Chapter 284: Making a Move

In the next few days, unsurprisingly, some old stories about Deng Buliduo began to be dug up by the Daily Prophet, and some neighbors in Godric's Hollow came out one after another to introduce the deeds of the Deng Buliduo family to everyone.

Early Tuesday morning, while still eating breakfast, Luo En couldn't wait to flip the newspaper to the second page and began to read Rita Skeeter's new column, "The Life and Lies of Albus Deng Buliduo."

"Running through the story from beginning to end is Ariana Deng Buliduo, Albus's youngest sister, and also the source of his lifelong regret and guilt," Luo En read.

That's right, Harry nodded secretly. The reason Albus fell into Voldemort's trap on the Resurrection Stone was because he couldn't wait to see Ariana again. From Grindelwald's memories, there is a high possibility that the spell that killed Ariana was cast by Albus.

"When Ariana was very young, she accidentally released magic and was seen by three Muggle boys. Unfortunately, the three Muggle boys did 'terrible' things to her, inducing the Obscurus in her body. Albus's father, Percival Deng Buliduo, angrily taught those Muggles a lesson, and this impulsive act of his caused him to be locked in Azkaban."

"Is it that serious?" Luo En paused his reading. "The Ministry of Magic is too heartless."

"The matter is more complicated than what is written in the newspaper," Hermione, who was on the side, interjected. She was holding a thick book in her hand. "If Percival told the truth about Ariana, she would have to accept the examination arranged by the Ministry of Magic. Once the situation of the Obscurus was discovered, she would have to live in a hospital for the rest of her life. So, at that time, after Percival's impulse subsided, his explanation to the Ministry of Magic was that he simply didn't like those Muggles."

"Why do you know so detailedly?" Luo En asked curiously.

"Don't you know?" Hermione closed the book, revealing its cover: a photo of Albus Deng Buliduo, his blue eyes filled with a melancholy expression. And the book title was exactly "The Life and Lies of Albus Deng Buliduo." The column in the newspaper was just publishing some excerpts from the book.

"Rita was ready to publish it last Saturday," Hermione said. "The serialization in the newspaper is just to advertise for her."

"Alright, I hope you can lend the book to us to take a look," Harry said. "This is related to the layout of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Order of the Phoenix? Is Doge from the Order of the Phoenix?" Hermione said. "It is mentioned in the prologue that he made a considerable contribution to the writing of this book."

"Yes, but I don't think Doge would do this," Harry suspiciously wanted to flip the book to the prologue to take a look. After all, it was only on Sunday that he suggested to Sirius that they prepare a soft cushion for Deng Buliduo under the altar.

"Do you know Doge very well?" Hermione asked curiously.

"I think you don't know Rita well enough," Luo En said with some amusement. "For such a book that arranges Deng Buliduo, as long as Doge didn't strongly stop her, that is already a considerable contribution to Rita."

"Rather, it is more likely that Rita finished writing this book long ago," Luo En continued. "It's just that it wasn't until last Saturday that she finally obtained Doge's consent."

"No, Rita doesn't listen to Doge," Harry said vigilantly. Whether it was the Death Eaters deciding to smear Deng Buliduo or the Order of the Phoenix deciding to play along, it was a decision made on Sunday. Therefore, at this critical point in time, the person who had already prepared some kind of scheme—could only be William, or rather, him and the White House behind him.

"What is the Ministry of Magic preparing to do?" Hermione also became alert. "But this book doesn't seem to show any stance; it neither beautifies nor uglifies. It's rare for Rita to write some fair things."

"This is just a setup," Harry nodded. "She hopes to arouse public interest in Deng Buliduo and understand some basic facts."

"As for what will happen later, it depends on how the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters will parry each other's moves," Harry took the book handed over by Hermione with a solemn face. He could probably guess that the next step was to expose Aurelius to everyone's eyes.

"You can read it first," Hermione picked up her textbooks. "I'll read it on the weekend."

After spending a Charms class and a Transfiguration class burdened with worries, Harry welcomed lunch break and Muggle Studies, which gave him and Luo En a considerable amount of time to fully understand the family affairs of this legendary wizard.

After his father was unfortunately imprisoned, mother Kendra Deng Buliduo took the children and left Mould-on-the-Wold for Godric's Hollow, and publicly declared that Ariana was in poor health and could not go to school.

During this time, Albus had just graduated from school and was preparing to travel around Europe with Doge, so he was powerless against the terrible accident that happened at home—during a magic riot, mother Kendra unfortunately died. Subsequently, the task of taking care of Ariana fell on Aberforth.

"No wonder the book says Ariana was always timid; she could be said to have directly caused her mother's death," Luo En commented with some regret. "If it were me, I might have had an emotional breakdown long ago."

"But the book also says that Aberforth was the only person she trusted; he could soothe the out-of-control Ariana and also make the melancholy her show a smile," Harry said. "Perhaps, it was after Ariana's accidental death that sorrow turned Aberforth into such a grumpy old man."

The story that followed, Harry seemed to have read in Grindelwald's memories. Albus gave up his travel plans for this and prepared to return to Godric's Hollow to take care of his younger brother and sister. But just then, he met Grindelwald, who was visiting his aunt's house, and the two hit it off and soon became very good friends.

I have to admit, many readers might be shocked by this news, but for some people who have experienced that era, the relationship between Albus and Gellert is not a secret. It is not very strange for a pair of good friends to part ways because of different philosophies. Moreover, Rita wrote fairly, "For the sake of justice and righteousness, Deng Buliduo did not hesitate to launch a duel against his former friend who had gone astray. Regardless of whether there were any unknown secrets behind this, at least the ending was beautiful; he returned the clear sky to the Wizarding World."

When Luo En read this passage smoothly, Harry keenly captured that Rita was actually hinting that there was "some secret" behind this.

During that summer in Godric's Hollow, in those days when Albus and Gellert were inseparable, the accident that accompanied Albus for his whole life happened. It is said that the cause was that Aberforth blamed Albus for not taking good care of his sister, and then the two drew their wands during an argument, and immediately after, Grindelwald also joined the battle. The duel of the three was terminated because of Ariana, who had rushed out, because a spell hit her, leading to her death.

Grindelwald fled in a hurry and never came back. And at Ariana's funeral, Aberforth broke Albus's nose; this was a quite serious fighting accident. Then, Rita's pen turned, and she began to tell the rise of Grindelwald, as if all the beauty of Godric's Hollow stopped abruptly that summer. The ins and outs of the matter, whether there were deeper secrets behind all this, were all buried forever with Ariana's burial.

Sure enough, after hurriedly reading four or five chapters about Grindelwald's dark empire, the prophetic ability he obtained, and stories like Deng Buliduo adopting the wall-facing plan to counter him, Harry read the true purpose of the mastermind behind the scenes.

"... After the brief duel on the Bhutan snow mountain, Albus and Gellert realized that the relationship between the two could no longer be saved, and each began to prepare for that final decisive battle. And at the same time, Aberforth took back that mysterious young man. According to some saints' statements, and the private admissions of the Deng Buliduo brothers, we can be sure that the young man who once used the name Credence, his real name is Aurelius Deng Buliduo, is Aberforth's illegitimate son. We don't know the story after that, but we can guess that perhaps Aurelius failed to overcome his Obscurus after all and unfortunately died young."

This paragraph is the end of the penultimate chapter. In the last chapter, Rita did not continue to introduce Aurelius's affairs, but used highly generalized words to describe a series of achievements Deng Buliduo obtained after winning the legendary duel. She even directly marked a sentence "Excerpted from Chocolate Frog Card," and the writing was full of thick perfunctory meaning.

"Why is it gone?" Luo En flipped through the last page with some dissatisfaction. "I still want to know what happened to Aurelius."

"Perhaps it's not just you who wants to know," Harry said with a solemn face. "Everyone wants to know, and this is the precursor to the attack they are about to launch."

"What attack?"

"An attack on Deng Buliduo's reputation," Harry fiddled with his quill. "Readers are starting to get curious about Aurelius, and this person himself is riddled with doubts. If Deng Buliduo has any stain that can be attacked, undoubtedly, Aurelius is the most conspicuous one, even more conspicuous than his relationship with Grindelwald."

"His relationship with Grindelwald?" Luo En frowned.

"Yeah, think about it, for some people in the Voldemort era, Deng Buliduo is the patron saint of Muggle-borns, the embodiment of all virtues and wisdom," Harry said indifferently. "If they knew that Deng Buliduo once conspired with Grindelwald to seize power and build a world where wizards rule Muggles, their beliefs would collapse."

"I'm okay, probably because my level is relatively low," Luo En let out a breath. "What do you think?"

"Deng Buliduo was never a perfect person; there is no such thing as a perfect person in the world. For us in this era, he is very good, good enough, that's enough," Harry sighed. "But for the slightly earlier era, those core forces of the Order of the Phoenix who were fanatically loyal to him, this will be a very heavy blow."

"Then what should we do?" Luo En revealed a trace of worry.

"This is just a probe and a setup," Harry's worry was even greater than his. "The White House's move is relatively objective and neutral; they just stated some facts. And the Death Eaters are preparing to start the attack. Whether the subsequent reports are true or false, and how shocking they will be, is hard to say." ===== CHAPTER 285 =====