Watching the fifty-year-old married man leave through the door with a reinvigorated and arrogant look, Verucca's lips couldn't help but curl into a mocking smile.
She hadn't expected her mission to go so smoothly this time. Robert Crouch was a simple and cowardly man, but that was precisely why she had chosen him as bait. Besides, he was the only one with access to the item she was ordered to tamper with.
"Did he agree, Verucca?"
Completely naked, she turned to the wall where there was a mirror. In the mirror, she found the reflection of a very handsome, dark-skinned man with deep brown eyes.
Even through the mirror, she could see the hidden lust in his gaze as he meticulously examined her body.
As always, men were simple.
Although Asterion seemed different in her eyes, she presumed the boy had not yet become a full-fledged man and had never slept with a woman. When he finally did become a man, he wouldn't look at her so coldly as before.
"My Lord." Without bothering to hide her nudity, she bowed elegantly, smiling with satisfaction upon seeing the lust in her superior's eyes.
"I have gained access to the Goblet of Fire."
The man in the mirror nodded, apparently very pleased with the successful completion of the mission. He himself hadn't expected the mission to go so smoothly, but it seemed he had overestimated the old men of the Hogwarts Council.
"You know what to do," he said before disappearing from the mirror.
Humming, Verucca walked over to a hanger, took a very thin, expensive red robe, and put it on. Looking at herself in the mirror, she walked towards the bathroom.
She was going to clean herself and wash away all the disgusting traces that old man had left on her body.
---
Asterion, unaware of the conspiracy creeping closer and of the many Lesser Noble Houses secretly rebelling due to their dissatisfaction with his rule, remained unperturbed.
It wasn't that he was unaware of the Noble Houses' discontent at being sidelined, but he didn't care. Even if ants banded together to kill an elephant, they would fail.
The reason was simple: the elephant would move when it felt threatened and would trample any ant in its path without caring or even noticing the ants it crushed.
At this moment, Asterion was outside with his friends under a tree. Daphne, as always, was by his side. Under the blanket they were all sitting on, there was a basket filled with various foods. They were obviously having a picnic.
"Lockhart is a joke. I heard the idiot released some magical creatures in the classroom, and those creatures even stole his wand," Theodore commented while eating a piece of toast, his voice tinged with amusement and disdain.
Even the usually quiet Blaise couldn't help but laugh at their friend's words. A light-hearted atmosphere hung in the air. However, Daphne's next words dampened the pleasant mood.
"Asterion, Grindelwald was seen on an island in Greece," Daphne said, catching everyone's attention.
"How did you find out about this?" Asterion asked, slightly surprised. He had estimated that the man would remain in hiding for a while longer before emerging to complete his plan. So, the revelation that he had been seen caught him off guard.
"One of our magical plant suppliers in Greece informed us," Daphne replied, handing over the letter that had arrived that morning.
Opening the letter, Asterion's eyes quickly scanned its contents.
It was as Daphne had said: Grindelwald had been seen on the island of Crete in Greece along with his acolytes. As for the reason for his visit, the letter did not specify.
Asterion narrowed his eyes. This letter was suspiciously credible at such a delicate time in the world. It was almost as if Grindelwald was intentionally shouting to the world where he was.
"Island, island, island," Asterion murmured to himself. Why Crete? It was a deserted island that survived on tourism; there was nothing interesting about the place.
"Huh?" Suddenly, he remembered something very important. Wasn't that body thief from Greece?
It would make sense for Grindelwald to visit Greece if he were meeting Herpo the Foul.
Imagining Herpo and Grindelwald together, plotting something sinister, made Asterion's eyebrows furrow deeply. Those two together meant trouble again. Herpo, in particular, was the most threatening in his opinion.
Someone who had lived for over two thousand years was not exactly simple. Asterion had seen that firsthand. Just the man's exquisite barrier techniques were dangerous, not to mention his accumulated knowledge.
Fiddling with his ring containing the Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows, Asterion fell silent in contemplation. Everyone around him remained quiet, not wanting to disturb his thoughts, seeing how focused he was.
But this silence was broken by Ophelia, who arrived with Ginny and Astoria.
"Who is Grindelwald?"
"Were you not paying attention in history class?" Astoria was at a loss for words at her friend's lack of knowledge and asked with a confused tone.
"I was asleep," Ophelia replied with a slightly embarrassed look. Classes were truly boring enough to make her fall asleep.
"Don't worry, everyone sleeps in that class," Tracey said with an amused smile, observing the three girls who had just arrived.
Watching his embarrassed cousin, Asterion, who had snapped out of his contemplative state, rolled his eyes.
"Grindelwald is a Dark Lord, a wizard society has classified as evil, not without reason. The man killed hundreds of thousands of Muggles and thousands of witches and wizards around the world. He was also the former lover of our dear Professor Dumbledore," Asterion calmly explained, swirling the purple liquid in a glass that Daphne had handed him.
Ophelia fell silent, stunned. Astoria was stunned too, as were everyone else, to be precise. They weren't surprised by the hundreds of thousands of deaths; they already knew about that. But Asterion's last piece of information was too shocking.
"Pff!" Tracey, who was drinking orange juice, spat it out while looking incredulously at Asterion.
"Holy shit!"
"Grindelwald and Dumbledore were what!?" She asked again, confirming if she had heard correctly as she wiped her mouth full of juice.
"They were indeed lovers," Asterion, indifferent to the shocking news he revealed, replied again with an air of nonchalance.
The news was so shocking to everyone that it felt like someone had cast a Full Body-Bind Curse on each of them.
Just imagining that Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore were lovers was so surreal that no one had ever imagined it.
"When Grindelwald came to England after being expelled from Durmstrang, he met a handsome young man named Albus, and they spent an entire summer locked in their room," Asterion said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
Tracey's mind was processing the information at lightning speed, weaving a plot of hatred, love, and betrayal almost instantly in her mind.
"This is plot for a book; I'll get rich if I write something like this," she murmured, looking at Asterion with increasingly bright eyes. She needed more information to complete her bestseller.
"This really surprises me," Blaise commented, still with a shocked look on his face. Just imagining such deadly enemies as lovers made anyone's mind reel.
Daphne nodded in agreement with Blaise's words; the news truly shocked everyone present.
"I advise not to spread this information; Dumbledore would not appreciate having his past discussed by others," Asterion warned everyone. He could even imagine Dumbledore wiping the minds of all the students who heard about his past relationship.
Everyone nodded and began to eat, enjoying the last moment before the Tournament officially began.
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New Novel: (I Am The Prince of Hell)
Next Chapter Second Volume: Chapter 126 - Ophelia, Narcissa And Andromeda (1), Chapter 127 - Ophelia, Narcissa And Andromeda (2), Chapter 128 - The Four Representatives of Hogwarts (1), Chapter 129 - The Four Representatives of Hogwarts (2), Chapter 130 - The Four Hogwarts Representatives (3), Chapter 131 - The First Trial (1), Chapter 132 - The First Trial (2), Chapter 133 - King's Game (1), Chapter 134 - King's Game (2), Chapter 135 - King's Game (3), Chapter 136 - King's Game (4), Chapter 137 - King's Game (5), Chapter 138 - King's Game (6), 139 - King's Game (7), 140 - King's Game (8), 141 - King's Game (9), 142 - King's Game (10), 143 - King's Game (11), 144 - King's Game (12).