"Haha, my dear audience Harry Potter, you must have seen our performance, right?" Fred said spiritedly. "Come on, tell us, how did your Muggle relatives react?"
"Even Aunt Petunia was watching so intently, completely unaware that you're all real wizards," Harry sighed. "They're busy making phone calls now! They want to be the first audience to 'reveal the magic tricks'."
Fred snapped his fingers proudly. "That's exactly the effect we wanted! But just saying we used wires isn't enough, revealing means explaining the steps clearly, or even recreating it to truly uncover the secret."
"Then it's over," Harry couldn't help but say, "Dudley's intelligence is like he has troll blood, he'll never get that one thousand pounds from the show in his life."
The communication pea burst into laughter from the twins.
Harry was infected by their laughter and couldn't help but smile. The worry he had earlier seemed insignificant now, but he still repeated Hermione's concerns.
As his words fell, the laughter disappeared. Fred and George exchanged a glance and, when they spoke again, their voices were uncharacteristically serious.
"About this... the Ministry of Magic actually has no choice, Harry."
Harry's heart suddenly sank.
"Something happened over in the United States," George said close to the communication pea. "A Scourer created a video that could expose the Magic World, specifically for the high ranks of the Magic Congress."
"Luckily, they haven't actually spread that video in Muggle society," Fred added. "But unfortunately..."
"—They could do it at any time," Harry murmured.
George paused and said, "...that's right!"
Fred continued, "So the only thing the Ministry of Magic can do is to use a series of carefully crafted deceptions to cover up a possible truth."
"A fake is still a fake, maybe it can't fool everyone," George said. "But we can't wait until the Magic World is exposed to regret why we didn't do something at first!"
After the call ended, Harry looked out the window—
In the garden, Uncle Vernon and Dudley stood on the withered lawn, still loudly arguing with their clumsy understanding about the method to achieve that magic trick.
"It must be rope!" Uncle Vernon's fat hands waved wildly in the air. "It's invisible thread."
"But the people from the TV station said your method is wrong!" Dudley rudely interrupted his father. "There must be a mechanism under the table!"
Watching the two argue, red-faced over one thousand pounds, Harry suddenly realized that the magic war happening on the screen, while seemingly ordinary, was actually...
Perhaps more thrilling than any real magic duel!
...
"Ding—"
The wind chime hanging on the door let out a crisp ring, then trembled incessantly.
The owner of the White Bridge Inn looked up to see two men dressed plainly, with nondescript faces entering the door, glanced at the half-exposed magic wands at their cuffs, and knew they hadn't mistakenly wandered in as Muggles.
So the owner disinterestedly lowered his eyes and asked drowsily,
"Good afternoon, gentlemen, do you need accommodation?"
"No, just dining," Delaine said, "Stew, a glass of sway beer, a steak. What do you want, Reid?"
Vid was stunned, then realized that "Reid" was a fake name Delaine had casually given him, and smiled. "A plate of pasta, a glass of water."
Unlike the previous attention received, Vid, with his passerby-like face, was not given any special treatment. They were led by a waiter to a wooden table in the corner, with only some guests nearby casually glancing at them.
In the inn's lobby, there were quite a few dining guests:
Wizards in uniforms loudly complaining about their work being busy and poorly paid;
Some exchanged uneasy looks and discussed rumors about a certain video, considering whether to temporarily move to France;
And a few young people indignantly criticized the current Magic Congress for being slow and inefficient.
Clearly, recent rumors have left many feeling anxious, so they sought news in wizard gathering places like the White Bridge Inn.
Even the inn's flow mirror no longer broadcasted talk shows and dramas, but switched to Muggle news channels.
As Delaine's stew was just being served, someone at the next table, slightly tipsy, mentioned a name—
"That Vid Gray, you all know him, right?"
"Hahaha, who doesn't know that name now?" said someone at the same table, enviously. "Invented so many things, hasn't even graduated, and it's said he's made enough money to buy Congress Headquarters."
"Then let me tell you a secret,"
The drunk man lowered his voice and said mysteriously, "That genius alchemist... his real surname isn't 'Gray' but 'Grindelwald'—he's a descendant of that person!"
Delaine instantly tensed up, his hand below the table slightly moved, ready to draw his magic wand at any moment.
The man's icy gaze swept over the red-faced male wizard, then silently turned his attention to Vid.
Vid picked up the glass of water for a sip, slightly shaking his head.
"Oh, come on, Oliver!" a seemingly more composed witch interrupted the drunken wizard, sneering. "After just a few drinks, you start to spout nonsense! If you were that one, would you send such a talented descendant to study with the enemy?"
"Hey, people's talents don't show up at birth! Before Vid Gray came into contact with alchemy, who would have thought he could achieve what he has today?"
The drunk man pretended to be serious and said, "Grindelwald originally intended to plant a nail by Dumbledore's side; who knew that nail was made of gold! Now he's running out of Nimongard with regret..."
That logic was utterly absurd, and there were several low laughs— not in agreement, but in mockery of the drunk man.
The drunk man seemed a little agitated, raising his voice slightly:
"You don't believe it, do you? Then think about it, how can a Muggle-born kid achieve so much in just a few years?"
"It's precisely because he has an extraordinary bloodline and received the best training from childhood that he had such a solid foundation and could make remarkable breakthroughs!"
"Sounds... sounds reasonable..." people said, half-doubtfully.
The witch again, this time coldly said, "Could it be that others' achievements are not because they're exceptionally smart and hardworking? There are many pure-blood, well-trained heirs in the American Magic World, why hasn't such a genius emerged there?"
Faced with questioning, the male wizard named Oliver was somewhat humiliated and threw out bombshells again:
"Do you know that the recent video wasn't the work of Scourers at all, but a self-directed and acted show by the Witch Pure Party! They're just trying to create chaos in the United States!"
"And think about it, who most wants to break the Confidentiality Law? Who has always wanted to make wizards and Muggles fight?"
"In the past hundred years... no, even in the past thousand years, there's only been that one person... He's not only bold enough to think about it, but also bold enough to act! To achieve his goals, he's willing to drag billions of people worldwide down with him..."
This statement sounded far more credible than the previous baseless guesswork, and the surroundings instantly quieted down considerably.
Yet, contrary to the drunk man's imagination—people didn't become indignantly furious or suddenly realize and hate Grindelwald; rather, a hint of fear showed on their faces.