[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-wizard-war-at-hogwarts":3,"chapter-wizard-war-at-hogwarts-wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-226":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Wizard War at Hogwarts",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2358199,4612,"Chapter 226","wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-226",226,"\u003Cp>“Harry, why did you ask me to come here?” Cedric joined the conversation with a smile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The second task’s puzzle will be drawn from these questions—help me take a look.” Harry glanced at Ron and Zhang Qiu beside him, who were arguing intensely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But that means you got the test content ahead of time?” Cedric’s smile vanished instantly. “That’s wrong, Harry.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But what if, among the four rounds, it’s exactly two black and two white?” “I think we need to shift our thinking—if we deliberately get a round that could be correct wrong, we can transmit extra information.” “Yes, and using different strategies itself is also information…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry and Cedric stared at each other in silence; Zhang Qiu and Ron’s voices gradually faded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Tell me, Harry,” Cedric repeated. “How did you get these questions?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry’s mind raced. Cedric might be bound by morality and refuse to look at these questions—and he’d likely insist Harry start from shore. But Harry was under Renata’s threat and had to start from shore himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had to lie. A kind lie—to soothe Cedric’s conscience. Harry knew he had to make Cedric believe these questions were deliberately leaked by the organizers; otherwise, Cedric would never cooperate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s the clue inside the golden egg,” Harry said. “Elena told us.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But Fleur didn’t say that,” Cedric said skeptically. “She only said the second task would involve decryption.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“That’s because… we made a deal with her.” Harry’s voice gained confidence as he thought of the lie. “She said she could tell us the clues hidden in the golden egg, but we had to pay something in return—so Zhang Qiu taught her a powerful spell.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Really?” Cedric turned to Zhang Qiu.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Ah yes, the Earthly Gang Summoning Scroll—it’ll help a lot with this task.\" Zhang Qiu paused, then quickly caught on and cooperated. \"But it’s a trap—the spell’s cost is too high. She can’t use it.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This isn’t right,” Cedric sat down. Though he still thought Zhang Qiu had deceived Elena, at least he no longer objected to looking at the questions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I did tell her about the spell’s cost, but maybe she thought she could find another way.” Zhang Qiu added hastily. “Besides, she might not have given us the correct questions anyway—I suspect many of these are unsolvable.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Exactly,” Ron pointed angrily at the parchment. “This ball’s weight is unknown—how am I supposed to tell? If the two sides don’t balance, this whole weighing is useless.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I think the original question probably told us whether the fake ball was lighter or heavier—but Elena changed the conditions, making it unsolvable,” Zhang Qiu said, blinking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What ball? Let me see?” Cedric shifted the parchment and began reading the problem.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These questions were meant to circulate only within the Hogwarts team; Harry never intended to seek outside help. If he’d merely obtained the questions early, and they were difficult, he considered it an acceptable advantage. But if he relied on others for the answers, he’d feel deeply ashamed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet with just these few from Hogwarts, solving these problems would require time and effort to compensate for their mathematical shortcomings. They spent days locked in the train whenever they had energy—but still couldn’t solve them all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Maybe we should ask Hermione,” Ron said drowsily. “More people, more ideas.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Don’t pressure her,” Cedric muttered, biting his quill. “They must already have the answers—we’d essentially be spying on them.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Not necessarily. These problems are so hard—they might be stuck too.” Zhang Qiu slammed her pen on the table. “Can’t these prisoners just unite and rebel? There are a hundred of them!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Here’s what we’ll do,” Harry stood up to Cedric. “I’ll go ask them. If they’ve solved everything, we won’t pry for answers—but at least we’ll know the problems are solvable, which gives us confidence. If they’ve got unsolved ones too, we can form an alliance and discuss together.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Right, Hermione wouldn’t hide whether they finished or not,” Ron was locked in a battle with the God Chess. “But whether they finished or not, and whether Hermione is willing to tell us—that’s four possibilities, capable of transmitting four rounds of information…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Alright, then thanks for your help, Harry,\" Cedric said. \"I’ll study this hat-color problem again—I think I’m getting somewhere.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Harry stepped out of the train, his teeth felt sour. If he truly went to find Hermione, how would he explain where the questions came from? But if he didn’t, first, the four of them might never solve all the puzzles—and second, he worried Renata wouldn’t pass the second task.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though he anticipated the third task would turn dangerous due to Voldemort’s interference, if only the Hogwarts champion passed the second task, the third task would lose its meaning. Perhaps even Barty Jr. tacitly approved of Harry sharing the questions with other champions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You say you might have obtained the puzzles for the second task?” Hermione stared at Harry, astonished. “How?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I made a deal with Renata,” Harry repeated the same excuse—he knew no one would give away information for free, but a deal sounded credible and fair. “I promised to start fifteen minutes late in exchange for clues about the underwater puzzle.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But how did Renata get the questions?” Hermione asked suspiciously.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I don’t know,” Harry shrugged. “But I was already planning to cast a spell on shore, which would take fifteen minutes—so why not trade?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So you mean the authenticity of these questions is uncertain,” Hermione hesitated, “but if they’re real and we assume they’re fake, that’s bad—so we might as well solve them anyway, right?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Exactly,” Harry smiled faintly and nodded. “And you’d enjoy solving them anyway, wouldn’t you?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But aren’t you afraid I’ll tell Fleur and Elena?” Hermione asked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I planned to tell them anyway—but not for free,” Harry said. “My condition is: keep it secret from Cedric. Make him believe these questions came from the golden egg.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“A simple condition—I can agree for them. But why?” Hermione crossed her arms. “Why hide it from Cedric?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh, I don’t want him to know about my deal with Renata—he dislikes her intensely.” Harry lied effortlessly now. “Besides, the questions are hard—I think we need more people to discuss them.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So your real goal is to get more people to help solve the problems,” Hermione nodded. “Fair enough. But it might not yield much. I’ll tell them now—meet us back at the train later.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry nodded. In truth, his main hope was to give Ron more time with Hermione—to lift his spirits. As for the questions, perhaps given more time, they could solve them themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hey, what did you talk about with them?” A cold female voice rang out as Harry stepped out of the castle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry turned. It was Renata—one of the people he least wanted to face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We…” he took a deep breath. “We made a deal.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Really?” Renata waited for him to continue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I promised to start fifteen minutes late. I traded that for clues about the underwater puzzle,” Harry felt he’d grown adept at lying. “They gave me some questions.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But the clues we got from Donald didn’t include questions,” Renata said, her suspicion mirroring Cedric’s.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Because your offer wasn’t high enough,” Harry used the same excuse on Renata as he had on Cedric.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Fifteen minutes delay for some questions—that’s genuinely sincere,\" Renata seemed to believe him. \"Looks like you’re unwilling to give up, putting in effort.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry offered a polite, awkward smile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Good. Now you have something I’m interested in,” Renata stepped closer. “I want to make a deal with you.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry said calmly: “You want these questions? Name your price.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh, alright. I’ll trade you some intelligence for them,” she said. “About the Ministry’s undercover agents here—Barty Crouch Jr., or rather, the Tenth Doctor.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What?” Harry’s breath quickened. He had no idea where Renata had dug up this information—it was the Ministry of Magic’s deepest secret, one even the Minister might not know.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But considering Renata was a Soviet, the situation somehow twisted into a bizarre kind of logic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I know his past—some stories you’d find interesting,” Renata said. “And more importantly, once I get the questions, I’ll guarantee I won’t tell anyone else these stories.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I agree,” Harry gritted his teeth. “But I’ll only give you the original questions—not our solutions.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Fine. We don’t need the thoughts of a fourteen-year-old anyway,” Renata said arrogantly.\u003C\u002Fp>",1391,"2026-06-21T04:54:29.094Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","3a217ac2ac51f8defdd6de5af055cfad5e27d428edac7b78651ea02a7ee82fb4","wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-227","wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-225",528,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fwizard-war-at-hogwarts-cover.jpg"]