Chapter 356

After a long period of fruitless contemplation, Harry couldn't help but raise his wand and cast a spell for inspiration, and suddenly he saw where the problem lay.

Harry and Snape intended to control both the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters simultaneously—a fact many knew—but the Death Eaters did not, and must never find out.

If a student organization were launched to draw Rodolphus's attention, and then the cup fell into Donald Fontroy's hands, the Order of the Phoenix would be implicated, since Darc was still openly working for the Order.

The purpose of attacking the Lestrange residence was to define the nature of this operation, completely severing the Order of the Phoenix from any association, and ensuring the Death Eaters firmly believed this was purely an internal matter. This was not only to prevent them from being blinded by rage and sparking war, but also to further validate Harry's (or rather, Saruman's) legitimacy—to make everyone see that Harry had never colluded with the Order of the Phoenix, that Harry distrusted the Order.

Of course, in Harry's eyes, the Order of the Phoenix was indeed steadfast in its stance, but its capabilities were somewhat lacking, so he never fully trusted them to begin with.

Therefore, the person chosen to attack the Lestrange residence was clear: Nightfather Regulus.

As a supporter of Snape and Saruman, Regulus had every reason to do this. Moreover, if this were an internal coup among the Death Eaters, his subordinates would no longer be untouchable. Previously, Harry avoided involving those gangsters because Sirius, to maintain his cover, couldn't have them do righteous deeds. Now that the action had a non-justifiable pretext, there was no longer any inconvenience.

As Harry reviewed the entire deployment from the beginning, he realized that though he had given no explanations, his actions had already presented everyone with a logically coherent story.

Before the Dark Lord election, Snape and Regulus secretly reached an agreement. They planned to nominate Saruman as the new Dark Lord; legally, Saruman was equally qualified to inherit the title, and for Snape and Regulus, Saruman was indeed closer to them.

But because Bellatrix and Lucius had secretly allied with William of the Magical Congress, Nagini no longer favored them, so Snape and Regulus could only resort to a desperate move: they planned to kill Delphi, making Saruman the sole heir.

This required a meticulous plan, so they lay low for a long time to prepare, then pinned their hopes on a single thunderous strike: first, Snape used his connections within the Ministry of Magic to arrange for the Aurors and the Order of the Phoenix to be withdrawn—this would both prevent them from interfering and draw Rodolphus's attention.

Then Regulus led his forces in a surprise assault on the Lestrange residence, killing Delphi and Bellatrix, winning the Dark Lord election through cheating. After winning, they could easily blame the Order of the Phoenix and seize control of all the Death Eaters. In terms of numbers and strength, Snape and Regulus, who controlled all the Death Eaters on the island, could easily suppress Rodolphus's remnants from the old era.

Under these circumstances, where was the Lestrange residence's only hope of reversal? Only in resurrecting the old Dark Lord and hoping Voldemort would deliver justice. But if Rodolphus secretly returned to London to reclaim his cup, he would discover the most important item in the vault had already been quietly stolen, leaving him only to lament that the tide had turned, then fade away in exile, bitter and broken.

To others, the key to the success of this plan lay in killing Delphi. But Harry had no intention of killing anyone, so this plan was doomed to fail.

What if several traitors emerged from the army besieging the Lestrange residence, allowing Bellatrix and Delphi to escape?

The continental Saints could never mount a military counterattack; if Bellatrix wanted to strike back, she would still need the power of the Death Eaters—meaning she would return to complete the election, and the election would be her confident moment of reversal. Bellatrix understood this well: the more the enemy opposed something, the more they feared it. Since Regulus chose to launch a coup, it meant they could not defeat Delphi in the election. Now Bellatrix could take the desperate step: return home and run again. If she won, Regulus would no longer dare move against her easily.

If Delphi won, cunning Snape could continue controlling Hogwarts, waiting to cultivate a relationship with her as Headmaster; opportunistic Lucius already had a foundation of cooperation with Bellatrix, and suddenly everyone would be on her side again.

But this was exactly what Harry wanted: Bellatrix, clinging to the election as her last lifeline, would go mad and lose composure after losing—perhaps even involuntarily cast Unforgivable Curses. Under the watchful eyes of the Ministry of Magic, she would have no choice but to be imprisoned in Azkaban. Even if she restrained herself, her only path forward would be to leave the land as a defeated loser.

In this true plan, the most crucial element—Nagini—would fall under Snape's control during the first attack; Bellatrix could never have imagined she had walked into a trap from the very beginning.

Looking further ahead, how could Harry prove to the Order of the Phoenix that Saruman was a fabricated story, not a real person?

To the Death Eaters, Saruman was merely a pawn pushed to the front—they would focus only on Regulus and Snape. But to the Order of the Phoenix, this pawn had reached the endgame: Doge and Albus Dumbledore's brother suspected that Dumbledore's Horcrux was in Harry's possession, and Harry knew the Order's ring was destroyed. If Harry truly were Saruman, the situation would be catastrophic.

But… if Harry were to return Dumbledore's Horcrux to Doge or Albus Dumbledore's brother, he couldn't produce it!

This question couldn't bear close scrutiny; Harry broke into a cold sweat. Perhaps he, like Bellatrix, was arrogantly devising a way to break the deadlock, unaware that all of this was part of the trap. If this were Yanayev's arrangement—if he knew the Death Eaters wouldn't easily attack the Order of the Phoenix, so he instead shifted strategy to provoke the Order into attacking the Death Eaters—how should he respond?

Harry struggled to push this suspicion from his mind. Rather than believe he and Snape had fallen into Yanayev's trap, he chose to treat it as a natural flaw in the plan and think of how to fix it.

How could Harry prove to the Order of the Phoenix he wasn't truly Saruman? Because of the resurrection ritual and the Horcrux, he couldn't prove he wasn't Voldemort's child; and because of the Dursleys' deaths, he couldn't even prove he was James and Lily's son.

If Snape and Sirius testified on his behalf, who could guarantee they hadn't betrayed him? Lupin might believe them—but who would trust a werewolf? And hadn't Wormtail betrayed the Order? Could the Marauders have all betrayed the Order together? Moreover, Snape was a master of Occlumency and Potions—no one could detect if he was lying, and he might even have the ability to help his accomplices lie, making it impossible to untangle the truth.

Originally, the Order of the Phoenix wouldn't have lacked even this much trust in its members—only Harry feared that foreign forces were secretly plotting, stoking the flames. As long as he couldn't provide undeniable proof to verify himself, even the slightest suspicion would be amplified infinitely—Albus Dumbledore's brother had already suffered this fate.

Harry knew he must prepare undeniable physical evidence to prove his true identity, crushing all doubt at the very beginning.

Perhaps the inspiration spell's effect hadn't faded; Harry thought of an idea: he didn't need to strictly prove Harry was one of them—only prove the story was false. Because in that story, one person's actions contradicted his true nature: Regulus.

If members of the Order of the Phoenix retrieved Regulus's corpse from the cave where Voldemort hid his Horcruxes, alongside the note hidden inside the fake Horcrux, Regulus's true allegiance would be beyond doubt. If Regulus had also resisted Voldemort, he and Sirius would never have let Wormtail escape—or, on that night fifteen years ago, they could have captured Wormtail and exposed the conspiracy immediately.

Or conversely, if Regulus had truly died in the cave, the living man must be Sirius himself—and the possibility that Sirius betrayed James or was deceived by Saruman was extremely low. It was far more plausible to suspect the person raising the doubt was maliciously stirring chaos.

Thus, Harry already knew what the Order of the Phoenix and the Aurors would do: they would go to the cave and retrieve the corpse of "Sirius."

After the Order of the Phoenix cleared the Inferi and confirmed the corpse in the cave was Regulus's, they could still feign that they had retrieved the body of "Sirius," allowing Sirius to continue infiltrating the Death Eaters under Regulus's identity. At the same time, they would truly understand and endorse the plan to steal control of the Death Eaters, and begin covertly cooperating.

On the Death Eaters' side, they could still follow Snape's story: after the Tranzero explosion, Regulus had stopped paying attention to Sirius; upon learning his brother had died trying to steal the Horcrux, he would merely sigh and carry on as usual.

If someone stepped forward to claim the retrieved corpse was Regulus's, it would conveniently help Harry expose the Order's mole. At this critical moment in the election, spreading any rumor was unsurprising—what mattered was how many people were willing to believe it.