Chapter 72 The Magical Cloak
After Lucius and the others left the school, Lockhart followed Dumbledore to his office.
Old Dumbledore sat behind his desk, turning a lighter-shaped magical gadget over in his hands, seemingly lost in thought.
Lockhart didn't disturb him, simply waiting quietly by the side, enjoying an ice cream waffle and an unknown fruit tea provided by the school's house-elves.
"You mentioned his Horcruxes to me last time…"
As soon as Dumbledore spoke, Lockhart was so startled that he almost spat out the ice cream in his mouth.
Old Dumbledore, are you trying to kill me!
Mentioning that in front of me.
Dumbledore smiled slightly at him. "I cast a charm on the office. Rest assured, as long as you don't actively mention him, he won't be able to sense you."
He watched with interest as Lockhart visibly relaxed before continuing, "I've been waiting for his reaction since then. I'm quite certain that he's now in a hurry to move all the hiding places of his Horcruxes."
"This is by no means a wise choice. Emergency transfers will only expose the existence of the Horcruxes."
"But he has no choice. He doesn't dare to gamble."
Lockhart knew about this. "Gringotts?"
Dumbledore nodded. "He's very cautious. The Death Eaters sent to move the Horcruxes don't know what they're specifically doing. That Death Eater was even under the Imperius Curse. We couldn't get any useful information from him when we caught him."
As he said this, a smile appeared on his face. "But at least I know that one Horcrux is in Gringotts!"
Narrowing the search area down to a specific building made things much easier.
He always had enough ways to find that Horcrux.
The only problem was that after he had sent two Death Eaters to Azkaban one after the other, too many eyes were watching him and the members of the Order of the Phoenix. It wasn't a good time to do anything else to provoke certain people.
"During the Christmas holidays, I will go with you to the Białowieża Forest to solve the orb fish farm problem. This is the perfect excuse, after all, it's for the students in the school…"
Lockhart understood. "And then you can quietly go to Gringotts to search?"
Dumbledore nodded. "Most wizards in this world believe that Gringotts is the safest place in the world. They put their most precious things there. If anyone knew that I could enter and leave there at will, it would only cause some unnecessary trouble."
A cover-up.
That was simple.
Lockhart agreed. "Don't worry, I'll have the Boggart turn into your appearance. No one will notice the problem."
"Boggart…"
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. Boggarts couldn't transform on their own. Clearly, Lockhart's words meant that someone's deepest fear was himself?
Was he that frightening?
Lockhart just smiled.
"A Confundus Charm will do the trick, no need for a Boggart!"
Dumbledore muttered, somewhat helplessly putting down the magical gadget in his hand. He grabbed a cockroach cluster from the nearby fruit bowl and threw it into his mouth, savoring it with narrowed eyes.
"But this is not just a cover-up. I hope the children in the school will not suffer injuries like young Goyle and young Crabbe again. I need those orb fish bone stones."
He looked at Lockhart. "As it happens, I know who cursed the Crabbe family's fish pond. I will write to her and ask her to lift the curse."
Lockhart exclaimed in surprise, "You know her?"
Dumbledore nodded, turning to rummage through a pile of snacks nearby. He pulled out a box of Chocolate Frogs, expertly raising his hand and opening his mouth wide.
The Chocolate Frog inside leaped out, landing right in his mouth, starting a fight with the cockroach cluster inside.
He squinted, savoring the unique taste, and pulled out the wizard card that came with the snack, handing it over.
Lockhart took it and looked. The card introduced a very unfamiliar wizard.
The name was interesting—"Invincible" Andros.
The celebrity introduction read: Born in Greece during the classical period, currently the only known wizard capable of conjuring a Patronus the size of a giant.
"He was only included in the Chocolate Frog wizard cards two years ago," Dumbledore explained. "His descendants went through a lot of connections for this. I helped a little with this matter."
This was no small help. Clearing the name of an ancestor was extremely important family honor in the eyes of many ancient pure-blood wizarding families.
Lockhart had thought this would be an adventure, but he hadn't expected old Dumbledore to have arranged everything already. He just had to go through the motions.
Even the outcome was arranged.
Young Goyle and young Crabbe would be healed, the students of Hogwarts would receive a batch of amulets, and Dumbledore's actions would have a cover.
And he would also gain a farm that could continuously produce high-quality amulets.
Emmm…
Well, he had originally been itching to try out his skills after digesting the "Forest Witch's" adventurous experiences, but he hadn't expected everything to be arranged already.
He had previously let the old Malfoy trio try out the new chapter of the children's upcoming adventure scene, "The Chamber of Secrets of Hogwarts." He had thought that these three Death Eaters, whose strength was quite good, would have a back-and-forth fight with the Chamber monster, and he had even planned to cast spells to help out.
Hmm, helping the Snidget( Little Goldie) and Boggart duo fight the old Malfoy trio.
He hadn't expected the old Malfoys to be so terrified by the Dark Lord that they just ran haphazardly instead of facing him bravely, leaving him with no sense of participation at all.
What could be done?
"Okay, I'll follow your arrangements," Lockhart agreed.
But apparently, fate was sometimes so mischievous. A few days later, Dumbledore came to his door again with a strange expression, quite helpless. "Plans always fail to keep up with changes."
The old witch who had cursed the Crabbe family's orb fish farm, a descendant of the ancient Greek wizard powerhouse "Invincible" Andros, had passed away peacefully in her sleep.
It was her youngest son who wrote the reply to Dumbledore. The letter mentioned that he and his brothers were organizing their mother's legendary life story. After receiving the letter, they had discussed this matter and all remembered their mother saying about this experience:
"I threw a magical cloak into their fish pond, and they could never find any orb fish again from then on."
Magical cloak?
Lockhart blinked. "Is it a type of Invisibility Cloak?"
Invisibility Cloaks, made from the hair of Demiguises, could make people invisible.
But there was a problem here. Unless it was the Invisibility Cloak, one of the three Deathly Hallows passed down through the Potter family, most Invisibility Cloaks on the market couldn't maintain invisibility for such a long time, decades.
The bigger problem was that although he didn't know how big the Crabbe family's fish pond was, it couldn't just be a small well opening. How big of an Invisibility Cloak would that require?
Even shearing all the Demiguises in the magical world might not be enough.
Such magical items couldn't be enlarged or reshaped with spells like the Engorgement Charm.
Dumbledore frowned and shook his head. "I'm not sure what it is either. The ancient Greek meaning of 'magical cloak' sometimes even refers to the name of a certain potion. I need to find someone else to confirm."
Potion?
Following this line of thought, Lockhart's eyes suddenly lit up. He quickly searched his memories. "Could it be a dark creature? You know, cloak-like dark creatures are rare, but there are actually many types!"
The most frequently mentioned cloak-like dark creature was the "Lethifold," a dark creature that looked very much like a cloak. It liked to be active at midnight, floating and moving close to the ground, covering wizards while they slept, and then digesting and devouring them.
This rare dark creature had a very consistent characteristic—they could all be repelled by the Patronus Charm!
Especially the Lethifold, the only known countermeasure against this magical creature was the Patronus Charm.
Patronus Charm…
This was a challenge for Lockhart.
The adventurous experiences of the Forest Witch he had digested didn't include the ability of this spell.
In other words, he had to learn it!
Or…
He could call on his apprentices.
Harry Potter, get to work!
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