"Are the surviving Acolytes still thinking about a restoration?" Victor felt a sense of disbelief when he heard what Xenophilius said.
He knew that after the First Wizarding War, the Acolytes were largely wiped out, and their core power was almost completely annihilated.
So even if there were some who escaped, they couldn't stir up any trouble.
After so many years, without Grindelwald's leadership, had they been lurking and accumulating power this whole time?
But Xenophilius said he didn't know the answer to this question.
"I don't know if there are any Acolytes lurking and planning to do something unspeakable. After I graduated from Hogwarts, Pandora and I came to Ottery St. Catchpole. Dumbledore was the one who told me about the exiled Acolytes."
"What he didn't know, however, was that in Nurmengard, Grindelwald had already bestowed the title of Acolyte upon Pandora and me."
"Although I don't know why he would give such a title to two children, I have to say, his charisma was very powerful. Pandora and I were largely inspired by his magic…"
After bidding farewell to Xenophilius, Victor waved goodbye to Luna from her second-floor room.
Victor floated in the sky, looking thoughtfully at the Lovegoods' house below.
The revelation of Luna's father's identity was just a small interlude, because even knowing that Xenophilius was an Acolyte didn't mean much.
Perhaps if he had the chance, he could go and meet the man who once dominated the world.
When it came to the Acolytes, no one knew more than he did…
Three days after Victor and Luna returned from Ireland, the Quibbler published the news of the discovery of the Moon Frog, and Xenophilius surprisingly mentioned both of their names in the magazine.
The discovery of this new species, the Moon Frog, caused a sensation throughout the wizarding world in a short amount of time.
People talked and debated, and many Magizoologists and Potions Masters began to travel to Ireland to conduct research on the Moon Frogs.
Soon after, a Potions Master suddenly claimed that the Moon Frog's mucus and skin could be used to brew potions, but the specific effects and uses were temporarily unknown.
When Victor saw this news, he immediately felt that these Potions Masters were incompetent and full of vanity.
'Specific effects and uses are temporarily unknown' was a statement that meant nothing.
In the field of potions, any animal or plant has the potential to be a potion ingredient, especially frogs and rodents. Their teeth, skin, hair, and secretions account for a large proportion of potion ingredients.
As a magical creature in the frog family, it was almost 100% certain that the materials on a Moon Frog could be used as a potion ingredient. However, it would take a Potions Master a year or more to research and confirm its effects.
The reason these Potions Masters were scrambling to publish their opinions was nothing more than to ride the coattails of the hype so that they could get a certain amount of attention and gain fame and fortune when a potion brewed with Moon Frogs was eventually created.
However, this kind of routine operation was not surprising in the wizarding world, and no one would pay it any mind.
In fact, the people most affected by the discovery of the Moon Frog weren't the Magizoologists or Potions Masters, but Victor and Luna.
Victor, with the title of Ravenclaw's heir, was an obvious target.
This time, he made the front page, which immediately caught the attention of the Order of Merlin, who wanted to award him and Luna a Third Class Order of Merlin.
The Order of Merlin was an organization founded by the wizard Merlin in the Middle Ages.
Merlin believed that wizards should coexist peacefully with Muggles, so the Order established rules that forbade the use of magic on Muggles. To commemorate the famous wizard, the Wizengamot began awarding medals to wizards who made special contributions, under the name "Order of Merlin."
The Order of Merlin medal consists of a magnificent gold medal and a colored ribbon that indicates the class of the medal. There are three classes:
First Class: Awarded for "outstanding bravery or distinguished achievement in magic." The ribbon is green, which is said to represent Merlin's Hogwarts House, Slytherin.
Second Class: Awarded for "achievements or endeavors beyond the ordinary." The ribbon is purple.
Third Class: Awarded to individuals who have "contributed to our body of knowledge or entertainment." The ribbon is white.
Victor, of course, gladly accepted the expected honor. After all, he shouldn't refuse a medal that came with a 500 Galleon reward.
However, the most explosive news wasn't Victor and Luna receiving the Third Class Order of Merlin.
The day after they received the medal, Victor, without any warning, dropped three bombshells.
He had Rita Skeeter publish the story of him finding the legacy of Salazar Slytherin in Ireland in the Daily Prophet.
This move caused a massive uproar throughout the wizarding world because it was an announcement that Victor Dreyar was simultaneously the heir of both Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin.
But even with this, Victor didn't stop. He continued to drop another bombshell into the public opinion battlefield.
He began to create momentum by amplifying the news of Slytherin's legacy coming into the world.
First, he embellished and published Slytherin's true history, directly launching a fierce attack on the wizarding world's pure-blood ideology.
Second, he also released a new issue of the Tom Marvolo Riddle's Diary comic, which included how Tom rearranged the letters of his name to get the name Voldemort.
When these two pieces of news were published, they immediately caused an undercurrent in the entire wizarding world.
And at this very moment, in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts.
Dumbledore stood by his desk with a serious expression, lost in thought.
But it was clear to see that on his desk were the latest issues of the Quibbler, the Daily Prophet, and the Tom Marvolo Riddle's Diary comic.
It was obvious that he was worried about the series of bombshells that Victor had been dropping.
Victor's actions had completely exceeded everyone's expectations. He had never imagined that Victor would attack the pure-blood ideology with such speed and with an impact that went straight for the jugular.
What was even more troublesome was that Voldemort's parentage had also been publicly announced.
His name was supposed to be a taboo, but for some reason, Victor's incredible achievements had made many people automatically overlook the great terror that the Dark Lord had once brought.
In other words, at least for now, Victor's status in the wizarding world was higher than Voldemort's had been when he was a mere pretender.
At this moment, Dumbledore was thinking about what kind of situation Victor's sudden tidal wave would lead the entire wizarding world to.
Pure-blood ideology, in a nutshell, was a form of out-and-out racism. Its foundation was the misinterpreted statement from Salazar Slytherin, which was, "Only pure-blood wizards should be educated at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
But now, Victor had obtained Slytherin's legacy and published the true history, directly causing this ridiculous theory to crumble from its roots and turning Cantankerus Nott's Pure-Blood Directory, published in the 1930s, into a joke.
At the same time, the public revelation of Voldemort's parentage, the very personification of pure-blood ideology, was a heavy blow to the foundation of pure-blood supremacy.
Now, the two largest factions in the wizarding world were looking for Victor, but the person who started this maelstrom was strangely nowhere to be found.
The Ministry of Magic…
The current British Ministry of Magic was mostly run by politicians and few practical-minded people.
Regarding the uproar caused by Victor's series of actions, the Ministry had already used official power to try and eliminate the impact of the severe blow to pure-blood ideology for the sake of a supposedly "peaceful" life.
They were even secretly cheering and thinking of helping the pure-blood families restore their status.
However, reality was much more brutal than they had imagined…
Because when Fudge began to order the Ministry to take action, they suddenly found that they couldn't do anything.
For some reason, when Fudge asked to publish some important "articles," Barnabas Cuffe, the editor of the Daily Prophet, used an extremely diplomatic approach to send him away. This meant that the Ministry's usual mouthpiece had been silenced, unable to make any sounds that would be useful to the Ministry.
Furthermore, realizing that the Daily Prophet had lost its control, Fudge intended to turn his attention to the increasingly influential Quibbler.
But unfortunately, the Aurors sent to Ottery St. Catchpole strangely couldn't find the Lovegoods' house. This made Fudge, a politician who had been the Minister for over a decade, realize that Victor Dreyar, the heir of Ravenclaw, had, without him knowing, taken control of the entire wizarding world's public opinion.
And so, this morning, after trying every method with no success, Fudge rushed to Hogwarts, hoping to use his relationship with Dumbledore to talk to Victor directly.
But he didn't expect that Dumbledore wanted to know Victor's whereabouts even more than he did!
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