Hogwarts Advanced Guide

Chapter 476 Blowing the horn of counterattack

"Harry, this is the plan for the time being." Hera stopped Harry and left him alone in the minister's office. This made Hera a little dazed, as if he had privately tutored Harry in the same way last year. The only difference was probably that there was no Pensieve here.

"Well, I know, this is a very feasible plan." Harry nodded and said, anyway, Hera has been very frank with him for the past month, which made Harry trust the current Ministry of Magic.Of course, the more trusted person is Salazar Slytherin.

Without him, the current Ministry of Magic would have been completely controlled by Voldemort long ago.

"You sneaked into Hogwarts, I think it is absolutely no problem for you, but I think this thing needs to be handed over to you." Hera said as she took out a piece of parchment from her pocket and handed it to Harry, "The Marauder's Map."

"Why is this in your hand?" Harry exclaimed in surprise.

Hera smiled faintly, he waited for the disappearance of the compound potion, "You will know soon, just wait quietly for a few minutes, okay?"

Harry watched in horror as Mr. Slytherin's face changed, his eyes became bigger, his skin became fairer, and he looked so familiar.

"Hera!" Harry yelled.

"That's right, but please keep your voice down, so as not to scare others, Harry." Hera said with a smile, "Not many people know about my suspended animation."

"They all know Rich Law?"

"know."

"You lied to me for the whole summer vacation!" Harry said angrily, "I thought you were dead, Hermione cried for a long time!"

"Sorry, Harry, I have to do this." Hera said regretfully, "Only in this way can I temporarily escape Voldemort's pursuit."

"But you should at least tell us."

"If I told you, would you still run away?" Hera asked back, "Will you still complete the task I entrusted to you satisfactorily?"

"Are you using us to attract Voldemort's attention, and then destroy the Horcrux yourself?" Harry thought about it all at once, and he understood it in an instant, and he sat weakly on the chair, "You never expected us to destroy the Horcrux, you always planned to do it yourself"

"Harry, that's not the case." Hera said, "Not at all. We just said that you can, you can destroy the last Horcrux diadem, and only you can do it. Only you can find the missing diadem from the Room of Requirement."

"The Response Room? Sure enough, you have thought of it too." Harry smiled sadly, with a look of despair in his eyes, "You have thought of everything, including telling me everything now, what are your plans?"

"Harry, I don't want to see you like this." Hera seemed to have a headache, he didn't think that Harry's mental endurance hadn't improved even after so long, and he was still so childish. "You'd better act mature."

"Mature? How should I mature? We all naively thought that you really died at the hands of Bellatrix, but you didn't tell me at all!"

"I thought you noticed, my yellow-headed flagon." Hera picked up the flagon at her waist and said, "I thought you would improve after what happened to Barty Crouch Jr."

"I have grown, but I never doubted you." Harry roared angrily.

"Thanks for your trust."

The room suddenly fell silent, only Harry's chest was still heaving violently, expressing his inner unrest.

Harry's eyelids trembled, and he said tremblingly, "So, what else did you not tell me?"

"This." Hera used her wand to draw a wisp of silvery substance from her temple, which Harry recognized as a memory.Put it in the Pensieve and you can see the memory Hera wants to show.

"This is the memory of me and Severus. Although I don't think he wants you to see it, I'm sure you should know everything." Hera said, taking out a small glass bottle from her pocket and pouring the memory into it.

"Go back to Hogwarts, remember to go to the headmaster's office, the password is Dumbledore, and Severus didn't change it."

Harry took the vial without a word, looking lost.

"By the way, you can tell Hermione and Ron about my identity, but you must not tell anyone else."

Harry nodded, but said nothing.

"There's nothing else, you can leave, Harry." Hera scratched her hair and said irritably.

He didn't expect things to turn out like this. In his prediction, Harry should have discovered the clues long ago.

He could see this from Hermione's reaction. She had been getting close to Hera intentionally or unintentionally, testing Hera in the way she used to get along with her. Although Hera was perfect in many aspects, it was undeniable that he still showed flaws.

After all, a person's subconscious behavior is difficult to change.

And on the last day of September, they finally started their own actions.Hera led all the forces of the Ministry of Magic to Hogwarts to attract the attention of Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Then Harry and the others went to Hogwarts Castle through the passage of the Pig's Head Bar to find and destroy the crown, and they took the Gryffindor sword.

There is a passage in the Hog's Head that leads directly to Hogwarts.As far as Hera knew, the Death Eaters had blocked all the ancient secret passages at both ends. There were Death Eaters around the walls, and there were constant patrols in the school.

Hera had already notified Aberforth before, asking him to make preparations and close the bar ahead of time, leaving room for Harry and the others—in fact, the Pig's Head Bar was closed almost every day right now.The Death Eaters had cast a Howling Charm on the village, and anyone who spoke louder would attract the attention of the Death Eaters.

"The battle is about to begin, everyone, are you ready?" Hera said, looking at Hogwarts Castle not far away. "This is a last stand. If we lose, we will have nothing. But we will not lose. We will win this war and everything."

"We'll win!" whispered the wizard behind him, so as not to attract the attention of the Death Eaters.

Hera lowered her head and took out the pocket watch from her pocket, checked the time to confirm that Harry had arrived at the Pig's Head Bar, then waved her hand, "Let's go!"

Then, a large group of wizards approached Hogwarts in black.

As for Harry and the others, as soon as they Apparated and arrived at the Pig's Head Bar, they heard a rough voice, "Go upstairs, don't take off the invisibility cloak, don't make a sound!"

Now, in the flickering light of a single candle, they saw the dingy, sawdust-strewn counter of the Hog's Head.They ran behind the counter and through another door leading to a rickety wooden staircase, which they climbed as fast as they could.At the top of the stairs was the living room, with its worn carpet and a small fireplace, above which hung a large oil painting of a fair-haired girl looking blankly and tenderly into the room.

There were shouts from the street below, and Harry knew that it was Hera's heartbeat that caught the attention of the Death Eaters, and they were safe now.

Still wearing the cloak of invisibility, they crept up to the grimy windows and looked down.At this moment, following the light of the street lamps outside, Harry also recognized the figure—it was the owner of the Pig's Head, Aberforth Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore's younger brother.

He wore glasses, and behind the dirty lenses, bright blue eyes almost identical to Dumbledore's.

"Slytherin told me you'd come tonight," he said, casting wary glances at the street through the gaps in the curtains.

Harry stared blankly at Aberforth. To be honest, if he didn't know clearly whether the person in front of him was Dumbledore, he would definitely cry.

But it also made him uncomfortable, and made him a little stiff, as if facing Albus Dumbledore again.

"How did you get this?" Hermione asked in a low voice. There was a double-sided mirror with a dusty surface leading to nowhere.

"Professor McGonagall gave it to me, and she gave it to me through the secret passage, and that's how I learned about your coming today." Aberforth said, "Albus told me that I've been paying close attention to you." He turned around, stopped looking at the three of them, and lit up the lamps with his wand.

"Time is running out," he said, barely giving them time to speak, "you must enter the castle, Mr Slytherin wants you to—"

The firelight fell on Aberforth's eyes, and the grimy lenses suddenly turned an opaque, splint-like gray.

"My brother also hopes that you can kill the mysterious man, and it all depends on you."

"We want to know about Albus Dumbledore, you must know a lot, don't you?" Harry asked, suddenly feeling less eager to enter the castle at this moment.

"You still have some time, wait until they come to pick you up." Aberforth said quietly, "My brother Albus is a very complicated person, he wants many things."

"I think you must have read the book "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore" about him. I have to say that quite a lot of information in it is true. When my brother carried out his grand plan, people were often hurt. Potter, you should not have come here. Really, you are sending your death. Go to a place where no one can hurt you. You don't owe him anything."

"You don't understand," said Harry.

"Oh, do you?" whispered Aberforth. "You think I don't know my brother? You think you know Albus better than I do?"

"That's not what I meant," said Harry, whose head was a little sluggish from eating too much before he set off, "Mr. Slytherin gave me a mission."

"Oh, is it?" said Aberforth. "A fine job, isn't it? Pleasant? I didn't want to say it, but I can't, to be honest, accept such a difficult task for an inexperienced little wizard."

"But that's the only thing I can do," said Harry.

Ron sneered unnaturally, and Hermione looked a little nervous.

"I - know it's not easy, very difficult," said Harry, "but I must - I must."

"Must do it?" said Aberforth, hunched over, looking a little amused. "That sounds like my brother."

Harry was speechless, his attention drawn to the portrait of a girl on the mantelpiece.As a white dot appeared at the end of the tunnel in the yellow painting, the girl walked towards them, getting closer and bigger.But there was another person beside him, who was taller than her, walked with a limp, and had an excited face.His hair was longer than anything Harry had ever seen before, his face appeared to be cut and his clothes were ripped out of shape.

The two figures grew larger and larger until their heads and shoulders filled the portrait.Then the portrait on the wall opened like a small door, revealing the entrance of a real tunnel.The real Neville Longbottom crawled out of the tunnel, with unnaturally long hair, a bruised face, and torn robes.With a roar of ecstasy, he sprang from the mantelpiece, crying, "I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"

"Neville - really - how could -?"

Seeing Ron and Hermione again, Neville screamed ecstatically and hugged each of them as well.The more Harry looked at Neville, the more miserable he looked: one eye was swollen and blue and purple, his face had many deep arcing gashes, and his hair was unkempt, showing that he had had a bad day.Still, there was joy on his scarred face.He let Hermione go, and said, "I knew you'd come! Keep telling Seamus it's a matter of time!"

"Neville, what's the matter with you?"

"What? This?" Neville shook his head, not taking his injury seriously. "It's nothing, Seamus is worse than me. You'll see. Let's go now?"

Neville held out his hand to Hermione, and helped her up onto the mantelpiece and into the tunnel.Ron followed, followed by Neville.

Harry said to Aberforth: "I can't thank you enough, we don't know what we would do without your help."

"Take good care of them," said Aberforth gruffly. "I only promised Mr. Slytherin to take care of you."

Harry climbed onto the mantelpiece and passed through the hole behind the portrait of the girl.There were smooth stone steps on the other side, and it seemed that this passage had existed for many years.Brass lamps hung on the walls, and the dirt floor was well-trodden.They walked in the passage, and the shadows cast on the walls swayed like fans.

"How long has this passage been?" asked Ron as they walked. "Isn't it on the Marauder's Map, Harry? I thought there were only seven passages to and from the school."

"They sealed off all those passages before school started," Neville said. "The entrance is spellbound, and the exit is guarded by Death Eaters and Dementors. Now it's impossible to get in or out of there."

　It's weird, I suddenly feel like it's the end.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)