As soon as Link said this, Dumbledore was so surprised that he almost stood up.
For someone with his composure, this kind of situation was practically impossible.
But at this moment Dumbledore had no mind to think about his manners. He frowned and asked,
"That's impossible. Ravenclaw's diadem was stolen long ago by Helena. She hid the diadem in the Albanian forest, and then the two of them died. Since then no one has known where the diadem is!"
"Yes, it's a tragedy." Link said with a half-smile.
"Helena Ravenclaw, the only daughter of Lady Ravenclaw, a spoiled child, a child who lived her whole life under her mother's brilliance, stole Lady Ravenclaw's treasure, the diadem, in a bold attempt to prove she was not inferior to her mother and to gain greater wisdom!"
"Afterward her lover, the Bloody Baron, was sent by Lady Ravenclaw to pursue her."
"In the end, Helena was accidentally killed, and the Bloody Baron committed suicide for love."
Link paused, and the smile on his face grew even brighter. "Everything above is something everyone knows. But who told you that no one knows where the diadem is?"
"That is beyond doubt. When the news that Ravenclaw's diadem was lost first spread, not only Hogwarts but the entire wizarding world of Europe went mad!"
"To find the diadem they rushed to the Albanian forest from all over the world, setting off several small-scale wars there one after another, almost leveling the entire forest!"
"Even today, quite a few Ravenclaw students still go to the Albanian forest after graduation, trying to find Ravenclaw's diadem and restore the glory of wisdom to Ravenclaw."
"Under such a scale of searching, the diadem still never appeared, unless…"
At this point Dumbledore's expression changed. "Unless Helena never hid the diadem in the Albanian forest at all."
"She may not even have taken it away from Hogwarts, but instead hid it directly in the Room of Requirement and created the false impression that she had taken it away, planning to retrieve it after the matter settled down!"
When Dumbledore said this, he was already so excited that he could hardly control himself.
As he spoke, he paced back and forth in the office, occasionally waving his arms.
This made Link somewhat speechless.
He had not expected Dumbledore to react so strongly to this matter.
It was almost as if Dumbledore himself had some connection to the incident.
Thinking about it carefully, that was actually quite possible.
When Dumbledore was young, he was not an easy person to deal with.
Back then he and Grindelwald had been obsessed with treasure hunting, trying to collect the Deathly Hallows to see what would happen.
And as a Hogwarts graduate, it would be perfectly reasonable for him to search the Albanian forest for the diadem along the way.
But the problem was that although Dumbledore's analysis sounded reasonable, it was completely wrong.
At the same time, Dumbledore finally noticed Link's expression.
This made him instantly realize he might have guessed wrong, and his burning excitement quickly cooled down.
He coughed twice, sat back down on the sofa, and said, "Uh, Link, stop keeping me in suspense. Just tell me the result."
Link pressed his lips together, holding back a smile, and said, "First of all, the diadem was indeed hidden by Helena in the Albanian forest."
"As for why people searched for so many years and still didn't find it, I can only say it's because those treasure hunters were too useless."
Hearing this, Dumbledore's already awkward face immediately grew even longer.
Seeing this, Link continued before he could speak, "Helena, who is now the Grey Lady, one of the ghosts at Hogwarts, lied."
"She said she had forgotten the exact location of the diadem because she died, but in fact this was the cause of her death."
"It was her deepest memory. Except for ghosts thousands of years old, what ghost's memory would decline to that extent?"
"After that, things were simple."
"The secret that treasure hunters failed to pry out of Helena for hundreds or even thousands of years was tricked out by Voldemort in just a few years using sweet talk."
"Afterward, Voldemort found the diadem, turned it into a Horcrux, and hid it in the Room of Requirement."
Hearing this, Dumbledore's expression changed repeatedly.
At times gloomy, at times furious.
But in the end, it returned to complete calm.
Because Voldemort being able to do such a thing did not surprise him at all.
As mentioned before, what made Voldemort truly frightening was not his strength, but his devil-like ability to manipulate people's hearts.
This might not be obvious now.
After all, Voldemort had turned himself into something neither human nor ghost. His soul was shattered and he had become half-mad, and he had even lost his nose and all his hair.
But when he was young, Voldemort, no, Tom Riddle, had been the famous heartthrob of Hogwarts.
He had handsome looks, a strong body, excellent grades, and extremely high emotional and intellectual intelligence.
Anyone, no matter their status, would feel refreshed and comfortable when talking with him.
This made everyone in Hogwarts, including the professors, like him very much. Especially when it came to dealing with women, Voldemort was practically a top professional player.
There were simply too many witches offering themselves to even count.
Yet in such an environment, Tom Riddle always behaved neither humble nor arrogant and showed great restraint.
A person like that getting the secret out of Helena was not hard to understand.
After all, although Helena was dead and had become a ghost, in the end, she was still a woman.
And the Bloody Baron had neglected her for hundreds of years because of guilt.
Such a lonely woman meeting a considerate and handsome young man like Tom Riddle…
Dumbledore's expression became somewhat strange. He coughed twice again and said, "I roughly understand the situation."
"I don't want to investigate how you discovered all this. For me, the result is what matters most. So how far have you progressed? I mean, how many Horcruxes have you found?"
After thinking for a moment, Link said, "At present, there are five objects confirmed to be Horcruxes. They are Tom Riddle's diary, the Gaunt ring, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, and Ravenclaw's diadem."
"Tom Riddle's diary was originally entrusted by Voldemort to Lucius Malfoy for safekeeping."
"But many years after Voldemort's death, Lucius became overconfident, which caused the thing to end up at Hogwarts."
"It was destroyed by me in the Forbidden Forest."
"The Gaunt ring was hidden in the Gaunt old house. You and I found and destroyed it together."
"You should also know about Slytherin's locket. Voldemort originally hid it in the cave you attacked before."
"Although that raid failed, the one in the cave was actually a fake."
"The real locket had already been stolen by Sirius's brother Regulus and hidden at Number 12 Grimmauld Place in an attempt to destroy it."
"The destruction failed, and I later found and destroyed it."
"Ravenclaw's diadem is currently missing."
"As for Hufflepuff's cup, it was hidden in the Lestrange vault at Gringotts."
"I broke in by force, dealt with it properly, and returned it to Hufflepuff House."
Link listed everything like reading out a menu, leaving Dumbledore staring in shock.
Especially when he heard that Hufflepuff's cup had been hidden at Gringotts and that Link had broken in and taken it, the muscles on his cheeks twitched unconsciously.
The Gringotts heist had been done by Link.
Dumbledore knew this very well.
After all, Link had never intended to hide it for long.
Otherwise Link would not have allowed Madam Flamel to transfer the wealth from the Flamel family vault.
But Dumbledore truly had not expected that the reason Link robbed Gringotts was a Horcrux.
And Link's progress was truly terrifying.
The Order of the Phoenix, led by him, had worked so long and put in so much effort, yet their results were pitiful.
The Gaunt ring, their only achievement, had been found by Dumbledore himself.
And if Link had not intervened in time, Dumbledore might have failed.
Looking at Link's side instead?
Without making any noise, this person had already destroyed three Horcruxes.
Dumbledore suddenly felt his old face burning, as if he had been slapped.
He had just said earlier that he only cared about results.
But now?
Judging purely by results, in this struggle over Voldemort's Horcruxes, Link seemed to be the main force on the righteous side.
As for him, the greatest white wizard of the century, he looked more like someone just drifting along.
This made Dumbledore feel deeply embarrassed.
Link deliberately left Dumbledore hanging for a while longer.
Only when Dumbledore had already turned his head and pretended to check on Fawkes did Link continue, "Based on the number of Horcruxes discovered so far, plus the shadow figure who attacked Hogwarts on the night Voldemort revived, and the two who rescued Voldemort, I estimate Voldemort should have seven Horcruxes in total."
"Besides Ravenclaw's diadem, there should be two other Horcruxes that were found and turned into shadow figures."
As soon as he said this, Dumbledore's expression finally became serious.
He stared fixedly at Link's eyes, as if trying to read something from the changes in Link's expression.
This was one of Dumbledore's usual methods.
From one perspective, it could be considered a kind of use of Legilimency.
Only it did not involve magic. Strictly speaking, it was just experience in judging people.
But no matter how profound Dumbledore's skill in this area was, he could never see anything on Link's face.
Because after his Occlumency reached LV6, Link simply had no abnormalities that could be observed.
After watching for a long time, Dumbledore finally sighed and said, "Seven is a number with magical meaning. Voldemort especially believed that."
"He had believed in it since his student days. Voldemort indeed has seven Horcruxes. However, I don't know about the others, but one Horcrux definitely has not been turned into a shadow figure."
Dumbledore was talking about Harry Potter.
This protagonist of the original story had indeed killed Voldemort in that disaster more than ten years ago through his mother's blood magic.
But through the combination of the Killing Curse and blood magic, he had miraculously absorbed a fragment of Voldemort's soul and become Voldemort's seventh Horcrux.
Otherwise, according to Voldemort's original plan, there should have been only six Horcruxes.
Because including his main soul, he had already split his soul into seven parts.
Since Harry Potter was still alive and had recently been invaded by Voldemort through their mental connection because he was a Horcrux, Harry Potter obviously had not been turned into a shadow figure.
However, although Link knew this very well, he could not admit it.
Already knowing the locations and information of so many Horcruxes ahead of time was suspicious enough.
If Link even knew this secret, his level of suspicion would probably rise instantly to the point where even Dumbledore would have to be wary.
After thinking this through, Link controlled his expression, frowned, and deliberately pretended ignorance.
"Why are you so certain?"
Dumbledore forced a mysterious smile and said, "Just as you can know the exact locations of Horcruxes through special channels, I naturally have my own methods."
Link raised an eyebrow and sneered, "What are you so proud of? Even if what you say is true, you only know the whereabouts of one Horcrux. I found and destroyed three!"
'Yes, what am I proud of?'
Thinking this, the smile instantly disappeared from Dumbledore's face.
He awkwardly stroked his beard and then changed the subject, "In short, that's roughly how things are. Among those three shadow figures, at least one is not transformed from a Horcrux."
"And that person is very likely the mastermind who transformed the other Horcruxes and controls everything from behind the scenes."
Hearing this, Link finally became serious and nodded silently.
Although deep down he still did not completely agree with this view, based on the information they currently had, it seemed to be the most reasonable explanation.
Dumbledore continued, "But at present, their pattern of activity is somewhat hard to understand."
"They have four top-level combat forces, yet the only one who has been active in the British magical world for a long time is the resurrected main soul of Voldemort."
"The other three shadow figures seem to remain dormant most of the time."
As soon as Dumbledore finished speaking, Link froze.
Dumbledore's words were like a flash of lightning exploding in his mind.
The mission descriptions of "I Am the Headmaster" and "I Am the Minister" appeared before Link again.
Among them, the extremely negative progress values for the French Ministry of Magic and Beauxbatons Academy stood out, still just as glaring.
But unlike before, after Dumbledore's unconscious hint, Link now had a new understanding of these clues.
Link took a deep breath, stared at Dumbledore, and said word by word, "Then what if their main area of activity is overseas?"
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