Chapter 497: Extremely Unusual

The Alliance was not the same as the Ministry's Aurors.

They were absolutely trustworthy, so there was no chance the prisoners would escape.

"If they've already been sent to Azkaban, I assume you got the answers you wanted first?" Wade asked.

"Yes... yes..." Grindelwald pulled over a chair and sat down. "You'd never guess it. That attack was aimed at you from the very beginning."

"We had already considered that possibility," Dumbledore said as he sat down as well.

Grindelwald glanced at him before continuing.

"But you definitely don't know who provoked these Scourers into attacking you, or why a group that had hidden so cautiously for so long suddenly lost their patience and took the bait."

"If I had to guess..." Wade suddenly said, "the people who incited them were probably the heads of several prominent pure-blood families, right?"

"You knew?" Grindelwald stared at Wade in surprise.

"I didn't know. But that would be the most convenient outcome." Wade thought for a moment. "If the heads of several influential pure-blood families take the blame, then the matter can naturally end there. Their status carries enough weight that you won't question it, and neither will anyone else. Then the case is closed."

"Aren't you getting a little too conspiratorial?" Grindelwald frowned. "There was nothing else in their memories. I even used Veritaserum."

"Let's put that aside for now. Tell me how those pure-bloods persuaded the Scourers to attack me," Wade said.

"It's almost unbelievable..." Grindelwald replied. "Those pure-bloods found a way to let the Scourers learn something."

He looked at Wade, then glanced at Nagini.

Wade asked in surprise, "This involves Nagini too?"

"They found a way to make the Scourers believe that you possess the ability to purify blood curses. Nagini, a Maledictus, being cured by you was the best proof. If you didn't have the ability to purify bloodlines, then how else could you have treated her blood curse?"

Grindelwald continued.

"And the Scourers have always believed that wizards possess magic only because of a curse within their blood. So they wanted to capture you, obtain your method of bloodline purification, and then... remove the 'curse' from every wizard and turn all wizards back into ordinary people."

Wade leaned back against the sofa.

"Me? I can purify bloodlines and turn wizards into ordinary people? Heh... if the Scourers truly believed that, then yes. No matter how cautious they had been before, they would definitely have tried to capture me at any cost."

The Scourers hated wizards and magic and wanted to destroy the magical world completely.

If Wade were captured, he would effectively become their greatest weapon.

"But... how did they learn about me?" Nagini asked in confusion.

"My people have already gone to those pure-blood families," Grindelwald said. "Once we take them, we'll learn where they got that information."

Wade smiled.

"You won't find an answer. Believe me, if you keep tracing it, you'll eventually discover that the information leaked from our side."

Grindelwald frowned slightly.

"When I purified the blood curse back then, I never made any special effort to keep it secret. Aberforth and the others run a pub, and Nagini even stayed there for a while. It would have been very easy for rumours to spread. You know how many different kinds of people pass through a pub."

Wade continued, "They may simply have heard vague rumours that something like this had happened and then made use of it."

"Why do you keep feeling there's something else behind this?" Grindelwald asked in confusion. The sequence of events seemed perfectly clear now.

"Finish explaining everything first. Then I'll combine it with what I found and tell you what I think," Wade said.

Nagini frowned.

"But even if they heard rumours about me, how could they prove I had once been a Maledictus and that the pure-bloods weren't simply lying? Most rumours in pubs are false. Why would they believe something like that strongly enough to launch such an attack?"

"Didn't you have conflicts with quite a few dark wizards before?" Grindelwald asked with a smile.

"You... how do you know that?" Nagini looked at him warily.

"According to what I learned during the interrogation, the Scourers didn't completely believe the information about Wade's ability either. They deliberately sought you out to confirm whether you had truly once been a Maledictus."

Grindelwald continued, "Then they happened to witness you fighting those dark wizards, and they recognised what you were. After all, the magic of a Maledictus is still different from that of an ordinary wizard, because you are both human and beast."

Nagini pressed her lips tightly together.

That phrase, both human and beast, made her deeply uncomfortable.

"If even an incurable Maledictus could be restored, then naturally Wade's ability to purify bloodlines could not have been fabricated," Grindelwald finished.

"So they confirmed through Nagini that I really could purify blood curses, then decided to capture me..." Wade sighed. "Fine. That does make sense."

Then his expression grew thoughtful.

"But if they wanted to attack me, why not wait until I went out alone?"

Everyone looked at him.

"I spent plenty of time outside by myself during that period. And back then, I was completely unprepared. Honestly, if they hadn't attacked the entire Hogwarts Express, they never would have provoked your Alliance into getting involved."

Wade paused.

"I can understand them becoming desperate enough to make a move. But... it feels as though they deliberately tried to make the whole incident as big as possible."

Dumbledore, who had been listening quietly, finally spoke.

"You mean someone wanted to use the Scourers to capture you, then use Grindelwald to wipe out the Scourers afterward and bring the entire matter to an end?"

Wade nodded.

"Yes. A lot of the details seem logical when examined individually, but the whole thing has always felt strange to me. Too deliberate."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"And I found something else that was extremely unusual..."

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