Volume 5: The Burning Golden Flame Chapter 335: Trespassing
Sometimes night is not the best time to be stealthy.
Even though Voldemort was not in Hogwarts Castle, his defense arrangements here were still very tight, with Aurors guarding every entrance almost 24 hours a day.
Especially after dark, when the entire castle began to impose a curfew, at Voldemort's signal, the Aurors and professors stationed in the castle implemented the strictest control.
If any suspicious person is found during the night patrol, they can be attacked directly, regardless of life or death.
The secret passage from Honeydukes Candy Shop to the statue of the one-eyed hunchbacked old witch on the third floor of the castle had been discovered by Barty Jr., Snape and others when John and Hentsu escaped with them last year. This passage has now been completely destroyed.
Of course, in addition to this secret passage, there are several other secret passages marked on the Marauder's Map that can be used. For example, there is a secret passage leading out of the school behind the statue of the flatterer Gregory.
But no one could be sure that they were safe, so for safety reasons, Fawkes came to Hermione.
Moreover, darkness is not a very good protection for Phoenix.
Hermione stared at the top of a tower on the easternmost side of the castle on the Marauder's Map. It was one of the three tallest towers in Hogwarts. The others included the tower on the westernmost side of the castle, which used to be the Ravenclaw College common room, and the tower that used to be the Gryffindor College.
Now the other two towers have been abandoned and used as storage rooms. Only the astronomy tower is still in use. However, it is still afternoon and no astronomy classes will be held at this time, so the astronomy tower is empty and there is no one on it.
Moreover, there were almost no other classrooms in the area where it was located. The nearest group of students who were in class would need at least five minutes to reach the Astronomy Tower as quickly as possible. Even if something unexpected happened, five minutes was more than enough for Hermione to deal with the trouble.
"Why don't you let me go with you? I'm a ghost, and I've been in this castle for thousands of years. No one is more familiar with it than me. I can provide you with a lot of help!" Ms. Grey said with wide eyes, puzzled.
In order to make sure that she had not missed anything, Hermione looked at all the names in the entire Hogwarts Castle one last time to make sure that the dark devil was really no longer there.
"I don't need your help, ma'am. If you really want me to help you, you'd better agree to my request. It will be good for both of us."
At this point, Ms. Grey finally understood the metaphor in Hermione's words, and she said in disbelief.
"You think I'll be a burden to you!"
Hermione didn't have such a heart of stone after all, and she looked up from the Marauder's Map.
"It's not a burden, Ms. Grey, but if we all really enter this castle , our goals and standards of action will not be consistent. If there is a disagreement or it is difficult to reach a consensus, it will be difficult to solve the problem. That's why I made this request."
Although her tone was much milder, her attitude of refusing Ms. Grey to enter the castle with her was still firm.
Hermione was well aware of how important this mission was, and she was also well aware that as long as Ms. Grey followed her, she would definitely continue to instigate her to find the Ravenclaw diadem, and in some extreme cases, she might even force herself to make a choice.
So Hermione actually agreed to her request at the beginning, partly because she wanted to delay her first.
Ms. Grey was not fooled by Hermione's words which were only slightly better than "burden". Even if these thousands of years had been in vain, she was at least still an adult before her death.
But she finally hesitated for a few seconds with a grim look on her face, and finally agreed to Hermione's request.
"I can agree not to enter the castle, but you must keep your promise and really intend to help me, not just say it perfunctorily!"
Hermione looked at her and nodded seriously. Perhaps she had been perfunctory when she agreed at first, but from the moment Ms. Grey was willing to give her this trust, Hermione really adjusted her attitude.
No matter what changes the experiences of the past two years have brought to her, her essential kindness has never changed.
After receiving such an affirmative answer from Hermione, Ms. Grey did not continue to stay in her dormitory. Hermione, who had completed all the preparations and solved the biggest hidden danger of Ms. Grey, stretched out her arms to Fox.
"Can you see here, Fox, we need to go here."
Looking at the Marauder's Map, Hermione pointed out the location of the Astronomy Tower to Fawkes.
Fawkes just took a glance, then jumped directly onto Hermione's shoulder and spread his golden-red wings.
Golden light emerged and spread on it, soon enveloping Hermione's entire body, but they were not teleported away immediately. Instead, as the golden light flickered, their bodies merged with the light bit by bit.
In addition to the anti-Apparition magic in Hogwarts Castle, Voldemort also strengthened it with a function specifically targeting the Phoenix Apparition.
But even if his magical attainments have reached the pinnacle in the wizarding world, the magical powers and spells used by magical creatures, especially advanced magical creatures like the phoenix, are very different from those used by wizards.
No matter how much he restricted it, he could only limit Fox's teleportation speed. As for whether he could do it or not, it was not something he could control.
So after a delay of about a minute, Hermione and Fawkes disappeared together in the bedroom of the carriage, and at the same time, the figures of a man and a bird reappeared in the astronomy tower of the castle.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Hermione lifted up her invisibility cloak, covering herself and Fawkes under the cloak, and then began to observe the surrounding situation vigilantly.
The afternoon sun shone into the tower, making the noise caused by Fawkes's Apparition not as glaring as it would be in the dark. There was no one on the Astronomy Tower except Hermione.
Then Hermione took out the Marauder's Map, and finally confirmed that this "illegal intrusion" had violated the agreement between Dumbledore and Voldemort and had not alarmed anyone. Then she bent over and carefully walked to the direction of the stairs.
"Remember not to make any noise, Fawkes, and don't come out of the invisibility cloak suddenly. If anything unexpected happens, we will leave the castle immediately. Professor Dumbledore said that as long as they don't catch us directly on the spot, the Dark Lord will not do anything to us."
She told Fawkes the same words that she had repeated countless times in the carriage. Fawkes touched Hermione's face with his sharp beak with some dissatisfaction, as if he was unhappy that she thought she was a stupid bird that couldn't understand human language.
After getting Fawkes' response, Hermione held the invisibility cloak with one hand and the Marauder's Map with the other. After making sure that there was no one else below the tower, she began to walk down the steep stairs.
It is now four o'clock in the afternoon, and there is still an hour left until the last class of the day in the castle ends. In other words, this hour is the time when there are the fewest students wandering around in the castle except after the curfew begins.
Hermione did not waste a minute. She kept observing the Marauder's Map and kept choosing empty stairs to go down. She also discovered something strange. The movable stairs that had helped her find Jon quickly in the castle a year ago had now become ordinary.
It no longer played tricks on people, and was no longer able to provide any help to Hermione, as if it were dead.
This made Hermione feel a little uneasy, but she pursed her lips to suppress the speculations that arose in her heart, and instead focused all her attention on the task assigned to her by Dumbledore.
It took her about ten minutes to finally reach the first floor cautiously.
As she walked down the stairs, a voice rang out, causing her to subconsciously shrink into her invisibility cloak and hide in the corner.
"If you ask me, Master should really find a way to tear up that so-called contract and take this opportunity to catch Dumbledore and his gang. This is our own territory. What kind of trouble can they cause?"
An ugly witch with a body like a fat pig whispered with a fierce expression.
Following her was a wizard who looked similar to her but was as thin as a stick. They walked side by side and passed by Hermione.
"Don't doubt the master's decision. Just say this in front of me. Don't let others hear it, especially Snape. He likes to report this news to the master the most."
Hermione stared coldly at their backs as they walked up the stairs. Of course she had not forgotten the Carrow siblings.
In the past, the slaves who committed the most serious mistakes would be taken away by them and used as classroom props in Muggle Studies classes.
The fear they brought to the puffball students in the past was even greater than that brought by Dolohov, because if they fell into Dolohov's hands, they would most likely only be tortured and still survive, but all the students who were taken away by the Carlo siblings basically never came back alive.
After watching their figures disappear from her sight, Hermione continued her own actions. She stuck to the wall of the corridor on the first floor of the castle and began to carefully investigate every room on the first floor.
There were few classrooms on the first floor, most of which were functional rooms like the auditorium, storage room and bathroom, and Hermione's target was in these rooms.
The first floor of the castle seemed very large, and it was basically where the most student activities took place during meal times, which restricted her movements greatly. Fortunately, a portrait in Headmaster Dumbledore's office helped her circle out the approximate location of her target.
This meant that Hermione's task might not be as difficult as she had imagined.
…
Jon's lunch was treated to by these unicorns.
After he rode the leading unicorn and found fresh dill in the forbidden forest, the little unicorn was no longer in any danger.
The entire herd of unicorns became much closer to Jon because of this, and even the few that were obviously hostile to his appearance at the beginning were no longer so averse.
The unicorns found a place with water nearby and also found a lot of wild fruits to share with Jon.
Even with Jon's picky taste, he felt that these fruits, none of which he could recognize, tasted good. However, he did not lie down by the river with the unicorns to drink water. Instead, he used magic to summon some clean water himself.
It was time to talk about business during the meal. Jon, while chewing wild fruits, held up the wooden sign in his hand and asked the unicorn who first recognized the sign as the leader.
"Do you know if there are other animals in the Forbidden Forest that recognize this wooden sign? If so, can you take me to see them this afternoon?"
This unicorn was obviously able to understand human language. After listening to Jon's words, it immediately nodded, which instantly made Jon feel much more comfortable.
He originally thought that he might encounter a lot of troubles during this trip to the Forbidden Forest, but now it seems to be going smoothly.
Of course, he did not forget the biggest contributor - the Bowtruckle that led him to find the group of unicorns. Jon used a knife to help it cut some wild fruit pulp, but the little guy didn't seem to be interested.
Instead, after seeing that the little unicorn was no longer in danger, it jumped away.
Sometimes Jon can actually understand why Hagrid likes these magical animals so much, because compared to humans, animals' emotions are sometimes really pure.
While helping Hagrid solve his problem, Jon certainly had not forgotten about the competition, and he continued to ask the unicorn.
"How far is the fire dragon that attacked you from our current location? Based on the speed you took me to run this morning, can we make it there from the time the sun rises to the zenith to the time it sets?"
Even if this unicorn could understand human language, it was impossible for it to understand every noun in the human language, so Jon did not say a few hours, but directly used the time the sun was in the sky as an analogy.
Even so, the unicorn seemed to have difficulty understanding his words. It paused for a moment while chewing the fruit with its head down, and its bright eyes seemed to show it was thinking.
Then it seemed to finally understand what Jon said and nodded.
Jon blinked and began to narrow the time frame again.
"If it's until the sun is halfway down, will it still be enough?"
This time the unicorn didn't think about it for long, but nodded directly.
"That's the direction. Just use your horn to point it out for me."
Soon, it turned its head and pointed the horn on its head towards the southwest.
Jon didn't ask any more questions. He lowered his head and thought, estimating the speed and time. Due to the lack of accurate parameters, he had no way of coming up with specific values.
But what is certain is that the fire dragon that had fought with the entire unicorn clan was very close to him.
