834 The Disappearing fireplace

The sound of the door opening grew louder, and Ivan frowned, wondering if he should let Filch in and give him another Memory Charm.

This thought was quickly forgotten by Ivan.

The commotion here might attract the attention of others. Filch alone would not solve their current predicament.

"Dobby … Dobby!" Yvonne cried, snapping her fingers.

The next moment, the wrinkled house-elf appeared in the clearing and said shrilly, "Can I help you, sir?"

"Can you use Apparition to move this fireplace?" Yvonne asked, pointing to a nearby fireplace.

Dobby looked in the direction Ivan was pointing, and was nearly blinded by the golden glow of the fireplace.

After a moment of shock, Dobby recovered.

After all, Ivan had used it to transport gold products back to the city from time to time.

These things were originally pawned to those pure-blood families in exchange for equivalent gold Galleons, but no one dared to accept the money, so they were all piled up at home.

Now that the house had a golden table and chairs, a golden cupboard, and a golden teapot, it seemed that there would be another golden fireplace!

Dobby was delighted. He would have traded everything in the house for gold if he could.

"So, can we move?" Ivan asked.

"It's too big, sir…" Dobby held out his hand to indicate the size of the fireplace and shook his head gloomily. He didn't have enough magic to carry this thing away at once.

"Then I'll try to make it as small as possible… Godspeed!" Ivan drew his wand from his belt and waved it, and invisible blades of magic split the fireplace into dozens of pieces.

The large gold nugget, enchanted with the Levitation Charm, crashed to the ground with a dull thud.

He used the Shrinking Charm to shrink the gold to a quarter of its original size, then looked at Dobby and asked, "Is this good enough?"

Dobby nodded, then placed his hands on the two gold pieces and used Apparition.

After a dozen trips, the disassembled fireplaces were all removed.

Outside, Filch's banging grew louder.

Ivan went about cleaning up the mess, ignoring Filch, who had placed a spell on the door so that even if he knocked on it all day, it would be impossible for him to get in…

"What's going on, Filch?" said another familiar voice from the corridor.

"Professor McGonagall, I've caught a little devil on a nocturnal excursion and he's hiding in the conference room! But he's bewitched the door and I can't get in. Could you please open the door for me?" Filch shouted excitedly.

"Excuse me, Alohomora ~ (Alohomora opening)" Professor McGonagall gently waved her wand, and the lock burst open with a loud click.

Filch pushed the door open eagerly and hurried inside, a look of excitement on his face.

However, to his surprise, the wide conference room was empty.

"Get out of there, you can't get away, I've got you!" Filch shouted, holding up the oil lamp. He thought the damned brat must still be in the meeting room, but hiding somewhere.

Filch searched every nook and cranny for a place to hide, thinking about the bill that had been passed a few days ago. He had always missed hanging his errant students from the ceiling, and he thought he might be able to relive it today.

However, Filch was disappointed to find no one in the room.

"Damn it, he must have ducked behind the door and used the Disillusionment Charm to get away!"

Filch cursed to himself and was about to return to the door when he was surprised to find McGonagall staring at a wall.

"What is it, Professor McGonagall?" Filch asked curiously.

"I thought there was supposed to be a… fireplace?" Professor McGonagall asked uncertainly, staring at the neat stone walls.

"What?" Filch's mind went blank for a moment, and then he realized it, and he stared at the empty wall with a ridiculous feeling.

Could it be that a thief had come to the castle and stolen the fireplace in the middle of the night?

Are you crazy?! Why did you steal the fireplace?

… .

While the two of them were speculating, Ivan returned to the dormitory and took a nap before dawn. He then pretended that nothing had happened and joined Harry and the others in the Great Hall for breakfast.

As he expected, the disappearance of the fireplace in the conference room had spread, and many strange rumours had spread.

Harry and Ron were initially incredulous; how could the fireplace have been stolen? However, when they checked the meeting room, they were forced to admit that the rumours were probably true.

Hermione, on the other hand, was scientifically precise. "It's not easy to get a fireplace this size out of school, let alone without Professor Filch and Professor McGonagall knowing, so someone must have used a powerful Vanishing Charm on it!"

"That's weird, using a Vanishing Charm on a fireplace?" Ron complained.

"Well…it's probably the stress of being found out and losing control of your magic," Hermione guessed, turning to Ivan. "What do you say, Ivan?"

"How should I know? It's just a fireplace, it's not worth anything… who'd steal that for no reason?" Yvonne yawned and bluffed.

Having removed the fireplace, Ivan showed no intention of revealing the truth, instead leading Harry and the others down a dead end.

Despite the scale of the incident, as long as there were no leads, it was likely that the case would be left unsettled.

After all, a fireplace was not that precious. All he had to do was spend a few coins and refurnish it…

Several days passed in the blink of an eye, and Ivan was able to focus almost all of his attention on improving his skills, even pausing regular meetings to avoid Umbridge's detection.

He needed to master the Stone's full power as soon as possible. Only then would he be able to escape from the hordes of wizards surrounding him.

The news from Knockturn Alley did not stop for a day, and a steady stream of good and bad information flowed into Dobby's hands.

The worst of them all was when the head of the Nott family escaped the Imperius Curse a day ago and went into the unknown…

"Damn it, he can't even look after someone who's under the Imperius Curse! Now of all times…" Ivan muttered to himself as he threw the envelope into the fire.

Dobby hemmed and hawed in response. "Mr. Flan says there have been too many people to mobilize lately, and that Mr. Nott has been neglected … and …"

"And the Norts have been behaving themselves for the past year or so. They've been a bit lax, haven't they?" Ivan asked with a resigned sigh. He had almost forgotten that there was such an unstable element, let alone a caretaker of the Norts.

He had previously spared the Noether family's lives in consideration of the fact that they would be needed for the Minister's election, but he had not expected something like this to happen.