Chapter 337 335 Illegal Entry

Chapter 337 335. Trespassing

Sometimes night is not the best time to hide your whereabouts.

Even if Voldemort is not in Hogwarts Castle, he still arranges a tight defense here, and there are Aurors guarding every entrance almost 24 hours a day.

Especially after dark, when the entire castle begins to implement a curfew, at Voldemort's signal, the Aurors and professors stationed in the castle implement the strictest control.

As long as any suspicious person is found during the night patrol, they can be directly attacked, regardless of life or death.

The secret passage from Honeydukes Candy Store to the statue of the one-eyed hunchbacked old witch on the third floor of the castle was discovered by Barty Jr., Snape and others when Jon fled with Henton last year, and now it has 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, such as a secret passage leading to the outside of the school behind the statue of Gregory the Flatterer.

But no one can be sure that they are safe, so for safety reasons, Fox came to Hermione.

And the night is not a good protection for the phoenix.

Hermione stared at the top of a tower on the eastern side of the castle on the Marauder's Map. It is one of the three tallest towers in Hogwarts. The others are the tower on the western side of the castle, which used to be the Ravenclaw College lounge, and the tower that used to be the Gryffindor College.

Now the other two towers have been abandoned and used as utility rooms. Only the Astronomy Tower is still in use, but it is still afternoon, and no astronomy class will be held at this time, so the Astronomy Tower is empty and there is no one on it.

And there are almost no other classrooms in the area where it is located. If the nearest group of students who are in class want to reach the Astronomy Tower as quickly as possible, it will take at least five minutes. Even if there is an accident, five minutes is more than enough for Hermione to deal with 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 help you a lot!" Ms. Grey said with her eyes wide open, puzzled.

In order to make sure that she had no omissions, Hermione finally observed all the names in the entire Hogwarts Castle to make sure that the dark devil was really no longer in it.

"I don't need your help, ma'am. If you really want me to help you, then you'd better agree to my request. This is good for both of us."

At this time, Ms. Grey finally heard the metaphor in Hermione's words, and she said in disbelief.

"You think I will be a burden to you!"

Hermione didn't have such a heart of stone after all. She raised her head from the Marauder's Map.

"It's not a burden, Ms. Grey, but if we really enter this castle, our goals and standards of action are inconsistent. If there are disagreements or it is difficult to reach a consensus, it will be difficult to solve the problem, so I made this request."

Although her tone was much more tactful, her attitude of refusing Ms. Grey to enter the castle with her was still firm.

Hermione knew how important this mission was, and she also knew that if Ms. Grey followed her, she would definitely keep instigating her to find the Ravenclaw crown. 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 "drag". Even if she had experienced these thousands of years in vain, she was at least an adult before she died.

But she finally hesitated for a few seconds with an ugly face, and still agreed to Hermione's request.

"I can agree not to enter the castle, but you must keep your promise and intend to help me, not just a perfunctory one!"

Hermione looked at her and nodded seriously. Maybe she meant to be perfunctory when she agreed at the beginning, but from the moment Ms. Grey was willing to give her this trust, Hermione did adjust her attitude.

No matter what changes the experience of the past two years brought to her, her essential kindness has never changed.

After getting a positive answer from Hermione, Ms. Grey did not stay in her dormitory any longer. 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."

Hermione pointed out the location of the astronomy tower to Fox on the Marauder's Map.

Fox just took a glance and jumped directly onto Hermione's shoulder, spreading his golden-red wings.

Golden light emerged and spread on it, soon enveloping Hermione's whole body, but they were not teleported away at the first time. Instead, as the golden light flickered, their bodies merged with the light bit by bit.

In Hogwarts Castle, Voldemort strengthened the function of specifically targeting the Phoenix Apparition based on its own anti-Apparition magic.

But even if his magical attainments have reached the pinnacle of the magic world, the magical beasts themselves, especially advanced magical beasts like the Phoenix, use very different magic and magic from wizards.

No matter how much he restricted it, he could only limit Fox's teleportation speed, as for whether it could be done, he could not control it.

So after a delay of about a minute, Hermione and Fox disappeared together in the carriage's bedroom, and at the same time, the figures of a person and a bird reappeared on the castle's astronomy tower.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, Hermione lifted up her invisibility cloak, covering herself and Fox under the cloak, and then began to observe the surrounding situation vigilantly.

The afternoon sun shone into the tower, so that the movement caused by Fox's apparition would not be as dazzling as in the dark night. There was no one on the astronomy tower except Hermione.

Then Hermione took out the Marauder's Map, and finally confirmed that this trip had violated the "illegal intrusion" agreed by Dumbledore and Voldemort and did not alarm anyone, then she bent over and carefully came 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 won't do anything to us."

She told Fawkes these words that had been repeated countless times in the carriage. Fawkes touched Hermione's face with his sharp beak with some dissatisfaction, as if he was unhappy why she felt that she was a stupid bird that couldn't understand human words.

After getting Fawkes' response, Hermione held the invisibility cloak with one hand and the Marauder's Map with the other hand. After confirming that there was no one else under the tower, she began to go down the steep stairs.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and there was still an hour before the end of the last class in the castle today. In other words, this hour was the time when there were the fewest students wandering around the castle except after the curfew.

Hermione didn't waste a second. She kept observing the Marauder's Map and kept choosing the empty stairs to go down. She also found some strange things. That is, the movable stairs that helped her find Jon quickly in the castle a year ago have now become ordinary.

It no longer teases people, and there is no way to provide any help to Hermione. It's like dead.

This made Hermione feel a little uneasy, but she pursed her lips to suppress some speculations that arose from her heart, and focused her attention on the task assigned to her by Dumbledore.

It took about ten minutes, and she finally came to the first floor carefully.

When she walked down the stairs, a voice sounded, which made her subconsciously shrink into the invisibility cloak and hide in the corner.

"If you ask me, the master should really find a way to tear up the so-called contract directly, and take this opportunity to catch Dumbledore's gang in one fell swoop. This is our own territory. What kind of storm can they stir up?"

An ugly witch with a body like a fat pig said in a fierce voice.

Next to 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, who likes to report this news to the master the most."

Hermione looked at their backs coldly as they walked up the stairs. Of course, she had not forgotten the Carrow siblings.

In the past, those "slaves" who made the most serious mistakes would be taken away by them and used as classroom props for Muggle Studies.

The fear they brought to Muggle students in the past was even greater than that of Dolohov, because if they fell into Dolohov's hands, they would most likely only be tortured and still have their lives, but all the students taken away by the Carrow siblings basically did not come back alive.

After watching their figures disappear in front of her eyes, Hermione continued her 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 are very few classrooms on the first floor, most of which are functional rooms like the auditorium, storage room and bathroom, and Hermione's target is in these rooms.

It seems that the first floor of the castle is very large, and it is basically the place where students have the most activities during meal times, which greatly restricts her actions, but fortunately a portrait in the office of Headmaster Dumbledore helped her circle The approximate location of the target was revealed.

This made Hermione's mission perhaps not as difficult as she had imagined.

...

Jon's lunch was treated by the unicorns.

After he rode the leading unicorn and found fresh white mullet in the forbidden forest, the little unicorn was no longer in any danger.

The entire unicorn group became much closer to Jon, and even the few that were obviously hostile to his appearance at the beginning became less repulsive.

The unicorns found a place with water nearby and found a lot of wild fruits to share with Jon.

Even with Jon's picky taste, he thought these fruits, none of which he could recognize, tasted good, but he did not lie down by the stream with the unicorns to drink water, but summoned some clean water himself with magic.

It was time to talk about business during the meal. While chewing wild fruits, Jon held up the wooden sign in his hand and asked the leading unicorn who first recognized the wooden sign.

"Do you know if there are other animals in the Forbidden Forest who recognize this wooden sign? If so, can you take me to see them this afternoon?"

This unicorn obviously understands human language. After listening to Jon's words, it immediately nodded its head, which instantly made Jon feel much more comfortable.

He thought that he might encounter a lot of troubles in the middle of this trip to the Forbidden Forest, but now it seems to be going smoothly.

Of course, he did not forget the biggest contributor - the tree-guarding ox that led him to find this group of unicorns. Jon used a knife to help it cut some wild fruit pulp, but the little guy did not 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 with humans, sometimes the feelings of animals are really pure.

While helping Hagrid solve his troubles, Jon certainly did not forget about the game, and he continued to ask the unicorn.

"How far is the fire dragon that attacked you from our current position? According to the speed you took me to run this morning, can we make it from the time the sun rises to the zenith to the time it sets?"

Even if this unicorn can understand human language, it is impossible to understand every noun in human language, so Jon did not say a few hours, but directly used the time the sun was in the sky as an example.

Even so, the unicorn seemed to have difficulty understanding his words. The action of lowering its head to eat the fruit obviously paused for a moment, and its bright eyes seemed to be thinking.

Then it seemed to finally understand Jon's words, and then nodded.

Jon blinked and began to narrow the time range again.

"If it is until the sun is halfway down, will it still be enough?"

This time, the unicorn did not think for a long time, but nodded directly.

"That is in which direction, you can use your horn to help me point it."

Soon, it turned its head and pointed the horn on its head to the southwest direction.

Jon did not ask any more questions. He lowered his head and thought, estimating the speed and time. Because of the lack of accurate parameters, he could not come up with specific values.

But what is certain is that this fire dragon that fought with the entire unicorn tribe is very close to him.

It has entered the second stage of low fever, constant coughing, nasal congestion, and knife scratching the throat, but to be honest, it is much better than when the fever was high.