I, Hogwarts Week Two

Chapter 572 Bathilda Bagshot

What adventures. What conquests. What transcendence.

Death is death.

After death, you can no longer hear, see, or speak, and the land will devour your body bit by bit.

Even if their most beloved and cared-for son was standing so close to them, they would not have any reaction.

Suddenly it all seemed meaningless to Harry.

Live to die, because they will die anyway.

Those who care about him, love him, and pay attention to him will eventually stay with the land.

"Harry—" Ginny noticed Harry's abnormality.

She saw tears welling up in Harry's eyes, but his expression remained frozen, as if he was sick.

She quickly reached out and squeezed Harry's hand, moving closer.

I hope this warmth can drive away the cold.

"I'm sorry." Harry woke up.

I don't know if he was apologizing to his parents or to Ginny.

Ginny took his hand again and squeezed it tightly. He couldn't look at her, but squeezed it back, taking deep gulps of the cold air, trying to calm himself.

He should have brought them something.

He prepared a lot, but they were all for his own safety, but he forgot the most important thing.

The plants on the graveyard were bare and covered with ice. With her other hand, Ginny pulled a large bunch of jasmine from her pocket.

Compared to the careless boy, she is much more careful.

Besides, the Weasleys were a large family, and every year many of them had to visit the graves of their relatives. Ginny naturally knew what to bring, but Harry had never had such experience.

Harry looked at Ginny intently, then said "Thank you!"

He took the flowers from the girl and placed them in front of his parents' grave.

Then, he couldn't stay any longer, it was too sad here.

And so they turned away in silence, walking slowly past the graves of Dumbledore's mother and sister, towards the dark church and the narrow door that was out of sight.

"Harry, stop."

"what happened?"

As soon as they walked out of the cemetery, Ginny quickly grabbed Harry.

Compared to Harry who was immersed in sadness and unable to extricate himself, resulting in a decrease in attention to the outside world, she did not relax at all.

"Someone's there, someone's watching us." They stood motionless, hugging each other, staring at the dark edge of the graveyard. Harry saw nothing.

"you sure?"

"I'm sure, next to the bushes--" Ginny quietly shook her sleeves, and the wand naturally fell into her hands.

"Don't be impulsive." Harry said quickly: "We are Muggles now."

"The other party may be confirming his identity. But if they are Death Eaters, they shouldn't be so hesitant. They will just take action directly."

"Let's leave carefully and don't do anything strange." Harry said, "Go over there, to that alley. As long as we can avoid their sight, we can put on the invisibility cloak."

After that, Harry pulled Ginny into a dark street.

The two of them kept looking back, and the moment they walked into the street, Harry took out the invisibility cloak and put it on quickly.

Then he ran quickly out of the village.

Harry could see where the houses disappeared and the side street gave way to open country again.

They walked so fast that they dared not go any faster, passing more windows with flickering lights.

"Are they following?" panted Harry.

"It seems not." Ginny looked back from time to time and didn't see anyone following. "Maybe they are not here for us."

"If not for us? Then who else could it be?"

"Maybe - maybe -" A name flashed through Ginny's mind, but the name was like a shooting star, and she could not catch it.

If Hermione were here, she would definitely be able to guess the Death Eaters' purpose.

Ginny thought so.

Then I felt inexplicably angry, angry at myself.

Suddenly the name became clear. Ginny blurted out, "Bathilda Bagshot. They're probably after Bathilda Bagshot."

"Bathilda Bagshot? The expert on the History of Magic?" Harry muttered, and then he understood.

"Bathilda Bagshot is Grindelwald's only living relative. The Death Eaters wanted to capture Bathilda Bagshot to hold him hostage."

"Yes!" Ginny nodded. "Bathilda Bagshot lives in Godric's Hollow."

"She and our family are neighbors," Harry added.

"We must find Bathilda Bagshot's house quickly and warn her to leave."

Harry said anxiously.

And just then, he saw it.

The Fidelius Charm must have failed with the deaths of James and Lily, for in the sixteen years since Hagrid had carried Harry from the ruins, the hedges had grown tangled and the rubble was buried beneath waist-deep weeds.

Most of the house was still standing, completely covered in dark ivy and silt, but the right side of the top floor room had been blown away, and Harry thought that must be where the spell had rebounded.

He didn't know when he was standing in front of the door of his former home.

He looked at the ruin, which must have once been like the houses on either side.

Then Harry reached out and grabbed the badly rusted iron door. He didn't want to open it, he just wanted to hold part of the house.

Just then a wooden sign rose from the ground. It emerged from the tangled nettles and weeds like some strange, rapidly growing flower. In gold letters on the sign were written:

Lily and James Potter died here on October 1981, 10.

Their son Harry was the only wizard to survive the Killing Curse.

Invisible to Muggles, the house has been preserved as it is, with its ruins serving as a memorial to the Potters and a reminder of the violence that tore their family apart.

Next to the neat handwriting, there were inscriptions of all kinds. They were all written by wizards who came to see the place where the "Boy Who Lived" had escaped death. Some wrote their names in permanent ink, some carved their initials into the wooden plaque, and some wrote messages. The most recent ones shone on the magical graffiti of sixteen years, and the content was roughly the same.

—Good luck to you, Harry, wherever you are.

—Hope you read this, Harry, we’re all rooting for you!

——Long live Harry Potter!

"It's too conspicuous," said Ginny, "especially now."

"I think it's good." Harry smiled at her.

"I" said Harry, and then paused.

In his sight, in the distance, a tightly wrapped figure was staggering out from the small street, his black outline cast by the lights of the square in the distance.

It was hard to tell, but Harry had a feeling it was a woman.

She walked slowly, perhaps because she was afraid of slipping on the snow.

The hunched body, bloated figure, and staggering steps all give people the impression of being very old.

Harry waited to see if she would turn into one of the little houses on the side of the road, but instinctively knew she wouldn't. Finally, she stopped a few meters away, standing in the middle of the frozen street, facing them.

Ginny didn't need to pinch his arm to tell him that the woman was a Muggle: she was standing there staring at a house that was completely invisible to non-wizards. But even if she was a witch, it would be strange for her to come out on such a cold night just to see the ruins of an old house. And according to magical conventions, she shouldn't be able to see him and Ginny at all.

Harry had a very strange feeling that she knew they were there, and knew who they were, and just as he was coming to this unsettling conclusion, the woman raised a gloved hand and waved.

Ginny moved closer to Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, her arm pressed against his.

"How did she know?"

He shook his head. The woman waved again, more vigorously. Harry could think of many reasons not to heed the call, but as they stared at each other in the empty street, his suspicions about her identity grew stronger and stronger.

This is kind of weird, honestly.

He had just mentioned Bathilda Bagshot as his neighbor when an old woman appeared, as expected.

And the other party seems to be able to see through himself.

He was clearly wearing an invisibility cloak.

Could it be that - Dumbledore arranged this in advance?

Harry couldn't help but think of the mysterious and powerful headmaster, who always arranged everything properly, as if nothing could exceed his expectations.

And considering the relationship between Grindelwald and the headmaster, it seems not impossible that he arranged for Bathilda Bagshot to wait for him here.

Finally Harry spoke.

Ginny was startled.

"Are you Bathilda Bagshot?"

The tightly wrapped figure nodded and waved.

"Don't go," said Ginny.

The two looked at each other under the invisibility cloak. Anyone who was not blind could see that there was something strange about the old woman over there.

But in the magical world, some weird wizards are normal. After all, neither of them has ever seen Bathilda Bagshot.

"Don't worry, we have the portkey ready." Harry patted his waist pocket, then silently took out his wand and held it in his hand.

"Besides, what if that really is Bathilda Bagshot? We have to save her."

"But..." Ginny wanted to say something. If she were with Ron, she would not say anything more. But the person next to her was Harry. She did not want to see Harry get hurt, nor did she want to lose him.

Harry pulled Ginny towards the woman.

The old woman turned around immediately.

I staggered back along the way I came, passed a few houses, and turned to a door.

The two of them followed the old woman, and followed her down the path, through a garden that was almost as deserted as the one they had just encountered.

She fumbled with the front door for a moment with the key, then opened it and stepped aside to let them in. It was like a sheep entering a tiger's mouth.

Harry and Ginny sidled through the door and took off their Invisibility Cloaks.

He stood close to Bathilda Bagshot, and she was so small and old that she came up to his chest. She closed the door, her blue-spotted knuckles against the peeling paint, and then turned to look into Harry's face, her eyes sunken in folds of transparent skin, thick with cataracts. Her face was dotted with broken blood vessels and age spots.

He doubted whether the old lady could see clearly, and even if she could, she would only see the bald Muggle he was impersonating.

The smell of stale mold, dust, dirty clothes and spoiled food became stronger. She untied the moldy black headscarf, revealing a head with sparse white hair and a clearly visible scalp.

"Ms. Bathilda," Harry asked again.

She nodded again.

Harry watched her slowly remove her wand from her sleeve and cast some kind of spell on the door.

Then he turned and walked into the living room.

"Harry. We seem..." Ginny's heart was pounding and a sense of danger rushed to her head.

How she wanted to run away immediately.

Harry also held his wand tightly, protecting Ginny behind him, and the two of them moved forward slowly along the wall.

The living room is small and full of dust.

It was a cold day and there was no fire in the fireplace.

Bathilda Bagshot did not stop in the living room, but walked to the end of a corridor behind the living room, where there was a door, perhaps to the kitchen, or somewhere else.

Harry was a little panicked, he handed the pocket on his waist to Ginny and asked her to take out the key. If there was any accident, they would run away immediately.

"Harry, look here," Ginny whispered.

She was pointing in the direction of a door on the right side of the living room, facing the stairs leading to the second floor.

Unlike other places, a hint of light came through the crack of this door.

"Be careful," said Harry.

Then Ginny waved her wand, "Alacho Open—"

The wand shot out a gray spell, and with a "click", the locked door was opened.

"Hu——" Ginny took a deep breath, her sweaty right hand tightly grasping the wand, and the other hand carefully pushed open the door.

The moment the door opened, the secret hidden inside was immediately exposed to the two of them.

"Oh my God!"

There were four people in the room, three men and one woman. They looked very young, probably around twenty years old.

Their skin was gray, and they were kneeling on the ground, bound tightly by black chains, with various wounds all over their bodies.

The ground was also littered with various bottles, jars and sharp objects.

I guess these people have been tortured.

"Merlin's beard!" Ginny's pupils constricted and her heart sank into her stomach.

Her teeth were chilled.

He looked back at Harry in horror.

Harry was almost as shocked as Ginny at this moment.

It is now certain that this Bathilda Bagshot is definitely not herself. She is someone else pretending to be her, most likely a Death Eater.

Looking at the four poor wizards in the room, Harry was filled with rage.

The shameless Death Eater killed Bathilda Bagshot and assumed her identity, waiting here for others to come to him.

And wasn’t I just coming in here stupidly?

"Squeak-"

Suddenly, there was a slight sound of a door opening.

Harry's tense limbs turned sharply.

The moment he saw the fake Bathilda Bagshot, his arms waved subconsciously and he cast a spell almost instinctively.

"Except your weapons!"

The red curse whizzed past.

It hit Bathilda Bagshot straight on.

The wand in her hand flew out immediately.

"Tell me who you are--"

Harry snapped, his eyes fierce.

"You-Know-Who sent you. What have you done to the real Bathilda Bagshot?"

"tell me!!!"