that it was Rosmerta who gave me the love potion. If you have any questions, just ask her directly...!"

Slughorn walked in and was suddenly stunned. He also saw Ms. Rosmerta lying on the hospital bed, and was a little unresponsive for a moment.

"What... is going on?" He said subconsciously: "She must know that she can't escape, so she is just pretending..."

"So you are saying that in order to avoid punishment, she used the Imperius Curse on herself?" Snape stood up and said in a long voice: "With all due respect, this method is much more punishable than using a love potion. ”

"What did you say?" Slughorn trembled all over, half awake from the wine. "The Imperius Curse?"

"Yes." Snape said, "And according to our previous observations, she had been controlled by someone as early as three months ago."

"Three months...what's going on?" Slughorn asked doubtfully.

"That's what we want to know."

Dumbledore turned around and said calmly, but he did not look at Slughorn, but fell on Ron.

"Oh, Mr. Weasley, I just noticed you're here too."

"Yes, yes," Ron whispered.

"Exactly." Dumbledore looked at him, "Can you tell me what happened this morning? It's best to be specific and don't leave anything out."

"That's right..." Ron thought carefully about everything that happened that morning.

"While I was picking up presents, I accidentally mixed up a box under Harry's bed.

"In there was a chocolate cauldron for Romy Davanni to give to Harry, but I thought it was for me... No, I mean, I thought it was a gift from Harry, so I opened it. I took a bite.

"It turned out there was a love potion in it...and then I was sent here by Harry, that damn Romy Davanni!"

"No, Ron, we are going to Professor Slughorn's office first." Harry added next to him.

"Oh, yes, that's right."

…

Ron spoke intermittently, while Harry helped fill in the missing parts.

Dumbledore listened carefully, and until the two of them finished speaking, he nodded slightly and looked at Kyle and Connor.

"Is that so? You met on the eighth floor?"

"That's right," Kyle said, "We were going to a quiet place to brew the potion."

"Why don't you go to the underground classroom to brew the potion?" Snape suddenly asked, squinting his eyes and staring at Kyle with an unkind expression.

"There is a magical room there, which is much better than the dark environment of the underground classroom." Kyle shrugged, "Dumbledore should know."

I don't know if it was Kyle's misunderstanding, but he always felt that Snape's face looked uglier than before.

"That's right." Dumbledore said at the right time: "It's amazing. I dare say that ninety percent of the students don't know where it is. I didn't expect you to find it."

Snape seemed to accept this statement and stepped aside without speaking.

"Well, the matter is very clear, isn't it?" Dumbledore said, "Mr. Weasley's matter was just a misunderstanding and had nothing to do with Ms. Rosmerta. If it must be said, it happened to be at the same time. I just went through the same thing as Horace.”

"You can go back now." Dumbledore said with a smile, "The kitchen has prepared pepper fried pork chops today, you must not miss it."

Ron was about to leave immediately. The atmosphere here was too depressing, and he had wanted to leave a long time ago.

"Kyle, you have to wait a moment, I have something else to ask you." Dumbledore suddenly spoke up and stopped Kyle who was about to leave.

Kyle had no choice but to shrug at Connor and retreat back into the room, but Dumbledore had already looked at Slughorn at this time.

"Horace, can you tell us now?"

"What do you want to know?" Slughorn sat on the bed closest to him and asked, "First of all, I must say that I didn't know she was under the Imperius Curse, nor did I know what she was going to do to me."

"I think the person who wants to attack you is not Ms. Rosmerta, but the person behind her." Dumbledore said, "Do you think she has changed in any way recently?"

"Different from before?" Slughorn thought for a moment, "I haven't noticed it, but if I have to say it, it should be that she is too enthusiastic."

"Enthusiastic?"

"Yes." Slughorn said, "I remember it was the day before Christmas, and the drinks I prepared were a little insufficient, so I had to go to buy some temporarily.

"Even though there were many people in the store at that time, Rosmerta kept talking to me... She had never been so enthusiastic before.

"But I didn't think too much about it. I just thought she was interested in the ball I held. After all, there were many people that day, even the Minister of Magic. It was normal for her to be interested, right?"

"Cornelly Fudge?" Dumbledore frowned, "I don't remember him looking for me on Christmas Day."

"He didn't look for you, but for Kyle. I had previously released the news that Kyle would attend the ball." Slughorn said, "But then there were some changes. After learning that Kyle did not attend the ball, he left soon."

Seeing that everyone's eyes were focused on him, Kyle spread his hands, indicating that he knew nothing.

He was already in Nico's manor at that time, and he didn't know that Fudge had come to the school to find him.

But Dumbledore didn't care.

"So what did you talk about with Ms. Rosmerta?"

"Nothing." Slughorn thought for a while, "Just some candidates for the ball... Oh, by the way, before I left, she asked me what gift I was going to give you, and strongly recommended the aged mead in the store."

"But I remember that your gift to me was red currant rum." Dumbledore said.

"Yes, it was brought by the Minister, and it was also aged." Slughorn said, "So I told her that I had prepared a gift, but I could buy the bottle of mead myself."

"Is it the bottle in your office?" Professor McGonagall asked.

She remembered that Harry had said before that in addition to steak and preserves, there was also half a glass of mead in Slughorn's office.

"No, Minerva, the bottle of aged mead that Rosmerta mentioned was broken, just when she was about to give it to me." Slughorn said, "I felt sorry for a long time at that time."

"That's really a pity." Dumbledore raised his eyebrows and said.

But no one present was a fool, and they all knew what he meant.

It seemed that the other party wanted Slughorn to give the bottle of wine to Dumbledore as a Christmas gift.

And the bottle of wine should have something else in it, so after learning that Slughorn had prepared it in advance, in order not to be exposed in advance, he had to find a way to destroy it.

Snape sneered beside him.

Slughorn's face became even redder, but fortunately he drank a lot of wine in advance, so others couldn't tell.

"Then what happened later." Dumbledore didn't care, and continued to ask: "What about the love potion."

"It happened yesterday." Slughorn glanced at the bed not far away, "As usual, I asked her if she had any new aged mead.

Of course, there was definitely no one. Just when I was about to leave, she suddenly gave me a portion of pineapple candied fruit, saying it was a new dessert.

"Because I said before that my favorite is mead with pineapple candied fruit, I thought she accepted my suggestion. "

Then there was a long silence.

Dumbledore lowered his head, not knowing what he was thinking.

Snape's mouth moved, and finally he couldn't help but asked, "Didn't you notice that the color of the candied fruit was wrong?"

"You don't understand, Severus." Slughorn stammered, "Because everyone's method of making it is different, the color of the candied fruit will also be different, which is normal."

Snape really didn't know what to say, so he could only sneer again and turn his head away from him.

I don't know when it started, and it gradually became gloomy outside. It was raining, and the rain hit the window, making a crackling sound.

"Albus, do you know who did this?" Professor McGonagall walked up and asked.

"I'll find him." Dumbledore said softly, and he looked at Kyle again, "When you went to the Three Broomsticks last time, did you notice that Ms. Rosmerta was different from usual?"

"It's normal, there's no strange behavior... at least that's what I saw." Kyle said, "Or you can ask other people, such as Ron, who prefers to stare at Ms. Rosmerta instead of his own wine glass."

Unless someone is arranged to do something special, such as delivering preserves to Slughorn this time, it is impossible to tell from the outside that someone is under the Imperius Curse.

This is why more than a decade ago, so many Death Eaters chose to use the Imperius Curse as an excuse to escape the Ministry of Magic's scrutiny, because as long as they do a little trick, even the Aurors can't see it at all.

"Why don't you ask Rosmerta herself?" Slughorn asked doubtfully, "I think she should know who asked her to do this."

"In fact, we have already asked." Dumbledore said, "She knows nothing, the man has never shown up, and when we were about to ask in detail, she fainted because of weakness."

"So... okay..."

For a moment, the room fell silent again.

The rain was getting heavier, and Ms. Rosmerta was sent to St. Mungo's because she was worried that she would be seen by students and cause unnecessary trouble.

Snape also left. Dumbledore wanted to call him, but he turned a deaf ear and disappeared into the corridor not far away.

"Didn't he hear it just now?" Kyle looked at the direction where Snape disappeared and asked tentatively.

Snape who went against the headmaster... this is really rare.

"No, he heard it." Dumbledore said with a complicated look, "It's just that we have disagreements on some things. If it weren't for the seriousness of this matter, he wouldn't even show up where I am..."

"Disagreements?" Kyle muttered in a low voice, but after noticing Dumbledore's increasingly complicated expression, he wisely didn't ask.

The two returned to the headmaster's office.

Dumbledore waved his hand, and a steaming fried pork chop, a few slices of toast and a bowl of corn soup immediately appeared on the table, obviously prepared for Kyle.

Kyle didn't hesitate to sit down and eat a bite of fried pork chop, then raised his head and asked: "The person who used the Imperius Curse on Ms. Rosmerta should be Malfoy."

"I think so." Dumbledore said, "Only students of Hogwarts can make the shopkeepers relax their vigilance."

"So, his target this time has changed to you?"

"I am very happy that he can do this." Dumbledore said, and he didn't seem to mind that someone wanted to deal with him at all.

"But Mr. Malfoy seems to have made a mistake." He continued: "Horace is reluctant to give a bottle of aged mead to others, and he gave me red currant rum because he didn't like it."

"That's true." Kyle nodded and continued to eat fried pork chop, thinking about everything that happened before.

It is not difficult to know from the existing information that Malfoy wanted to attack Dumbledore at first. He used the Imperius Curse to control Ms. Rosmerta and let her sell a bottle of special mead to Slughorn, who then gave it to Dumbledore.

It must be said that his plan was very good, and no one would suspect him. The only thing was that he didn't expect Slughorn to have prepared a gift in advance... The bottle of red currant rum sent by Fudge was also the most suitable gift.

The plan didn't work, so he could only think of other ways.

So there was what happened this morning.

"He probably wanted Horace to assassinate me in the castle." Dumbledore said calmly: "As a professor and my old colleague, if Horace really wants to do this, there are still many opportunities."

Kyle glanced at Dumbledore and didn't quite agree with this statement.

Dumbledore has hardly been in school recently, and it's hard to see him, let alone kill him.

There is still a possibility that he is dealing with himself.

Kyle narrowed his eyes, as if there is such a possibility.

"Perhaps in Mr. Malfoy's opinion, I am much easier to deal with than you." Dumbledore suddenly said aloud, and at the same time brought Kyle back to his senses.

Dumbledore poured himself a cup of black tea. "But I have to say, he made a mistake."

"Let Slughorn drink the love potion in school?" Kyle asked.

"No." Dumbledore shook his head, "He chose the wrong person.

"Although Horace is not good at fighting, he is also a master of potions. The love potion can work in a short period of time, but it can't control him all the time. It can only be an hour at most."

Dumbledore gave a relatively conservative time.

Kyle did not doubt this.

"What should we do next?" He asked, "We can't let him do this all the time."

Dumbledore did not answer, but looked up at the portrait on the wall.

"So far, there has been no change in the map." A witch said, "We have been watching."

"It seems that he is not ready to act immediately." Dumbledore whispered. "Hasn't he found another disappearing cabinet?"

"No, he has found it." Kyle said, "During the Christmas holiday, the house elf who was responsible for helping in Weasley's Joke Shop saw Malfoy go to Knockturn Alley.

"I also stopped by on the day I came back from Nico Manor. It's in Borgin and Burke's. I saw it. No matter the size or the patterns on it, it's exactly the same as the one in school."

Dumbledore's eyes lit up.

"This is really good news." He stood up and said, "You always bring me different surprises, but why did you tell me so late?"

"Professor, have you forgotten that I came to see you after the holiday?" Kyle said slowly, "And twice!"

"There is no way, there are always emergencies." Dumbledore looked a little embarrassed and hurriedly changed the subject, saying, "Okay, Kyle, go back first, I need to think about this matter carefully."