Harry Potter: Glory Bows to Me

All people were kept in the huge banquet restaurant.

No one in the restaurant was allowed to leave until the Aurors found the fugitive.

When Scrimgeour asked to see the list of names for tonight's dinner, Draco had no choice but to hand him the thick list.

But before Draco handed it to Scrimgeour, Ammenta quickly flipped through the list again.

She saw the name she wanted to see at a glance.

After Draco handed over the list, Amanta whispered in his ear: "On the list... Barty Jr.'s name is not gone."

"So, he has never left this restaurant?" Draco said thoughtfully.

Together they looked around the restaurant.

But even after many guests ran out in panic, there were still at least a hundred people in the restaurant.

Since no one was dancing anymore, everyone left the dance floor and the sofas for people to rest on became crowded, forcing many people to sit in their seats for dinner.

Considering the large number of people, Lucius ordered the house-elves to bring more sofas to alleviate the pressure of insufficient sofas.

Most of the guests had solemn expressions or huddled in a corner, looking around fearfully, fearing that someone might be the hidden fugitive and would cast a spell on them out of the blue.

Only Luna continued to hum a tuneless song and sway on the dance floor. There was no panic on her face, and it was as if everything happening around her had nothing to do with her, until a long-haired man - who seemed to be her father - led her aside.

Not long after, the Aurors came back from outside one after another and brought the guests back to the restaurant one by one.

Narcissa's face was paler than usual, and she held her heart weakly.

"Lucius...I feel a little uncomfortable. Can I go back and rest first?"

Lucius held her in his arms with concern.

He asked an Auror on duty in the restaurant: "Can my wife go back and rest first?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lucius." An Auror replied, "No one can leave the restaurant until the fugitive is found. This is also for the safety of Madam Narcissa."

Narcissa coughed weakly a few times, and an unhealthy blush appeared on her pale and beautiful face.

"Sissi... Damn the weather, it's too cold. I'll ask the house-elf to bring you some more clothes."

Lucius took off his robe and put it on Narcissa.

"No, Lucius." Narcissa held his arm. "It's just that there are too many people here... I feel a little dizzy. I have always disliked such crowded occasions, you know."

"All right……"

Lucius frowned and wanted to say something, but Scrimgeour needed to ask him some basic questions about the banquet, so he called him away.

Fudge was also cursing on the sofa not far away.

"Damn it, they didn't even let a minister like me go... Could it be that they suspected that I was the fugitive? Damn Christmas Eve, damn Auror's office..."

Despite the pressure of complaints and harassment, the Aurors finally found all the guests from every corner and garden of the mansion.

You know, this is not easy, after all, some people have left the mansion and tried to hide in the woods not far away - God knows what they have done.

There were even a few little guests playing hide-and-seek in the huge mansion.

After a long time, everyone finally arrived.

The Aurors counted the number of people, excluding the Aurors who arrived later and the Malfoy family, the organizers of the party.

There were a total of 183 guests.

The Auror in charge of roll call and the Auror in charge of counting the names whispered to each other and counted the number of people again, but the result was still exactly the same as before.

And on the list - excluding the names of the Aurors, there were a total of 184 guests' names.

"What the hell is going on?" The Auror in charge of roll call was stunned as he looked at the number of people who had been counted. "Did you make a mistake?"

"How is that possible? After all... you ordered the wrong one, right?"

Another Auror pointed to the list in his hand and motioned for him to see it.

On the list written in gold on white paper, there is a number in front of each name, which is very clear at a glance.

Excluding the fourteen Aurors, there are exactly one hundred and eighty-four.

Scrimgeour frowned, took the list from the Auror, and flipped through it page by page, as if looking for something.

After searching for a while, he seemed to have finally found the information he wanted. He frowned and compared it with the first few pages -

Amanta understood that he was looking for two identical names on the list - Barty Crouch's.

Their names were clearly written in the register, and Scrimgeour had evidently discovered them.

"You counted correctly. He is hiding here."

Scrimgeour said.

"What?" the Auror who was counting the number of people asked in surprise.

The Auror who had just checked the roster patted the head of the Auror who was counting the number of people.

"Stupid! Since we've already counted the number of people - there's one missing, so it must be either out of our sight or hidden in something."

Little Barty's name appeared in the banquet. As long as the roster was correct, he must still be hiding in this restaurant.

But he is not necessarily in the crowd.

"So... can you let us go back? Since you have this list... as long as we all get out, if his name is still here, you can just search the restaurant."

A short wizard suggested.

"Yeah, why don't you just search this restaurant? He's in this restaurant anyway, he can't run away."

"Really... just say it's not us, why leave all of us here?"

Seeing the crowd becoming restless again, many people took out their dissatisfaction on the Aurors.

The square-jawed witch said seriously, "But we can't be sure - he is not hiding in a guest's personal belongings and took this opportunity to escape. And... there are too many guests. We can't ensure the safety of doing so."

Her words barely curbed the guests' dissatisfaction.

They just yelled at the Aurors to check quickly, as they wanted to go back and have a good sleep early.

After the guests had settled down again, Scrimgeour began to direct the Aurors to search everywhere.

For example, the suitcases that someone had put there, or the Christmas cedar tree with many ornaments hanging on it, or around the picture frames, or the vases placed everywhere, or at the bottom of the dining table, or on the inside of the sofa cushions -

God knows how many sofas Lucius had the house-elves bring in just now. Now the Aurors had to ask everyone to stand up and check the sofa cushions, pillows and the bottom of the sofa bit by bit.

The guests had to give up their sofas with complaints and stood aside to watch the Aurors' actions.

Amanta and Draco are no exception.

They had no choice but to leave the sofa and stand in front of a sixteenth-century portrait of the Malfoy family, watching the Aurors busy in front of them.

Harry watched the Aurors in action with curiosity, and it was clear that he was very interested in their work.

Amanta still remembered that he had been asking her and Draco some common sense questions with interest a while ago - for example, what departments did the Ministry of Magic have, what were their respective responsibilities, what was the profession of Auror, and what did they usually do -

She almost forgot that there was a little boy here who knew nothing about all this.

After all, no one had ever introduced these things to Harry before.

Luna walked towards them holding a strangely shaped compass in her hand.

"What is this?" Harry's attention was attracted by the compass in Luna's hand again.

"I think... I might be able to help." She said in an ethereal and light tone, and then gestured to them what she was holding. "This is a malicious compass. It can accurately point to people nearby who have malicious intentions and are ready to put them into practice."

"Is it really that magical?"

Harry wondered.

He looked at the small compass in Luna's hand, the needle on it was shaking as she walked.

"Of course... It's very accurate. This is the treasure my father gave me."

After Luna introduced them, she walked towards the Auror who was checking their couch.

She looked desperate to recommend her compass to the Aurors.

But the two Aurors just nodded perfunctorily and said, "Thank you very much for the clues you provided. We will look in this direction later."

Luna smiled and replied: "I'm glad I could help you."

After Luna left, the conversation between the two Aurors drifted to Amanta's ears intermittently.

"What kind of funny compass is this... Did you buy it from Zonko's Joke Shop?"

"That is... she doesn't even look at who her compass is pointing to..."

One of the Aurors whispered, "You may not know this girl, but she is the crazy girl of the Lovegood family. Like her father, she likes to talk nonsense all day long."

Amanta followed their gaze and had a suspicion in her mind.

Draco followed her gaze.

"Oh..." he suddenly sighed.

Thinking he was going to say something, Amanta tilted her head.

"what happened?"

Draco patted their shoulders.

"Sorry...Amanta, Harry, I almost forgot something important - I have to leave for a while to take care of my mother." He apologized.

Amanta looked carefully again - yes, Narcissa was also asked to leave the sofa.

The dress she was wearing was a bit thin, but it was just right in the banquet hall which was heated by the blazing fire in the fireplace.

But after the arrival of the Ministry of Magic's carriage and the constant coming and going of guests and Aurors, the temperature in this huge banquet hall dropped sharply.

At this moment, Narcissa wrapped Lucius's coat tightly around her shoulders, huddled in a corner, and rubbed her temples with a headache.

"Can I go?" Amanta suddenly suggested, "Draco, your father... looks like he needs help."

She pointed to a place not far away - because Fudge and several officials from the Ministry of Magic were clamoring to leave, and there was a worried Lucius, and an Auror beside Lucius who was checking the banquet roster with him.

"Hmm? Well, thank you, Amanta."

Draco seemed slightly confused, but he quickly agreed.

After all, as the real person in charge of this banquet, he needs to cooperate a lot with Scrimgeour and the Aurors' inquiries.

Although the Christmas dinner was nominally announced to the public as hosted by Lucius, Lucius was busy all day and actually had no time to be responsible for these matters.

In addition, although Narcissa was originally responsible... Draco was really worried about Narcissa's health and did not let her intervene at all.

So... from the guest list to the on-site layout, everything was completely handled by Draco himself.

Since she had promised Draco to take care of Narcissa, Amantha walked straight towards Narcissa.

She walked over to Narcissa, held her arm, and wrapped her tightly in the robe that Lucius had given her.

"Lady Narcissa," she said politely.

"...Thank you. I'm sorry. Today was supposed to be a good day, but something like this happened."

Narcissa looked at her gratefully, her lips slightly pale.

Amanta suddenly discovered a strange place.

That is - almost everyone attending the banquet wore makeup, and she was too far away before to see clearly.

It was only until this moment, when she was so close to Narcissa, that she could see clearly...

Narcissa was not wearing any makeup.

Although with Narcissa's beauty, there was no sense of incongruity when looking at it from a distance.

But perhaps it was because of the gorgeous dress that her face looked even paler and more tired.

This greatly increased her suspicion.

After all, she volunteered to take care of Narcissa just to verify her guess.

"Nothing, I've had a great day, but I'm a bit troublesome Draco."

She said nothing, but just pointed at Draco who was busy not far away.

It seemed that after Draco passed.

The Aurors had a new idea.

They were checking the list and checking the guests one by one, mainly checking each guest's clothing and their relationship with each other.

This is inevitable. After all, in addition to the possibility that Barty Jr. is hiding in a corner of the restaurant, there is another possibility - Barty Jr. disguised himself as a guest and hid that guest.

Or so Draco guessed.

But Amanta's instincts told her.

The truth of the matter might be... slightly different from what Draco guessed.

Narcissa smiled softly.

"Really? Speaking of you and Draco... I always feel that there is something special between you two. The little dragon seems to care about you very much."

She frowned slightly and smiled, "It feels like now... he is closer to you than me."