[HP] Raven

Episode 27

Alex followed Professor Slughorn to Zurich, a very quiet and exquisite city. At the beginning of 1979, a little snow had just fallen, and the whole city was covered with fine white snow, which was as beautiful as a fairy tale world .

She followed Professor Slughorn into the arena. There is a huge statue at the entrance of the Zurich Museum. Bronze warriors are riding on horseback, holding a torch high in one hand and holding the reins in the other. People who want to participate in the Potions Society line up A long line, everyone holds the invitation letter in their hands, the soldiers will bend down, let the guests throw the invitation letter into the flaming torch, if the smoke on the flame forms the name of the guest, it means the verification is successful, You can directly walk into the double-sided carved red copper door behind the statue.

The venue was resplendent and magnificent, and the portraits in the corridor were all the late Potionists. Alex actually found the ancestor of her family in it—the [-]th-century Caralina Everly, an improved Master of Potions Distillation methods at the time.

In the portrait, her silver-white long hair is neatly coiled behind her head, and the deep crow's feet and nasolabial folds on her face are like the folds of dried flowers. She is wearing a plain black wizard robe, but she is wearing a pair of exaggerated emerald and gold-studded Earrings, a huge sapphire ring on a furrowed finger—Alex remembers her grandmother wearing it too, probably heirloom jewelry.

What's more, Caralina Everly and Alex have identical deep sockets, blue eyes and thin lips.

Caralina in the portrait saw Alex and immediately recognized her as a descendant of the Everly family.She smiled enigmatically at Alex, nodded slightly proudly, and then stopped looking at her, concentrating on speaking in German with the white-haired woman in another portrait beside her. The blue-robed wizard was discussing something.

Professor Slughorn led her into the venue and sat down on the seats with their names written on them. The cream-colored satin tablecloth was neatly piled with parchments full of topics, and she could switch to a different topic with a touch of a magic wand. In the language version, the house elf shuttles between the seats and keeps asking the guests if they want drinks and cleaning towels.

Professor Slughorn asked a house elf for a glass of champagne. Alex didn't take the wine, and she planned to listen carefully.Sitting on the other side of Alex was a young man from Germany, who was surprised to find that Alex, who was the representative of the British side, could understand German.

Alex just greeted him, and the man immediately guessed that her accent was from the Austrian region, and she voluntarily admitted that her hometown is indeed from Austria, to be more precise, Salzburg, and her surname is Everly .

"Evely? I remember that there is indeed this pure-blood family in Austria, but I haven't heard anything about it in the past few decades. So it went to England?" The man reacted for a while before saying.

Because I'm not pureblood.Alex thought quietly, smiling politely at him.

The man has already rounded up his words. "Anyway, the Everlys would be proud of you to qualify for the Potions Society at such a young age."

"Thank you." She nodded.

During her conversation with the man, Professor Slughorn had already chatted with other potions experts from different countries, talking and laughing loudly, and commenting on every topic of the evening.About half an hour later, all members were seated, and tonight's parliament officially began.The first topic was related to dragon's blood. The Potions Master who came to the stage to share was a tall German woman with curly red hair hanging down her waist and a hint of an East German accent that couldn't be concealed in German.Alex knew she was the lead author of several recent papers she had read, Hildegard Ortenberg, an expert in animal blood.After she finished talking about her research results, some other scholars immediately asked and questioned the content and conclusion of her experiment. After a warm and brief discussion, Hildegard-Ortenberg answered the questions of other scholars, Take your seat amid applause.

The second scholar who came to power was a French man, who looked a bit like Odia, Alex's former colleague in the potion laboratory, but much older than him, probably his relative, Alec Si watched helplessly as he brought a set of experimental equipment to the scene, and demonstrated his experiment to everyone on the spot: adding rat bile and giant snake scales to the pus of Babo tuber, a yellow-green color in the crucible Gasoline-smelling flames shot up immediately, igniting the burgundy red curtains that fell from the ceiling.The house elves rushed up with buckets to fight the fire, but the French scholar stopped them. The burgundy red curtain on the ceiling was not curled and blackened with the flames, but was still very straight and stained. It became the same color as the flame.

In the later time, everyone has been analyzing the practicality of flame dyeing.Alex listened very carefully, recording something in the notebook she carried from time to time.

The meeting was followed by a dinner. Everyone was seated at a long table, with wine and polished silverware in front of everyone. Alex's seat was a little far from the door, and the assistants sat with the assistants. Professor Slughorn was placed among several other potions masters, and the food was brought out continuously by the house elves.

Except for Professor Slughorn, on the other side of her sat a woman who looked about the same age as Professor McGonagall, but her temper was much weirder than that of Professor McGonagall, and she kept talking with Alex For example, why I haven’t been able to produce a textbook on potions for many years, or how to make better inventions in the field of potions in her eyes, Alex doesn’t really want to talk to her, but out of politeness, She had to nod now and then to show that she was listening.

"Anyway, I think there is nothing more important than being a teacher in a school. The class of potions must be proved through a lot of simple and repeated practice..." The woman talked about her views endlessly.

Alex asked the house elf to collect the fish nuggets and asparagus she had eaten. The drink with the table was a liqueur flavored with ginger and coconut. Dessert was tiramisu with too much rum, elf.

The fireplace on site was burning very hotly, and a house elf was standing in front of the fireplace to add wood. The poor house elf was so hot that his forehead was dripping with sweat.After enjoying the sweets, Alex found a reason to touch up her makeup and went out to take a breath. She wanted to go to the portrait of Caralina to talk to her, but when she walked to the portrait, she found the silver-haired Avery The ancestor was already asleep, covered with a blue cloak that obviously did not belong to her.The woman had left when Alex returned, presumably to find someone else she knew.Professor Slughorn stood in the group that belonged to him, and used the few words of French he knew very exaggeratedly to compliment a French woman who looked about his age, and exaggeratedly kissed the back of her hand wearing pearly white gloves .The head of Slytherin was always at home on such occasions.

When the band started to play dance music, someone asked her to dance-the German who sat next to her in the meeting, and Alex declined.

Professor Slughorn was sitting beside her at the small round table, casually drinking brandy and a cigar he had just smoked. "Don't young people go to dance? Such a beautiful night deserves to be sung with a graceful figure."

No.From her point of view, the dance that belonged to her, no matter who it was with, had long since ended.

Alex smiled, raised his glass and took a sip. "No, Professor Slughorn, I don't think I'm a good dancer, and it would only be ridiculous to play."

Professor Slughorn put a candied pineapple frosted into his mouth and raised his cut glass glass.

"For the potion."

Alex clinked glasses with him lightly.

"For the potion."

They apparated back to England after the dinner party that night, a depressed England.She thought of the peaceful and peaceful Zurich, sighed, and when she was walking home, she heard a heated conversation in the street—she guessed that Death Eaters had broken into someone's house, and after deliberating for a while, she decided to Hiding in the dark, it turned into a raven and flew directly to 367 Avenue St. Catherine.

Professor Slughorn has benefited a lot from the Potions Society. He was inspired and proposed several future research directions. However, when Alex wanted to ask him how to implement it, Slughorn The professor is missing.

In the beginning, Alex didn't take this matter to heart. Slughorn didn't come to the laboratory often, and most of the questions were handed over to the assistants. After all, he still held a teaching position at Hogwarts.But every time I write to him, the professor's reply speed is very fast.However, this time, Alex wrote three letters to him, and there was still no news from the other party.She didn't know where Professor Slughorn lived, and it was impossible to find him at Hogwarts - it was still New Year's break.

Three or four days later, she couldn't help but report the case to the Ministry of Magic. She was received by a male Auror who looked to be in his 60s, with dark circles under his eyes. He seemed to have stayed up late for a long time without a good rest. A cast specially used to treat black magic was fixed around the neck with a bandage. While receiving her, there was a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Don't have too much hope, too many people have disappeared recently." He looked impatiently at the record written by Alex, slapped the quill on the table, and waved her to go back and wait. information.

She still thanked him politely, and did not forget to tell the Auror before she left. "Please, if you have any news, please let me know as soon as possible, can you?"

"Then we have to wait for news." The Auror frowned and snorted. "Come on, the Ministry of Magic operates according to the rules. If there is any news, you will always know."

Out of caution, she no longer dared to appear on the street openly, only dared to turn into a raven and fly out of the window.Subscriptions to the "Daily Prophet" are still delivered daily by owl, full of whitewashed reports and unconvincing speeches and resolutions by the Minister of Magic, only the increasing number of missing persons and obituaries on the public pages seem to be like real.Every report that is not as big as a slap is a story window that condenses grief.Old people, young adults, children, some corpses were not breathing when they were found, and some just went out and never came back, for no reason, and there is nowhere to check.

The aimless waiting obviously couldn't make Alex feel relieved. After such a long time, she even suspected that Professor Slughorn was dead.Uneasiness and fear made her decide to write to Dumbledore, their great headmaster must have a way to find Professor Slughorn's whereabouts.

In the middle of the night, she spread out the letter paper in the potions laboratory. A white quill was stuck in the ink bottle. She reached out to pick up the quill, and a drop of black ink leaked onto the paper, which looked like a drop under the dancing candlelight. Dried black blood.

She clicked her tongue.

At this moment, the door was suddenly opened from the outside.

Alex thought it was Professor Slughorn who finally appeared, but when he looked up, his heart skipped a beat in fright.

Lucius Malfoy walked in swaggeringly, followed by Dolohov and Rookwood. They looked curiously at the potion equipment on the console, and then set their eyes on her.

"How did you get in? What do you want to come in for?" She stood up vigilantly, but she didn't have her wand at hand - she used to put it away when she was doing experiments.

Malfoy looked down at her, his eyes contemptuous as if he were looking at a dying ant. "Good evening, Miss Everly, we just want you to do something for us, just need to hold you up for a while."

Alex stood where she was and did not follow them. "I don't want to join you, Malfoy, I think I made that clear last time."

Malfoy cut her off, frowning. "We are inviting you to do something, not to join us, Everly, please listen to me before expressing your opinion." He intentionally emphasized the word "invitation".

"I think I—"

"Stop talking nonsense, you lowly half-breed!" Dolokhov said impatiently.

Malfoy turned his head to look at Dolohov, then at Alex, and smiled threateningly. "We are politely inviting you, Everly, but if you continue to decline, I can't guarantee that we will maintain our current demeanor. Not everyone has the good temper to listen to you."

Alex knew he couldn't beat them. Dolokhov was famous for his ferocity and black magic proficiency. Rookwood exposed his contemptuous side when he was a student, not to mention Alex Without a wand at hand, she could only follow them to the door of the potions laboratory.

Despair overwhelmed her like the sea.

"I just have one question," she said suddenly as she stepped out the door, her eyes fixed on Malfoy, as if she was investigating what might be wrong with such a solid line of defense, "this place is so remote, you... how did you find me?" of?"

"This question has to be thanks to our dear Headmaster," Malfoy chuckled gracefully, as if she had asked an incredibly stupid question, "about a week ago, I went to talk to him in person at his mansion. After talking, our dear dean told us the address here, and he also said that his most valued student is also a hard-working laboratory assistant after graduation, and he always has the habit of staying late in the laboratory."

Alex closed his eyes feebly.Only then did she realize that she had been betrayed by Professor Slughorn.

The author has something to say: I wrote some small plots that have nothing to do with the main story very high... such as Caralina's Twilight Love (x

The plot of Alex being betrayed was something I had thought about for a long time... Slughorn is indeed a good teacher, but he is not a good person. Alex really believed in the wrong person.He didn't join the Death Eaters or the Order of the Phoenix, and he didn't want to be an enemy of both sides, so when Lucius came to him and threatened him slightly, Professor Slughorn hinted at the way to find Alex.He must be guilty in his heart, but his idea is that self-protection is the most important thing, so he did it anyway.And what Lucius said was that he wanted Everly to go to "Malfoy Manor as a guest", not to kill her. This kind of rhetoric also relieved part of Slughorn's psychological burden.