In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 447: Meeting (2 in 1)

Jon looked at the American wizard who, half a month ago, had officiated the entire Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts Castle as a judge - Matthew Graves.

He was dressed in a simple thin jacket and a normal muggle outfit and was walking briskly along the street, unaware that a gaze from Jon was already on him.

Jon didn't venture to follow him, in fact, the moment he saw Matthew, something could be ascertained.

As far as he knew, Matthew had already returned to the International Confederation of Wizards after the end of the Triwizard Tournament, but Jon had received some information from Dumbledore as well, that the judge's Graves family and Grindelwald were at odds with each other, and these odds were even extended to the Congress, so within the Magical Congress of the United States of America, the danger rating of Grindelwald is higher than that of Voldemort.

Therefore, Matthew's presence here could not be a coincidence.

Either he was representing the Magical Congress of the United States of America and was equally interested in Snape, or he was actually investigating and tracking another group of people and had followed them here.

Either of those two possibilities was enough to make Jon's heart sink slightly, could Snape alone really have attracted so many people?

What exactly had Dumbledore discussed with him? And what deal had been made that made him willing to set him free?

Jon had always felt that Dumbledore had a bad habit of not telling the whole story, but he wasn't in the mood to go back to France and ask for clarification.

Dumbledore hadn't asked him to interfere too much, nor had he said that he had to help Lily get Snape back, so Jon returned to the inn with nothing more than a few curses in the back of his mind.

By the next day, they had already spent three full days in this Inn and were ready to move into a new one, using their other two new identities.

Jon was careful this time, so he asked Lily to switch to her new identity in the Inn's bathroom after checking out and to leave without showing their faces any further, to escape the surveillance of the other group of Death Eaters.

Then he accompanied Lily to that grassy field during the day for a few more days before Jon snuck a feather of his own into Lily's possession and left the industrial city for one night.

He didn't go too far, still within Britain, but just switched his identity and appearance and arrived at the Leaky Cauldron pub.

As the most well-known wizard bar in the whole of Britain, even in the dead of night, some noisy and lonely wizards would come here to drink away their sorrows, so Jon wasn't really conspicuous after arriving here.

Declining Mr Borgin's hospitality, he swept a glance around the bar and soon spotted a wizard in a grey robe with a wide hood sitting in the corner near the back door.

Jon walked over and sat down across from the wizard with a swoop, then picked up the apparently untouched glass of cider in front of him and downed most of it with a "gulp".

"The law has been changed within the Witching Horizon to allow underage wizards to drink?"

The male wizard, whose entire face was hidden under his hood, asked in a low voice that could not be heard by a third person.

Jon, however, smacked his lips without a care in the world, the fruity wine wasn't really as good as plain juice.

"Do you care about us? Go to France now and report me for drinking if you can, I'll raise my hands in support."

Lucius gave Jon a deep look, every time he had a conversation with Jon he didn't feel like this fifteen-year-old teenager was half a minor, instead he was more than an old greaser.

"How's my son doing over in France?"

"He should have just seen a big public trial (show trial), news shouldn't be coming through yet, but I reckon you'll know about it in a few days, so it's okay if I give it to you now in advance."

Jon raised an eyebrow.

"It's a good thing while you didn't teach him to do anything good, you didn't make him vicious either, he wasn't dragged up on stage for a public trial, he just had to be given some proper education, but he must be scared to death that day, watching eight whole classmates he spent time with hanged."

Lucius looked like he was stunned by Jon's words, he was so shocked he didn't speak for a long while, and it was in that space that Jon finished the glass of cider straight away.

"You guys! How dare you kill those students!"

He shuddered, and it took immense fortitude to restrain himself from exclaiming, those eyes under the hood staring deadly at Jon.

Jon shrugged.

"What do you expect otherwise? You mean all of your colleagues think that their children are in no danger at all being taken to France, that Dumbledore will feed them well and provide them with good hospitality, just because of the phrase 'they're all just children' and then forgive them for the wrongs they've done? I had no idea purebloods could be so naive in their thinking."

Lucius ignored Jon's taunts, he hadn't recovered from the staggering amount of information.

The purebloods hadn't really thought that Dumbledore would kill students!

It was completely at odds with how he had behaved before; even the former Voldemort, when he had attended Hogwarts, Dumbledore hadn't really been harsh on him, at most he had heard about his bad behaviour when he had first been accepted into the school and had intimidated him a little with his presence.

Even during the time when Voldemort was first gaining momentum in the wizarding world, and there were already many hardcore supporters for Pureblood Supremacy in Slytherin House, who are now a mainstay of the Death Eaters, Dumbledore likewise never made any big moves against Slytherin House.

So when Dumbledore was about to take those pureblood students away, they didn't show much fear.

But now Jon was actually telling him that eight students had already been hanged!

This made Lucius feel like his whole being was in shock for a moment as if he had heard that Dumbledore had defected to his enemy and joined the Death Eaters!

Jon sneered at such a reaction from Lucius and went on to say.

"And your thoughts are ridiculous, why would you think that Professor Dumbledore would even hold back after all the time we've been fighting and killing each other? That the wrongs committed by those pureblood brutes should be forgiven or ignored just like that?"

Lucius looked up and locked eyes with Jon.

"So you plan to kill all the purebloods?"

Jon looked at him quizzically.

"You think all purebloods are bad and all non-purebloods are good? That self-aware?"

Lucius' eyelids twitched wildly, yet he wondered how to respond to Jon's words, which he didn't know whether it was mocking or genuinely puzzling.

But Jon hadn't meant to get any answers out of him either, and he leaned back in his chair with his whole body and said casually.

"We're not trying to create some new bloodline rivalry, and the philosophy that Witching Horizon holds is not about Muggle Supremacy, it's not like there were only purebloods in those eight students that were hanged, there were also Muggle students that aided the evil as well as those of half-bloods. Or have you all become entrenched in a hierarchical view of bloodline; this is a world where you should be judged by what is right and what is wrong, isn't it? Not that ridiculous bloodline."

Lucius fell silent, he simply couldn't communicate with Jon on this point, being a hardcore fence-sitter, it didn't matter to him what concepts he was made to adhere to as long as it benefited him and the Malfoys.

And right now his only concern was the state of Draco.

"So what's going to happen to him later, to my son?"

"As I told you earlier, he hasn't done anything terribly wrong, so he won't die or go to prison, at most he'll just be educated on the right concepts and experience the life of the muggle-born wizard he once treated as a slave in the process of reforming his mind."

Lucius gritted his teeth and continued to ask.

"Will you use the Memory Charm on him?"

Jon slapped the table in displeasure all of a sudden.

"Don't assume us to be as low as you guys, how can you possibly get long-term stability with that shitty tactic of using a memory charm to change a person's mind? Only that lord of yours would do that because, in fact, you yourselves know very well that the so-called bloodline theory is completely against the human rights and axiom of wizards, while what we are trying to do could be considered the right thing to do."

Hearing this reply from Jon, Lucius' hanging heart dropped a little, as shocked as he was by the death of other people's children, he was not quite so compassionate as to care, and for now, he was content to know that Draco was safe and that nothing would go wrong for the time being.

The conversation about that came to a close for now, and Jon was in no hurry to just get to the point, he suddenly looked at Lucius with a playful expression.

"I hear you've had a lot of time off lately, mate, having retired to experience life at home? Any thoughts on taking this opportunity to have a second child? Give Draco a younger sibling or something."

Lucius' face was dark, and for some reason, from such a tone from Jon, he had the feeling that he was communicating with Snape, the bastard who couldn't be bothered to talk to him.

"What are you trying to say."

"It's been a rough time within the British Ministry of Magic as of late, no?"

Jon said with a smack of his lips.

"That great lord of yours is like a different person after the loss of the Triwizard Tournament and has started cleaning up internally, isn't he? I guess you purebloods aren't having as good a time as you used to, are you? So have you heard any other whispers, like the idea that some of your peers are planning to go elsewhere?"

Lucius' mind visibly jumped after hearing the question, and he thought of someone who had just recently approached him for certain things, so he asked probingly.

"Why should I tell you that?"

Jon spread his hands.

"You can keep it to yourself, of course, but get a grip on the situation yourself, Mr Malfoy, and don't end up plunging into trouble yourself before we can judge you in the future."

Jon's words sounded meaningful, causing a wave of annoyance to rise in Lucius' mind as he didn't want to deal with it, and he cleared his throat.

"If you still want to talk about trading intelligence then we can continue that too, even though I'm no longer in Auror Offic-"

Before he could finish those words, Jon interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

"My answer is still the same, to you, we have no consideration in that regard. If there is nothing more you wish to ask, then I think we can go about our business now, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius looked uncomfortable, Jon had always had the upper hand in their exchanges with him, and he had been held back at every turn.

But it was true that they had to get down to business now before the end of the day.

At such a sensitive time when the British Ministry of Magic and the Witching Horizon were at a stand-off, Jon and Lucius were certainly not meeting undercover just to taunt each other with a few words; there was a deal that needed to be completed between them.

The promise to keep Draco alive in the Triwizard Tournament had been kept, and Jon had fulfilled it after all.

If he hadn't finally driven Voldemort's soul away, then when Voldemort did succeed in his plan, Draco's life would definitely be in jeopardy, and according to his level of caution, he certainly wouldn't have left any of them alive.

So, in return for Draco's survival in this tournament, Lucius had to fulfil his promise.

To take Jon to where Adrien, the wizard who had created the ring, lived in Britain.

They left through Diagon Alley, then in a deserted corner, Jon was taken to the middle of nowhere by Lucius, who used Apparition to take him there.

Jon was not afraid that this was a trap set by Lucius unless they had researched magic to counter the Phoenix Apparition, even Voldemort would not be able to keep him if he wanted to leave.

After they landed, Jon didn't notice any buildings in front of him, but after Lucius took out his wand and tapped it against the grass, a magic spell was removed and an old, dilapidated courtyard appeared in front of them.

Jon scrutinized the courtyard for a moment, then turned his head to look at Lucius.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

Lucius grimaced.

"We made a pact before, and unless that Adrien I speak of is not the same person as the one you know, there is no chance of me lying."

"Then why are you staying here?" Jon asked as he looked at him.

Lucius took a deep breath as he gave Jon one last look and spoke hesitantly.

"As long as you can take care of Draco, anything can be done in the future."

Jon waved a hand.

"Then we'll talk about everything else later."

After receiving such a reply, Lucius looked like he was a little reluctant, but in the end, he didn't dwell on it any further and simply used Apparition to leave the place.

Jon waited for him to leave before turning his head and pushing open the gate to enter a small, deserted courtyard, which he could see had been well cared for by its owner, but had now been abandoned for over ten years.

Without stopping in the yard, he came to the door of the house, which was unlocked, and easily pushed it open and entered a dusty living room that had been rummaged through.

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