The next day, Arthur arrived at the Malfoy Mansion as a guest
Lucius Malfoy and his whole family greeted him at the front gate.
"Mr. Gaunt, it is a great pleasure for me to see you. Thank you for helping Draco with his studies," Lucius said, making a noble gesture and expressing his warm welcome to Arthur.
Arthur replied with a proper greeting, and then the family went inside.
Along the way, Lucius kept showing Arthur the beautiful parts of his mansion and telling him stories about them, which made Arthur feel slightly awkward.
"What's wrong with your father?"
Arthur secretly asked Draco when he found a chance.
Draco forced a few bitter smiles, realizing that his father's behavior was too much. However, he didn't know how to explain it to Arthur.
In fact, Draco didn't understand what was going on with his father.
As a former loyal follower of Voldemort, Lucius knew that Voldemort hadn't truly been killed and would return one day.
Arthur was treated very nicely by Narcissa. Her thoughts weren't as difficult to understand as Lucius'.
She simply knew that Draco had become smarter and that his magic abilities had gotten a lot better since he had come back.
When she found out that Arthur was the one who made this change, she started to like him.
Arthur had lunch with the Malfoy family, who were very kind, and then he went into their library.
Lucius led Arthur to the third floor underground.
On the way, they went through layers of magical barriers and mechanisms before reaching their destination.
"This is the library for our family. Even though there aren't as many books here as at Hogwarts, I can guarantee that there are many rare editions that Hogwarts doesn't have."
Lucius proudly introduced the family's collection to Arthur.
For the next few days, Arthur spent most of his time in the library and rarely left.
Although the Malfoy library didn't have as many books as Hogwarts or the Nott family, as Lucius had mentioned, there were indeed many rare editions.
With the Ravenclaw diadem as his peak, Arthur rapidly read through these books.
Finally, a few days before the start of the new school year, he appeared from the library.
"You've finally come out, If you didn't come out, I was going to go in and drag you out," Draco Malfoy sighed with relief.
Arthur had instructed him not to disturb him unless it was necessary, but it was the last day, and Draco was getting anxious.
"Alright, it's just one more day until school starts. We still have time," Arthur replied to Draco, waving his hand. Standing in the sunlight, he felt a little bewildered.
After all, even though the library was bright, it didn't get direct sunlight.
He looked at the time and realized that it had been almost a week since he had seen the sun.
"I'll go now. See you at school," he said to Draco, who nodded in understanding.
Then, Arthur had a brief meeting with Lucius and Narcissa.
Before leaving, he left them with a deep word, "The diary you sold to Greengrass is one of Voldemort's Horcrux, Mr. Malfoy. Think about your actions carefully."
After hearing this, Lucius turned pale, and his lips trembled uncontrollably.
...
After leaving, Arthur quickly returned home.
This time, his discoveries far exceeded his imagination.
He found evidence of the existence of the underworld in this world.
It turned out that the Malfoy family had married a descendant of the Peverell family in the 17th century, specifically the third brother, who was the owner of the Cloak of Invisibility.
The descendant wrote in a book that only the Cloak of Invisibility could hide the presence of the living in the underworld. His ancestors used the cloak to hide from Death's detection and peacefully pass away.
The book also had details of the environment in the underworld.
Ordinary people might think this is just a weird notebook with writing that can't be trusted. But Arthur knew that Harry's Cloak of Invisibility could indeed hide the life force.
This means that some parts of the book were true.
But, for now, he could only get this much information.
Arthur decided that during the summer vacation, he would go to the Gaunt ancestral home and get his hands on the Resurrection Stone to see if the two Deathly Hallows could provide any new discoveries and collect one of Voldemort's Horcrux.
He had already instructed Alia to search for the exact address of the ancestral home, and he believed there would soon be news.
Setting aside his current tasks, Arthur entered the living room and saw a pile of packages that had collected like a small mountain.
He hadn't told his friends where he was, so Owls brought all of his Christmas gifts to his house.
First, he found the packages from his little girlfriends and started opening them one by one.
Cho had once again knitted him a scarf, and her skill seemed to have improved since last year.
Hermione's gift was in line with her character—a set of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," a thick stack of books that probably cost her a good amount of pocket money.
Fleur's gift was a bit puzzling. She had given him a strand of hair, which appeared to be her own.
Was she asking him to use her hair to make a wand?
Shaking his head, Arthur put the hair aside and opened his friends' gifts.
There was Harry's Quidditch model, the Weasley twins' prank products, and gifts from the professors...
After looking through them, Arthur carefully kept each one.
The gift he liked the most was Luna's.
She had given him a painting that portrayed Arthur, Luna, and Celestia, with the word "friend" spelled out using magical stars in the middle.
Arthur smiled when he saw it.
However, Astoria's gift was a bit frightening.
It seemed to be a chocolate cake she made herself.
Arthur took a bite and almost choked. He could guarantee that Astoria must have mistaken salt for sugar while making the cake.
The sour taste made Arthur silently mourn for Astoria's future husband...
...
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