In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 391: Lost Contact

Inside Hogwarts Castle, the Ball continued in the Great Hall.

It was just that after Jon and Lee have hooked Barty Jr. and Snape out of the castle, the students from Hogwarts wagon who were still attending the Ball, as well as Durmstrang, had left early with Rosier leading the way.

And Lucius here had also received a report from his men about a disturbance in the upper levels of the castle, but he didn't take the matter too seriously and just sent a team of Aurors to check out the confinement room where Selwyn was being detained, thinking that the young lady was throwing her bad temper around.

However, once Barty Jr. returned to the great hall with a nasty look on his face and found him, Lucius sensed that something had gone wrong.

"Send someone to the Ministry of Magic immediately and inform the Death Eaters left at the Ministry to meet me in Hogwarts without delay! Then seal off the entrances and exits of the great hall for me now, but don't disturb the students, judges and newspaper reporters here, tell them that there is a routine inspection going on in the castle and their cooperation is needed by remaining here. Send all other Aurors out to search the entire castle and report anything unusual immediately!"

Snape stood calmly by Barty's side, acting as if he was an uninvolved person when the orders were being given.

When Lucius heard Barty's order, he turned his head to look at Snape and, after noticing that the deputy headmaster, who had always been at odds with Barty, did not make a sound, he went to arrange for the Aurors to proceed according to the order.

After directing Lucius, Barty Jr. turned his head back to Snape and he lowered his voice.

"This matter must be informed to our lord, I will bear all the consequences."

Snape just glanced at him faintly.

"No need to give me special emphasis, whether you admit it to yourself or not, the consequences are meant to be borne by you, and why do you need to tell me specifically about informing our lord, you are perfectly capable of doing it yourself."

Barty Jr. pursed his lips, it was clear that Snape's comment was undoubtedly the same as adding another bucket of oil to his already burning anger.

"Don't try to play games with me at this point! I can't contact our lord at all! After the first task ended, and I briefed him on my plans, I never received any instructions from him."

Hearing him say this, Snape frowned slightly as he gave Barty Jr. a deep look.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure, I tried to contact our lord twice in the meantime but received no reply, I assumed our lord was dealing with something else important and didn't have time to communicate with me!"

Snape didn't go on to make any more gloomy remarks, he obviously noticed the big issues at stake as well.

"Follow me."

He left those words and Barty Jr. didn't hesitate, leaving Lucius to organise arrangements for Aurors to carry out the search through the entire castle, while he followed Snape to his office.

Snape selected a book with a black cover and no markings on it from the shelf, then spread it out on his desk, sprinkled some Floo powder onto the pages, and finally tapped the book with his wand.

The next moment, the Floo powder on the pages flared up into a green flame, which was not violent, but like a small flame burning on a candle.

However after the green flames lit up nothing more happened, the green glow reflected off the faces of both Snape and Barty, making both of their faces look as grim as they could.

"Our lord has broken all contact with us."

Barty's voice was trembling, he rarely showed such emotion, especially in front of Snape.

Snape didn't say anything, he just kept quiet and stared at the ghastly green fire, his already pale face looking even more bleak now.

"When was the first time you couldn't reach out to our lord?"

"The second week of October."

"It's been almost two months now, you've contacted him twice, this is the first time I have, and it's certainly no coincidence that we have failed to contact him three times in total."

After Snape's words had fallen, a dead silence fell over the office.

It was a long time before Barty said in a voice that had reverted back to its frighteningly calm tone.

"Absolutely, by all means, no one else must know about this."

Snape didn't make a sound, he was still looking at the green fire and just nodded heavily.

In the castle, young Barty's arrangements were quickly carried out.

Voldemort had given him and Snape a great deal of authority, previously it would have been necessary to include both the Lestrange couple while making big decisions when their lord was away, but after the Lestranges had now been killed in public by Jon, then the two of them were considered to be above all others and below one in the entire British magical community.

Once the Death Eaters had arrived at the castle, they assumed command over the Aurors as a matter of course, each one leading a squad of Aurors as they searched the castle.

The students who were still mingling in the great hall hadn't noticed anything wrong yet, and it was still early enough that no one wanted to go back to their dormitories for the time being, and when they had spent enough time in the hall, they went in pairs to the garden, a move that the Aurors didn't stop.

In an hour or so, the Death Eaters and the Aurors had searched every possible area of the castle, but none of them had found anything unusual.

The news soon reached Barty and Snape, who had been in front of the castle entrance hall since they had left the Deputy Headmaster's office.

Barty Jr.'s face didn't look as grim as it had when he had just returned to the Great Hall; instead, he showed enough composure at this point.

"Are you sure all the locations in the castle have been searched?"

"There's only one place we still have to check that we know of," Lucius said as he stared into Barty's eyes.

Even if he didn't say where it was directly, both Barty Jr. and Snape knew where the place that both the Death Eaters and the Aurors knew but were too afraid to search would be.

Snape stepped forward at this moment, and he looked at Lucius with a cold face.

"Our lord has left me with this authority, I will lead you into the Headmaster's office."

Lucius frowned.

"I've never heard of it before, and besides, even if you did have this permission, wouldn't we need to report it to our lord first before making a decision?"

At this point, Barty Jr. showed ample tacit understanding with Snape.

"You don't need to doubt his word, I can totally vouch for that. And right now our lord is in the middle of a very important matter and has warned us that no one should bother him."

Voldemort had divided the vast majority of the authority in his hands equally between Snape and Barty Jr. for just such a situation.

If everything had been going smoothly, Barty Jr. would definitely have targeted Snape, who had been clearly born a half-blood but held a high position and fought him for authority at every turn.

But when it comes to special circumstances, then Barty's loyalty towards Voldemort will definitely make it possible for him to put aside all his previous disputes with Snape and join forces to deal with the situation.

And in Voldemort's absence, if the voices of Barty and Snape were to be united, then even the Minister of Magic, Fudge, would not be able to decide most things as they could.

So after hearing Barty Jr. step up to Snape's side, Lucius had no objection.

They led a group of people to the door of the Headmaster's office on the seventh floor, and then, in the presence of everyone, Snape pushed the door open.

There were broken and damaged portraits everywhere, a huge snake with a hole in its head in a pool of blood, pieces of armour scattered all over the floor, and two pairs of enchanted armour guarding both sides of the desk together!

The sight before them was so obvious that whoever looked at it knew exactly what had transpired in this office.

Snape led the way by stepping inside the Headmaster's office, he made his way to Nagini's corpse and gently dabbed some scarlet snake blood with his finger.

"It hasn't been long since it died, two hours ago at most."

His gaze was on Barty Jr. as he said this, both of them well aware of who they were following two hours ago.

Avoiding Snape's gaze, Barty Jr. made his way to the desk and looked at the four relics that had been placed on it as well as the tabletop that was covered in ancient runes that he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't paid close attention.

He soon discovered the carved inscriptions.

It was a few drops of dark green ink, the aftermath when the knight's sword hit Gryffindor's sword while the shorthand quill was transcribing the runes.

Seeing the traces of ink, and looking at the ancient runes on the desk, it was easy for Barty to connect the dots.

But he did not voice out these findings and simply turned his head to look around at the shattered portraits.

"Put these portraits back together for me at once, then find them in other locations and see if you can figure something out."

Soon an Auror carried out his orders and returned to the Ministry of Magic with the shattered portraits to try and mend and search for them.

It was at this time that a Death Eater finally raised an objection.

"Shouldn't we report this situation here to our lord first?"

They all entered the Headmaster's office for the first time, so no one even knew what the place was like before it was destroyed, and no one knew for sure if anything precious had been stolen, so someone suggested that it would be the right thing to report it to Voldemort first.

But Barty Jr. simply said indifferently.

"Our lord is in the middle of something from which he cannot afford to be distracted, even if there is such an accident in the Headmaster's office."

Snape, the only one who could question him for speaking like this, did not speak up, so the others had the good sense to choose to believe it.

And this time Lucius went on to ask a new question.

"So how do we track down the perpetrator now?"

"The perpetrator doesn't even need to be traced, there is only one group who has any chance of having the ability and idea to get into the Headmaster's office to do this within this school now!"

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