As that cold voice posed its question, the room fell into a temporary silence.

Frank pressed his right ear against the door, trying to hear more clearly.

"...Don't worry, Master. I will kill him myself if he doesn't cooperate."

After a moment of silence, the man called Barty Crouch replied coldly, his voice laced with chill.

"Good, I certainly believe you can do that… However, what I mean is, it would be best to capture him if possible—a living high-ranking official from the Ministry of Magic is far more useful than a useless corpse, isn't he? He can do so much more."

Frank's expression gradually became serious. He had clearly heard the words "Ministry of Magic," "corpse," and "official."

Perhaps there were some secret codes he didn't understand, but based on Frank's experience, the people in the room were clearly extremely dangerous.

If it wasn't a poorly rehearsed play, then he might have stumbled upon a group of criminals planning a murder. Frank gripped his walking stick tightly, held his breath, and listened even more intently to the conversation on the other side of the wooden door.

"Are you planning to use the Imperius Curse to control him?" Barty Crouch asked softly.

"That would, of course, be the first choice, but if he's too stubborn..."

The icy, sharp voice chuckled softly, and Frank felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"The Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the former Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he has so many secrets waiting to be unearthed. And after he's outlived his usefulness, his corpse will be the most wonderful warning. A warning to those who dare to hope, how foolish it is to oppose the Dark Lord. I will give you this honor, just as I personally killed my foolish and filthy Muggle father decades ago..."

Wait, wait—

A tightly wound string in Frank's mind seemed to suddenly snap.

Barty Crouch... Master... Tom Riddle... killing his father... decades ago...

He suddenly remembered the only person he had seen near the Riddle House on the day the Riddles died.

It was a teenage boy he didn't recognize, a boy with dark hair and a pale face. The other villagers said they had never seen such a boy, so the police unanimously concluded that Frank had fabricated it out of thin air, but he knew he had seen that mysterious boy...

Speaking of which, decades ago, even before the Riddles died, there had been a shocking scandal in Little Hangleton!

The son of the squire of Little Hangleton had eloped and married Merope, the daughter of a tramp, which had shocked all the villagers of Little Hangleton. However, a few months later, Tom Riddle returned to the Riddle House, but without his wife.

People rumored that Tom Riddle insisted that he had been "deceived" and "duped."

At the time, the villagers speculated that Merope had lied to Tom Riddle, pretending that she was pregnant with his child, forcing him to marry her. Unfortunately, the woman never returned to Little Hangleton, so people couldn't find anyone else to ask.

But if... if...

The woman named Merope hadn't lied, or in those few months, she had conceived a child.

Right, what was the name of that tramp, Merope's father?

Frank struggled to search and sift through the dust-covered memories.

Marvolo Gaunt? Or Mavorl Gaunt?

Wait, how did that kid Rhodes say the name of the owner of the house was pronounced?

"...Tom Marvolo Riddle." Frank's mind was timely filled with the somewhat nervous voice of the sheriff Rhodes.

On the steps outside, Frank suddenly realized that the hand gripping his walking stick was soaked with sweat.

Obviously, that sharp, cold-voiced man, the man Barty Crouch called Master, was most likely the black-haired boy he had seen by the Riddle House years ago, the child abandoned by old Tom Riddle—decades after he killed old Riddle, Little Riddle, who had disappeared for many years, was now plotting another shocking murder in front of him as the head of a gang of criminals.

Frank knew what he had to do. He had to find the police at this time.

He had to sneak out of the old house and head straight for the village phone booth, or bang on Rhodes' door.

But that voice that sounded like "Little Tom Riddle" started speaking again.

Frank stayed where he was, as if frozen, desperately concentrating on listening.

"It's almost time... you can go to the Ministry of Magic... kill anyone who resists, except for old Crouch. Of course, the most important thing is the prophecy sphere and the files, destroy them all if you can't take them—I have many servants who are well hidden, and some are still waiting for me to rescue them. Go, first teach the Ministry of Magic a lesson, and then... it will be Dumbledore's turn..."

Frank's heart sank. The walking stick in his hand was gripped so tightly that it was about to break, just like when he was holding a rifle on the battlefield.

Those criminals were about to move out, they were coming out!

There was only one road leading from the Riddle House to the outer main road. Whether those guys left from the front door or the back door, he wouldn't be able to outrun those able-bodied people with his bad leg. Sweat began to seep from Frank's forehead, and the hand gripping his walking stick trembled non-stop.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Just then, a series of sounds like coarse salt sprinkled on a fire suddenly came from inside the room.

Frank was horrified to find that the orange light surrounding the house had instantly turned into a strange, ghostly green.

At least ten or so, oh, no, perhaps more whispering voices rose in turn from various locations in the Riddle House—all in places where fireplaces had been built—whether "fake fireplaces" or real fireplaces—the room quickly became quiet, and Frank suddenly had a strange idea, a ridiculous idea... those people could leave through the flames in the fireplace, perhaps that's how they came?

Frank didn't understand what was going on.

He knew it was crazy, but there seemed to be no other explanation.

Frank tried to suppress the fear in his heart, carefully moving his legs and retracing his steps back to the front door.

No one chased after him, but the firelight in the Riddle House didn't go out. However, the ghostly green light was gradually dissipating into orange, and he could vaguely see some figures moving by the windows. The criminals gathered there had obviously not all left.

Despite trembling violently, Frank clenched his walking stick and limped along the mountain road toward the center of Little Hangleton.

For decades, the label of "murderer" had tormented him like a wound that would never heal.

He had even given up hope of clearing his name, until tonight, what he had heard... if his guess was correct, if the police acted fast enough, perhaps before he lay in his coffin, he would have a chance to wash away the stain that had tormented the second half of his life.

…………

"That old Muggle has left..."

In the distance, on the second floor of the Riddle House, out of old Frank's sight.

A middle-aged wizard moved his fingers away from the blinds, and his voice returned to normal.

"Well, good thing he didn't choose to break down the door just now—"

Frank shrugged, relieved, and let out a long breath, curiously looking at the wizard standing by the window.

"So, that voice just now... was the voice of your British Dark Lord? It sounds a bit uncomfortable—"

As the wizard responsible for guarding and maintaining the scene, after activating the Portkey transfer point and lighting the fireplace, his remaining job was to sit quietly in the corner and enjoy the "play performance," and to cast Obliviate or other spells if necessary, to avoid unexpected accidents.

"Well, sort of... I'm imitating the scenes in the memory material—"

The middle-aged wizard spread his hands, somewhat uncertainly, "Anyway, it's separated by such a thick door, and so many years have passed, it doesn't matter if it's a little different. After all, that Dark Lord can't jump out and deny it, right? Also, I'm not British, I just studied at Hogwarts. I was born in Vienna, my mother is British, so I have a little talent in languages."

"I still don't understand, well, I'm not discriminating against Muggles, I just think..."

Frank glanced at the orange fireplace flames flickering on the other side of the room, making sure that his verbose uncle didn't pop out of it.

"That's just an ordinary Muggle old man, even Muggle police might not care about what he says. We're going to the trouble of weaving scene dialogues. It always feels like we're doing something useless. No matter how you think about it, what a Muggle old man overhears is too unconvincing in the magical world! If you want to mislead the British Ministry of Magic, wouldn't it be more convincing to choose a wizard?"

"Can I understand that you are questioning Miss 'Fool's' decision, or..."

The middle-aged wizard raised his left eyebrow, stroking his wand and said softly, "You think these things have insulted your talent?"

"I'm not, I, I just—" Frank explained anxiously.

Ever since he performed the "invitation" task in the former Soviet Union, he had subconsciously wanted to understand the purpose of the task. According to that Mr. Alexei, understanding why you are doing something is more important than understanding how to do something.

If he didn't want to be a cog in the machine for the rest of his life, then he had to try to understand the value of his mission as much as possible.

"Very simple, because the first thing people judge when deciding whether information is credible or not is not the source of the information."

Just then, a girl's voice rang out, like a wind chime blown by the forest breeze, interrupting Frank's words.

The two wizards in the room turned their heads and saw "Miss Fool" gently pushing the door open and walking in.

As if a young queen was visiting her territory, the girl's eyes slowly swept across the room, and finally fell on Frank's uneasy face.

"What they want to believe, that's the most important thing. People are always arrogant and conceited. To some extent, Mr. Frank Bryce's testimony is even more powerful than Albus Dumbledore's testimony—after all... he doesn't even understand what a 'Muggle' is."

"Miss Fool's" lake-blue eyes were as bewitching as before, but the tone of her voice was full of arrogance and coldness.

"From now on, try Floo Network travel every three minutes to confirm that the fireplace network is closed—destination, the British Ministry of Magic. Once you successfully arrive at the Ministry of Magic, it means that the 'dark wizard' who invaded the Ministry of Magic should leave, understand?"

"Start—"

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Yay!