Chapter 577 The New Voldemort Plot

Things have not been going well recently.

Ron's name inexplicably appeared in the Goblet of Fire. The attitudes of all the young wizards towards him had drastically changed. Rita Skeeter's fabrications in the Daily Prophet exacerbated all this. Meeting other students in the corridors was not a pleasant greeting anymore but an endless mockery.

Harry's scar on his forehead had been hurting all along. He dared not mention it. He hadn't even told Evan and Hermione.

Ron's situation was even worse. The first task of the tournament involved facing a dragon! This was indeed more like a legalized death sentence for him.

Things were not going well for Evan either, and he had not yet discovered Barty Crouch Jr.'s plan.

As for Hermione, while busy with her studies, she was distracted by S.P.E.W., taking on more than most students could handle.

They discussed these things, and Sirius listened patiently without interrupting.

He was like an elder, listening to everyone recount their troubles.

"Sirius, they must be kidding with me, right?!" Ron finally said hopefully. "Tell me, please! Tell me I won't have to face a fire-breathing dragon!"

"Ron!" Sirius looked at him and said earnestly, "I wanted to tell you. The first task does indeed involve facing a fire-breathing dragon. Barty Crouch planned the content of this tournament, and I've just found out about it."

"Then I am definitely doomed!" Ron said, in a desperate tone.

Getting a positive response from Sirius finally shattered the illusion he was trying to maintain.

"Don't worry about the fire-breathing dragon, we can deal with it!" Sirius said nonchalantly, "We can discuss this further later. Before that, there are things I need to warn you about."

"What?" They all looked at Sirius in surprise. There couldn't be anything more terrible than a fire-breathing dragon, could there?!

"Karkaroff," said Sirius. "I spoke with Evan alone before school started, but recent events have prompted me to warn you that he used to be a Death Eater. You all know what Death Eaters are, right?"

"Yes!" said Harry, looking very surprised. "He... what?"

"He was captured, was in Azkaban with me, but then he was released. Maybe that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year... to keep an eye on him. You know, it was Moody who captured Karkaroff and put him in Azkaban in the first place."

Everyone was shocked by this news. They couldn't believe that the Headmaster of Durmstrang was actually a former Death Eater.

This was absolutely startling, if Rita Skeeter found out...

"Sirius, what have you recently discovered?" Evan asked.

"Voldemort!" said Sirius, ignoring everyone's expressions. "You know, Aurors have been tracking vampire traces lately. They are very active."

"I didn't see anything about it in the newspaper," said Hermione, "Everything's quiet."

"Fudge believes it's necessary to keep it secret and not allow the Daily Prophet to report anything," Sirius said quickly, "Those vampires have been up to many things abroad, and there is the shadow of Voldemort behind them."

"Those vampires?!" Evan frowned.

Damn, Caresius had never spoken to him about these things.

As the head of the vampire clan, Evan thought that since he was at Hogwarts, the rest of the vampires would stop and hide from the Ministry of Magic.

Furthermore, Caresius had also told him that Voldemort didn't believe in them at all.

But now it seemed that was not the case at all. Voldemort and the vampires must have some kind of plan.

"I discussed this with Dumbledore, and we believe it might be the sinister god statue they took," Sirius said. "The traces of those vampires appear on the ancient relics left by many ancient wizards. Voldemort may have some plans. They seem to be looking for something!"

"What are they looking for?" Evan asked.

"It's unclear. We don't know much about the evil god statue and the remains of ancient wizards," Sirius sighed and said, "And all these things have been happening abroad, even in America, beyond the reach of the Ministry of Magic in inaccessible jungles and deserted ruins."

No one spoke, and their minds seemed to be struggling to once again assimilate another shocking piece of information.

Vampires frequently appeared in ancient ruins to search for something, surely that was definitely not a good phenomenon.

Evan decided to seek an opportunity to converse with Caresius; he did not know what Voldemort was going to do.

"Was he going to summon evil spirits? Or was he going to gain more dark power from the statue of the evil god?!"

"Well, this is not something you should dwell on. Let's continue discussing Karkaroff," said Sirius.

"Did you just say they released him?" Harry asked slowly, "Why did they release him? Shouldn't all Death Eaters be imprisoned in Azkaban for life?"

"Indeed. But he made a deal with the Ministry of Magic," Sirius said bitterly, "He claimed to have repented his actions and then he implicated others. He sent a bunch of people to Azkaban in his place. I can tell you he's not very popular there. As far as I know, since his release, he's been teaching Dark Arts to every student that passes through his school, so be cautious of the Durmstrang champion as well."

"You mean Krum?" Ron immediately retorted. "That's impossible, he's a good guy."

"Ron, what do we really know about him besides his performance in Quidditch?" Hermione said, looking a bit worried. "Sirius is right. We need to be careful, especially at this moment."

Ron wanted to protest, but in the end, he didn't say anything and just muttered some disgruntled words.

"Alright," said Harry slowly. "Sirius, are you saying that Karkaroff put Ron's name in the Goblet of Fire? Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to prevent Ron from competing."

"We know he's a good actor!" Sirius exclaimed. "In fact, he convinced the Ministry of Magic to release him, didn't he? And according to our investigation, he showed up in London a few months ago, just when Moody was attacked."