"Calm down. Beating up the Minister for Magic is against the law." Rhys tugged on Helga's sleeve.
"You're actually willing to obey the law?" Hufflepuff gave her old friend a look as if he were some strange creature. "If people from back then heard you say this, their eyes would probably pop out of their sockets!"
"It's not about obeying the law—it's about respecting the rules. Times have changed. We have to learn to adapt to the modern world, not rely on our seniority to do as we please and cause trouble for the children." Rhys said solemnly.
He had always considered himself a man of principle.
"It's clearly the juniors who keep causing us trouble…" Helga muttered. Seeing Salazar hesitate as if he wanted to speak, she added, "Don't worry. I'm not like Godric. I still want to continue teaching here and try to break that ridiculous curse. I won't use my true identity to lecture that man."
Having reached an understanding, Helga and Rhys both released ripples of magical energy from their bodies.
Meanwhile, Fudge was discussing with Dumbledore the possibility of digging the Dementors out from the bottom of the lake.
"But we're talking about a hundred Dementors! Without them, the burden of guarding Azkaban—"
"The Dementors left behind at Azkaban will probably be quite happy, won't they? After all, with so many fewer competitors for food." Dumbledore cut off Fudge's words.
He understood Dementors far better than Fudge did, knowing that these dark creatures had no human emotions, and their attitude toward their own kind was limited only to not devouring each other.
Fudge gave a bitter smile. It seemed Dumbledore had no intention of letting him dig the Dementors back out.
"What's more, it's completely impossible. They were buried too deep. I measured it before—the water alone is fifty meters deep." Dumbledore added on the side, wanting Fudge to understand that from both an emotional and practical standpoint, he could not support this idea of "retrieving" the Dementors.
"All right then." Fudge bent down, staring at the bottomless surface of the lake, as if trying to pierce through the water with his gaze to find the Dementors buried below.
"Careful." Dumbledore thought Fudge's footing looked unsafe. In his earlier measurements, he had discovered that this part of the lake wall was especially steep, almost dropping vertically down. One step was grassy lakeside, the next step was fifty meters of deep water.
"Yes, I— ah.." Before Fudge could finish, his foot slipped, and his whole body plunged headfirst into the lake.
Once in the water, Fudge began to struggle, but his first kick found only empty space. Panic set in at once. He instinctively opened his mouth, gulping down several mouthfuls of icy water.
"Aarg—bulb bulb bulb.."
On shore, Dumbledore reacted quickly. He drew his wand, flicked it, and sent a rope shooting from the tip, hurling it toward Fudge.
From the distant castle, Helga let out a cold snort: Albus, you brought this on yourself. To use such magic—clearly, you've lost your head.
She snapped her fingers, and the ground beneath Dumbledore's feet suddenly grew slippery.
Dumbledore staggered, but quickly steadied himself and didn't tumble into the lake like Fudge. But holding his own footing was useless, because Fudge in the water had already grabbed hold of the rope he had thrown.
Feeling the pull transmitted through his wand, along with the soil beneath him beginning to shift, Dumbledore didn't hesitate for a moment.
He instantly severed the rope he had conjured from his wand tip!
"Aarg—bulb bulb bulb.."
Fudge, who had just managed to clutch the lifeline, plunged into the water again, swallowing another mouthful of lake water in a desperate choke.
Learning from the previous mishap, this time Dumbledore used a Levitation Charm to "fish up" Fudge, lifting the completely soaked Minister out of the lake.
Once back on shore, Fudge collapsed on the ground, retching for a long while, feeling as though he'd vomited up yesterday's dinner.
At the same time, a piercing chill gripped his body. It was already late autumn, and the lake water was barely above freezing. To be soaked through by it, and to have swallowed several mouthfuls besides, was a truly miserable experience.
Fortunately, Dumbledore was a skilled wizard. With practiced ease, he cast a spell that evaporated the lake water from Fudge's clothes.
Fudge quickly came back to his senses and, in a flurry of panic, began fumbling through his pockets for his wand. Then he made a nightmarish discovery: his wand seemed to have fallen into the lake!
Before Dumbledore could even finish drying him off, he was already pleading for him to use the Summoning Charm to retrieve his wand.
Dumbledore had no reason to refuse, so he cast a Summoning Charm. But the wand did not rise to the surface.
Dumbledore: ?
Fudge: ??
"My wand doesn't have an Anti-Summoning Charm on it, so why…" Fudge scratched his head.
Dumbledore tried another Summoning Charm. This time, he felt the spell give feedback—but the pull of it was nothing like a wand…
With a firm tug, he finally pulled the wand up. As it turned out, Fudge's wand had gotten tangled in a clump of water plants growing over a massive boulder.
Dumbledore's Summoning Charm had dragged not only the wand but also the several-hundred-pound stone along with it.
Carefully disentangling the wand from the weeds, Dumbledore handed the soaked wand—now cracked from the excessive strain—back to Fudge.
Fudge: "…"
Clutching his split wand and feeling the soaked robes clinging to his body, he couldn't help but raise his head and shout aloud.
"Merlin's beard! Why the—Ug.. umm.. um.."—only for a blob of bird droppings to land squarely on his face.
Pah! Pah! Pah!
...
It took quite some time for Fudge to recover from this string of misfortunes.
Considerate as ever, Dumbledore helped clean him up, even drying out his soaked robes.
"Perhaps today isn't a day fit for travel," Dumbledore joked. "Shall we go ask Professor Trelawney for a little divination?"
Fudge wavered for a moment—maybe he really should go to a Seer for a reading?
"She's sure to have hot tea and a roaring fireplace," Dumbledore added, delivering the final straw that swayed Fudge's mind.
"All right! I feel like today has been utterly miserable!" Fudge decided to accompany Dumbledore to see Trelawney. Worst case, at least he could enjoy some tea and warmth by the fire, couldn't he?
Watching the two of them walk into the castle, Rhys and Helga exchanged knowing smiles: Oh~ Dear MinisterCornelius, you're quite bold—after all this, you're still not heading back to the Ministry?
On the way into the castle, Fudge kept his nerves taut, worried that more mishaps would befall him. Yet the whole way remained calm and uneventful.
The very instant he stepped into the castle, Fudge let out a huge sigh of relief: Finally safe!
But as soon as he set foot on Hogwarts' moving staircase, an accident struck—a step suddenly vanished, and Fudge slipped straight into it, one leg jammed tight between the stairs, unable to move.
Fudge: ???
Has it really been that long since I came back to Hogwarts? Does this staircase always have such a trap? 〒▽〒
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