days at Hogwarts

Chapter 79 Snakebone Tree

Albania in the deep winter is colder than Hogwarts. Walking through the gradually sparsely populated trails, the snow piled up on the road and melted into the mud.

Not long after Dumbledore took Loren out of the hotel, he began to use magic to wander in the Dinara Mountains in eastern Albania.

After the two of them walked more than ten meters, they would shrink into a ball like a vortex and disappear in place. Accompanied by an extremely slight "snap", they would appear hundreds of meters away, and then walk more than ten meters, repeating the last action.

Dumbledore's Apparation Spell was very subtle, and Loren didn't feel a little uncomfortable for such a short-distance teleportation.

This behavior was repeated countless times, and Loren asked impatiently, "Principal Dumbledore, what are we looking for?"

"Find some special traces."

They stopped in front of a snow-covered pine tree, which is common in Albania's mostly coniferous forests.

There are many ice edges hanging on the branches, with the tips pointing to the ground, and white snowflakes stick to the stick-like ice edges.

With a flash of flame, a flame shot up from Dumbledore's palm and rose along the tree trunk, but it did not damage the branches at all, and only melted the ice and snow.

A light rain fell under the tree.

The ice edges on the tree revealed their true colors, which were snake bones with their tails wrapped around the tree and their heads hanging straight down to the ground.

The snake bones are corroded to different degrees, and some have decayed and turned yellow, which seems to have passed for several years.Some can still see the rotten flesh hanging between the bones, and the time of death is only a few months away.

There are big and small ones, the small ones are no more than the length of an arm, and the large snake skulls are almost as big as the head of an adult.

The snow and ice that covered the carrion melted away, and a faint stench began to pervade.

"It doesn't look like Voldemort has had a good ten years."

Dumbledore looked carefully at the remains of these snakes and seemed to be confirming something.

For ten years, Voldemort hid in this forest, possessed by the snake, lingering on his last breath.

The body of an ordinary snake cannot carry Voldemort's evil soul for a long time. Voldemort will change his body every once in a while. These remains are hung here, like some kind of evil ritual.

Dumbledore knew that it was impossible for someone as vain as Voldemort to have lived here for ten years without leaving some traces of his existence.These snake bones are the best proof.

An arrogant sense of ritual, even if there is only one remnant soul left, he must prove himself.

Loren looked up at the snake bones, imagining Voldemort crawling through branches, bushes, the scales on his belly rustling.

He didn't know much about Voldemort, and he always thought of him as a villain who was not very bright and had no nose.All kinds of strange thoughts popped up in his mind, did Voldemort need to prey, would he swallow rats, rabbits and meat raw?

Dumbledore didn't know that Loren already knew about Voldemort, and he was wondering how much he should tell Loren.

After stopping for a while, the two started their previous wandering again.

This is really a small country. Dumbledore took Loren and visited every place in Albania in one afternoon.

Winter is not over yet, mountains and forests are covered with ice and snow.

The two came to sit by the edge of a wide lake, which was not frozen over.

Lake Ohrid stretches for thousands of miles in the eastern part of Albania. The clear lake reflects the clear clouds in the sky and the surrounding mountains.

Gazing at such a wide and clear lake, Dumbledore looked much more relaxed.

"It doesn't look like anything special here."

All afternoon, they saw no werewolves, no vampires, no wicked witches who had lived for centuries.

"An old wizard's advice is not to jump to conclusions about anything."

Dumbledore turned a stone into a table with a wave of his hand, and put on the snacks he didn't know where he came from.

Loren watched him take out a pot of steaming black tea from his sleeve, looked at his cumbersome little suitcase, and wondered whether the traceless stretching spell slandering Dumbledore was legal.

He secretly planned to start refining his space items after returning home, and asked Flamel for help, and the work should be completed during the summer vacation.

"Voldemort used an evil ritual to put his soul in a strange state..." Dumbledore poured black tea, and his voice drifted with the rising mist.

"...Harry's mother protected Harry with love, a force that Voldemort did not understand..."

The rebounding Killing Curse destroyed Voldemort's body and magic power, making him terribly weak, and turned into a wandering spirit, lingering in the Albanian forest for ten years.

Until the arrival of Quirrell, Voldemort easily controlled the wizard who was thirsty for power.

Dumbledore narrated here, took a sip of tea, "Don't be driven by power, but control power."

"Why don't you just expose Quirrell?"

"Voldemort cannot be killed, and besides, Hogwarts needs a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

Dumbledore said this with confidence, and no one knew better than him how difficult it was to find a professor who was willing to come to Hogwarts to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he had to change one every year.

"Harry and the others are now on guard against Professor Snape, thinking that he is going to steal the Philosopher's Stone." Loren looked at Dumbledore.

"Well, although there are some deviations, they are acceptable." Dumbledore pretended to think, and then asked, "What about you, do you trust Severus?"

Thanks to the magical eyes, Loren has seen the abnormality on Professor Quirrell's head, and also seen Severus' Dark Mark. Dumbledore wanted to know Loren's thoughts.

"I think Professor Snape is very unlucky, only he was bitten by Lu Wei."

Such an answer made Dumbledore pause, he looked at Loren with gentle eyes and smiled, "Maybe I should tell Severus how to appease that irritable puppy"

Loren still thought of the desperate soul, and the only souls related to this forest were Quirrell and Voldemort.

"Are those snakes desperate souls?" Loren asked.

"I don't think so, these are just normal snakes."

"Who would that desperate soul be, Voldemort?" Loren didn't want to accept such a choice, and the plot of redeeming the villain was too vulgar.

"Voldemort's soul was broken long ago, and he will not despair."

He would only grow angrier and hate those who had put him in this situation, whether it was those who defied him or his useless servants.

Dumbledore was in a trance, and he occasionally wondered if he had been kinder to the young Tom when he went to the orphanage, would there be a different result.

"I think your prediction will not come to fruition until the last day of this year, when the old and the new will change."

Then why did you bring me here so early?
Loren could only mumble these words in his heart.

(End of this chapter)