Perhaps because it was their last meal before leaving school, breakfast was particularly rich, and the temptation of good food made them temporarily forget their troubles and concentrate on enjoying it.
When they had eaten their fill, an owl fluttered into the hall and landed on Ivan's shoulder.
Ivan removed the Daily Prophet from where it was tied at the owl's feet, opened it to check its contents, and sighed.
"Indeed!"
"What's the matter, Yvonne?" Hermione asked, leaning forward curiously to take a closer look.
Today's Daily Prophet only reports of Ivan winning the Triwizard Tournament, and it takes two pages to recount the highlights of the Triwizard Cup, with no further mention of Harry's capture.
The rioting at the school was fobbed off as negligence.
"I guess the Ministry doesn't go public about You-Know-Who…" Ivan said, looking disappointed as he tossed the paper aside.
"Does Minister Fudge still not want to believe that Lord Voldemort is back? There are so many witnesses!" Harry wondered why Fudge was so stubborn.
"It's not the first day you've met him," Ivan snapped. "That fool has always been a nuisance!"
Fudge's foolish and stubborn behaviour had taken a toll on Ivan's patience, and he would have kicked Fudge off the bench and replaced him with a reliable minister if he could…
Harry, thinking back to last year's incident with Sirius and his recent encounters with Fudge, no longer expected the Minister of Magic to come to his senses, and instead asked curiously,
"By the way, Ivan, don't you usually call yourself Voldemort? Why the sudden change to You-Know-Who these days?"
"He's got his powers back, so he needs to be careful," Ivan explained with a shrug.
"You're not afraid of him, are you?" Ron looked shocked, as if he had just been told that Merlin had climbed out of a coffin.
Harry and Hermione also looked at Ivan in confusion, as they did not think he would be afraid of Lord Voldemort, who had just injured him two days earlier.
"Of course I'm not afraid of him!" Ivan said with exasperation. "The point is that Tom put a spell on his name, and shouting his name might lead us straight back to him. I don't want any trouble."
This was the fate of the original Harry, who was hunted by Death Eaters and nearly killed.
Ivan wasn't sure if Lord Voldemort had ordered the Death Eaters to use this tracking spell, but it would be wise to be careful. After all, he was no match for Lord Voldemort…
Harry and Ron looked at each other. This was the first time they had heard of such a thing. No wonder not many people in the wizarding world dared to call out Voldemort's name.
"Ivan's right… it doesn't matter if you're at Hogwarts, the You-Know-Who doesn't dare come here, but if you're outside, you do have to keep an eye out and try not to shout Lord Voldemort's name. A lot of wizards lost out on this a decade ago!"
As they chatted, they heard a familiar voice.
"Sirius?!" Harry turned in surprise to see Sirius approaching from the other side of the hall.
"We didn't see you for two days. We thought you'd gone back," Harry said.
"That's because your Headmaster Dumbledore has asked me to do something for him these past two days…" Sirius sat down casually, grabbed a few pancakes, stuffed them into his mouth, and took a sip of his cold drink.
Harry and the others were curious as to what Dumbledore had in mind for him, but Sirius was apparently reluctant to talk about it, and simply brushed it off.
"Sirius? What about the Ministry? How did Professor Dumbledore get on with Fudge?" Ivan asked, getting down to business. He had not been part of the negotiations, and had only been able to guess.
'What else? A falling out, of course!' Sirius sighed, irritated at the memory of their argument the other night.
Fudge was more concerned with Dumbledore's actions than with You-Know-Who's resurrection, as he had gathered a large number of wizards and witches to act on his own accord without the Ministry's permission.
Because of this, they argued all night and nothing ever came of it…
After listening to Sirius's story, Ivan was left speechless. He had underestimated Fudge as much as he could, but he had not expected Fudge to repeatedly lower his standards.
All he could say was… it's very Fudge!
Harry and Hermione were equally disgusted, and Ron was cursing…
"And Winky? Did you look for her?" Harry asked eagerly, suddenly thinking of the house-elf he had seen in the graveyard.
"We've found it. As you might expect, the Death Eaters were in such a hurry to escape that they didn't have time to deal with a house-elf, so Professor Dumbledore rescued it. It's in the kitchen."
Sirius lamented that Winky was one of the perpetrators of Kreacher's persecution, and that she had been tasked with guarding Sirius under Lord Voldemort's orders.
However, when he saw that the other party was nearly killed by Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse, he did not bother to argue.
"Then let's go and see Winky before we leave!" Hermione suggested.
Neither Harry nor Ron had any objections, as Kreacher's death made them feel more kindly towards the house-elf community.
Yvonne nodded in agreement.
After breakfast, they went to the kitchen to check on Winky.
However, Ivan's intentions were not pure, and he found an excuse to get rid of Hermione and the others, and used Legilimency to search Winky's memories, successfully retrieving the majority of the surviving Death Eaters.
After all, the Death Eaters who attempted to return to Lord Voldemort's service that night all went to the graveyard, and each and every one of them appeared before Winky!
Harry also had this memory, but he could not use it on Harry directly, so he had to resort to using it on the house-elf.
Ivan closed his eyes and used Occlumency to organize his memory, fixing it on the faces, his face darkening as he muttered to himself.
"Damn it, it looks like I'll have to clean up Knockturn Alley when I get back!"