days at Hogwarts

Chapter 526: 12 Grimmauld Place

The night is dark.

It happened to be a full-moon day and I was flying high in the sky, so the silvery-white moonlight seemed even colder.

Hermione raised her head slightly and opened her eyes a little.

What came into view was the silvery-white moonlight, and the whole world suddenly became wider. She was now sitting on the back of the hippogriff that Loren had transformed into, with her hands tightly around his neck, which was covered with smooth and slightly cool scales.

The cold wind in the night blew the girl's hair. She looked down through the transparent body shrouded by the Disillusionment Charm. The scene on the ground quickly shrank into a pattern made up of dark green and black. The square gardens on Privet Drive were getting farther and farther away.

This idea was thought up by Loren.

First he cast an Disillusionment Charm to hide his figure, then he transformed and took her up into the sky. Except for Mad-Eye, other wizards didn't notice anything different about them. They just thought that they had been keeping the broom in some kind of storage alchemical equipment, just like their luggage.

In front was Tonks, who was leading the way, and behind was Mad-Eye, who had an overview of the situation.

Hermione put her head against his neck again. As the flight altitude gradually climbed, the temperature became lower and lower, the speed gradually increased, and the wind blowing in their faces became colder. Through the gaps in his scales, she could smell his usual orange scent and a slight warmth.

There was a wonderful joy in her heart.

"Turn left, turn left, there's a Muggle looking up!" Moody shouted from behind.

The voices were scattered by the cold wind and sounded unclear, but Tonks reacted immediately, grabbed the broom handle and turned violently, and the others followed closely.

"We need to fly higher... another quarter mile higher!"

They were climbing again, and there was nothing to see below them except for pinpricks of light from street lamps and car headlights, two of which might have belonged to Uncle Vernon's car.

By the time the shape of the clouds could be seen clearly, the scene on the ground was completely blurred. The cold wind in the sky became stronger and stronger. The robes of other wizards were filled with wind and made fluttering sounds. The straps that Tonks used to tie the birdcage and the empty box creaked.

Along with the whistling wind, Harry's intermittent laughter also reached his ears. It sounded particularly refreshing, as if all the frustration and depression of the past month had blown away with the wind.

Mad-Eye was still commanding in his hoarse voice:

"Go south! There's a town ahead! Fly southeast!"

The entire team turned right to avoid flying directly over the twinkling lights of thousands of homes, but Mad-Eye seemed to not know the way. During the one-hour flight, he kept changing his route.

At least in Hermione's mind, he seemed to be talking in circles.

"Keep climbing, there is a low cloud ahead, we can fly into it and hide inside!"

Hearing the command to turn again, Tonks shouted angrily: "Don't fly in the clouds! We will become drowned rats, Mad-Eye!"

Mad-Eye was silent for a while, but before long, his gruff commanding voice reappeared:
"Turn southwest! We need to avoid the highway!"

"..."

"We'd better retrace our steps a bit to make sure we're not being followed!"

Tonks couldn't stand it anymore. She grabbed the broom handle and turned around to scream: "Are you crazy, Mad-Eye? We're almost frozen on the broom! If we keep deviating from the route, we may not get there next week! And we're almost there!"

"It's time to start the descent." Lupin also spoke, his voice trembling and full of fatigue, "Harry, Loren, Hermione, follow Tonks!"

"Great!"

Tonks cheered, and Hermione vaguely saw her blowing a kiss to Lupin below, and then immediately dived towards a large bright area below, with the wizarding team following closely behind, drawing a smooth arc.

The lights grew brighter and clearer, crisscrossing and extending in all directions like stars, until one could make out car lights and street lamps, chimneys and TV antennas, dotted in between with dark black squares, which were the houses.

"Here we are!"

They landed on the messy and deserted grass next to the center of a small square. Hermione felt the huge monster beneath her gradually shrink, and finally turned into a figure slightly taller than her, carrying her steadily on its back.

Loren felt something soft on his back and patted his hands that were tightly wrapped around his chest. He said in a mischievous voice that only the two of them could hear, with a faint but clear smile: "Why, do you want to stay on my back forever?"

Hermione quickly loosened her hands, dropped them to the ground, and adjusted her hair and clothes by feel. Finally, she patted her hot face calmly.

Fortunately, I have the Disillusionment Charm, otherwise he would laugh at me if he saw me like this...

Loren stopped where he was and smiled, a crystal blue light flashing in his eyes.

"This is it, but some necessary rituals are required to get in." Moody muttered as he walked forward, his eyes scanning the house numbers on both sides of the road one by one, as if looking for something.

The houses nearby had gloomy facades that looked like they were keeping people away. Some of the houses had broken windows that shone dimly under the streetlights, many doors had peeling paint, and several had garbage piled outside their front steps.

"What is this place?"

The magic wand cast a counter-spell at themselves, and Loren and Hermione successively lifted their invisibility and revealed their figures.

"I know!" Harry suddenly appeared beside him, his voice filled with uncontrollable excitement, "Sirius brought me here before, yes... yes..."

Harry was a little confused. He scratched his head and began to ponder the address here. His brows slowly knitted together, and his eyes became more and more confused: "I clearly remember it, I should remember it, but..."

"Don't even think about it. This place is protected by very powerful magic. You can't reveal it without the secret keeper's permission."

Moody explained gruffly, rummaging in his cloak, pulling out his curved bottle and taking a swig, his gnarled hands trembling slightly from the cold.

Loren and Hermione have already realized that this is the legendary Fidelius Curse.

Harry also recalled this spell. His parents had used this spell to avoid being hunted down by Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but in the end they mistakenly trusted Peter Pettigrew... "Come with me!"

Moody put the bottle back into his arms, limped along, and finally stopped next to a dirty, dilapidated house.

There was a faint rumble of a stereo from an upstairs window of the house, and the pungent stench of rotting garbage emanated from the pile of bulging garbage bags in the dilapidated front door.

"Here," said Moody gruffly, pressing a piece of parchment into Harry's hands. "Read this quickly, all of you, and memorize it."

Loren and Hermione came closer curiously.

The handwriting on it was long and thin: The Order of the Phoenix Headquarters is located at 12 Grimmauld Place, London.

The next moment, the paper curled up and burned, then fell to the ground. Several people looked up at the houses around them. They were standing in front of No. 11. The one on the left was No. 10, but when they came over, it immediately became No. 13.

"Number 12, Grimmauld Place..."

Loren recited it silently in his heart, and a strange wave of magical power emerged, spreading like ripples. As if echoing, corresponding ripples appeared in the space in front.

Sensing the invisible fluctuations of magical power, his gaze fell on the gap between the two houses.

A tattered door had appeared out of nowhere between numbers 11 and 13, followed by dirty walls and gloomy windows, as if an extra house had suddenly expanded and squeezed out everything on either side.

Whether viewed from the perspective of Muggles, wizards, or even various other magical creatures, the scene in front of us is magical enough.

Even though he didn't know the detailed principles of the Fidelius Charm, Loren could sense that such a spell contained a powerful force that was almost in accordance with the rules, rather than just hiding it in color and shape like the Disillusionment Charm.

The first thing to solve is the hiding and convergence in the basic space. The principle is similar to the reverse application of the Traceless Stretching Spell, but it is much more difficult to implement.

Finally, and most importantly, how to erase the memory of this address from the minds of all those who know the situation. Not only the memory, but also the modification of impressions and concepts. Without access to information about the hidden location, those who know the situation will be completely unaware that anything is wrong.

The so-called "soul magic" in Charms is completely different from the non-surgical changes to the brain in Muggle medicine -

In the relatively long history of Muggle brain medicine, some people have achieved the purpose of treating mental illness by destroying the prefrontal lobe, causing people to change their temperament and become dull. Some have also destroyed the hippocampus area, causing memory problems. In short, by destroying different areas of the brain, it can affect memory, language, behavioral cognition, limb control and other aspects.

In the history of soul magic handed down from thousands of years ago, successive dark wizards and scholars for the purpose of research have also developed and created a variety of spells that affect the soul, such as the Forgetting Spell, the False Memory Spell, the Legilimency Spell, the Occlumency Spell, the Imperius Spell...

Without exception, they are all uncontrollable and will cause serious consequences.

Under the above realistic conditions, the magic and complexity of this powerful hidden spell is simply unimaginable.

It was the first time that Loren witnessed the deployment of the Fidelius Charm, but even with a cursory observation, he could see the unimaginable magical design of the Fidelius Charm. This was a spell that almost perfectly achieved confidentiality by compressing space and modifying inner concepts, and it would not affect the relevant insiders, and would not even be noticed by them.

I tried to say "12 Grimmauld Place" but found that I couldn't do it. The address was right on the tip of my tongue, but it became blurry when I wanted to express it.

This is the most powerful feature of the Fidelius Charm. Except for the designated secret keeper, no one else can leak the secret even if they know it.

Hermione was also shocked by the spell. She exchanged glances with Loren, and both of them tacitly did not ask any questions.

"Incredible, isn't it..."

Moody seemed to have long been accustomed to the shock others felt when standing here. He grinned and limped up the broken stone steps inside. "Come on, we have already wasted a lot of time. The Order of the Phoenix has a meeting waiting for us."

The black paint on the door had peeled off and was covered with scratches. The silver door knocker was in the shape of a coiled snake. There was no keyhole and no mailbox.

Lupin pulled out his wand and knocked on the door. There were loud sounds of metal colliding and chains rubbing against each other and making a rattling sound.

"Squeak-"

The old loose-leaf groaned as it could no longer bear the weight, and the door opened.

Following Lupin who led the way into the old house, Harry finally saw the scene in his memory. He chuckled and warned mysteriously: "Don't go too far in, don't touch anything, and don't make any noise."

Loren probably knew what he was talking about, so he didn't ask any further questions. He silently took Hermione's hand and followed the crowd inside.

As I stepped over the threshold into the dark hallway, a gust of damp steam hit me in the face, carrying the smell of rotting and moldy wood, like an empty house that had been abandoned for a long time.

It seemed as if some magic had worked in the walls. With a rustling sound, a row of old-fashioned gas lamps on the wall lit up one by one. A chandelier decorated with a crystal statue of a coiled snake cast a faint, hazy light. It swayed a few times like a candle flame, and the light gradually stabilized, illuminating the long, gloomy entrance hall, peeling wallpaper, worn and frayed carpets, and some portraits hanging crookedly on the wall that had turned black due to age.

Those are probably the ancestors of the Black family.

There was a sound of footsteps approaching them from afar, and Mrs. Weasley came out from the hallway, walking towards them in two steps, with a warm smile on her face:
"Oh, Harry, Loren, Hermione, it's so nice to see you!"

Molly hugged Harry into her arms, and Loren and Hermione, who were standing nearby, noticed that she was much thinner and paler than the last time they met.

"You must be hungry after all the traveling. You need to eat more to replenish your energy, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while before you can have dinner... The meeting is about to start, and he just arrived and was about to make a report. You should go quickly..."

Molly asked Moody to take the others to the meeting first, and pulled the three people who wanted to follow, "No, kids, only members of the Order of the Phoenix can attend the meeting. Ginny and her brothers are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meeting is over, and then we will have dinner..."

Watching her back hurriedly disappearing, Loren and Hermione looked at Harry standing aside.

Back in the familiar environment, Harry, who had calmed down, waved to him to follow him, and pressed his index finger to his lips: "Shh, don't talk loudly in the hallway."

They crept past two long, moth-pocked curtains, then around a huge umbrella stand that looked like it was made from a troll's severed leg, and up a dark staircase whose paneling was decorated with a row of wrinkled heads - house-elves' heads.

Turn right on the second floor and push open the second door following the sound.

In the room, a group of little red-haired wizards turned their heads to look at them, their expressions gradually becoming vivid, with surprise radiating from their eyes.

(End of this chapter)