Chapter 321: The Order of the Phoenix's Resolution

The issue of the tightness of the Statute of Secrecy caused a certain amount of discussion among the students, and it had a trend of becoming more and more intense.

Harry heard a bunch of people talking about this topic at the breakfast table on Saturday, including "Students' spellcasting ability is limited to begin with, while adults can more easily release profound magic," "Students mostly go to school, while some adults live in the Muggle world for a long time," "Since the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad exists, one shouldn't be too harsh on spellcasting outside of school," and so on, in short, it was speaking for the students from all angles.

It wasn't bad, Harry thought while drinking oatmeal, if this matter could evolve into a "confrontation between the student group and arrogant adults," then it could instead promote unity within the student group. And, "students casting magic outside of school" was indeed a trivial problem for the Statute of Secrecy; no matter the result, it wouldn't have much of an impact.

With such a relaxed mood, Harry set off for the Three Broomsticks pub after writing his homework for a while. If nothing went wrong, the Ministry of Magic would send a special envoy responsible for peace talks today. Whether it was peace talks or receiving the envoy, these were things that had been discussed before Christmas, but it just so happened that all three parties wanted to have a relatively relaxed holiday, so they dragged things until now.

Sirius revealed a huge smile after seeing Harry.

"The Focused Rainbow has already started to be built," he whispered. "This is a very important big step; we will soon be able to truly establish deterrence—I believe a year or two is still worth waiting for."

"Yeah, but," Harry shrugged. "Snape seems to be preparing to end all this immediately."

"Right, he is committed to solving internal problems." Sirius nodded. "But we all know that the enemy is not just internal."

Harry happily praised Sirius's long-term vision; he just didn't want to admit that Snape had more means or was smarter than himself and his godfather.

The two chatted for a while using the time of eating, and then went to the Hog's Head Inn for a meeting. This meeting was placed at the Hog's Head Inn, because the members of the Order of the Phoenix still didn't want the Ministry of Magic to know their true secret gathering place. And, after changing to Klayster as the bartender, the quality of food and drink at the Hog's Head Inn had had a huge leap.

When Harry came to the pub with his godfather, he himself was also taken aback: at this time, the Hog's Head Inn had bright windows and clean tables, a faint oak fragrance floated in the air, and the bar counter had also been repaired and wrapped with a layer of transparent coating, so there would be no more wood chips exposed.

Klayster was wearing a white shirt with a black vest, looking like a bartender, while Aberforth was sitting in front of the bar counter, watching him play with a strangely shaped goblet.

Harry noticed that Aberforth, who hadn't been seen for a long time, seemed to have lost some weight; his expression was slightly melancholy, staring blankly at Klayster's movements.

"Phew, Aberforth," Doge's voice came from the doorway. "Still haven't cheered up? What are you worrying about?"

"I can't believe it." His voice was very low. "Albus really did that."

Harry pursed his lips; he saw Klayster still cutting lemons as if no one was around, and he continued to remain silent. Moreover, this was also Deng Buliduo's consistent way of doing things: when he was unwilling to tell the truth but also unwilling to lie, he chose silence and concealment.

"This is just a backup plan." Doge tried hard to comfort him. "We have to deal with extraordinary enemies, so we must come up with some extraordinary means; sometimes we have to do things we are unwilling to do, don't we? This is all for the greater good—"

"Don't mention that phrase!" Aberforth suddenly became agitated, but then he slumped down, holding his head with both hands, his tone full of pain and loss. "That's what he said most often, that summer..."

Klayster mixed a drink and handed it to him.

"Margarita, the cocktail that best represents sadness and melancholy," Sirius said softly. "This drink is specially mixed for Aberforth and everything he has lost."

"Not at all." Klayster smiled awkwardly. "I only know how to make this one."

"Gentlemen, I hope I'm not late." A simple and honest black man squeezed in, slightly easing the atmosphere, and then, Jin Wei Silai followed behind Dak and nodded to everyone.

After they sat down beside Harry, Klayster brought four glasses of butterbeer and a small basket of fried chicken.

Dak seemed very interested in Harry, chattering and talking to him about pop culture in the Muggle world; although Harry didn't understand much, he was still willing to listen, and they talked like this intermittently until all the members came to sit down in this pub and all got a drink that belonged to them.

"Alright, friends." Doge said. "We are very happy to announce that the Ministry of Magic has sent us a consultant who will provide us with help in politics. Welcome Mr. Frank Weatherby!"

"It's Etherby." A handsome young man with a kind face stood up and immediately corrected Doge's slip of the tongue.

"Oh, sorry." Doge said sincerely. "In short, Mr. Frank will help us sort out and convey the philosophy of the Order of the Phoenix; if possible, we will persuade the Death Eaters to put down their prejudices and make them realize their mistakes."

Doge saying this undoubtedly greatly appeased the emotions of the radical faction. But if one held this kind of moral high ground mentality to talk from the beginning, then I'm afraid peace talks wouldn't be that easy.

"Wow, does this mean," Emmeline said happily, "that the Ministry of Magic can order the Death Eaters to hand over all the Horcruxes and then accept the punishment they deserve?"

"We can convey this request." Frank said euphemistically. "But I guess they won't agree so easily."

"It's very difficult for us to persuade them to surrender with empty words, or rather, we have to leave them a little leeway." Doge didn't seem to intend to talk about Deng Buliduo's Horcruxes in the Order of the Phoenix. "We have to allow them, for example, not to go to Azkaban, or to retain their own property, and so on."

"We didn't want their property either." Emmeline said somewhat confusedly.

Doge took a deep breath, looked at Frank meaningfully, and then said: "Of course, we don't care whether we should confiscate their property; our most important request is that we must order them to hand over all Horcruxes for us to destroy uniformly. And, from now on, no one can ever do illegal things in Voldemort's name."

"If allowing them to retain property can facilitate this negotiation, then we should allow them to do so." Doge added.

"That is to say," Frank concluded, "we must draw a clear and definite period for Voldemort's dark era; for this, we can allow the Death Eaters who voluntarily hand over Horcruxes to be exempt from liquidation."

"This is not right!" Dedalus immediately screamed. "If we allow them to escape the punishment they deserve in order to obtain Horcruxes, this is unfair to those who were once murdered by them!"

"But if we refuse to negotiate and go straight to war, they may murder more people, and even many of us present will sacrifice." Jin Wei Silai said somewhat helplessly.

Moody was wearing sunglasses and didn't say a word; no one could see his expression.

"I think the point of the problem is not Horcruxes," Lupin said rationally. "If we let the Death Eaters go unpunished, then even without the Dark Lord, they can still continue to persecute Muggles or Muggle-borns."

"No, the point of the problem is precisely Horcruxes." Doge retorted. "It is the Dark Lord who gave them the confidence to do evil."

Harry suddenly woke up; he knew that Horcruxes couldn't resurrect Voldemort at all, but in order to maintain Britain's deterrence against the Soviet Union, he still claimed so.

Indeed, since the end of the fourth year, Yanayev seemed to have turned his attention back to the country again and started to deal with the opposition. Harry didn't know how much of this benefited from his lies, but quite a few analytical articles pointed out that another purpose of Yanayev was to use Chechen opposition elements to train his own wizard troops. That is to say, he had at least already organized a well-trained wizard troop; if the Ministry of Magic, which was short of soldiers and generals, wanted to burst the bubble of Horcruxes now, that would be a quite dangerous thing for the entire British Wizarding World.

Harry found it hard to imagine what a chaotic situation it would be if the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters were forced to unite to resist the Soviet wizards, and how he could ensure that his side could achieve final victory—not to mention that the Order of the Phoenix didn't completely listen to him.

The Sword of Damocles of the Cold War turning into a hot war hung over his head, and Harry had to speak out against it at this time: "I think we should change our thinking and allow the Death Eaters to retain Horcruxes."

"As long as the ring is still in our hands, they can't resurrect Voldemort either." Harry sorted out his logic. "And as long as they can't resurrect Voldemort, they can't truly have the confidence to do evil."

"We can keep an eye on them first; as long as they promise not to persecute Muggles or Muggle-borns anymore, then allow them to maintain the status quo." Harry felt his thoughts were somewhat smooth. "But once we find that they have any illegal behavior, we must immediately punish them."

"A very good line of thinking." Doge agreed quite flatteringly. "But what deterrence do we have? What does it mean to immediately punish them—we don't have any punishment means that can truly scare them; for the Death Eaters, it's just returning to the current situation."

"We do." Harry wanted to say that we could use resurrecting Deng Buliduo to threaten them, but he knew Doge wouldn't want the people of the Order of the Phoenix to know—perhaps he himself also knew this was a lie. "Deng Buliduo left me a secret."

"Ah, right, I know about that matter too." Doge immediately skipped this topic vaguely. "Great, Harry, your line of thinking is too great; we will use that secret to deal with them."

"Frank, let's talk privately with Harry after the meeting." Doge scanned the crowd. "This is Deng Buliduo's secret; I don't want too many people to know."

"Hmph!" Aberforth snorted angrily, and then left the venue on his own. ===== CHAPTER 322 =====