Compared to humans, the centaur seer Brightwing's body was actually quite large. Therefore, in order to make himself appear sufficiently humble, and also to make it easier for Link to take the crown, he had no choice but to curl his body up extremely tightly.
However, Link showed no intention of taking the crown for a long time.
He simply looked at the centaur seer Brightwing with a half-smile that wasn't quite a smile.
It wasn't until Brightwing could no longer endure it, his forehead beginning to sweat and his entire body trembling, that Link finally took the crown woven from vines and placed it on his own head.
"I'll reluctantly accept your loyalty," Link said with his chin slightly raised.
"Next, the support supplies you need will be gradually delivered to the centaur villages. But if you want more, that will depend on how well you perform."
"We won't disappoint you, Lord Morningstar." A flash of joy flickered in Brightwing's eyes, though his face still barely maintained a serious expression.
"Also, Lord Morningstar, last night I noticed that in the west, a demonic star is slowly rising, standing in distant opposition to the Morningstar you represent. This is likely a sign that one of your enemies has achieved some new victory. I hope this information will be of use to you."
"Ah, I understand."
Link seemed to lose interest in continuing the conversation with the centaurs. He nodded, then left the wooden house, luxurious to an almost unbelievable degree by centaur standards, without looking back, taking Newland and Sigefin with him.
The three of them declined the centaurs' offer of an escort and instead crossed straight through the Forbidden Forest, heading toward Hogwarts Castle.
Along the way, all three maintained an extremely strange silence.
It wasn't until the snow-covered outline of Hogwarts Castle faintly appeared in their field of vision that Sigefin finally moved closer to Link and asked, visibly conflicted, "Lord Flamel, may I ask what exactly the support supplies you mentioned earlier are?"
Link didn't stop walking, but he turned his head to glance at Sigefin and the equally curious Newland before smiling and saying, "Seeds, tools, alcohol, just ordinary Muggle living supplies."
Hearing this, Newland, who came from a Muggle family, showed no particular reaction. Sigefin, however, frowned and said, "But they're centaurs! As far as I know, centaurs don't care about those things. They don't even care much about their own deaths, since that's also part of nature. And you yourself said before…"
"Yes, I did say before that centaurs are a race that follows nature and whose lifestyle resembles the elves of legend," Link said with a half-smile.
"But what I was talking about were the centaurs from before the goblin rebellion. Back then, centaurs truly were selfless creatures. As for now…"
Link didn't continue. He simply shook his head with clear contempt.
"Why such a drastic change?"
This time it was Newland who spoke. His eyes were shining brightly, as though he were very interested in the topic.
"It's very simple. Because all the centaurs who truly revered nature have already been killed by wizards. The centaurs still alive today are all descendants of deserters and traitors," Link said.
"Especially these centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. Dumbledore's preferential treatment over the years has given them a sense of superiority, making them believe they are the true masters of the forest."
"Under the banner of protecting the balance of nature, they drive away and despise the very wizards who took them in. And once they see themselves as the masters, they naturally feel entitled to enjoy some nice things."
"They're digging their own graves," Sigefin said slowly, his expression filled with disappointment.
Link smiled and nodded in agreement.
He was very satisfied with the level of understanding Sigefin and Newland had shown.
The centaurs' current actions were indeed digging their own graves.
Pursuing a better life isn't wrong in itself, it's human instinct. The fact that centaurs were developing in this direction actually proved that Dumbledore's subtle influence on them had been successful.
If they had been willing to settle down and focus on production, Link believed that sooner or later Dumbledore would have given them what they wanted.
Unfortunately, they were far too greedy.
So greedy that they even tried to involve themselves in the upcoming Third Wizarding War by pledging allegiance to Link, hoping to gain enormous benefits and privileges from it, such as truly becoming the masters of the Forbidden Forest.
That was nothing short of bargaining with a tiger for its skin.
Anyone who had thoroughly read magical history would understand that wizards, or rather, humans, are the most unreliable allies in the world.
Giants, Dementors, goblins, house-elves, merfolk…
Almost every intelligent race that had ever cooperated with wizards ended up being screwed to the brink of extinction, especially so-called wartime alliances.
Wizards treated other allied races purely as cannon fodder.
And yet the centaurs still dared to actively cooperate with wizards. That was practically asking for death.
Still, this wasn't entirely the centaurs' fault.
After all, as mentioned earlier, the ancestors of these Forbidden Forest centaurs were originally deserters and traitors.
Hundreds of years ago, they survived precisely by cooperating with wizards, or rather, by acting as wizards' dogs.
If you've never been beaten badly, you won't learn your lesson.
On top of that, over the years, the only wizards they had contact with were either moderates like Dumbledore or inexperienced young wizards. Naturally, they couldn't recognize the dangers involved.
What they didn't know was that Link had long since regarded them as something akin to long-term laborers and "colonial natives."
In the days to come, Link would use those cheap Muggle-made goods to continuously exploit the centaur villages, squeezing out every last bit of their remaining value. After that, he would decide, based on his mood, whether or not to send the centaurs onto the battlefield as cannon fodder.
What concerned him slightly, however, was the prophecy the centaur seer Brightwing had told him before they parted.
Centaurs were natural astrologers.
Their thousands of years of star worship had allowed them to develop an extremely mysterious and efficient form of astrology. It was said that even the astrology currently used by wizards was largely based on centaur knowledge.
Although, at the end of the day, it was still metaphysics.
Even so, it was at least far more reliable than the divinations of that old fraud Trelawney.
So Link believed this prophecy held considerable reference value.
It was just that… what exactly did the demonic star Brightwing mentioned represent?
———
Two days later, Link found his answer.
When the owls flew into the Hogwarts Great Hall as usual in the early morning, hurling copies of the Daily Prophet and various packages onto the students' tables like bombs, waves of shocked exclamations soon rang out across the hall.
At first, Link thought it was just because some unlucky students had been hit on the head by packages.
But when he opened the Daily Prophet, his expression immediately darkened.
Splashed across the front page in enlarged, bold letters was the headline, [Multiple Prisoners Escape Azkaban, Ministry of Magic Fears Black Is the Death Eaters' 'Rallying Figure'.]
Below the headline were ten neatly arranged black-and-white photographs.
The faces of nine wizards and one witch, some silently sneering, others arrogantly tapping the edges of their photographs with their fingers. Beneath each photo was a name and the crime for which they had been imprisoned in Azkaban.
Antonin Dolohov, a pale, twisted-looking wizard, sneering coldly at Link. His crime, the murder of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.
Augustus Rookwood, a wizard whose hair was even greasier than Snape's, leaning lifelessly against the edge of his photograph, his face devoid of hope. His crime, leaking Ministry of Magic secrets to the Dark Lord.
But among all the photographs, the most eye-catching was undoubtedly the witch.
Her long black hair looked disheveled in the photo. Beneath heavy eyelids, her eyes stared straight at Link, and a proud, contemptuous smile floated on her thin lips.
Bellatrix Lestrange, her crime, torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom, leaving them permanently disabled.
Link had seen a portrait of her before at 12 Grimmauld Place.
As a former member of the Black family, she appeared beautiful and proud in the portrait, like a thorny rose.
Now, although traces of her former beauty still lingered on Bellatrix's face, they were nothing more than traces.
After more than ten years of torment by Dementors, everything beautiful about her had faded away, leaving only madness.
Continuing to read downward, there was the Daily Prophet's written report on the incident.
However, the credibility of these reports was low, since the information had been voluntarily disclosed by the Ministry of Magic.
Fudge stated outright that the prisoners had escaped the previous night and expressed suspicion that they had been inspired by Sirius Black's earlier prison break.
He even hinted in interviews that this escape had been secretly orchestrated by Sirius Black, with the goal of rescuing his former fellow inmates.
After finishing the article, Link threw the newspaper aside with a grim expression, no longer having any appetite for breakfast.
He wasn't surprised that Fudge wanted to pin the blame on Sirius, after all, from any perspective, Sirius really was an excellent scapegoat.
What truly angered Link was that he had already warned Barty Sr. earlier, after Snape leaked the information, to strengthen Azkaban's security at all costs. If necessary, he had even suggested directly eliminating all the Dementors and stationing Aurors and Hit Wizards there instead.
And yet what happened?
They still escaped.
This made Link start to wonder whether Barty Sr. had developed some kind of ideological problem during this period.
Perhaps it was time to have a serious talk with him again.
Link narrowed his eyes slightly, having already made his decision.
At the same time, the Daily Prophet's report finally began to fully ferment throughout the Great Hall.
The first to react were the professors at the staff table.
It was as if someone had pressed a pause button on them, each stared at the newspaper in front of them, their expressions extremely serious, yet completely motionless.
Sprout didn't even notice that the spoonful of yolk in her raised spoon was dripping onto her thigh.
As for the student tables below, it was even worse.
The other three houses remained relatively calm. After all, they had experienced an Azkaban prison break once before in earlier years, and to be honest, it didn't feel very real to them.
But over at the Gryffindor table, it completely exploded.
After reading the newspaper, Neville screamed and dove straight under the table, crying as he curled up into a ball. No matter how much the other students tried to comfort him, he refused to come out.
The other Gryffindors all wore sorrowful expressions.
They all knew that Neville's parents were the victims of Bellatrix's crimes.
Even to this day, those two poor souls still lay in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, hopelessly insane. Bellatrix's prolonged use of the Cruciatus Curse had completely destroyed their souls.
Cedric looked complicatedly toward the Gryffindor table for a moment, then lowered his gaze to the newspaper again before saying to Link, "Link, maybe you should take a look at this."
As he spoke, Cedric helped Link flip the newspaper over.
There, on the back of the article about the Azkaban escape, was another piece of news taking up a smaller section but just as shocking, "Ministry of Magic Employee Dies Under Mysterious Circumstances."
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries announced that it would conduct a full investigation into the death of Ministry employee Broderick Bode.
Mr. Bode, aged forty-nine, had been injured in a workplace accident several weeks earlier and was hospitalized as a result.
Last night, however, a night nurse discovered that he had been strangled to death in his hospital bed by a potted plant.
The healer in charge of Mr. Bode's ward, Miriam Stroud, was placed on paid leave on the day of the incident. St. Mungo's stated that it would pursue further accountability and expressed deep regret over Mr. Bode's death.
"We have strict regulations regarding decorative items in wards, but amid the Christmas rush, Healer Stroud neglected the danger posed by the plant at Mr. Bode's bedside."
"As Mr. Bode's speech and mobility improved, she encouraged him to care for the plant himself, failing to recognize that it was not a harmless Christmas cactus, but a Devil's Snare. The recovering Mr. Bode was immediately strangled to death upon touching it."
———
"This report is obviously nonsense," Cedric said softly. "Devil's Snare and Christmas cactus may look similar, but with how active Devil's Snare is, there's no way anyone would confuse the two! This was definitely a murder!"
Link said nothing, simply watching Cedric quietly.
Seeing this, Cedric stopped beating around the bush. He pressed his lips together and continued, "And I know this Mr. Bode. He is..."
"He's a Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries!"
Before Cedric could finish, a familiar sharp voice sounded from beside them.
Link and Cedric turned to look and saw Ron staring at the Daily Prophet in terror, with Harry and Hermione standing next to him.
The moment Cedric saw them, he immediately shut his mouth, a faint trace of panic appearing on his face.
Fortunately, Ron and the others didn't notice anything unusual. Harry frowned and asked, "What's an Unspeakable?"
"You can think of them as the Ministry of Magic's researchers," Ron explained.
"They usually only appear within the Department of Mysteries, where they specialize in studying all kinds of mysterious objects kept there, like Time-Turners, for example. Because the work they do is extremely confidential, they're given the title 'Unspeakable' to constantly remind them to maintain secrecy."
Harry let out an understanding "oh," but then heard Link look at Ron with a strange expression and say again, "What I find curious is how you know this Mr. Bode, Ron. Logically speaking, your father is just an official in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. He shouldn't have any access to people like that at all."