Volume 4: The Sea and the Ship Heading North Chapter 163 Wormtail's Efforts
"Peter had been hanging behind the carriage since the beginning of this year. He found a time when you were not in the carriage and used some small things given to him by the Dark Lord to sneak into the carriage."
Lily handed Dumbledore a bone of an unknown animal and a box that looked very shabby.
"The bone was attached with powerful dark magic, and Peter used it to temporarily avoid the outer defense of the carriage and broke in. After that, it used this box to hide. It was indeed he who instigated the rebellion of the third son of the Weasley family. At that time, he had been in the carriage for a long time, and during this time, he discovered that the boy was dissatisfied with his situation and his family's choices."
"When Arthur and Molly were sent to France and came into contact with Bella who was pretending to be Roland, the Dark Lord was at the most critical juncture of winning over the high-ranking pure-blood wizards in the French magic world. If Arthur and Molly had gone smoothly in collecting intelligence in France, they would have been able to discover some problems even with the cover-up by people like Bella."
"In order to avoid this risk, the Dark Lord ordered Peter to use the Weasley children to create chaos in the carriage and attract the attention of Arthur and the others as much as possible."
"Percy became his best breakthrough point. He did not have a direct conversation with Percy, but gained his friendship by delivering letters to Percy, recognizing his talent, and standing up for Percy when he was looked down upon by his younger brother and pushed down by lower-grade students in the carriage."
"What really made Percy decide to rebel and trust this 'pen pal' whom he had never met was a letter of appointment signed by the British Minister of Magic."
"Percy received the letter of appointment when he was at home during the summer vacation. I suspect that Fudge had a face-to-face communication with him using Floo powder. However, Peter was in the carriage at that time, so he just acted as a middleman."
"After returning to the carriage, after Percy made it clear that he was determined to rebel, Peter also suggested that if he made some 'merits' on the carriage before the rebellion, he could get better treatment after joining the Ministry of Magic, but this proposal was rejected by Percy."
Lupin took over Lily's words.
"But the Dark Lord's original goal has been achieved. Arthur and Molly received the news of their son's rebellion and returned from France. In order to avoid suspicion, they took the initiative to resign from all their positions and handed over all the work in France to Sirius."
"After Percy's problem, we also discovered that there was someone lurking in the carriage, and we conducted three full-scale searches."
Lupin looked at the small wooden box that was already in Dumbledore's hands.
"At first, we thought that there was something wrong with your search of the carriage and that we didn't observe some places that were difficult to notice. But after checking Wormtail's memory and finding this box on him, we realized that it was this thing that helped him hide in the carriage."
"A box with extremely powerful Concealment and Confusion spells. The magic on it must have come from the hand of the Dark Lord. It can even avoid your detection. Moreover, Wormtail did not hide in one place all the time. He prepared three hiding places in total, in the astronomy classroom on the top of the carriage, at the axle at the bottom of the carriage, and under the wooden stairs at the rear exit of the carriage. Once he feels that one of them is no longer safe, he will start to move."
"And the rat hair that Jon found in the Charms classroom before was also left there intentionally by him. The Dark Lord later discovered that you had asked Sirius to go to France in place of Arthur and Molly, so he ordered Wormtail to reveal his identity in order to lure Sirius back."
"Although Wormtail was extremely resistant to this, he still didn't dare to disobey that person's order. This time he targeted Jon. He knew from Percy that you trusted this student very much. He also judged Jon's boldness and carefulness through his previous deeds in Hogwarts Castle. So he took the initiative to expose the clues related to himself to him. Afterwards, as he expected, Jon did not ignore the clues that were only a handful of hair like other students, and took the initiative to report to you."
"This incident also achieved the effect that the Dark Lord expected. After I wrote a letter to Sirius and got the news, he quit his job in France and returned directly to England. From that time on, we had completely lost the last chance to learn about the Dark Lord's arrangements in France and to stop him."
Sirius had a rather unhappy look on his face. The sense of satisfaction he had just felt in avenging his friend by killing Wormtail had almost completely disappeared. They were simply being played around with.
Wormtail was very familiar with the personalities of these people and had calculated their every reaction.
Dumbledore stared at the wooden box in his hand, shook his head calmly and said.
"He completed his mission so brilliantly, but in the end, his master still chose to abandon him."
"Because the Dark Lord has always known that Wormtail has never been truly loyal to him." Lupin said calmly, "As Wormtail himself said before his death, he succumbed to the Dark Lord only out of his fear of him, not out of any worship of him as a person, or any agreement with his pure-blood theory."
"The Dark Lord has read his inner thoughts thoroughly. He has sent him to the carriage to carry out this mission, which is to squeeze out the last bit of his surplus value."
"Wormtail also sensed this, but he had no choice but to please his master, whom he feared. From the moment he chose to betray us, he had no other choice."
When he said this, Lupin frowned slightly.
"The only regret now is that I didn't get from Wormtail what the Dark Lord's next strategy will be after he has completely taken control of France."
Dumbledore looked up at the sky with deep eyes.
"You don't need to know this from Wormtail's memory. He holds the highest level of power in France, but that doesn't mean he completely controls the French wizarding world."
"According to the methods he used to control Britain, there will definitely be a bloody crackdown next. Especially since there are currently a large number of Muggle wizards in France, in order to consolidate his theory of pure-blood superiority, he must control the number of Muggle wizards to a certain level. Not too many to pose a big threat to his rule, but not too few to leave no one to oppress him and leave the lowest-level slaves."
