Looking at the extremely handsome black-haired young man in front of him, Snape's eyes suddenly shrank.
He clearly remembered that he had seen this face before - in the previous school year, in the restricted area where the Philosopher's Stone was stored, Voldemort had first met him with this face.
Snape frowned and looked at Voldemort inquiringly.
"Don't be nervous, Severus." Voldemort saw Snape's expression, chuckled, and turned his gaze to the many Death Eaters present. "Let me introduce to you all. This is a clone I created. You can trust him completely!"
When Tom Riddle, who was born from the Horcrux diary, heard Voldemort describe himself as a "clone", a hint of displeasure appeared on his face, but he did not refute it.
"I'm asking you a question. Why do you want to attack Azkaban when the Death Eaters are far from recovering their strength?" He said in a cold voice, his tone was exactly the same as Voldemort's. "Don't you know the consequences of exposing the restored Death Eaters to the entire magical world?"
"How do you talk to your creator?" Voldemort's expression also turned cold.
Even though he was angry, he was still very cautious.
Voldemort did not think that his group of Death Eaters could know such advanced and secret dark magic as Horcruxes. But just in case, in order to prevent any overly clever subordinates from guessing that Riddle's mind was born from the Horcrux, he did not use the "main soul" to describe himself to Riddle, but chose to use the ambiguous term "creator".
"You only have a small part of my memory. I have to say that you are still too immature now." Voldemort stared into Riddle's eyes and said softly, "Do you think I don't know the consequences of doing this? Do you think I don't know that this will expose the fact that I have returned to the eyes of the wizarding world?"
As he spoke, he glanced at the many Death Eaters surrounding the long table, "Listen carefully, I have thought very clearly about the attack on Azkaban. It will definitely bring more benefits than disadvantages to us!"
"Yes, attacking Azkaban will indeed expose the fact of our existence. This is why I need to arrange personnel in the Ministry of Magic. After rescuing our companions, Yaxley will cooperate with the leadership in the Ministry of Magic to promote the attack on Azkaban as an accidental incident of a Dementor riot!"
"Everyone here is well aware of what kind of person the current Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, is, right?" he asked with a sneer.
"Fudge is just a stupid, self-righteous, short-sighted idiot!" Yaxley, who was sitting in the first seat on the left, leaned back in his chair and laughed contemptuously.
"I agree with Yaxley on this point. Fudge is a useless guy who has accomplished nothing!" Lucius tapped the ground with his cane and laughed disdainfully.
Most of the other Death Eaters also gave their own comments with disdain.
After talking about it all, there were hardly any positive comments about Fudge. The Death Eaters here basically all said that Fudge was an idiot and a waste!
"It seems that everyone is aware of the fact that Cornelius Fudge is stupid." Voldemort pressed his left hand lightly, making everyone's voices cold. "He is timid and obsessed with stability and peace. He doesn't want his hard-earned position to be unstable."
"So I dare say that as long as we operate properly in the Ministry of Magic, we can let Fudge cover the eyes of the wizarding world and deny the fact that I have returned again!"
Diary Riddle looked at Voldemort's ugly, distorted face with a thoughtful expression.
"But who can Cornelius Fudge hide the news of the breach of Azkaban from?" He suddenly asked, "As long as they are not those lowly and lowly rubbish, wizards with some connections in the wizarding world can easily find out the truth, or at least part of the truth. We will still be exposed to the eyes of others."
“Wake up, young man.” Voldemort looked at Riddle with his scarlet eyes and said in a low voice, “We have been exposed a long time ago. Both Dumbledore and Dracula know about our return, and we only need to pay attention to these two people!”
"As for the other rubbish, let them think whatever they want! As long as we keep the broadest number of people in the dark and prevent this action from triggering a large-scale reaction in the wizarding world, our subsequent development plans will never be disrupted."
"Dumbledore, Dracula... Don't worry, I have plenty of time to have fun with you!"
Thinking of the threat posed to him by Dumbledore and Dracula, Voldemort's deformed fingers like spider legs pinched the armrests of the chair fiercely, his expression extremely cold.
With a "bang", the armrest of the seat was crushed into pieces by him.
Riddle glanced at the armrest that had exploded into powder, but his expression remained unchanged.
"What you said makes sense." He continued, "But have you ever thought about how, with the power of the few people present, we can break the seal of Azkaban under the influence of countless Dementors and successfully rescue our companions in prison?"
Hearing his question, Voldemort laughed merrily.
"You're actually worried about Dementors. It seems you know too little." He said nonchalantly, "Dementors are a dark species that can be used by me. We don't need to worry about them."
"Do you know why? Because we can bring them something that the Ministry of Magic can't give them. If they have to choose between the conditions given by the Death Eaters and the Ministry of Magic, they will definitely choose our side!"
After all, the Horcrux diary only recorded Voldemort's memories before he was sixteen years old. Riddle, who was born in the diary, had no idea what Voldemort had done after that.
He didn't know that after Voldemort graduated, he went to the vicinity of Azkaban in person and conducted in-depth research on Dementors, a species that was considered strange even in the wizarding world. He even used this "non-existent" species to transform his own body and learned how to fly by transforming into black mist through the form of Dementors.
For normal wizards, seeing a monster like Dementors that feed on happiness often makes them feel uncomfortable, or even depressed and desperate.
But Voldemort got along very well with the Dementors.
Because Dementors can only survive by discerning the emotions of wizards and sucking their happiness, the emotions of these strange species are chaotic and they only hurt others.
However, Voldemort was a product of aphrodisiacs and a human being without any emotions. The Dementors could not find a single positive emotion in Voldemort's mind.
Because of this, the Dementors were completely helpless against Voldemort.
While studying the Dementors around Azkaban, the young Voldemort discovered that the Ministry of Magic did not really control the Dementors as a species. They only established a hasty cooperative relationship with the Dementors.
The Ministry of Magic sent prisoners to Azkaban in an endless stream, and the Dementors sucked the happiness from the prisoners' hearts, helping the wizards, or rather helping themselves, to guard those delicious "meals on the plate" and prevent them from escaping.
Voldemort soon realized that this partnership was extremely thin and fragile.
If Voldemort established his own regime one day and could promise that the Dementors would not be limited to Azkaban, but allowed them to freely suck the happiness of residents all over the world, then these monsters would inevitably abandon the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic and turn to Voldemort.
Although Voldemort's power is far from recovered and he has not yet established a dark regime of his own, there is no problem in simply negotiating with the Dementors.
Even if the Dementors aroused the suspicion of the Ministry of Magic because of dereliction of duty, they would not lose anything at all.
This is because Dementors, such a hardworking and free labor force, is a rare good thing! If the Ministry of Magic does not want to increase its annual expenditure on guarding prisoners, they have to choose to continue using Dementors to serve the Ministry of Magic.
“If some powerful ministers were in office, they might need to worry about whether the Ministry of Magic would ban the Dementors.” Voldemort sneered in his heart, “But now that loser Fudge is the Minister of Magic. That coward who is only willing to retreat obviously won’t have the courage to ban the Dementors!”
Thinking of this, Voldemort completely lost his worries about attacking Azkaban. He turned around and waved casually to the Death Eaters surrounding the long table.
"You can go now. Each of you should complete the tasks I assigned to you at this meeting," he said. "If anyone fails to complete the task, you know the consequences."
In the living room of Malfoy Manor, the Death Eaters stood up from their seats, bowed respectfully to Voldemort, and then Apparated out of the living room.
Death Eaters like Lucius who lived in Malfoy Manor also walked out of the living room cautiously, leaving the space for the Dark Lord and his rebellious clone...
Soon, Voldemort and Riddle were the only ones left in the spacious living room.
"In fact, you came just in time. If I get that thing, I will have a perfect chance of breaking into Azkaban!" Voldemort suppressed the heat in his eyes and asked Riddle, "Did you bring what I want?"
Under Voldemort's fiery gaze, Riddle's handsome face changed color slightly, and then shook his head heavily.
"What did you say-?!"
Voldemort's fiery gaze instantly turned cold, his scarlet eyes flashing with bloodthirsty light, "Half a year! Half a year has passed since I left you in Hogwarts, and you can't even collect the blood of a first-year wizard?!"
He stood up, took a step forward, and pressed his wand to Riddle's forehead.
"You should know about my memory, right? If I get Potter's blood, I will be able to recover my strength to its peak, which will be of great benefit to you and me!" Voldemort said coldly, "But why are you unwilling to try your best to do this? Do you really think that I can't do anything with my own Horcrux?"
"I have tried my best." Riddle's mood did not change much. He looked at his main soul indifferently and recounted his work one by one. "During the time at Hogwarts, I was under the care of Dumbledore and Dracula. I could not blatantly take Harry Potter's blood."
"So I wrote Harry's name on the title page of the diary, lurked beside him, and gradually gained Harry's trust by talking to him and tutoring him. And I successfully found a time when he was alone and completely unguarded."
"But what I didn't expect was that there was a powerful protective magic in Harry's blood that could restrain us. I couldn't collect his blood using normal means, so I had to find other ways."
Voldemort released the wand from Riddle's forehead and frowned without any eyebrows.
"Is that really the case? I've thought of this a long time ago. When I possessed Quirinus Quirrell, Quirrell couldn't touch Potter's skin with his body. This is because of the effect of this protective magic!" He said viciously, "Lily Potter left a magic in Harry Potter's blood that specifically targets me!"
"Is this why you would rather gain power later than use Potter's blood to restore your body?" Riddle asked.
"Of course." Voldemort laughed sinisterly. "I'm really looking forward to it. I must watch carefully to see what Potter's expression will be when he sees that the protective magic his mother exchanged for her life is flowing on his enemy."
"I understand." Riddle lowered his head and said softly, "I'll get it for you as soon as possible."
"Even if you can't take Potter's blood directly, can't you control him with the Imperius Curse and send him directly to me?" Voldemort was not going to let Riddle go just like that, and asked coldly, "During the two-month summer vacation, you should have many opportunities to do this, right?"
"I tried." Riddle said indifferently, "But Harry has an amulet made by Dracula, which absorbs almost all dark magic. With a diary like mine that doesn't have much magic left, there is no way to break Dracula's amulet."
It's actually quite ironic, as the amulet was most likely to be obtained by Hermione, who had excellent grades.
In this case, without the amulet, Harry would be easily controlled by Riddle's Imperius Curse. Perhaps Voldemort had already obtained Harry's blood and completely restored his body.
However, in order to gain Harry's trust, Riddle patiently explained to him various issues of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Harry was indeed very talented in Defense Against the Dark Arts.
So, in everyone's surprised eyes, Harry surpassed Hermione in one fell swoop, took first place in the Defense Against the Dark Arts final exam, and successfully obtained the amulet made by Professor Dracula himself.
It was also because of this amulet that Riddle could no longer use the Imperius Curse to control Harry.
“I didn’t expect you to be so useless!” Voldemort slammed his hand heavily on the table, and a crack appeared on the smooth surface. “I’ll give you another month and a half. Before the bell rings on Halloween, I must see Harry’s blood in front of me!”
After saying this fiercely, Voldemort turned around and left the spacious living room of Malfoy Manor without looking back.
He was afraid that he would not be able to control himself and destroy this useless memory in the next second!
Riddle watched Riddle leave the living room and couldn't help but let out a long breath, and his tense body relaxed.
He was taking a big risk by coming here to attend the Death Eater meeting this time.
Riddle absorbed the Horcrux Crown that Voldemort left in the Room of Requirement. Now, his soul power is several times stronger than when Voldemort found him from the Malfoy family.
But if he chose not to attend the meeting because he was afraid of being discovered, Voldemort would immediately become suspicious of him -
Even if Voldemort did not believe that a Horcrux would betray him, he would at least have some doubts about whether he could completely control such a Horcrux that had developed self-awareness.
Fortunately, Voldemort didn't seem to notice his problem.
It is not known whether it was because Voldemort was too confident and did not pay much attention to it, or because Riddle's special nature allowed him to hide it well, making Voldemort think that this was the normal power level of a Horcrux that had awakened its self-awareness.
In short, Riddle is still alive and well, and his main soul has not absorbed the rich soul essence from the two Horcruxes in his body.
"Do you want me to collect the blood before Halloween?" Putting aside his concerns about his life, Riddle began to think about Voldemort's intention to attack Azkaban. "Could it be that... he wants to attack Azkaban on Halloween?"
Riddle knew that the entire night from sunset on Halloween until sunrise on the next day, Halloween, would be the time when the atmosphere of dark magic in the entire wizarding world would be the strongest.
At this time when the atmosphere of dark magic is extremely strong, Voldemort's resurrection using dark magic rituals will be smoother; not only that, such a night will also be the time when Dementors are most active.
If Voldemort is able to negotiate with the Dementors, a rescue operation on Halloween would be the most difficult time for the Ministry's wizards to resist.
"But it's not just dark wizards and Dementors who thrive in this thick atmosphere of dark magic..." Riddle said to himself with a hint of worry in his eyes, "On a night like that, vampires are also at home, right?"
He thought of Dracula, who was surrounded by dark power, and thought carefully for a moment, but he no longer had the idea of telling Voldemort about this.
The next moment, Riddle disappeared along with the diary in his hand.
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