"Oh, right." Dumbledore suddenly remembered, "Where's Alastor? What did you do with the real Alastor?"
A sinister smile appeared on Little Batty's face.
"We overpowered him – after all, he's an old Auror, it took some effort to deal with him... We prepared the Polyjuice Potion in advance and went to his house together. Moody resisted fiercely, making a lot of noise. Of course, we managed to subdue him in time, pushed him into the secret chamber of his own magic box, plucked some of his hair, and added it to the potion. I drank it, turned into Moody, and took his wooden leg and magical eye."
"This was also part of our plan. The master told me he needed to insert a confidant within Hogwarts, not only to monitor Harry Potter's movements in real-time but also to keep an eye on Dumbledore's whereabouts... As the master's most loyal servant, I certainly wouldn't refuse this opportunity."
"After that," Little Batty sniffed, "I gathered Moody's clothes and Dark Magic detector, packed them with Moody in the box, and headed for Hogwarts. I cast the Imperius Curse on him, but didn't kill him; I needed to question him to learn about his past, his habits, so even Dumbledore wouldn't see through it. I also needed his hair to make the Polyjuice Potion – the other ingredients were easy to obtain. I stole the African Tree Snake Skin from the underground classroom, and when that foolish traitor Snape caught me in his office, I said I was ordered to search."
Upon hearing the words "foolish traitor," which were not particularly pleasant, Snape's dark eyes became even deeper and more menacing.
No one can be insulted to their face and remain indifferent, not even Snape.
"So," Dumbledore asked again, "where is he now? I mean, Alastor Moody, where is he?"
"There." The Moody transformed from Little Batty pointed to the nearby box.
Dumbledore stepped forward, but Snape stopped him.
Snape cautiously took out his magic wand, pointed it at the large box, and gave it a flick.
The box immediately opened, layer upon layer, like a set of Russian nesting dolls.
As the last box opened, Dumbledore called out, "Alastor? Alastor? Are you in there?"
"Dumbledore?"
A weary voice sounded, belonging to Moody himself.
Dumbledore leaned in closer, finding Moody indeed lying at the bottom of the box.
They rescued the real Moody, and the truth of the matter was told to the real Moody in detail.
"I need you to understand, Alastor," Dumbledore said seriously, "we can't free you yet, so you'll need to endure being in the box for a while."
"Oh, I've gotten used to life in the box," the real Moody said with a touch of humor. "So can you guarantee that we can ultimately defeat that Dark Lord and thwart his plans?"
"You should know, Alastor," Dumbledore said, "Voldemort has many horcruxes. We can't achieve our goal in one fell swoop, but at least thwarting his plans is entirely possible."
Upon hearing Dumbledore's words, Moody didn't hesitate and agreed to the request.
"I'm in."
"We'll ensure your safety," Vivi said from the side, "rest assured."
"And this is...?" Moody clearly didn't know who Vivi was, but felt she looked somewhat familiar.
"Oh," Dumbledore realized, "let me introduce you. This is Lady Villatia Grindelwald, Deputy Minister of the Great German Ministry of Magic and Director of the International Magical Cooperation Department."
Moody initially showed no reaction, but upon hearing the name Grindelwald, his eyes widened.
His single eye carefully examined Vivi's face, looked at Harry, and ultimately said nothing.
"If you don't mind," he said to those around him, "I need to go back and rest for a while - then, Dumbledore, temporarily erase this part of my memory. I don't want it exposed when the Dark Lord uses Mind Reading on me."
There was a bit of sarcasm in his words, as Moody emphasized the word "genius."
Dumbledore stepped forward, extracted Moody's relevant memories, and stored them in the Meditation Basin.
After that, he tossed Moody back into the box, not forgetting to give him a limited Forgetfulness Spell.
Once everything was in order, they left the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, thoughtfully erasing Little Batty's memory once again.
After dealing with Little Batty and Moody's matters, Vivi and Dumbledore went together to handle the issue with Old Batty Crouch.
Harry didn't participate; he still had to attend the Magical Creatures Protection Class later.
Besides, he wasn't really interested in political matters; with that time, he might as well play a few rounds of Quidditch.
Recently, Newt has been at Hogwarts, so the Magical Creatures Protection Class has continued to be taught by him.
However, it seems Newt came up with something new; at this moment, he stood outside the cabin waiting for the students, with some open cardboard boxes at his feet that they had never seen before.
The students' hearts sank at the sight of the boxes - surely it wasn't another batch of Exploding Snails?
But upon approaching and looking inside the boxes, they discovered many furry, black creatures with duck-like long noses and flat front paws, like shovels, quite peculiar.