cycle

After the sunshine in May left the beach, it gradually showed the power of early summer. It projected from the gaps in the dense forests to the ground and turned into golden dots, and the wind blew a lively jump.If nothing happened, if life continued along the previous calm, at this time we are probably trying to squeeze out a little time to go to Hogsmeade to relax for a while during the NEWT exam preparation gap, chatting with us while chatting about what we still have. How many knowledge points did Hermione not memorize well? Pick a more useful quill, and accompany the boys who don't care about the last three days before the exam to buy new broomstick care tools-if these are only I can think about it in my head for a while, but if I think about it too much, I will only feel heart-piercing pain.

"It's not a very clever spell." After discovering another crappy trap that looked like it could only petrify a few unlucky wild rabbits, I reached out and wiped the sweat from my forehead, "It seems that what you said is right Yes, these Death Eaters - or not Death Eaters, the members of the Hunting Party are not very good wizards."

"Because they want anyone, as long as they can catch people on our side." Neville stood on a broken tree stump and visually measured the distance between us and Hogsmeade village. Judging from his nostalgic eyes, he probably also Caught in my thoughts just now. "When it's all over...if I'm still alive, I'd like to drink a butterbeer."

"Me too, and cold mead would be nice." Searching aimlessly for traces of spells and traps is tedious, and I'm glad to have a topic to break out of my mind's uneasy thoughts about Gringotts.Neville didn't seem to sense any Voldemort's emotions at the moment. Several hours had passed. Could this mean that Harry and the others had successfully infiltrated Gringotts?

"By the way, where did Mrs. Longbottom go?" I suddenly remembered the question I had forgotten to ask. "She didn't stay in St. Mungo's, did she?"

"Of course not. The members of the Order of the Phoenix secretly transferred her and my uncle's family the day after Professor Dumbledore's death." Neville replied softly, "Uncle will take good care of my mother. She is already Can say some simple words. I didn’t ask where they hid my mother, so even if I was arrested and tortured, it would be useless... I’m glad now that she doesn’t remember who I am, so even if I die, she I can continue to live a good life—but maybe I will also be confused about where my father is occasionally, and I am confused about where the boy who will accept her candy wrappers is."

"I will survive." His calm tone only felt sour in the ears, even though this promise was paler than the clouds in the sky, I couldn't help but say to him, "We will all survive, Go drink butterbeer, go get butterscotch wrappers, go back to the people you want to see."

"Yeah." The Disillusionment Curse made it difficult for me to see Neville's expression. He should have grinned, "Let's go, we're not far from Hogsmeade."

The closer we get to Hogsmeade, the slower our progress, almost to the point where we can't wait to dig up every piece of land to see if the spell will be triggered.Inspired by the wild rabbit that was petrified by the trap before, I turned a stone of about the same size into a gray hare, and tied its neck with a rope to let it explore in front, so that even if it triggers What a spell, as long as I make the rope disappear, it looks to the Death Eaters as just some unlucky wild animal accidentally hitting a trap they set.

When the sun began to slant westward, we successfully avoided the inspection of the Death Eaters and entered the village of Hogsmeade, and sneaked into the screaming shack with overgrown grass to check the secret passage, and I launched towards the end of the passage A bunch of small, bright fireworks stretched far ahead before slowly disappearing, indicating that the passage hadn't collapsed.Neville took out the Marauder's Map to confirm that the road to the Whomping Willow should not be blocked.

Although the Whomping Willow brought back some bad memories, it was heartening to find a way to get into Hogwarts without a hitch.It was already dusk when we returned to the meeting place we agreed with Harry and the others, and the fading afterglow of the sun coated everything in the valley with a layer of bright gold. This quiet atmosphere made me feel uneasy—the setting sun It means that the night is coming, and according to our previous agreement, if Harry and the others don't show up until dark, it means that the process of finding the gold cup is not smooth, and Neville and I need to leave them and go directly to Hogwarts to destroy them. crown.

I tried not to let Neville look at his cracked gold watch every few minutes.The evening wind began to blow away the sweltering heat that had lingered in the valley all day, and I could only let myself take a deep breath over and over again to empty my mind of random thoughts.

"Neville?" There was a muffled sound of falling to the ground behind him. The Disillusionment Curse made me unable to see his current expression clearly. After a few seconds of hesitation, I used the Levitation Charm to drag him into the shade by the path to confirm After there was no one around, the illusion spell was released, "Did you see it? Is the mysterious man angry? Did Harry and the others get the gold cup?"

Neville ignored my continuous questioning, his lips were purple, his face was blue and white, his throat let out intermittent low growls like beasts, and his pupils shrunk—it seemed to me that he was being strangled by a pair of invisible hands. He closed his throat, and maybe he would completely suffocate in a few seconds.Knocking him out might reduce his pain, but in this way, there is no way to know Harry and the others' current situation. After I spent almost 5 minutes debating whether to knock him out, Neville finally sat up trembling. , When he saw my face, there was a moment of blankness in his eyes, as if he didn't understand why he was here.

"They got it." Neville looked around, "You-Know-Who found out too, the goblins reported to him that an impostor had entered Gringotts and taken a gold chalice - he was furious, and now he's off to check out another Where are the Horcruxes. You're right, Alice, the last Horcrux is at Hogwarts."

"Is he coming to Hogwarts soon?" I felt a hint of fear, "Did Harry and the others escape? What did the goblins say?"

"I think they escaped - he's already set off to check the ring, You-Know-Who thinks Hogwarts is the safest place because we're hard to get in, he thinks we'll be noticed if we go into Hogsmeade , and he was confident that the hiding place was Hogwarts' deepest secret... But he could still be at Hogwarts in a few hours, and he had ordered the security of Hogwarts to be strengthened— "

"Then we need to act quickly." I looked worriedly at the empty path, "If Harry and the others escaped smoothly, why haven't they appeared yet?"

"It's not completely dark yet." Neville stood up and cleaned off the dirt and dust on his body, "Maybe they got a little bit hurt—"

There was a sudden explosion in the air. Neville and I picked up our wands vigilantly, and we were not relieved until we saw three pairs of shoes emerging from the bushes not far away.

They seemed to be more than a little injured. Just when I approached them and tried to take off the invisibility cloak, I smelled a strong smell of white meat and the burnt smell of being burned by the fire.

"Did you set the vault on fire in the end?" I looked down in horror at the slowly healing wound on Harry's arm.

"He didn't—the gold in the vault would have burned us." Ron muttered and stood up, his clothes still dripping, "It's a good thing you taught us that fuchsia...we broke through Got spotted by the goblins from Gringotts for a short while, and then the treasures in the Lestrange vault started replicating themselves and getting hot whenever we knocked them down - and then we ran into a blind The dragon who got us out of Gringotts - or we helped him out, it's worth it."

"Self-replication? Then how can you be sure that this golden cup is not a replica?" Neville took the small but delicate golden cup from Harry's hand and looked at it carefully.

"It didn't duplicate, I hooked it off with the Gryffindor sword." Harry stood up with my support, and Hermione evaporated all the water from the three of them with her wand, "But in the end Griphook After taking the Gryffindor sword away, we really didn't have the strength... fell into the lake and climbed up, drank something and came back."

"Here, pumpkin juice." Hermione's voice seemed a little weak, and she took out two bottles of drink from the Shell Cottage from the beaded pouch, "You want to drink some too?"

"There's no time, he already knows what we did." Neville quickly repeated what he had just seen to them, "We only have a few hours left, and we must enter Hogwarts as soon as possible."

At the insistence of the boys, Hermione and I got into the Invisibility Cloak, and the boys were cast with the Disillusionment Charm one by one. I whispered to them, "There are warning spells on the edge paths of Hogsmeade, but I've made a hole in the southernmost part of the day, we've been to the Shrieking Shack, and the secret passage below is—"

Just as we walked through the opening and stepped onto the path to Hogsmeade, a sharp howling pierced the night sky. Almost at the same moment, Hermione pinned the three boys to the dense bushes, grabbed My arms followed them back to the side.The door of the Three Broomsticks in the distance swung open, and a dozen cloaked and hooded Death Eaters rushed out into the street with their wands held aloft.

"Someone really broke in!" The big tall guy in the lead yelled, "I'll tell you that the loophole in the south couldn't have been made by some stupid bird or rabbit!"

As soon as I raised my wand, Hermione grabbed my wrist and shook her head at me under the cloak.There are too many enemies, and the light of the spell will reveal the location of all of us in an instant.A Death Eater waved his wand, and the screams that echoed throughout Hogsmeade stopped, but the echoes continued to echo in the valley.

"Could it be Potter and the others?" Another Death Eater said in an ecstatic voice, "The Invisibility Cloak is coming!"

The Invisibility Cloak didn't move at all, still wrapping Hermione and me well, and it seemed that the Summoning Charm didn't work on it.

"Okay, okay, it looks like we're going to play a game of hide-and-seek for a while." A greasy voice began, "But you can't escape, Longbottom and Potter... we'll find you sooner or later."

The surrounding air suddenly became cold, and everything seemed to be slowly freezing. We retreated to the side path as silently as possible while trying to apparate, but the air we needed to pass through seemed to be turned into a solid wall, no matter what Rotation can only stay in place.

"Dementors," Hermione whispered nervously, "Oh, but if we summon Patronuses—"

A silver stag jumped out from behind us, and with graceful steps, it rushed towards the approaching dementors. As the dementors scattered and fled, the Death Eaters' triumphant shouts suddenly became clear. .

"I saw the Patronus! It's Potter's Patronus! Longbottom must be nearby!"

Hermione looked behind in panic, and in the night, we could only judge where the boys were by the abnormal shaking of the air.The voices of the Death Eaters became louder and louder. Just when we were at a loss, there was a creaking sound of the door opening on the left side of the side street, and a rough voice said to us, "Come in, you guys!"

Without any thought or hesitation, we all rushed through the open door.

"Don't break the spell, don't take off the invisibility cloak, go upstairs and don't make a sound!" said the tall figure, walked from us to the street, and closed the door heavily.

It wasn't until I saw the shabby and dirty bar counter and the gray glass upside down on it that I probably remembered where it was - the Pig's Head Bar that I only came to once in the fifth grade for the establishment of DA.There was no one in the shop now, and we ran behind the counter, through a door and up a rickety wooden staircase.At the top of the stairs was a living room with a fireplace. It was small in size and covered with worn carpets. Above the fireplace hung a huge oil painting that seemed out of place compared with the crowd around it. Clear and gentle - because too clear shows a kind of ignorance that has not entered the world.

There was noise from downstairs, and the owner of the Pig's Head Bar was surrounded by Death Eaters, who obviously didn't agree with his rhetoric that "you misunderstood the Patronus, I released the Patronus of the Goat".But when the boss said violently that once his bar was closed, the gang of Death Eaters would no longer have a way to resell potions and contraband, the leading Death Eater hesitated, and finally they returned to the bar while muttering. Next to me in the street, Hermione sank into a rickety chair with a sigh of relief.

"Thank you," Neville said to the bar owner after he locked the door and walked up the stairs. "We wouldn't know what to do if it wasn't for you. You saved our lives."

"You guys are so stupid!" The boss carefully inspected the curtains that Harry had just drawn, and looked at us who had undone the spell and took off the invisibility cloak, and said angrily, "So many people... what do you think? How come? Are you still running here at this time?"

"We have to come," said Harry. "We need to get into Hogwarts, sir."

"No, you don't need to do such stupid things!" The tall man strode out of the room while speaking, his figure and steps seemed inexplicably familiar. When he came back, he brought a basket full of and slapped them roughly in front of the five of us, "Eat and drink enough, leave Hogsmeade after the curfew is lifted at dawn, and go to the mountains beside, Apparate - go anywhere, don't come back gone."

"We cannot leave," said Neville. "We must enter Hogwarts."

"There's only one thing you must do," the boss told us brusquely, "get out of here, hide away, and live."

"Sir, you don't understand." Hermione said, "Time is running out, we must enter the castle, this is the task Professor Dumbledore left us—"

"I don't understand?" The man with dirty gray hair and beard snorted through his nose. The fire in the fireplace illuminated his gray glasses white, but he could still distinguish a pair of azure blue eyes behind them. s eyes. "Believe me, no one here knows Albus Dumbledore better than I do."

"You belong to Professor Dumbledore—" I was puzzled, but I didn't know whether Dumbledore had any family members left in the world. Harry took my words and stated calmly: "You are not Forth, Aberforth Dumbledore."

"You know who I am, so you should take my word for it." Aberforth narrowed his eyes, which made his face more overlap with Dumbledore's face in my memory, but his entrainment The thick joking and mocking tone is undoubtedly not possessed by his elder brother, "He left you a group of inexperienced brats with a task, and then hid himself in a place where he can no longer be hurt? Wake up Come on, you don't owe him anything, and you don't owe anything to this terrible world, stop thinking about those illusory things! Hide and save your own life!"

"We know how to defeat him," Neville explained, "it has to be done by us, Professor Dumbledore explained it very clearly—"

"Oh, really?" Aberforth's beard flew up because of his mouth shaking, "My brother who learned to keep secrets at his mother's knee really knew everything he knew-all, one five one [-]. Did I tell you everything?"

His words undoubtedly hit the part of Harry's heart that he didn't want to think about the most. I saw Harry open his mouth like a fish washed up on the beach by the waves, but he didn't say a word of rebuttal.

There was an embarrassing silence in the narrow living room, only the girl on the oil painting was still looking at us with interest, and from time to time lowered her head and played with her long hair.

"Mr. Dumbledore," Hermione said timidly, "is that your sister, Miss Ariana?"

"Have you read Rita Skeeter?" Aberforth asked stiffly, and although I didn't know what he meant, I noticed that Hermione blushed immediately.

"Me and—I grew up in Godric's Hollow." Harry said to help Hermione, "I always knew that your mother and sister were buried there."

"Then you must have grown up listening to my brother's great deeds?" Aberforth laughed, "Think he's emitting sunlight from every pore?"

"Professor Dumbledore has always been particularly concerned about Neville and Harry." Probably because the sarcasm in Aberforth's words was a bit uncomfortable, Hermione emphasized her tone, "There is no doubt that he cares about Hogwarts." Every student at the Ts—”

"It's really hard to say whether it's luck or misfortune." Aberforth snorted, "People who are especially cared about by my brother often end up being especially sad—it's better that he didn't care about them."

"That sentence is too harsh." I couldn't help interjecting, "Are you talking about your own sister?"

He turned around almost immediately and stared at me with fierce eyes, his lips moved dangerously as if he was going to say a spell in the next second, or trying to hold back the words that were about to rush out of his throat, Harry leaned against me, stretched out He put his arm in front of me.

"Ah, do you think I'm a scumbag who would shoot a little girl?" Aberforth laughed hoarsely, and he sat back heavily on the chair behind him - just like we did until Professor Dumbledore It was as if we realized how old he was when his left hand turned into a scorched bone, and it was only then that we realized that Aberforth in front of us was already an old man who had gone through the vicissitudes of time.

Suddenly he began to babble about the story, as if Harry's movement had suddenly flipped a switch in his memory.He told us about his sister, Ariana, how she was tortured into a madness by Muggle boys who passed by and witnessed her magical powers when she was young, and how his father ended up dying in Azka for revenge on his daughter. Ben, about how his mother took the three of them into hiding, about how his brother hid in his bedroom and planned his bright future—and then this stumbling but barely peaceful life finally came to an end. Ariana terminated when she was 14, and out of control she killed their mother.

Aberforth's tone was very calm, even with a hint of sarcasm habitually, as if he was telling a story about someone who had nothing to do with him.This way of telling makes me feel more cruel as a listener, because it has been too long, and because everyone in the story has died except myself, so I use this kind of emotionless tone Talk about facts that most people can't bear to hear.

"So Albus and little Dorje's plan to travel around the world is shattered." At this point, there was finally a crack of anger in Aberforth's tone, "He stayed as the head of the family to take care of my mother's funeral ——Oh, of course I am very disappointed, but Merlin is reluctant to let our Mr. Elite be buried for too long, and after a few weeks, that person came."

"Grindelwald." The only name I didn't think of. I was at a loss, but found that none of the others seemed surprised. They all held their breath and listened carefully to what Aberforth said next.

"They have been brewing plans to establish a new wizarding order, looking for sacred artifacts—in short, doing all great things for the benefit of the entire wizarding world. Compared with these things, what does it matter if a little girl is ignored? But I Enough is enough, I'm going back to Hogwarts, there's no way I can give Ariana to Albus."

"Then we had a dispute," Aberforth's tone became dangerous, "I will not allow Albus to take Ariana, she can't bear that kind of travel, my brother who is immersed in a great cause Of course not. Grindelwald was also very upset. He felt that my sister and I were a stumbling block to my wonderful brother. He laughed at my short-sightedness and told me that once they succeeded in changing the world, my poor sister would There is no need to go to Tibet any more.”

"My darling brother has gone out of his head because of Grindelwald, or they were made for each other—but I'm not." His teeth began to chatter, "I started arguing with him, and pulled out wand - he drew his, and I got the Cruciatus Curse cast by my brother's best friend, and it wasn't until then that Albus started trying to stop him. The three of us dueled, forgetting that my sister was still upstairs , flashes of light and loud noises stimulated her."

Hermione covered her mouth, she seemed to have guessed what happened next, even though I didn't know anything, tears had already flowed from my eyes.

"Maybe... she wants to help. She likes me, relies on me, and will feed the goats with me." The old man's face lost all color, and he clutched his chest, as if reliving the pain of the past, "She Liked Albus too...Although Albus never cared about her, I know, she liked us...But she died, I don't know who did it, it could be all three-she just So dead."

"It's gone, it's gone." Aberforth exhaled heavily. "Then Grindelwald ran away. He already had a bit of a criminal record. For Albus, he was finally free, and he no longer needed to be tortured." He is bound by his crazy sister, he is finally free, and he can be the greatest in the world without any worries—”

"He's not free." Neville, who had been listening silently, said suddenly, "He's never been free."

"The night your brother died, he drank a poison, became delirious, made pleas to an absentee, and kept repeating 'don't hurt them, please... come at me.' I've been I thought it was just an illusion caused by the poison, but now I know, he thought he was back in the past and was witnessing Grindelwald hurting you and Ariana." Neville murmured, "He's been whimpering, begging...if When you saw that scene, you would never think he was free."

"Every time he went back to Godric's Hollow—rarely, but every time he went back, he would stop at the chapel for a while." Harry continued Neville's words, "We all thought he was just mourning the loss of relatives... he It should be confession."

"What's the use of that?" Aberforth was silent for a while, "What's gone can never come back."

"That's why we need to enter Hogwarts." Harry said, "The people who have passed away can never come back. We must save more people who are alive, so that others will not suffer from this pain of loss."

"You're both 17, this isn't something you should be thinking about—"

"We're adults," said Ron. "It's our choice."

The old man stood up, he looked like a panting cow: "Can't you see it? The Order of the Phoenix is ​​over! The mysterious man has won, and the situation is over—"

"My father just led the Order of the Phoenix to break through Azkaban and rescued a large number of wizards who were innocently imprisoned there." I also stood up, "Is this what you call 'the end'? As long as we are still alive It’s not over, we will fight until the last moment, until you kill the mysterious man according to your brother’s instructions or be killed by him, he won’t win unless he makes all those who oppose him close their eyes.”

"We know the situation better than anyone else." The others stood up after me, Neville said in a low voice, "Sir, I knew a few years ago what my end might be—"

"We all know," Harry continued, "We accepted, so we show up here, and now we need to get into Hogwarts, and if you can't help, we'll wait until dawn to figure it out, but if you know a little If there are other ways, I hope you can say it...for your brother's sake."

"Any other time, if someone asked me to see what to do for Albus's sake, I'd throw him straight out of my bar." Having said that, Aberforth got to his feet, and he walked around the small table. Walking towards the portrait of Ariana, I stopped in front of the girl who looked at us with a smile.

"You know what to do." He said this, and then the girl smiled slightly, turned and walked away.