"Do I look stupid?" Hubert snorted, his gaze falling on the others who had already gotten up.
"And what about you? What are you all doing here causing trouble?"
"You're going to England, right? You'll get to see the Master, right?" a young girl suddenly leaned in, looking at Hubert expectantly. "Take me with you."
"We haven't seen our dear little Master in so long!" The woman next to her, with big wavy hair, looked even more eager, her eyes gleaming. "The Master is truly the cutest boy I've ever seen."
Everyone nodded repeatedly.
The corner of Conti's mouth twitched. This is outrageous.
Hubert sneered, "If you have the guts, go say that to the Master's face."
"We can't do that," they all said in unison.
Someone emphasized, "We don't want to be punished, and we definitely don't want to end up in the dungeon."
Conti's face darkened. "Then shut up."
His gaze met Hubert's in mid-air, a rare moment of understanding between them.
Hubert fiddled with a button, saying regretfully, "I've already assembled the security team for England; I'm afraid there's no room for you."
Conti immediately added, "If you're that bored, go find Mary or Johnny, or go give those spineless wizarding governments something to worry about. Stop obsessing over the Master's whereabouts every day."
The group dispersed, disappointed.
Hubert arranged for someone to liaise with Uncle Vernon, while he set his own sights on the British magical nobility.
He planned to get a sense of the market situation in the British magical world. But before getting down to business, Hubert took his bodyguards and went across from Number Four, Privet Drive.
When Harry woke up, he spotted a familiar face through the window and felt like beating Hubert up.
Hubert, however, saw nothing wrong with it. He waved at Harry through the window, grinning so wide his gums were almost showing, looking utterly undignified.
Harry's vision went dark.
He pulled the curtains shut expressionlessly.
When Uncle Vernon returned home, he was full of energy, radiating joy from head to toe; it was clear his business deal had gone through.
Aunt Petunia was also obviously in a good mood.
Seeing them happy, Harry immediately poured cold water on them.
"Aunt, I came back this time because I wanted to ask you about something," Harry said politely, sitting on the sofa after dinner.
"What?" Petunia asked with a smile.
"It's about my parents," Harry said, dropping a bombshell without batting an eye. "Were they wizards?"
Petunia's smile froze, and Uncle Vernon's expression abruptly changed. He glared at Harry, looking like he wanted to lose his temper, but then, thinking of the deal he had just secured, he swallowed his anger.
Dudley, sensing his parents' change in mood, stopped laughing abruptly. He glanced nervously at Harry and fumbled with his stubby fingers to lower the TV volume.
Petunia's face stiff as she forced a smile. "Harry, why the sudden interest in your parents?"
Harry pursed his lips. "I've been in contact with the magical world and heard some news about my parents."
"They didn't die in a car crash like you told me. They were in the magical world, fighting against Voldemort with the Order of the Phoenix, and they died in that war."
Harry selectively shared the information he had gathered, his tone calm. "Wizards say Voldemort killed my parents, but I, as a baby, defeated him. They call me the Boy Who Lived."
"Rubbish!" Petunia's voice suddenly became shrill, almost a scream.
"How could a baby defeat that terrorist?" She suddenly grabbed Harry by the collar, demanding, "What else? Is there anything else?!"
Vernon and Dudley both shuddered involuntarily.
Harry's breath caught. He instinctively leaned back, staring nervously at Aunt Petunia's furious expression, and forced a smile. "Aunt, please calm down. That's all I know for now."
"It does sound absurd, but I don't know the other details, so I wanted to ask you."
Petunia's face grew even darker. She answered stiffly, "I don't know either."
"After Lily graduated from that freak school, she almost never had anything to do with me again."
"I didn't know she was dead until you, still in your swaddling clothes, suddenly appeared on my doorstep," Petunia said, her face twitching, followed by a cold snort. "Serves her right… I warned her so many times, don't mix with those freaks, but she wouldn't listen, she just wouldn't listen!"
She turned her head viciously to glare at the wall, lost in thought.
Harry didn't know what to say either. After all, he hadn't grown up with his aunt; it was hard to understand what was going on in Petunia's mind.
Vernon looked at Petunia for a moment, then put his arm around her shoulder and patted her comfortingly.
An awkward silence fell.
When Petunia calmed down, she suddenly remembered something and looked at Harry. "If you want to know about Lily, there's someone who might know."
"Lily had a friend when she was a child, a freak like her, a boy who lived on Spinner's End. His name was Severus Snape."
Petunia explained coolly, "But where he is now, I don't know."
Harry's eyelid twitched.
He knew that the intelligence Conti had brought included information about Hogwarts, including the houses and the professors.
Severus Snape… Hogwarts Potions professor, Head of Slytherin.
He… was childhood friends with his mother? Wasn't he a Death Eater?
Harry pondered. Also, I remember Gryffindor and Slytherin are mortal enemies, right?
…The kind of mortal enemies who would beat each other's brains out.
Petunia began to shoo him away. "You're a freak too. You'll go back to those freaks sooner or later. You'll find out more eventually."
"If you have nothing else to do, go back to your room. Stop being an eyesore here."
"Oh," Harry said, obediently agreeing, seeing that Petunia was in a bad mood.
As he set foot on the stairs, Petunia's voice suddenly sounded again. "Harry."
Harry turned to look, but Petunia wasn't looking at him; she seemed to be talking to herself.
"A baby is very weak. You didn't kill the bad man. You remember, it was your mother who killed him, and your mother who saved you."
As for James Potter? What was he?
Petunia didn't even want to think about him.
Petunia might not understand what Voldemort represented, but she considered herself a normal person.
Those wizards must have been out of their minds to treat a child like the Boy Who Lived. What good were they? What was her sister then? An insignificant sacrifice?
If Dudley had been the one to go through that, Petunia felt she would have exploded just thinking about it.
Harry said, "I know."
Knowing was one thing, but being angry was another.
Harry had seen too many wizards doused with holy water and tied to stakes by ordinary people. As a leader who had led wizards in fights against the Church, he naturally didn't think highly of Muggles.
But even when wizards in that world were forced to live in hiding, they never created a so-called savior for themselves.
Even as their leader, Harry was only respected as a sage.
Yet, with a blink of his eyes, he seamlessly transformed into the Boy Who Lived here.
Harry was seething with anger, a bit tempted to show these useless people whether it was the Boy Who Lived or the next Dark Lord who could truly defeat the Dark Lord.
Maybe they would start praying for the next Boy Who Lived then.
The Dark Lord and the Boy Who Lived had to be a pair. What was that supposed to be? The Dark Lord's personal Boy Who Lived?
How ridiculous.
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