Hogwarts 1991

Chapter 567 Confirming the Competition Location
Ron shook his head and said, "The Ministry of Magic has been crazy busy for the past two months...the Ministry of Magic was attacked,...and the matter of the black magic symbol on the Quidditch World Cup...until I found a clue..."

"What's more, some Aurors still want to attack the underground black market dominated by goblins, and recently some werewolves and vampires have disappeared..."

"...Cornel Fudge is in serious trouble now. Even Percy, an intern who has just been employed for a year, has been given a heavy responsibility...he has been directly promoted to a regular position. One can imagine the situation of the entire Ministry of Magic...all kinds of news are flying in the sky..."

"Even if Fudge wants to sit in person...send people to investigate these things...it's useless."

Ron's face was heavy.

"So, I think... it's better for my parents to go to Paris for a while..."

After Hermione let out a long breath, she looked at McGuffin,
"McGuffin...is this the shadow in the city of London you speak of?"

"It should be?" McGuffin said uncertainly, "Maybe I should also remind my family to leave the UK..."

"Isn't it?" Harry said with some trepidation, "As far as I know, even Voldemort... didn't have a large-scale attack to kill Muggles 13 years ago...Compared to World War I and World War II...the number of people killed by Voldemort in the two world wars of Muggles..."

Harry shut up embarrassingly.

He also found that the analogy he made was really inappropriate.

"By the way, Harry, you and McGuffin should be in confinement for the last time tonight, right?...Ah! What the hell!" Ron staggered and almost fell, and the dense fog almost blocked the sight of several people's feet.

He tripped over a rotten tree.

Harry and McGuffin answered questions as they helped Ron up.

"Oh, thank goodness...it's finally the last day." Harry said with a look of relief.

"Since the renovation of the Hogwarts library, all the books have been shuffled, Hermione...you don't know how hard and painful it is for us to arrange them neatly one by one and put them on the shelves..."

Harry complained, but Hermione gave him a supercilious look, obviously she didn't think so.

Ron also looks like he can't look back on the past.

He was also punished by Snape for a week of confinement like Harry.

"I didn't see any difference between the library and the original place... What's the decoration? Could it be possible to create another secret room... Set up a magic barrier for us to break through..." McGuffin interjected jokingly, but his words made everyone present react immediately.

"Perhaps... this is the location of the first project..." said Harry excitedly.

"No...it won't be that Ravenclaw's [Endless Labyrinth]?" Hermione immediately pierced the window paper.

Wait until they have something to say.

There was a burst of discussion from other students ahead, they had already arrived at the conservatory.

Professor Sprout just opened the door of the greenhouse classroom, and students poured into it.

"Harry, you should think exactly the same as I think?" Ron said softly.

When they were all wearing a black anti-gum mask, dragon leather gloves... when they were sorting out a honeycomb-shaped exploding fruit full of knots, they formed a group and started the topic just now in a low voice.

"There is no other possibility..." Harry said excitedly, "I spent so many nights in the library, why didn't I find out, why didn't I think of..."

Harry said under his breath, "—that's probably where the Big Ten Tournament will be played."

"Thinking about it carefully...it's very strange that the Hogwarts library was renovated for no reason, and the employees of the Ministry of Magic, as well as those goblin magic engineers came in and out...not to mention that all the bookshelves were re-lengthened and heightened in the end...There is no major change at all."

Ron and Harry were full of excitement, and they suppressed their happy voices more and more.

Hermione had to cough a few times to call their attention.

But Mrs. Sprout, the head of Hufflepuff and the Potions professor, was still the same as before... in a daze, and didn't notice their small movements at all.

After she finished her lecture, she began to whisper to a sapling of [Bajilista] again. (——a magical plant used to provide light at night, often used by wizarding families as home decorations for Easter)
The professor's situation worried many... students, including Hermione.

Professor Sprout had ups and downs, but when they got close to him, she always returned to normal and dismissed their concerns, which in turn comforted the students.

"Harry, you put on the Invisibility Cloak tonight, and when the confinement is over, you can go there with the McGuffin... no, or wait for me... I want to too..." Ron said, his eyes behind his glasses opened wide.

The guy was so excited.

But Hermione broke the cold water immediately.

"No, you don't want to...have you forgotten the last time we went to that place and almost got stuck in that ghost place and couldn't get out?"

Ron shivered, and he also remembered that he was almost blocked by Fudge and the others in the endless ladder maze, so after humming a few words, he didn't mention the matter of going there anymore.

The guy turned around and said,

"Anyway, now that we know about this, it's best to confirm it tonight, McGuffin and Harry. If it's true...then you can make targeted training. Harry, you won't be worried about the Top Ten Tournament, and you can even consider whether you can win...The final reward will be worth thousands of Galleons."

Sure enough, back to this topic.

Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron again, and focused on the exploding fruit in her hand. She carefully held the watering can...spraying corrosive white foam...cleaning the sticky oily substance on the exploding fruit to reduce the possibility of it exploding.

Harry was very interested in Ron's proposal, not because he wanted to win, but because he didn't want to lose face in the 'Top Ten Tournament'. It would be best if he could make some preparations in advance.

"How to say, but how to confirm—" Harry didn't finish his sentence.

--boom!

Next to the McGuffins, there was a muffled sound among the group of students behind them, and a smell of burnt pitch began to permeate the entire greenhouse.

They turned their faces and looked, and sure enough, Dean was sitting there, his hair blown up, bursting into flames, his face covered with black ash, smoke was ejected from his mouth, and he was still holding a deflated exploding fruit in his hand...Neville and Simone, who were in the same group as him, were not much better... The scene was simply horrible.

However, this made Professor Sprout wake up. She took out her wand and waved it there. The black smoke and extremely unpleasant smell drifted away from the door that was just opened.

She hurried over and said sharply to Dean, "If you accidentally break one more, stay with me and stay with me... handle the remaining explosive fruits? Seriously... don't whisper...I can see it..."

Professor Sprout stared at many students sternly, but...she stayed in Harry's group for the longest time, and seemed to find that they were the most behind in dealing with the explosion fruit.

For the rest of the class, Professor Sprout never fell into that trance again, and Harry and the others didn't have the energy and time to discuss the topic of the library.

The explosive fruit is slippery and greasy. If it accidentally falls on the table or the ground... that will be Dean's fate. If you use a little force... the result will be even worse.

Dealing with the explosive fruit took up all their energy, and they really didn't have the energy or the means to avoid talking to Professor Sprout in a low voice.

It wasn't until dinner time that McGuffin and Harry gathered in a corner of the restaurant again to discuss how to confirm the venue for the first event of the 'Top Ten Tournament' in the [Secret Library] after confinement.

After discussing and discussing, several people came to a conclusion that if the venue of the competition was really that [Endless Labyrinth], Mrs. Pince would definitely know about it.

McGuffin and Harry might be able to try by going there near that entrance...

"...Look at Madam Pince's reaction..." Hermione had an idea.

"But...it's in the restricted section..." Harry hesitated, he didn't know how he and McGuffin found an excuse to go there in front of Mrs. Pince.

"In short, if you want to confirm that this matter is true, then this step is essential." Hermione finally said.

The less you know how to be good back then, the faster time will become.

McGuffin and Harry were eating in the auditorium earlier... In the blink of an eye, the two were standing in the library, listening to Mrs. Pince's reprimand, and starting to sort out the books.

They held the stacks of magic books, and stepped on the tall ladder to the top in alphabetical order, as well as subject categories, time and era... one by one.

Time ticked on and on, and before you knew it, it was completely dark. From the glass windows of the library, you can see that the thick fog outside has gradually dissipated. The moon hangs high in the dark night, and it is full again.

However, since they are in confinement here.

Mrs. Pince did not turn off the lights in the library as usual... The magic dome in the entire room is still like dusk, with a hazy twilight sprinkled on it.

For MacGuffin and the two of them to sort out the books here.

"McGuffin! MacGuffin!"

Harry lowered his voice and called out to him from another tall ladder.

McGuffin looked away from the cover of the weird book [Complete Classification of Fairy Surnames] in his hand, and looked at Harry opposite.

Harry kept poking the restricted area with his fingers, the meaning was self-evident.

——how to do it?
——How can you confirm that that place is the location of the competition?
Since McGuffin was standing at the very top of the ladder, he could see that Mrs. Pince had left the library and disappeared somewhere.

So he said directly to Harry in a normal voice, "Don't worry so much, Mrs. Pince doesn't seem to be in the library..."

"is it?"

Harry raised his head and looked at the location of the library desk near the door with great difficulty. After he finally confirmed it, he hurriedly took a book and knocked on the magic ladder...as if it had grown wheels...it automatically moved to the McGuffin,
Then he hurriedly said, "McGuffin, tell me...or we will take this opportunity to hide a book from the restricted area, and use this to test Mrs. Pince later..."

"That's a bad idea!"

Before McGuffin could reply, a translucent head popped up on the bookshelf between the two of them, and said suddenly... This movement scared Harry almost to roll off the ladder.

"Hello, Nick!" McGuffin greeted.

After standing firmly on the ladder, Harry also greeted. "Nick, hello!"

"Hello, Harry, MacGuffin!"

Nearly Headless Nick slowly pulled his whole body out of the bookshelf.

His long sideburns were crowned with a curiously domed, plumed wizard's hat, and he wore a knee-length tunic with a ruffled collar that completely concealed the horrific scar on his neck.

He seemed to be there like a wisp of smoke, and the deep twilight covered his slightly silver-white, translucent body with a layer of shimmer, which looked very strange.

"You two better not do that!" Nick said, placing a translucent book on the table.

"What, what..." Harry played dumb.

"Come on... Potter, I heard you all." Nick said with a sad face.

"Ah, did you... hear that?" Harry smiled mischievously.

"All the books in the restricted area are not included in the scope of your sorting books... If you do that, you can only prove to Mrs. Pince that you have other plans..."

Harry was a little embarrassed, and he hurriedly changed the subject, "Why haven't I seen you recently... No, it should be that you Hogwarts ghosts don't seem to be haunting Hogwarts anymore... Even Peeves is rare..."

"Well, we've been gathering in the underground room... Barty Crouch of the Ministry of Magic won't let us go up... He said that wizards from other schools represent the country's customs are different from ours. Wizards in some countries are not friendly to ghosts... and they have some magic that can harm ghosts...so for the good of everyone... most ghosts are carnival underground!" Nick said in great pain.

Looking at this scene, Harry felt a little familiar. He remembered the last time Nick behaved like this, because——

"Could it be that Headless Hunter?"

"Yeah, they're at it again, that goddamn Patrick... can't he just get his head off? What's the matter..."

Nick exploded, screaming loudly, insulting the headless ghost for a long time before stopping.

Angrily, he pulled out another translucent book from a corner of the library shelf, and said to Harry and the others, "If you want to know about the restricted area... I can tell you... that's right, the place for the first competition is there. I secretly told Mrs. Pince... when I was borrowing books, I found out about it."

(I don’t know how he did it, anyway, McGuffin and Harry have never seen such a translucent ghost book for so many days)
"After all, you are still our Gryffindor warrior! I hope you can win, Harry..."

After Nick squeezed an ugly smile, he drilled into the ground with the translucent book and disappeared.

McGuffin and Harry never imagined that they could confirm the location of the first event so easily...in that [Endless Labyrinth].

　change tomorrow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)