Chapter 392：

Harry followed closely behind Dumbledore and walked into the living room.

It was a mess, the grandfather clock was smashed, the clock face was cracked, and the pendulum flew out.

The piano fell to the ground, and the black and white keys were scattered everywhere.

The scattered fragments of the chandelier were sparkling.

The mats were thrown around in a mess, and feathers leaked out of them.

Dumbledore raised his wand higher, illuminating the wall.

A lot of sticky dark red liquid splashed on it.

Such a tragic situation made Harry take a breath.

Dumbledore looked around, "It doesn't look good, does it?"

He said seriously: "A terrorist incident occurred here."

They walked carefully to the middle of the room, carefully observing the broken pieces at their feet.

A bad feeling lingered in the two of them.

The only good news is that they found no bodies anywhere.

"There was a fight here, and then they dragged the man away, or he escaped, right, Professor?" Harry tried his best to guess.

It’s just that there’s so much blood splattered, it’s not a good sign to think about.

On the ceiling, a drop of thick dark red blood fell on Harry's forehead. Dumbledore seemed to have discovered something and dipped his finger into the blood on Harry's forehead.

He tasted it with his tongue, his expression changed, and he understood something.

Dumbledore was initially surprised and worried, but now his expression calmed down and he said, "I don't think that's the case."

As he spoke, Dumbledore silently clutched his old wand in his hand.

Harry asked doubtfully: "You mean he..."

"Still here, yes, that's right."

Soon enough, the tip of Dumbledore's wand dug into the cushion of the bulging armchair.

To Harry's surprise, the chair screamed: "Ouch!"

With a smile in his eyes, Dumbledore greeted politely: "Good evening, Horace."

What was originally an armchair turned into a fat, bald old man standing up in the blink of an eye.

The fat old man rubbed his belly and complained to Dumbledore: "You don't need to **** him so hard with the wand."

The fat old man wore patterned clothes, like the armchair.

The original bulging body in the armchair quickly became shorter and thinner, as if deflated.

The fat old man asked in confusion, "How come the secret was revealed?"

"My dear Horace," Dumbledore said, feeling very ridiculous, "if something unexpected happened to you, there wouldn't be fire dragon blood all over the walls."

"Yes, yes, I should have thought of it," Slughorn said depressedly, "Who discovered the twelve uses of fire dragon blood, oh..."

As he spoke, Slughorn's voice suddenly stopped, and he saw Harry next to Dumbledore, looking like a pirate who had discovered a treasure.

Dumbledore took everything in sight, pretending not to notice, and said normally, "Let me introduce to you, this is my old colleague, Horace Slughorn."

"Horace, I think you know who he is."

"Harry Potter." Slughorn was still looking directly at Harry as he spoke.

Harry felt very uncomfortable being looked at. He was a little embarrassed and didn't know what expression to make.

"If you don't mind, would you like me to clean it up for you?" Dumbledore said politely.

Slughorn responded, "Please."

Harry saw Dumbledore waving his wand, the furniture jumping back to their original positions one by one, and the decorations returning to their original positions in mid-air.

Broken books are automatically repaired and neatly arranged on the bookshelf.

The oil lamp also flew back to the small table and was lit.

Under Dumbledore's magic, everything was repaired to the point where it was no longer messy.

The blood stains on the wall were automatically wiped clean.

Harry heard a crunching sound and looked down. He saw that the sole of his foot was stepping on a glass pendant of the chandelier.

He quickly moved his feet and the glass pendant returned to the chandelier. Everything was intact as before.

"Fire dragon blood is rarely seen on the market these days," Dumbledore waved his wand, restoring a fallen bottle to its original shape, and said easily, "Where did you get it from?"

"Yeah, that's my last bottle, and the current price is shockingly expensive," Slughorn replied with his heart hanging on Harry, "There are suddenly fewer wild fire dragons, and there are also fewer fire dragons in Romania." Several fire dragon escapes occurred."

"This has increased the scarcity of fire dragon blood a lot."

Hearing what he said, Harry recalled that he seemed to have read it in the newspaper.

Ron's second brother Charlie also said that there were fire dragons escaping from Romania, but they didn't understand that these fire dragons were usually very stable.

Charlie Weasley guessed that it might be mating season.

But it obviously doesn’t make sense.

Dumbledore saw Slughorn still staring at Harry and suddenly asked: "Are you hiding from someone, Horace?"

"Please, Albus, do you really want me to say it?" Slughorn's expression became embarrassed.

Who else could he be hiding from? Naturally it was his old friend Dumbledore, who had been robbed of his position.

But Dumbledore said as if he couldn't see it: "Can we at least have a drink, for the sake of the past time?"

This suggestion made Slughorn hesitate for a while, but he nodded and said, "Okay, just have a drink."

Harry didn't understand what their conversation meant.

Although full of doubts, Harry was led by Dumbledore to sit down.

It was just this position that gave Harry the feeling that he seemed to be placed in the most conspicuous place.

Sure enough, Slughorn turned his head again with the bottle and cup in hand, and saw Harry.

Slughorn quickly looked away and handed the cup to Dumbledore stiffly.

He sat on the newly restored armchair.

"How's it going, Horace, how are you these days?" Dumbledore said in greetings.

"It's okay," Slughorn replied reluctantly, "I've been on tenterhooks in the past year, but the situation has gotten better recently."

Slughorn is not very courageous, but he is also an influential person.

Knowing that the Death Eaters had reappeared, he felt extremely nervous.

What's more, there are those things at Hogwarts, Dumbledore resigned as principal.

Fortunately, good news came from the Ministry of Magic later.

The Death Eaters were wiped out in one fell swoop, which also allowed Slughorn to agree to serve as the headmaster of Hogwarts.

"I swear I didn't mean to take your place, Albus," said Slughorn. "You know I don't like that."

"Yes, of course I know," Dumbledore said calmly, "but I am very happy that you are the one to succeed the headmaster."

"Really?" Slughorn wondered.

"Of course it's true. You should also understand me, Horace?" Dumbledore said with a smile, "Maybe you are troubled by something right now."

"If you are talking about the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, I admit that it is indeed true." Slughorn said, "Almost no one wants to go to this position."

"The Death Eaters have been captured, but their leader is still there."

Slughorn was a little worried about gain and loss, which made Harry dislike the old man's irresponsibility.

"By the way, I haven't introduced it to you yet," Dumbledore said as if he just remembered, "Harry has very good insights into Defense Against the Dark Arts. You should know his results."

Harry was suddenly called out and was a little dumbfounded.

Dumbledore winked playfully at him, suddenly stood up and asked Slughorn: "Can I use your bathroom?"

"Oh, of course, just follow the hall and take the second door on the left."

Harry noticed that Dumbledore winked at him again before leaving.

It was just that chatting across servers made it difficult for Harry to understand what he meant.

Harry and Slughorn were left alone.

The atmosphere is a bit dull.

Slughorn looked at Harry and said, "You look a lot like your father."

It's a cliché again, almost every elder Harry meets will say this.

"It's just that the eyes are different, your eyes..."

Before Slughorn could finish speaking, Harry took over and said: "Like my mother, yes."

"Lily, lovely Lily," Slughorn said, looking into those eyes, "She's a very smart person, even more so considering she was born into a Muggle family."

"I have a good friend who is also a Muggle, and her grades are among the best in the whole grade." Harry replied with some dislike.

"No, no, no, please don't think I'm biased," Slughorn said quickly, "Your mother has always been one of my favorite students. I often told her that she should be in my college."

When mentioning this matter, Slughorn was not angry, but smiled a little, "I often get very rude answers from her."

"Which house are you in?" Harry asked.

"I was the Head of Slytherin at the time," Slughorn said.

Hearing that college made Harry look a little unhappy.

"Oh, come on," Slughorn knew what Harry was thinking, "Don't be hostile to me because of this. I think you must be a Gryffindor like her, right?"

With a proud smile on his face, he pointed to the many shiny picture frames on the cabinet, each with moving little figures in it.

"Look, your mother is right there, in the front."

Harry leaned forward, Slughorn standing next to him.

He saw a picture of his mother, standing next to a younger Slughorn, surrounded by a group of students.

Slughorn seemed to be introducing the collection to him and said proudly: "You should recognize Barnabas Guffey. He is the editor of the Daily Prophet. I always let the owl convey my opinions on the current situation. give him."

"But in recent years, he has been surpassed by another editor. To be honest, I never thought that Rita would sit in the editor-in-chief position. She used to like to spread rumors in school." Slughorn said.

Harry listened to his introduction and moved his eyes from his mother's photo.

Captain of Holyhead Harpies, Gwenog Jones.

There is also the owner of Honeydukes Candy Shop, and Sirius's younger brother, Regulus Black.

Slughorn unfortunately said that he taught everyone in the Black family except Sirius.

On the cabinet where the photos were placed, there was a basket specially used for letters. Harry asked curiously: "What is that?"

Slughorn kept talking about his students. When he heard the question, he subconsciously said, "That's the letter John Wick sent me. He can often ask some tricky questions. I need to think about it carefully." Only then can I give him an answer, he is a very smart man.”

"It's the same with him in school," Harry said very complicatedly, not knowing what he was feeling, "He has always been number one and has never been surpassed."

When mentioning this matter, Slughorn reacted belatedly and said in surprise: "Oh my God, I just remembered that you are in the same grade as him."

Although he did not teach John Wick, Slughorn considered even the letters with him to be an honor, and he put them on the cabinet of honor.

Harry smiled reluctantly, his eyes still falling on the few letters that had been exchanged.

I don’t know what John and Slughorn were talking about, so it took a long time for the man who was called very smart by Dumbledore to answer.

…

Chapter 416 Furong’s Love

"Let's talk about something else. Dumbledore said you are excellent at Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Perhaps feeling that the atmosphere suddenly became dull, Slughorn brought up another matter.