In the Hufflepuff common room, Leonard sat by the fireplace, unfolding a letter.
November had settled deep into autumn, and with days of unending rain, the chill in the castle seemed to seep right into one's bones.
Fires now burned in every hearth across Hogwarts. Students gathered around them, lounging on sofas, finding cozy spots to study or chat with friends.
Leonard, naturally, wasn't inclined to endure the damp cold of late autumn either. When he had nothing else to do, he too would sit by the fire to keep warm.
"The Dark Lord has returned?" Leonard murmured, frowning slightly as he read the letter from Midgard.
He took a sip of his tea, pondered for a while, then slowly relaxed his brow.
He had already pieced together the situation.
The news itself was strange—spreading overnight without any trace of where it came from.
And it was the sort of news that shouldn't have spread at all.
Neither Dumbledore's side nor Voldemort's could afford to publicize it.
The so-called "light side" needed stability. The last time the Dark Lord had risen, his shadow had thrown the entire wizarding world into chaos. Countless innocent lives had been destroyed in the storm that followed.
If this rumor spread now, it would only bring unnecessary panic.
As for the Dark side, with Voldemort not yet openly returned, his followers—the Death Eaters—would hardly start shouting about his resurrection.
That would be nothing short of suicidal.
Ordinary wizards would be even less likely to spread such rumors. They wouldn't dare to speak of them, nor would they want to. Most of them flinched just hearing the name "Voldemort."
Powerful wizards avoided saying it because they knew of his curse—"those who speak the name are heard by him." Ordinary witches and wizards, on the other hand, simply feared it.
Expecting common wizards to go around declaring that Voldemort had returned? That would be a Halloween joke fit for hell itself.
So for most people, the origin of this rumor was a mystery—one so baffling that some might even believe Voldemort himself had spread it.
But the real puzzle lay in how it spread.
As already noted, whether true or false, the Death Eaters would suppress such talk, and the Ministry of Magic loathed such rumors beyond measure.
Especially Cornelius Fudge's Ministry—once they discovered such claims, they would crush them with full force.
So the very way this rumor had spread remained a mystery.
It was as though some unseen hand—an outsider—was deliberately stirring the waters of the British wizarding world.
From the perspective of most, no matter how clever one was, speculation could only reach that far.
But there were at least three people who knew the truth. They knew there was no outsider at all—only a mad father blinded by hatred.
The first culprit: Leonard, the one who had set everything in motion.
He was the one who had used the troll to kill Malfoy. He had anticipated that Lucius Malfoy's loyalty to Voldemort would waver. So when the bizarre rumors of "Voldemort's return" began spreading, Leonard quickly traced their origin.
The second culprit: Dumbledore, who, driven by necessity and for the sake of Hogwarts, had allowed events to unfold this way.
Three students dying at once was catastrophic for any school. Under pressure from furious parents, Hogwarts would have been forced to shut down.
If that happened, the Chosen One—Harry Potter—would lose the guidance and training Dumbledore needed him to have. His carefully crafted plan to raise a weapon capable of defeating Voldemort would be destroyed.
Even if Hogwarts reopened later, it would no longer be under Dumbledore's control.
So, with no other choice, he subtly hinted to Lucius Malfoy that the one behind the tragedy was a follower of Voldemort—forcing Lucius into direct confrontation with the Dark Lord himself.
Voldemort, naturally, couldn't allow Hogwarts to close. If it did, he would lose his excuse to approach the school and seize the Philosopher's Stone, stalling his resurrection plans.
To prevent that, he had no choice but to meet with Lucius Malfoy—and persuade him to abandon his pursuit of vengeance.
The final culprit was Lucius Malfoy, who sought to avenge his son through his own means.
Leonard hadn't expected Lucius to act so recklessly. When he first saw the news, he had hesitated for a moment before realizing that there was only one person with both the motive and the means to do such a thing.
Lucius Malfoy's goal was simple: to weaken Voldemort's Death Eater faction.
He likely intended for the rumor of the Dark Lord's resurrection to draw in confused or desperate Death Eaters—many of whom still regarded him as the most respected and wealthiest among their ranks.
Once gathered, he could direct them to commit some outrageous act and then watch as they were wiped out, with no Dark Lord to save them.
After reaching this conclusion, Leonard leaned back in his armchair. He watched a group of Hufflepuff students animatedly discussing the upcoming second Quidditch match and couldn't help but feel a flicker of amusement at their youthful energy.
In contrast, Lucius Malfoy's revenge scheme reeked of a weary, self-destructive kind of desperation.
It brought no benefit to the Malfoy family he prized so highly.
As a former Death Eater who had managed to temporarily distance himself from the group's tainted name, Lucius was now throwing himself right back into the storm's center.
As the head of one of the most influential pure-blood families tied to the Death Eaters, if a group of Death Eaters were to be destroyed while he remained unharmed, Voldemort's suspicion and wrath would inevitably fall on him.
But if he suffered losses as well, that would mean the "former Death Eater" label he had shaken off would once again become an open badge of allegiance.
It was a strategy that harmed the enemy but damaged himself almost as much—a lose-lose situation.
If he mishandled it, the Malfoy family name could even be stricken from the rolls of pure-blood nobility.
It all depended on how Lucius chose to play his next move.
Leonard considered it carefully, wondering if there was any room for him to intervene.
Just as he was lost in thought, Susan and Hannah came running over. Leonard noticed them and quietly slipped the letter into the fireplace, letting the flames consume it.
"Leonard!" Susan called out eagerly. "It's Slytherin versus Gryffindor today! Padma asked us to see if you're coming to the match!"
During Quidditch Month, at least one match took place every weekend—and this weekend's game was the long-anticipated showdown between Slytherin and Gryffindor.
The rivalry between the two Houses ran deep, and everyone knew it was bound to be an intense, unforgettable match.
Even more exciting—it was the debut of the Chosen One, Harry Potter! That alone added another layer of anticipation, as students buzzed with curiosity to see how the famed savior would perform in his first Quidditch game.