days at Hogwarts

Chapter 588 Azkaban Robbery
The crackling sound of raindrops hitting the diamond-shaped glass windows of the Gryffindor common room made an endless stream of crisp sounds, which intertwined with the sound of matches popping in the fireplace. When you listened carefully, it sounded like the dead of night.

The ginger-colored Crookshanks lay on the edge of the fireplace, reflecting the orange-red firelight, and from a distance it looked like a naughty flame splashing out.

The young wizards sat together in twos and threes, each doing their own thing. Hermione leaned slightly to the right, her fluffy brown hair hanging down naturally, with the left half of her face hidden in the shadow of her hair. She held a feather pen in her right hand and made a light rustling sound on the parchment. When she finished writing a paragraph and sorted out her thoughts, she raised her hand from time to time to smooth her drooping hair. Half of her face was dyed with a faint golden light by the fire.

"jingle!"

Loren beside him was counting the gallons.

"34...35..."

Ron watched intently from the side, murmured softly, and helped him count.

"Young wizard, do you desire to be rich?"

Loren held a gold Galleon in his hand and observed the patterns on it with the help of the reflection of the fire. After many revisions, the communication alchemy array had been simplified and matured, and many complicated and trivial parts had been deleted. The vein-like patterns were shining with a faint metallic luster, revealing the unique beauty of alchemical creations: "Learn alchemy from me. 10 Sickles of raw materials can be refined and resold for 10 Galleons..."

Ron frowned, showing an excited expression, and looked at the gold Galleons in the bag with wide eyes, then at the large book of ancient runes on the table and the symbols on it that looked like a heavenly book.

Ron shook his head with a heavy expression: "Wealth is valuable, but freedom is more valuable..."

"That's nice to say..."

Harry glanced at him with disdain and said righteously, "You obviously don't want to go to class and don't want to do complicated and difficult homework."

"Yes! It's me!" Ron raised his chin and admitted confidently.

Harry approached slowly with a serious expression, and in the blink of an eye he put his arm around his shoulder with a smile, patting him in a friendly manner: "You are worthy of being my good friend. I think so too."

"Fortunately, we were smart and didn't choose the ancient runes course."

"That's right. Although Professor Trelawney of the Divination class is a little weird, the simple homework makes up for it."

"..."

Loren looked at the last Galleon and was amused by the two people. Then he checked the spelling of the name on the back input page for the last time. At Draco's request, he concealed his name and used a code name:

"Bellagio, sapweed, hemlock, nettle, poppy... Mandrake..."

Harry and Ron, who had had enough of the noise, also quieted down and buried their heads in working hard on their respective Potions papers. The progress was very slow. They referred to Loren and Hermione's papers and looked through the references in the textbooks, spewing out words one by one.

"Why isn't Potions an elective..."

Harry muttered something, feeling a little annoyed, but then he remembered that he wouldn't have to take Potions class next year, and he suddenly felt a little happy in his heart, and even the obscure words in the book seemed a little more pleasing to the eye.

Harry lowered his head and continued to read the document, silently reading in his mind: "Scurvy, lovage and sneezeweed... These plants are most likely to cause encephalitis, and are often used in aphrodisiacs, causing people to be impatient and reckless..."

Ok……

Professor McGonagall always said that he was reckless and that Snape must have poisoned him during class.

"Symptoms related to encephalitis include persistent high fever, fever, epilepsy, and splitting headache..."

Did Voldemort cause him to have encephalitis? This is how he feels every time his scar hurts.

It is often used in the case of ecstasy. The word ecstasy is very appropriate. Why can he know what Voldemort feels? What is this strange connection between them? He sometimes loses track of who he is, which is very confusing...

The firelight was hot, the armchairs were soft, the rain was beating against the windows, Crookshanks was whining, the fire was crackling...

Harry slowly put the book in his hand flat, his head lowered lower and lower, his forehead soon touched his arm, and his consciousness gradually became blurred.

……

On the outskirts of Wiltshire, in the brightly lit Malfoy Castle, Narcissa, dressed in a dark green robe with gold, stood at the corner of the stairs and looked up. Her long eyelashes cast a shadow on her eyelids, and the eyes of the noble lady were full of worry.

Just last night, Snape, with a serious face, suddenly visited, and the Dark Lord greeted him with unusual joy. Then the two of them occupied the attic of the castle, drove away all the house-elves in the manor, and left only Lucius outside the door waiting for orders.

Her close cousins ​​had gone out on a mission days ago, and no one knew what they were doing upstairs. All Narcissa could do was pray for her husband.

Finally, Lucius, wearing a pure black wizard robe and holding a silver-handled magic wand in one hand, walked down the spiral staircase alone. He could not hide his fatigue on his face, but he still walked lightly to his wife, put his finger to his lips, and whispered:
"Don't say anything, don't ask anything, just pretend Severus never came tonight."

"I see."

"Not even Bellatrix can tell."

"..."

Narcissa paused for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Lucius looked up at the end of the stairs, his brows furrowed, countless emotions tangled in his mind, finally tangled into a ball and turned into a complex sigh.

In the attic on the top floor of the manor, a disgusting and strange smell was particularly strong, as if rotten and fermented flesh and blood was pounded into meat paste, added with pungent-smelling medicine, and poured into a red-hot crucible. Steam suddenly rose with a crackling sound, and the corpses of dozens of dark magic creatures were scattered on the floor in a mess. Their skin shrank and shriveled, as if all the blood had been drained before death. But apart from the skinny animal corpses, there was no bloodstain at the scene, not even a splatter of blood.

Snape stood beside him, his face bloodless and sickly pale.

Having carefully studied and read the chapter on making Horcruxes in Advanced Black Magic, and as a potion master who had handled various biological materials, he thought that his mental state was strong enough to withstand it all. However, after the ceremony, he had only one thought in his mind, to cast a forgetfulness spell on himself to completely erase the memory from his mind.

No wonder it took Hercules nearly a thousand years to create Horcruxes, but only Voldemort succeeded in making one.

If he had to complete the ritual alone, even if he had the obsession to transcend death in his heart, he would not have the courage to carry it out to the end.

Voldemort's terrifying snake eyes were glowing scarlet, and the corners of his mouth were filled with the happiest smile since his resurrection.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of blood, flesh and sulfur. Voldemort preferred to call it the breath of death. Including this time, he had sniffed it eight times. Not only did he not feel it was fishy, ​​but he instead smelled an intoxicating scent from it.

The dead bodies of the creatures displayed on the floor are offerings to death, but also a test to overcome death.

From then on, he had a servant who would follow him forever.

"If you bring the body you killed yourself, the ritual will be more perfect..." Snape came back to his senses from the pain of his soul being torn apart, and tried to squeeze out strength from his body. He weakly replied: "Sorry, Master..."

The corners of Voldemort's mouth curled up more obviously. Immortal but weak, the fragility shown by Snape made him feel more satisfied. This immortality was not obtained by Snape, but depended on his own gift.

Just when he was about to give some instructions, a strange and faint wave suddenly arose in his mind, as if a breeze was passing through the starry sky, bringing a slight coolness.

But now the doors and windows are closed.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes, and a chilling coldness bloomed in his snake pupils: "Welcome, my guest... Harry Potter!"

"!!"

Hundreds of miles away, the boy who was taking a nap on the round table opened his eyes a little, and Harry came back to his senses from his trance and found himself sleeping on the single sofa in the common room, covered with a thin blanket.

Ginny had sat next to her at some point, flipping through his Potions thesis.

Some hazy and distant memories gradually emerged in his mind. After sorting out the content of his dream, Harry suddenly opened his eyes wide.

The next second, an intense pain radiated from the scar on his forehead, as if a sharp dagger had pierced into his brain along the scar, stirring constantly, and his head began to hurt as if it was being cut open.

Although I was lying motionless on the single sofa, everything in the common room was moving forward rapidly. My friends' faces were as long as the shadows under the street lights and disappeared in the blink of an eye. The sound of the dripping rain and the crackling of the firewood disappeared, and there was only dead silence all around.

The red-eyed monster reappeared and tightly wrapped around his body like a python wrapping around its captured prey, squeezing every inch of flesh and bones with tremendous force. The extreme pain made Harry's consciousness gradually become blurred, as if at some moment, he would merge with the monster.

The scenes from my dreams emerged in my mind, flashing by and disappearing without leaving any trace.

"He's erasing my memory..."

Harry was vaguely aware of the monster's behavior, and a strong anger surged from the bottom of his heart, so much so that his consciousness was a little trembling: "Damn Voldemort, damn Voldemort! Unforgivable, unforgivable!"

Harry wasn't sure if Voldemort could hear the curses he was uttering, but he was determined to teach the monster a lesson.

"You are not satisfied with manipulating my body, but now you want to manipulate my memory!"

Harry gritted his teeth and woke up, enduring all the pain and trying to control his consciousness. He twisted and struggled to break free from the monster's entanglement, punched and kicked it, and vented his anger by hitting the lower part between the two red eyes.

My mind was filled with thoughts of punching it hard on the nose.

……

Harry sank into the soft sofa, his scattered consciousness gathering little by little, feeling the scar on his forehead and the excruciating pain in his limbs, as if a whole Hogwarts Express had run over him a minute ago. Those distant memories gradually blurred, and in his gradually clear vision, he saw Ginny's slightly flushed face turn aside and say shyly:

"Loren told me to do this."

Harry felt that his brain was a little confused, perhaps as if it had been crushed by the wheels of the express train. He turned his head to look at Loren beside him, expressing his confusion with his eyes.

"Your magic is raging again. The magic glow is as bright as a bonfire. It's hard to ignore." Loren spread his hands. "I think you probably need the power of love."

Hermione looked at him thoughtfully, and although it sounded like a joke, she quickly thought of the night when the Defense Association held its first event and Harry lost control and was admitted to the school hospital, which Dumbledore had mentioned.

Ron had a strange look on his face. He looked from Harry to Ginny and slowly frowned.

Harry struggled to sit up and opened his mouth to tell what had just happened, but nothing came out.

He vaguely felt that he had experienced an unusual adventure, but those scenes were like the broken dreams of an afternoon nap. In the few seconds when his thoughts flowed, they became blurry and hazy, and only a few simple pictures remained.

"I seem to have dreamed about Voldemort again..."

Harry blinked in confusion, tilted his head and thought for a long time before he could barely remember something. He spoke slowly and hesitantly, his tone full of uncertainty: "I dreamed that he was laughing... elated, ecstatic, as if something good had happened, something he had been looking forward to..."

He patted the scar on his forehead and said, "But I can't remember it!"

"Don't think about it for now." Loren put away the paper and pen on the table and helped him up from the sofa. "You should go to the school infirmary."

Harry met Ginny's watery eyes and said subconsciously: "I feel... okay..."

"Then go to the headmaster's office and talk to Dumbledore."

"Oh."

……

It rained all night last night and only gradually subsided at dawn. It was at that time that Loren went to the Slytherin common room and handed over Galleons in one hand and Galleons in the other.

Thanks to the sleep-inducing sound of rain, the little wizards greeted the new week with high spirits the next morning.

"Dumbledore doesn't know what Voldemort has been expecting, but I always feel that he is hiding something from me. He seems absent-minded..."

In the Great Hall, Harry took a bite of bread with bacon in it: "But I understand. What if Voldemort can hear it?"

Loren sipped his oatmeal porridge, guessing something in his mind. He glanced at the main guest seat. Neither Dumbledore nor Professor Snape showed up, so the place was empty.

Could it be that the Death Eaters found out the whereabouts of the Elder Wand and discovered that the blond man was the famous Grindelwald?
"I know!" Hermione beside her suddenly let out a short scream.

"what?"

"The Death Eaters have escaped!"

Hermione spread today's Daily Prophet on the table, pointed to the bold headline on the front page, and read in a deep voice:

"Azkaban Falls: The Ministry of Magic announced last night that a large-scale prison break had occurred at Azkaban. Minister Cornelius Fudge confirmed in an interview in his office that several serious criminals had escaped last night, and that the Ministry had informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the danger posed by the fugitives...

"Minister Fudge said: It is with great regret that we are in the same situation as when the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange escaped two and a half years ago, and we do not think that the two escapes are unrelated. Such a large-scale escape makes people suspect that there is outside support. As a fugitive Death Eater, Bellatrix is ​​in the best position to help others escape...

"But the Ministry of Magic is making every effort to hunt down the fugitive. Please remain calm and do not believe any rumors."

(End of this chapter)