EP.98 INTERROGATION
Mr. Weasley's office was small and broken, and his desk was littered with all sorts of things: documents for work, stolen goods seized from the field, personal belongings placed here for manipulation at leisure, and stolen goods disguised as the former......
But while Neil prefers to keep his personal space a little neater, he doesn't find the clutter disgusting. On the contrary, it looks like the office of a raunchy chivalrous detective from an old movie, and it makes people feel an incredible passion for adventure, as if they are getting up close and personal with scenes from the movie.
- Of course, we have to admit with shame that most of those films were made by Americans.
"Dragon?" Mr. Weasley's eyes were downcast, absentmindedly playing with an old spark plug. But Neil noticed that his voice and tail finger were trembling slightly, "Did he really get himself a dragon egg, and then secretly hatched it out at school?"
Neil smiled wryly. However, Ron is also half of the party involved in this matter, and it is likely that his actions have violated the Ministry of Magic's rules on shielding crimes. That being the case, as a parent, Mr. Weasley is somewhat qualified to know the inside story of some things.
It is a little too pitiful to watch his own son, like old Louis Dantès, be dragged into the Château d'If.
Mr. Weasley scratched his hair in annoyance.
"Oh my God, he should have written to us sooner! Charlie is doing research on this in Romania right now, and when we went there to see him at Christmas, they were almost like no one cared about it, and it couldn't have been easier to sneak in a young dragon......
"We're not doing badly." Neil said respectfully, surprised to see that even in this case, Mr. Weasley was still more worried about Hagrid's situation than his own son, "It could even be said better—I have no intention of belittling your colleague on this matter, but I'm sure no one would have thought of going all the way east over the Bayankala Mountains to track down the young dragon's tracks. Noble would be safe, and neither would Hagrid - as long as they couldn't come up with hard evidence against him, Headmaster Dumbledore would always have a way to deal with it...... Just like the time the Chamber of Secrets opened."
The word Chamber made Mr. Weasley's expression change slightly, but he didn't say anything.
At this time, there was a knock on the door outside. Neil reached out with a lightning bolt, grabbed a Muggle weeder flyer from his desk, and pretended to read it. He had already heard the small sound of the doorknob being twisted, and it was clear that whoever was coming had no intention of following the etiquette and waiting for the person inside to say "Please come in".
Sure enough, as soon as he made his disguise, the door of the office was rudely pushed open, and two male witches in brown robes, one fat and one thin, walked in, with straight faces, like tax collectors from the noble lord's family who went to the countryside to do business.
Mr. Weasley was stunned for a moment, not only because of their rudeness, but also because his office had never received so many guests at the same time.
"Who are you?"
The fat wizard ignored him, and his bulging frog-like eyes scanned the room before finally stopping at Neil.
"Auror Command." He said slowly, with a distinctly undeniable stance in his voice, "The suspect will be taken over by us from now on."
"Aurors?! When did this matter involve the Aurors?" Mr. Weasley seemed to be caught in a rat trap, "I heard he was just...... Wait, what did you mean by the suspect?!"
The fat wizard didn't even look at him, but walked up to Neil, hooked his stubby hand, and motioned for him to stand up and follow him.
"Wait, you can't just take him!"
Mr. Weasley finally began to realize the gravity of the problem, and he stood up and walked quickly around his desk towards the fat wizard, but another tall, lanky wizard stopped him with a raised hand.
"We do what we are told." He said coldly, pressing his hand on Mr. Weasley's chest to stop him from continuing to approach his partner, "If you have any comments, you can go and report them to the Minister...... If only he would like to see you."
After speaking, the thin wizard slowly lowered his hand and turned
As he walked towards his companion, Mr. Weasley felt as if someone had just removed a jack from his chest. But his eyebrows jumped, and he didn't take his eyes off the other man's face, "I will—Dumbledore must be informed of this, the child was sent here through an exchange student agreement, and Hogwarts is his local guardian." Chinese Net
The skinny wizard had already walked to the door, and when he heard this, he turned back.
"Please." He said, "But if I were you, Arthur Weasley, I would figure out which side I should be on."
The fat wizard glanced at his companion with some displeasure, as if he felt that he was talking too much, and he coughed dryly, and the two of them left the office one after the other. Neil was caught between the two of them, and he was confused by the sudden turn of events, but he behaved submissively, and did not even make a provocative gesture of surrender with his hands raised, and followed them away.
The moment the door closed, he peeked inside and saw Mr. Weasley standing there with a grim face. Poor fellow, he is a kind and responsible man, and I hope he doesn't take this as his own fault, and does something stupid on impulse.
The three of them walked along the winding corridor, all the way back to the elevator, and contrary to when they came, with each turn, the walls, doors, and partitions on both sides became a little more tidy, and more and more employees came and went, as if they were returning to civilization step by step from the wilderness.
The two wizards didn't say a word from beginning to end, and at first glance they didn't seem interested in their "escorts". But Neil mentally compared the route of their trip with the one Mr. Weasley had taken earlier when he took him to the office, and found that the two men had deliberately taken a long detour, apparently using the oppressive atmosphere of the way to put pressure on themselves...... Bad.
However, this discovery reassured him a little. Neil's biggest concern was that the news of the remaining piece of the Philosopher's Stone had leaked out of nowhere—it was really a catastrophe, but including the pretentious show he had in Mr. Weasley's office, since the Ministry of Magic needed to rely on such psychological tactics to help pry his mouth open, it meant that they couldn't have any definite information.
But if that's the case, why would this group of people suddenly change their minds like they have lost their minds and want to forcibly beat themselves into suspects? The doubt lingered in Neil's mind, and he felt like he could adjust his exemplary suspect-like attitude a little to see how the other party would react.
They turned a corner, through two heavy oak gates, and into an open area that was messy and noisy and divided into many cubicles. Unlike the bleak scene of the Office for the Prohibition of the Misuse of Muggle Items, it was full of laughter and laughter. The note carrying the message flew in and out of the cubicle, like a miniature rocket. On the nearest cubicle hung a sign crookedly: Auror Command.
"It's funny." Neil looked up at the sign and said in a calm tone that it was the first time he had tried to communicate with two of his escorts along the way, "I didn't really know how to spell the word 'Auror' before, did I?"
Of course, the two men ignored him, but no one stopped him from continuing because it was also necessary to use words to silence him.
"Auror...... Auror ...... The pronunciation of the word is a bit strange, it sounds like Latin – or Malay? I speak both of these languages terrible – well, "terrible" is a bit of a euphemism, in fact, I can only speak one word of Malay to refusefully sell satay made from the meat of dead cats and dogs to tourists...... Do you know what "satay" is? Satay is a kebab."
Clearly, the two men did not realize the seriousness of the problem. For some, the urge to talk doesn't quench just because no one hooks up, and Draco Malfoy recognized that almost ten months ago.
"The food in Indonesia is actually pretty good – although I'm not very comfortable with coconut milk stew – but the monsters there couldn't be worse." With no one to stop him, Neil walked like a sleepwalker
As he spoke, the expression of the fat wizard walking in front of him was already a little painful at this time, "There is a ridiculously large secret realm at the bottom of the Covered Boat Mountain in Bandung, just below the volcanic lake. Dark, ball-like monsters roam around all year round, and the locals call them "Sons of Semar" because what they like to do most (besides eating people) is fart......
The tall, lanky wizard stared at the back of Neil's head, as if hesitating to reach out now and grab him from behind.
Fortunately, Neil's attention was quickly distracted by something else.
During the First Wizarding War after the rise of Lord Voldemort, Barty Crouch, then Director of the Department of Magical Law, issued a decree that allowed the Aurors to use the Unforgivable Curse to coerce and torture the Death Eaters, and even to kill them on the spot instead of arrest. The scope of application of this decree was soon expanded to include almost all perpetrators.
Miraculously, however, the expected abuse of lynching did not materialize. You could think that this was because they had a reverence for the law and justice, but the main reason may be that the situation was so grim that it was impossible to think so.
However, during the war, the Aurors slaughtered a large number of Death Eaters, as well as by the Death Eaters and their masterminds, making them the only team in England with no remnants of the Secret Realm to have a bloody memory.
Neil has a certain curiosity about this. Although the two guys in front of him who seem to have come out of the story of "Friends and Bears" have hit him hard to some extent, there is nothing to lose by taking this opportunity to take a few looks.
Compared to the dangers of the job and their past exploits, the Aurors were treated little by the way they were treated at the Ministry of Magic. Neil looked around as they walked by, and most of them had a narrow cubicle instead of an entire office, and a few didn't even have a cubicle, sharing a large separated desk with the others.
Many of the cubicle doors are open, and you can see that the owner of the cubicle did not give up making full use of the space inside because it was small. The walls of the cubicles were plastered with things, mostly portraits of wanted wizards, articles and photographs cut out of newspapers, handwritten notes of clues, and other work-related things; However, there are also many personal items such as family photos and the Quidditch team flag; Neil even caught a glimpse of a poster for Roman Holiday, where Audrey Hepburn's profile was sandwiched between the wanted warrant of a slumped-nosed wizard with a big yellow tooth and a "list of suspects" nailed to the wall with a knife, looking rather pitiful.
Neil suddenly remembered that he should remember the name of the owner of the compartment, perhaps in the future to find a common language, but when he searched for the name tag with his eyes, the thin wizard behind him had already pushed him away.
"It's a shame." He muttered quietly - he could feel that the moment he spoke, the two people in front and behind subconsciously tensed the muscles on their faces.
They walked straight down the aisle between the two rows of cubicles until they reached the top - Neil found himself in particular for the word "end" today: the flying Anglia 105E was parked at the end of the parking lot, the elevator they were riding was at the end of the foyer, Mr. Weasley's office was at the end of the hallway, and now another ...... Let's hope this doesn't become some kind of ominous omen.
The fat wizard turned, opened the door to the cubicle at the end, and said coldly, "Go in," which Neil obediently did.
The cubicle was unlike the ones he had seen before, it was empty, and there was almost no sign of use. As soon as Neil entered, two wizards followed. "Go inside", the fat man ordered again, "go inside", watching Neil stick to the wall until he nodded, drew his wand and waved it, conjuring a long table and three chairs in the middle of the compartment, the length of the table and the width of the compartment were so tightly knit that Neil was completely plugged inside.
The two of them each pulled out a chair and sat down with their backs to the door, and the empty cubicle suddenly became like an interrogation room—in fact, an interrogation room.
The skinny wizard pointed to Neil Noodles
The chair in front: "Sit down."
Neil sat down slowly, his arms resting on the armrests, his fingers crossed, expectantly and nervously waiting for them to speak.