Chapter 286: Hot Topic

According to the original plan of Harry and Sirius, they would use Thursday afternoon to visit Lu Na's father, the editor-in-chief of The Quibbler, Mr. Xenophilius Lovegood. For this, Harry had already asked for leave in advance from Transfiguration Professor McGonagall and Quidditch Captain Angelina.

However, early Thursday morning, Harry saw the Death Eaters' first wave of attack on the Daily Prophet, caught off guard.

"... This friendship soon began to evolve in another direction. The two handsome young men made a blood pact in a barn, swearing never to hurt each other. And the fact is, what they did in the barn was not only magical; this blood pact also represented not a close friend or comrade, but a kind of love that is even less accepted by the world."

Harry's head was buzzing; he didn't continue reading down, because when he considered in this direction, Grindelwald's memories and his subsequent behaviors were all providing exceptionally strong evidence and support for this idea.

"The book clearly didn't write it, the Death Eaters have already started?" Luo En said while browsing the newspaper, putting a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. "Too fake, Newt is almost a hundred years old, they can't bully an old man like this."

"What bullying an old man?" Harry barely focused his attention on the lower half of the newspaper. It was an interview with Magizoologist Newt Scamander, who believed that Albus's attitude toward Gellert indeed exceeded that of an ordinary close friend; and another interviewee was even bolder, directly stating clearly that the two were a same-sex couple.

A former American Auror who worked closely under Grindelwald, Queenie Goldstein, provided more details, such as Grindelwald having fantasized several times about persuading Deng Buliduo to return to his side, or specifically applying hair gel and changing into a floral tie before meeting Deng Buliduo, etc. The most important evidence is that when Grindelwald was bewitching her, he had personally admitted the relationship between himself and Deng Buliduo, and Queenie confirmed that Grindelwald was not lying through her innate Legilimency ability.

"She is right, Newt just didn't dare to admit it," Harry said dazedly. "This move by the Death Eaters is still quite clever, because this matter might have actually happened."

"This is impossible," Luo En said in surprise. "If this is true, I mean, Rita would absolutely not let this point go; she would have written it into the book!"

"Did you notice Queenie's identity?" Harry shook his head. "Rita was manipulated by the White House. They deliberately threw out the book first to make us relax our vigilance, and then immediately gave a conclusion in the newspaper, catching us off guard."

"Can we expose this lie? This is fake, right?" Luo En said incoherently. "Can we find Deng Buliduo's wife or children, even if it's an illegitimate child? Aurelius, right, could Aurelius be Albus's child?"

"Calm down, Luo En, this is the most stupid response," Harry let out a long breath. "You know I've read Grindelwald's memories; the relationship between the two of them should be like this, it's just that we didn't think in that direction before."

"So, since this is a fact, if we want to falsify it, we must lie, and eventually, the more we describe it, the darker it gets," Harry took another deep breath. "This is a trap that guides us to make mistakes."

"But, this—" Luo En blinked. He noticed that the students around him also began to discuss excitedly after reading the newspaper.

"Do you know why Newt didn't want to open his mouth, while Queenie readily admitted it?" Harry nodded. "For the older generation of British gentlemen, same-sex love is disgusting, shameful, and morally corrupt, but for the younger generation deeply influenced by American values in modern times, same-sex love is glorious, beautiful, or at worst, neutral, and understandable."

"The only problem that needs to be solved is how to strip Deng Buliduo from Grindelwald's behavior of persecuting Muggles, so that everyone understands that Deng Buliduo is not a hypocrite; he was just correcting the mistakes he made when he was young," Harry gradually regained his rational thinking. "This is not difficult either. We can try our best to push the responsibility to Grindelwald; Deng Buliduo was just deceived, or blinded by love. In any case, he finally defeated Grindelwald and crushed his conspiracy, which is an indisputable fact, so this doesn't count as any smear."

Speaking of this, Harry suddenly remembered that in the book published by Rita, she also emphasized this point: Deng Buliduo finally chose the light, which is indisputable. Then, perhaps the stance of the White House or the Ministry of Magic should not have completely leaned toward the Death Eaters, but rather more toward neutrality.

After a morning burdened with worries passed, Harry met Sirius as promised. The two exchanged opinions quickly on the content of the day's newspaper, and then Sirius promised that he would contact Doge and Aberforth later to help the members of the Order of the Phoenix firm up their ideals and beliefs.

As for another important figure, Severus Snape, he still had seven Potions classes to teach before Saturday, perhaps he didn't have the time and energy to parry moves, and he might not even have time to read the newspaper.

When they Apparated to a place separated from the Burrow by a mountain, looking at the Lovegood house, that weird, huge black cylinder-like big house, Harry didn't know why, but a bad premonition surged in his heart.

"Looks like a chariot," Sirius commented happily.

They walked past the courtyard gate with hand-painted wooden signs, passed the winding path, walked past two old crabapple trees blown crooked by the wind, and then knocked on the door knocker.

The wizard who opened the door had white hair, wore a pale yellow robe, and was slightly cross-eyed.

"Ah, Mr. Black, is it our appointment?" He shook hands with Sirius. "And this must be the famous Harry Potter, you know our Lu Na, right?"

"That's right, we are quite good friends," Harry said politely. "Very happy to meet you, Mr. Lovegood."

"Please come in and have a cup of Gurdyroot tea," he said, leading Harry and Sirius upstairs. Clearly, not many guests came here. Although it looked like it had been tidied up, Harry still noticed a printing press covered with a cloth occupying a corner of the living room, looking out of place.

"Mr. Black has already told me, you came to discuss the content of the next issue of the magazine," Xenophilius said while pouring tea. "I can understand, in terms of public opinion, The Quibbler is also a magazine with considerable weight, it's just that there is one thing I need to make clear to you in advance."

"I founded the magazine not to be someone else's mouthpiece, but to stimulate everyone's thinking and inspiration, so if you want me to give up publishing the articles that have already been prepared, unless you bring out another more clever point of view," Xenophilius took out a magazine from under the cloth cover of the printing press. "I haven't fully finished the layout, but you can read it; this was sent by someone named Cleist."

"Cleist?!" Harry and Sirius exclaimed at the same time. Harry immediately remembered his conversation with Aberforth that almost turned into an argument, and immediately opened the cover of the magazine. Sure enough, what he wanted to say was about Aurelius.

"Why would he care about this?" Sirius looked at the magazine suspiciously. On it was a black-haired young man, with his name written in big letters on the side: Aurelius Deng Buliduo.

"He heard some things from Aberforth, but I don't quite understand," Harry began to read the article. "Discussing other people's privacy is very impolite, and as an Auror, he shouldn't do this even more."

After browsing through it at a glance, Harry realized that Cleist might not be backstabbing Aberforth; on the contrary, he should be kind-hearted and wanted to use Aurelius to prove that Deng Buliduo was not gay, but just happened to step into the trap preset by the Death Eaters.

"I can guess, this topic has been very hot recently, and clearly, the several doubts raised by Cleist are all real. I think there is at least a thirty percent possibility that Aurelius is really Deng Buliduo's child." Seeing that Harry and Sirius had finished reading the whole article, Xenophilius began to narrate his conjecture.

"First of all, we can see that Cleist raised three unanswerable questions: why did the Deng Buliduo brothers hide the identity of Aurelius's mother; why was Aurelius not taken to the Deng Buliduo family to be raised, but sent to Muggles; and why did Grindelwald know his background and name?" Xenophilius said. "So behind these three questions, we need to put a big question mark, and that is—who is Aurelius's father?"

"Perhaps it really is Albus?" Sirius said suspiciously. "But if so, how should the relationship between Deng Buliduo and Grindelwald be argued?"

"Godfather, I think we need to change our thinking," Harry pulled Sirius's sleeve. "The truth of the matter might have long been impossible to know. What we need is to propose a conjecture that makes it consistent with all the facts while protecting Deng Buliduo's reputation as much as possible."

"Then, Aurelius's father can only be Aberforth," Sirius said seriously. "We would rather admit that Albus is gay than admit he is a scumbag who abandoned his wife and children."

"Of course, in fact, Albus is indeed gay, so it is unlikely that he would have a child with any woman," Harry added. ===== CHAPTER 287 =====