Archaeologists at Hogwarts

Chapter 311 Witch and James

Toby quickly learned the whole story from Harry - he didn't expect Gazeon to have met "James", let alone that "James" actually went to the Veil Bar to inquire about himself.

"Wait a minute, I'll call Wicky over and ask."

Witch soon came to Hogwarts through the fireplace, and he happened to be handling business in Diagon Alley, and came out of the fireplace biting a cigar, with "I'm not easy to mess with and rich" written all over his body.

After hearing Toby's inquiry, Witch said without even thinking: "Are you kidding me? How could I remember everyone who approached you, especially those who are unwilling to pay introduction fees? I usually don't even see the guests."

Really goblin style.

"Then do you remember this thing?"

Toby took the cage out of Harry's hand and showed Witch the flaming bat inside.

Witch stared at the little guy carefully for a while.

"Is this a fire dragon cub?" He asked interestedly, thinking that Toby was back to his old job and would take out some prohibited items every now and then.

"It's a flame bat." Toby shook his head and said, "It seems that you don't even know it—"

"Wait a minute." Witch interrupted Toby suddenly, and Harry stared at him nervously.

"I don't know what a flame bat is." Witch took a deep puff of his cigar, exhaled the smoke and said, "But I vaguely remember seeing a similar little guy. At that time, I also thought it was a dragon cub. It was an extra money, but the other party refused the deal and paid me a sum of gold instead, and then asked me a lot of information about you."

Ron looked at him in surprise: "You betrayed Professor Highmore just like that?"

"Don't get excited, kid." Witch said proudly: "This is something I discussed with Toby a long time ago, not only that mysterious guy, but many people will often appear in Veil Bar to inquire about Toby's tracks. Sometimes there are commissions, but more enemies—I generally treat those people as enemies, and while earning gold, tell them where they went wrong, and then share the gold with Toby.”

"It's true, that's right." Toby nodded at the three children with strange faces: "It's too troublesome to deal with them, so I usually lead those people to their own death. Now it seems that 'James' is It's rare to survive—do you remember where you told him to go?"

Witch was quick to answer.

"Loch Ness," he said. "Usually Loch Ness. You said there were a lot of horse monsters there. It's a good place for extermination—"

"Cough cough cough." Toby coughed twice suddenly: "There is no need to say such things in front of students."

Harry had barely fainted—they had seen the dangers of Loch Ness in their first lesson in ancient magic, and "James" had been there?

Witch comes and goes quickly. Recently, anti-demon glasses and lucky charms are very popular. If you delay for a second, you will lose a lot of gold, and you will be heartbroken and breathless.

"Very useful clue."

Toby finally said to the trio: "Keep up, kids. I can feel that we're about to unravel the truth of the puzzle soon."

After the three left with the flame bat, Toby sat alone in the office.

Regarding the reason why "James" would find himself, Toby immediately thought of Grindelwald's research on ancient magic.

And it happened that "James" was misled to go to Loch Ness. Could it be that Grindelwald also discovered the secret of the material of the magic ball there? ——
Hogsmeade village.

It was getting dark.

Lupine hurriedly avoided several drunken figures, walked quickly into a small alley, and came to the wooden door of the Pig's Head Bar.

The Pig's Head pub closed earlier these days, and by the time Lupine walked into the bar, the guests had long since disappeared, only Sirius and Tonks were waiting for him.

"How's Toby?"

As soon as Lupine walked in, he asked Tonks, "Did he see anything wrong?"

"There's one thing that's weird."

After closing the door, Lupine frowned and said: "He terminated the Patronus class I taught Harry, Ron, and Hermione in advance, and asked them to study the flame bat instead. Maybe it's because He guessed something again, but he didn't explain the specific reason to me."

Sirius got himself a glass of wine, and he drank it muffled without saying a word.

Lupine knew that being unable to leave the bar was difficult for Sirius, but he couldn't help it. If Tonks hadn't been covering the Auror side, who knew whether Sirius' identity would have been exposed.

So, Lupine deliberately changed the subject and asked, "What about you? When the school held a competition a few days ago, did any suspicious people appear in the village?"

Sirius shook his head slowly, and Tonks explained: "We have checked the audience carefully, and there is nothing suspicious, at least not yet, maybe it will appear in the next few games."

This is a bit difficult-especially for Lupine, who is now responsible for keeping an eye on Toby in the school, and always remembers Dumbledore's instructions to them-he must first find Toby. James' people, otherwise something terrible might happen.

But so far, they still don't know what the so-called terror refers to.

Tonks got up and went upstairs to the kitchen to make some sandwiches for dinner, and when she walked up the stairs, Lupine walked over to sit opposite Sirius.

"Do you think James is really resurrected?" Lupine asked, pouring himself a glass of wine.

Sirius put down his glass slowly. He was silent for a while and said, "It's very similar. The tone of the person who found me was exactly the same as James's when he spoke. It doesn't look like he's pretending."

Lupine sighed.

"But if he is really still alive, why would he not want to contact us?"

Neither Lupine nor Sirius could figure it out.

It has been more than ten years since James appeared again, how did James not show his feet for such a long time.

He wasn't Toby, and he didn't get into a fight with Dumbledore at graduation and wouldn't come back for years.

James seems to have absolutely no reason to do so.

"What if it's because of Lily?" Lupine guessed, "The only person who can make him make such a decision seems to be Lily. After all, Harry is still alive, and we"

Next is something that Lupine has been reluctant to mention-if James is really alive, then he can save Sirius who was framed and imprisoned by himself, and save him from suffering for so many years.

But now, Sirius has become a "dead man" in the outside world, and James has never made any effort to clear up his grievances.

Sirius frowned subconsciously and said: "No, James must have some difficulties to do this."

Lupine saw the words "that's it" on Sirius' face, and he shook his head. "I'll go upstairs and see why Tonks hasn't come down—"

At this moment, Tonks suddenly poked her head out from downstairs, her face was full of panic, and she couldn't even utter a complete sentence.

"What's the matter?" Lupine walked over with a frown, and Sirius stood up with his glass.

Halfway up the stairs, Lupine suddenly heard another distinctive breathing from upstairs.

"It's Dumbledore!"

Tonks finally got his words right: "Dumbledore's back, upstairs - and he's really hurt!"

On the sofa in the living room on the second floor of the Pig's Head Bar, Dumbledore was sitting there, his body was wet, his beard and hair were messed up, and even one of his glasses legs was broken.

Fox lay crookedly beside him, and had already turned into a baby bird—this was obviously caused by a fatal injury.

"Principal, how do you feel?" Lupine hurried over and asked worriedly.

"It was Toby Highmore who attacked you?" Sirius immediately suspected that Dumbledore's injury was on Toby.

Dumbledore denied it weakly: "It's not Toby, it's James, it's what he left behind in Loch Ness that caused me to be like this - go find Severus, call him over quickly, I It needs to be healed as soon as possible."

"I'll take you there now!" Lupine thought that Dumbledore was thinking of calling Snape over because he was confused. Now it was obvious that sending Dumbledore to school would save time.

"No——" Dumbledore suddenly raised his hand to stop him: "Not yet, go and call Severus over, but don't let him reveal this news to anyone—especially Toby, he must not tell he."

Despite the outlandishness of Dumbledore's request, Lupine complied immediately.

After he left, Tonks dried Dumbledore's wet clothes with a flick of his wand, then she carefully picked up Fawkes and placed him in the nest made by the towel.

"Do you need to hide first?" After finishing all this, Tonks looked back at Sirius and asked, "After all, your current identity is a little sensitive."

"No need." Sirius didn't want to wait for a moment, he looked at Dumbledore who seemed to be in a coma, and he just wanted to know what James left behind in Loch Ness as soon as possible.

Not long after, Lupine hurried to the Hog's Head with Snape.When he saw that Sirius was still here, he was obviously taken aback. Snape obviously didn't know that Sirius was still alive. As soon as he saw the strange bar owner, he couldn't move his eyes. The shocked gaze immediately turned into unparalleled anger—hatred made him recognize the enemy of the year, and he knew what kind of face was hidden under this disguised appearance just through Sirius' eyes.

Before the two were about to speak, Lupine interrupted in time: "First heal Dumbledore's injuries."

Fortunately, Dumbledore was present to defuse the upcoming fight. Snape finally gave Sirius a cold look, and then immediately opened the medicine box he carried with him, and took out bottles of medicine canisters.

While lighting the cauldron, Tonks asked, "You didn't meet Toby when you came, did you?"

"No." Lupine said while helping to arrange the medicine jars, "I guess he fell asleep a long time ago, and the potions office is already in the basement, so there's no need to go upstairs."

When preparing the healing potion, Snape never spoke a word. He concentrated on pouring the last herb into the cauldron, and poured the potion into the cup after the purple fluorescence appeared in the mist. Then he chanted the spell while Give the potion to Dumbledore.

The effect was almost immediate, Dumbledore's eyelids trembled a few times, he slowly opened his eyes, and saw Snape standing in front of him, looking like he wanted to ask a question.

"It seems that my luck is not bad." Dumbledore even smiled leisurely and said, "Okay, gentlemen and ladies, please allow me to leave for a short time—"

"Where are you going?" Sirius asked hurriedly, "What did James leave behind?"

"Sorry." Dumbledore shook his head and said, "I can't tell you the reason yet, and I sincerely hope that you will never need to know the day."

"I'll return the towel."

He finally said that the figure holding Fox gradually disappeared, leaving a room full of people looking at each other in blank dismay.

I don't know how many seconds it started. When Lupine came back to his senses, he found that Snape and Sirius were staring at each other closely. Even Tonks noticed that the atmosphere in the room was very strange.

"Hmm," she said hesitantly, "so I'm going to make an extra sandwich, right? Are you going to stay for dinner, or—well, I'm fine with two, maybe three —It’s not four, is it?”

Her last words were staring at Lupine.

"What?" Lupine was stunned for a moment. He was dragged abruptly to the kitchen by Tonks, and he heard Tonks say loudly on purpose: "You have to eat up this sandwich——Okay——" She suddenly Lowering his voice, he took a casual bite of a piece of sliced ​​bread, and asked in a vague tone: "So what happened to the two of them? Can you tell me?"

Looking at the extremely curious Tonks in front of him, Lupine turned his head and looked in the direction of the living room worriedly, and then explained with a little helplessness: "It's like this—"
-
At the same time, Dumbledore had quietly returned to Hogwarts Castle.

He put the weak Fox into the principal's office in the dark, and then walked all the way down without disturbing anyone, including the portraits on the wall.

The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets opened in front of him, and Dumbledore walked down the passage, into the damp and cold depths.

Just before entering the hall of the final chamber of secrets, Dumbledore suddenly pulled out his wand, pointed to the front and said, "Confused."

The spell hit the conscientious armor, and it was confused and would not remember anything that happened next.

Then, in front of Grindelwald, who had just woken up from his sleep, Dumbledore walked over, and asked in a solemn tone he had never used before: "You are studying forbidden magic. Who the hell?"

"Tell me, who is the humanoid devil hiding at the bottom of Loch Ness?!"

(End of this chapter)