war and peace

Harry and Hermione managed to escape before a Death Eater siege formed.The place where they landed was a low-lying wetland, and both of them were panting desperately when they landed.

"Harry, you're so reckless!" Hermione said as she looked around, as if worried about where Death Eaters would follow.She had just heard Harry telling her to pack the tent just now, and the next moment he was doing it. "What if we didn't run away? That place is full of Death Eaters!"

Harry rubbed his forehead.Once they were far away, the pain eased a lot.Hearing Hermione's words, he wanted to say that they are not doing well now, but suddenly found a problem. "Isn't Malfoy Manor unapparatable? Why did we succeed?"

"This..." Hermione froze for a moment.She was completely reflexive just now, and of course it was the best strategy in that situation, apparition was the first method that came to her mind.But in fact, it is impossible to leave the place where the anti-apparition spell was cast as smoothly as they just did. "Maybe it's not internal?" Hermione said uncertainly.Then she noticed the sweat on Harry's head and face, and she tensed up again: "What's wrong with you? You were screaming when you Apparated! I thought..."

"I'm fine." Harry waved tiredly, then wiped the cold sweat off his face. "I just connected to Voldemort's mind again. Nagini is dead and he's furious. I see him thinking of a few places where Horcruxes are hidden - the only one we haven't been to is Hogwarts. The crown is in There, Hermione."

Hermione looked paler than he did. "Are you really all right, Harry?"

"I can take it," Harry said simply, trying to hide his weakness after the excruciating pain. "We've got to go to Hogwarts right away... I think Voldemort will be checking out where he hides his Horcruxes soon. If he finds them all gone, we can't beat him if we don't hurry up." Eliminate all Horcruxes in front."

Hermione still looked concerned.She wanted to say something, but looked at Harry's forehead which was drenched with cold sweat, and swallowed it back.

Hogwarts was now run by Snape and two other Death Eaters.Through normal channels, Harry and Hermione would definitely not be able to get in.They could only take advantage of the darkness and transfer to Hogsmeade first.It turned out that the Death Eaters had imposed a curfew on the village, and as soon as the two of them Apparated under the Invisibility Cloak, sirens shrieked in the air.There were also dementors in the village, and Harry sent out a Patronus to ward off them, and almost got caught.Fortunately, Aberforth, the owner of the Hog's Head, saved them from the Death Eaters, and he lied that the stag Patronus that the Death Eaters saw was his goat.

Aberforth was very disapproving of Harry's insistence on fulfilling Dumbledore's last wish.In his opinion, his brother is indeed very smart, but he can't really be said to be a good person who cares about others (his adjective is selfish).This has undoubtedly been reflected in the only sister of the Dumbledore brothers, Ariana.Back then, Grindelwald disliked Dumbledore's younger siblings for blocking their way to world domination, so he used Cruciatus on Aberforth first.Shocked, Dumbledore tried to stop him; but in the melee, it was unknown whose spell hit Ariana.she died.

Harry and Hermione had heard Roald tell about it, but it was not as contagious as what the person himself told.Hermione was teary again, but Harry was determined to finish what Dumbledore had given him.So he told Aberforth what happened in that cave.The headmaster never forgot the tragic death of his sister, so he never accepted the appointment of the Minister of Magic, and was alone all his life. Until the last moment of his life, he still shouted "don't hurt them".He has done wrong things, but he has paid a heavy price for it.Also, the headmaster didn't tell him everything, but his ultimate goal was to destroy Voldemort.Now, Harry didn't know that he was the boy who was doomed, otherwise he would have understood Dumbledore's arrangement better.

Aberforth had never known this, and he fell silent.Finally he relented and let them pass the portrait of the girl in the Hog's Head into the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts.There were many Gryffindors there, as well as Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.Because under the control of Death Eaters, Muggle wizards have long been expelled from Hogwarts (such as Dean Thomas, whom Harry met in the wild earlier), and mixed-races are often subjected to brutal physical punishment.The situation of pure-blood wizards is better, but those who bravely resisted the Death Eaters like Neville also have bloodstains on their bodies.

The appearance of Harry and Hermione was unanimously welcomed by everyone.As the most wanted criminal, Harry had successfully disappeared in the latest news of the "Daily Prophet" since July last year. Hiding well and not being caught by the Death Eaters was tantamount to a success.Hearing that he had completed most of the secret mission left by Dumbledore, everyone was even more excited.Harry saw Cho-Chang in the crowd, and Ginny (with a flushed Ron standing next to her), but had no desire to strike up a conversation.What happened recently was piled up in a mess in his mind, and he slipped out wearing an invisibility cloak on the pretext of going out to check the situation.

The corridors of Hogwarts were quiet.It was late at night when they came in, and only Professor Night Watch and Peeves were active.Harry walked around floor to floor, and finally stopped at the edge of a blocked corridor on the second floor.

Like many of the old corridors at Hogwarts, the entire feldspar trough was covered in dust, and a few wooden strips had been roughly nailed to the windows at the end of the corridor.Harry walked in and looked around.With a little light coming in through the cracks, he noticed a door on the wall with almost peeling paint, so gray that it was almost indistinguishable from stone. He guessed it was an abandoned broom cabinet.Other than that, there is nothing else worth noting.

Harry said a cleaning spell silently, and sat down against the cupboard door, still wearing his invisibility cloak.He returned to Hogwarts, but after the initial excitement, he returned to the mood he had just escaped from Malfoy Manor: excited, anxious, suspicious, and overwhelmed.Excited that he had destroyed another Horcrux, anxious that he was seen by Voldemort, and wondering how they could Apparate out of it.The combination of these emotions made his mind a mess.

It's kind of weird looking back on how they got rid of the Horcruxes.At the beginning, the three of them ran around with the locket, and there was no progress for two or three months; then the injured Roald appeared, and in the next two months, they ate and drank, and went well The Gryffindor sword, the Hufflepuff gold cup, during which he also saw a stag Patronus exactly like himself; two days before the New Year, Roald left, leaving them a A map of Malfoy Manor, and the Death Eaters walking outside happened to be saying that Voldemort often held meetings at Malfoy Manor...

Harry was startled.Just right?The map that Roald left them with Malfoy Manor before he left was obviously designed long ago, so what if the two passing Death Eaters were also designed?He lured them to Malfoy Manor on purpose?It was finally confirmed that Voldemort was there, but how on earth did Roald know?Through his pure-blood wizard relatives?Then he left secretly, just to avoid being found out that he was helping them?

Pushing forward with this conclusion—Bellatrix was also designed?No, this one really doesn't look like it.The news of her going to the vault presumably also came from his pureblood relatives?possible.Harry's mind raced.

And the time when the sword appeared was very strange. It seemed that someone knew they were going there, so they put it in the ruins one step ahead of time, and then used the patron saint to lure him to find it.If it had been Roald, the timing would have been exactly right; they had been in the graveyard for a while, and he had only to visit the ruins before going to the Basshots.

Harry felt more and more that he was right.That is to say, Roald's Patronus is a stag—Harry recalled that he had never seen Roald use the Patronus Charm; when he occasionally encountered a few wandering dementors, it was either he or Hercules. Quick hands.Going forward, was Roald's injury a cunning trick to intentionally get close to them?Also a possibility.

So, there are only three unexplained questions left in the end, Harry summed it up in his mind.

One, how they Apparated from Malfoy Manor.Harry never felt that, as the temporary headquarters of the Death Eaters, there would be such a big hole in the defense.Hermione's explanation may be correct, but that doesn't explain why Voldemort didn't take any countermeasures - he clearly saw the direction the curse was coming from!One thing is okay, but when the two things add up, he really has to doubt it.

Second, who exactly is Bellatrix saluting before leaving.Roald can design these, that is to say, it is impossible to make mistakes in this joint.

Third, who exactly is Roald.This person seemed to appear out of thin air, and he was obviously helping him destroy the Horcrux, and the efficiency was even much higher than that of Dumbledore!What Dumbledore took decades to do, he did it in two months.But Dumbledore never mentioned the existence of such a person, especially this person is still very young... and that inexplicable sense of familiarity and patron saint...

Harry stood up abruptly and strode back.When he got back into the Requirement Room, he found Hermione's eyes were red, obviously crying again; and Ron hugged her and apologized hastily.Harry knew at a glance that they had almost made peace, and he was not in the mood to hear what was going on with Ron, so he couldn't wait to pull the two of them aside and talked about the speculation he had just made.Ron, who had never met Roald, was completely bewildered; Hermione agreed with him on most points, with two exceptions.

"I don't think Mal's injury was a fake," Hermione was sure, "It must be true. Such a guess is to doubt his sincerity. I'm sorry that I can't agree."

Ron was a little bit taken aback.He wanted to say something, but Hermione gave him a look and he shut up immediately. "This is the second point I want to say. Harry," the brunette girl said with a serious expression, "when will you be able to use the Killing Curse without hindrance? This is the same as I guessed about Roald. Thinking this would never happen to you."

Harry froze for a moment.What Hermione said could basically be boiled down to one point, but he hadn't thought of it at all. "I don't know," he said hesitantly, "I'm suddenly excited... the cold, the danger ahead, it's all unbearable... and then a voice seems to urge me that I should use a killing curse ...then it can be over directly..."

"Sounds like you're being controlled by someone else, buddy." Ron was so in awe of Harry's successful execution of a Killing Curse that he couldn't even speak with a certain degree of uncertainty.

Hermione bit her lip and looked at him. "Sounds like the Imperius Curse," she said, "but the truth is we've met only a handful of people, except for Ron and Mal, and none of them are possible. Before you move on, I hope you're doing well." Think about it, Harry," she concluded, with disappointment in her tone and expression. "I've been wanting to say this since I came out of Malfoy Manor. Using the Unforgivable Curse so easily always makes me think, what's the difference between us and Death Eaters?"

Harry was silent, he didn't know how to explain his behavior.Looking at his expression, Ron looked very worried.

At the same time, the principal's office.

"Hogsmeade's curfew has been violated tonight. Someone broke in." Snape said impatiently as soon as he pushed open the door.

The portraits on the wall suddenly became lively.Dumbledore's voice was especially clear inside: "Is that Harry and Hermione?"

"If nothing else, yes. Aberforth won't tell me the truth, but it's almost certainly them." Snape took off his cloak.He was one of the Death Eaters summoned during the curfew violation just now, so he knew the situation better.

"That means they are all fine." Dumbledore heaved a sigh of relief, but his brows were still furrowed. "Ron's early return has exceeded my expectations. I hope they won't have any major problems."

Snape said in a tone of disbelief: "Are you kidding, Dumbledore? Clearly things have long since gone off the rails they were supposed to be...you're expecting that it will turn out exactly as you expected happened?"

These words were a bit heavy, and the portraits were silent.Dumbledore looked at the dark-haired man in front of him.He has been undercover for the Order of the Phoenix since he was young, and it has been more than ten years now.The young man's cheeks became thinner, and his complexion became more and more sallow.What he said to the youth before was to protect Lily's son, but in fact it was the other way around. "I'm sorry, Severus." Maybe he was really too old to grasp the situation.And if I really want to say I'm sorry, besides the person in front of me, there is another one, that is Harry.

Snape pursed his lips, but said nothing.He really wanted to say, what's the use of being sorry, the situation has become what it is now.Yet he could not speak.He knew Dumbledore's purpose, and also knew that the old man had planned his own death in order to achieve this purpose.Even if Dumbledore had planned Potter's death, and perhaps his Snape's, what else could he have said to someone who was already in the portrait?From the moment he knew that Lily died because of the prophecy he overheard, his soul was already dirty and broken.