"Hogwarts Attacked! Casualties Exceed One Hundred!"
Compared to the headlines The Daily Prophet had used in the past, this one was unusually plain.
But that was not good news.
A plain headline usually meant the headline itself, and the article beneath it, was already shocking enough that it didn't need exaggerated wording to grab attention.
The fewer the words, the bigger the story.
That was common knowledge in the British wizarding world.
This issue of The Daily Prophet not only had a simple headline, but the article itself was also incredibly short.
No.
It couldn't even really be called an article.
It was more like an official notice that belonged on a bulletin board.
There wasn't any introduction at all. There were only cold strings of numbers showing the exact death toll, injury count, and the amount of Galleons lost.
And taking up most of the newspaper were magical photographs of Hogwarts itself.
The images were so graphic that they completely ignored the content rating system the British Ministry of Magic had established over a hundred years ago. They openly showed the real scene without holding anything back.
The destroyed Hogwarts castle, the battlefield outside that looked as though it had been bombed countless times, rows of neatly arranged bodies, the enormous Dark Mark floating in the sky, and photos of Link and Dumbledore fighting Voldemort.
Everything.
Every single one of those pictures was printed.
Those photos, together with the pages packed with the names of the dead, were enough to leave every British wizard who saw this issue of The Daily Prophet speechless.
That was why the atmosphere in the Leaky Cauldron was so strange today.
After all, this was Hogwarts.
The largest and most famous magical school in Britain, even in all of Europe.
Most British children studied there, and every year many foreign students transferred there as well.
And now it had been attacked?
With so many dead and injured?
Just one look at the densely packed list of student casualties beneath the photos made Tom's head spin.
Because he knew that every name represented a shattered family thrown into hell.
He sniffed hard, pushed the bag of Galleons back across the counter with a trembling hand, then pulled open the cabinet beneath the bar and took out bottle after bottle of the Firewhisky he had been saving.
"Put your money away! Drinks are on me today!"
As soon as he finished speaking, every bottle opened by itself under the influence of magic and floated to each table.
The sudden change eased the atmosphere inside the Leaky Cauldron a little.
Apart from the parents whose eyes were still bloodshot as they ran their fingers over the casualty list in The Daily Prophet again and again, searching for their children's names, everyone else looked at Tom in surprise.
In their memories, Tom was never a generous man.
He wouldn't even round down the bill before, yet today he was offering free drinks?
That surprise lasted only a moment.
After all, today was a special day.
Even someone as stingy as Tom would be moved after witnessing such a tragedy.
The customers quietly raised their glasses and toasted Tom.
Tom himself filled an entire beer mug with Firewhisky. After raising it toward everyone, he emptied the whole thing in one gulp.
It was his special skill.
No ordinary person could drink five hundred milliliters of Firewhisky in a single gulp.
Normally, after showing off like that, the old drinkers would burst into cheers and applause.
But not today.
Only one man, wearing a gentleman's top hat and a monocle over his right eye, with a small mustache, slowly clapped as he walked toward the bar.
"Amazing! Truly amazing, Boss Tom! Your drinking ability just keeps getting better! Though... you don't seem to be in a very good mood today. Is it because you read The Daily Prophet?"
Tom glanced at the mustached man, wiped his mouth, and said nothing.
The man's face was even more unfamiliar than the well-dressed customer beside him who had spent so freely, yet Tom still recognized him.
App Sibyl.
Owner of the Sibyl Magic Workshop.
He employed several wizard refugees smuggled in from different countries along with some house-elves, specializing in producing partially processed potion ingredients for Knockturn Alley.
For more than ten years, he had always claimed to be a pure-blood British wizard.
But Tom knew very well that he was French through and through.
It was a closely guarded secret. App never revealed his background in public, and his English and daily habits were even more British than most British people.
But he couldn't fool Tom.
After all, the Leaky Cauldron was where information from all over the wizarding world gathered.
And as the owner of the pub, Tom was the final keeper of all those stories.
If he had actually cared about gossip, he could easily have become an information broker and made a living selling intelligence.
"Don't be like that, Tom. You're making me feel awkward."
Seeing that Tom remained silent, App spoke gently. Then, without asking, he picked up the newspaper belonging to the suited man beside him and read as he spoke.
"But something like this has happened, so it's understandable if you don't feel like talking. As a British wizard myself, I'm deeply saddened too."
"After all, judging by how The Daily Prophet and the Ministry have always handled things, what's printed in the paper is probably only the tip of the iceberg."
"In other words, the real casualties at Hogwarts are likely several times worse than what's been published."
App's voice wasn't quiet.
Especially at the end, he deliberately raised it, as though afraid the other people in the pub might not hear him.
His goal was achieved.
The moment he finished speaking, the atmosphere, which had only just eased a little, became heavy again.
The men began drinking even faster.
The women put down their newspapers and started crying.
Almost everyone instinctively believed what App had said.
After all, the Ministry had done this kind of thing before.
The most memorable example was during Fudge's time, when they repeatedly denied Voldemort's return.
If the Ministry and The Daily Prophet hadn't worked together to hide the truth over and over again, how could Voldemort's return have grown into such a disaster?
Watching all this, the corners of App's mouth lifted almost invisibly.
He put the newspaper back in front of the suited man and sighed.
"My poor countrymen. You have my deepest sympathy. If my own child had died in that attack, I wouldn't let it end like this. I'd draw my wand and fight those thugs who took my child's life!"
He paused for a moment before continuing in a slightly hoarse voice.
"But... who should I take revenge on? The Dark Lord? Or the French wizards? That's the answer the Ministry has given us through The Daily Prophet."
"They say the Dark Lord joined forces with French wizards to invade Hogwarts and cause this tragedy."
"If not for our respected Commissioner Link Flamel and Professor Dumbledore stepping in, things could have become completely uncontrollable. But... do you really believe that?"
"As far as I know, the Ministry was already saying last year that the Dark Lord had been driven out of Britain."
"The Daily Prophet even published a detailed article claiming that the Dark Lord had probably already been killed by Commissioner Link Flamel and Professor Dumbledore."
"On the other hand, isn't the French magical world in complete chaos right now? They're killing each other every day. The French Ministry of Magic is practically collapsing."
"Those are all things The Daily Prophet itself reported."
"But if all of that is true, then let me ask you this."
"A Dark Lord who has already been killed, or at least driven away, together with French wizards trapped in civil unrest."
"Would those two sides really ignore the disasters happening at home, sneak into heavily guarded Hogwarts, whose defenses are no weaker than Britain's magical world, and launch an attack so easily?"
"So, considering all of this, along with everything the Ministry has done before, I believe I have every reason to think that our Ministry is still hiding something about this incident!"
When he finished, App drained the Firewhisky beside him in one gulp and slammed the glass onto the bar.
The sound echoed through the pub and struck everyone's heart.
Many people's breathing became heavier.
Some wizards had already pulled out their wands and were rubbing them in their hands.
Everyone had been holding back their anger.
Now App had given them somewhere to direct it.
Bang!
A huge, bearded man smashed the table in front of him into pieces with one punch.
His eyes were bloodshot, completely red.
Combined with his heavy breathing and twisted expression, he looked like an enraged bull in a Spanish bullring.
The people around him instinctively backed away, afraid of being caught up if the man completely lost control.
But the next moment, the bearded man clutched his head and burst into tears.
"My daughter! My Lani!"
Hearing his heartbroken cries, everyone around him froze.
After all, seeing a giant over two meters tall and weighing well over a hundred kilograms break down crying created an overwhelming contrast.
But once they recovered, the crowd gathered around him again and began comforting him.
Putting his appearance aside, he was just a father.
And there were quite a few fathers and mothers there who had gone through the same thing.
Soon, everyone whose emotions had been stirred embraced one another, sharing their own painful stories.
The sorrow filling the pub grew heavier and heavier.
Eventually, it reached its peak.
Then it began turning into anger.
Roars mixed with cries rang through the crowd.
With nowhere else to vent, they took it out on the tables and chairs inside the pub.
After their frenzy, the entire Leaky Cauldron was left in ruins.
Standing behind the bar, Tom felt incredibly conflicted.
He didn't know whether to be happy or sad.
On one hand, he no longer had to struggle with whether to replace those antique tables and chairs.
His "kind-hearted" customers had already made the decision for him.
They had even settled whether the floor and walls needed renovating.
But on the other hand, this group of furious people might end up doing something even harder to deal with.
Like organizing a protest.
That was an old British tradition.
Whether Muggle or wizard, they all loved doing it.
In the past, it wouldn't have mattered much.
The Ministry never punished people for joining protests.
After all, everyone usually just cursed the Minister for Magic.
The other officials would simply stay out of it, and some would even enjoy watching the drama.
Since the Minister's authority came from the public, and he needed public support to compete against the other factions inside the Ministry, he usually had no choice but to give in.
But things were completely different now.
Most of the people here might not know what kind of person Link Flamel, the man who pushed through the Ministry's reforms and became one of its commissioners, really was.
Tom did.
That young man from the Flamel family was the only person in British magical history to completely seize every bit of power inside the Ministry.
Would someone like that be afraid of a protest?
Don't joke.
He'd probably arrest every protester, torture them, and publicly execute the organizers.
Link Flamel was absolutely capable of doing something like that.
The thought made Tom's scalp tingle.
He licked his lips anxiously before shouting,
"Everyone, calm down! The Ministry really was terrible in the past. It disappointed all of us. But today's Ministry has already been reformed. I believe it's different now. Just look at the Death Eater attack before, they handled that very well, didn't they?"
"Yeah? That's right! The Ministry was good when it was first established hundreds of years ago too. But what good have they done in the last hundred years?"
"Britain's magical world declined bit by bit under their rule. That alone proves that a good person, or even a good organization, can fall. Those who slay dragons eventually become dragons."
"That's fate. And now, the reformed Ministry is that dragon-slayer who has become the dragon! We can't judge them by what they did before. We have to judge them by what they're doing now!"
App's voice rang with force. He gestured wildly, looking as though he were giving a speech.
"My fellow countrymen! Let's go to the Ministry together! They owe us an explanation! Our children cannot die for no reason! We demand justice!"