The Ancient Wizards of Hogwarts

Late at night, Ravenclaw Tower.

Ash opened his eyes from the bed, put on his robe, and left the room, entering the common room.

Even Ravenclaw students would not review at such a late hour, so Ash's departure did not alarm anyone. Plus tomorrow is the weekend, so unless Ash doesn't show up all day tomorrow, his 'disappearance' will hardly arouse anyone's suspicion.

The reason why I say almost is because living people may not be able to detect his 'disappearance', but dead people can, and Hogwarts is full of dead people.

Snap!

Along the marble stairs going down, Ash arrived at the corridor on the third floor.

There is a hunchbacked one-eyed witch statue in the corridor. On the surface, it seems to be no different from other statues in the castle.

But in fact, there is a secret passage hidden behind the statue that leads directly to the cellar of Honeydukes candy shop in Hogsmeade. And if Ash wants to leave Hogwarts 'without anyone noticing', he also needs to go through such a secret passage.

Of course, there are far more secret passages in Hogwarts than this one, but only this secret passage leading to Hogsmeade is convenient and fast enough.

"Meow~!"

Ash was about to chant a spell to open the secret passage when he suddenly heard a cat meow.

When he came back to his senses, he saw a dark gray Norwegian forest cat squatting on the ground, staring at him with bulging eyes like light bulbs. That's Keeper Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris.

Although Mrs. Norris is just an ordinary cat, she is actually extremely humane and often patrols the corridors alone. Whenever it finds a student who violates the rules, it will quickly run to Filch.

In less than two minutes, Filch would be running over, sputtering and panting.

Therefore, when ordinary students see Mrs. Norris and happen to violate the rules, it is best to run away!

However, when Mrs. Norris discovered Ash, she did not rush to tell the truth, and Ash did not turn around and leave, but took out his wand.

As a cat who knows what magic is, Mrs. Norris certainly knows the dangers of these wands. But even so, it still didn't make any movement. It just squatted there and looked at Ash curiously, as if it wasn't worried that he would hurt itself at all.

And this is indeed the case.

Ash just took out his wand and waved it gently, and a gray brush appeared out of thin air on the top of Mrs. Norris's head, gently combing her hair.

"Meow~purr~!"

Mrs. Norris rubbed her body against the brush and snored happily.

"Come here, little one!"

Ash also smiled and waved to Mrs. Norris.

Mrs. Norris trotted over to Ash and circled around him in a fawning way.

Ash also squatted down and reached out to stroke Mrs. Norris's soft hair.

"Meow~" Mrs. Norris snored happily, and even simply lay down at his feet and turned her belly up to better receive caress.

The portraits hanging in the corridor looked very surprised when they saw this scene. This was the first time they saw a new student getting along so happily with Mrs. Loris.

Ash gently scratched Mrs. Norris's belly and whispered:

"Sorry, I still have some things to deal with. How about playing with you tomorrow? Also, remember not to tell Filch on me, okay?"

"Meow~"

Mrs. Norris stood up sensibly and rubbed her cheek on the back of Ash's hand.

"Hey Ash! Why are you here?"

At this moment, Ash suddenly heard someone shouting in a low voice.

Ash turned around in surprise, and saw a pair of twins with fiery red hair walking towards him from the other side of the corridor.

"Meow!"

Mrs. Norris suddenly became furious, arched her back as if facing a formidable enemy, and breathed at the twins.

And when it found the twins coming this way, it turned around and ran without hesitation, and disappeared around the corner in a few jumps.

One of the twins cursed:

"Damn it! It's Mrs. Norris!"

"We have to leave quickly, Filch will be chasing us soon!"

They rushed to Ash's side. Ash's expression moved slightly, he stretched out his wand and gently tapped the statue in front of him, and whispered:

"Dissendium!"

Boom!

Suddenly, the statue's hunchback opened, revealing a stone spiral slide leading deep into the depths.

At this time, from the direction where the twins came, there were flickering lights and shadows appearing at the corner at the end of the corridor.

The twins looked happy and praised:

"Well done!"

Another urged:

"No time to explain, Ash, come on in!"

Ash didn't waste any time and took the lead in sliding down the slide into the depths of the secret passage.

The twins were obviously very skilled at this. They got in very skillfully one after the other, and in the end they even didn't forget to close the secret passage.

Snapped!

Filch passed the corner, looked at the empty corridor in front of him, and frowned deeply.

"Meow!"

Mrs. Norris came out of nowhere and squatted elegantly next to Filch.

Filch's sharp eyes softened and he asked in a gentle voice:

"Hey, honey, have you seen the students who broke the rules? Tell me where they are?"

"Meow~"

Mrs. Norris called out, but did not give any response. She just squatted there, lowering her head and licking her fur.

"Ah sneeze!"

Filch frowned, sneezed suddenly, and rubbed his somewhat red nose.

——

In the secret passage, Fred praised:

"Cool! Ash, how did you find this place?"

"Discovered from ancestral relics."

Ash replied and asked in confusion: "How did you find out?"

"Same for us."

George said with joy:

"We looked through the diary of our great-great-grandfather Gareth Weasley, in which he recorded the secret passage behind the hunchbacked one-eyed witch."

Fred proudly added:

"We discovered this secret passage when we were in second grade!"

George suddenly said:

"But Ash is only in first grade this year."

"..."

The two fell silent immediately, their expressions extremely complicated.

It seems that being surpassed in this aspect is very difficult for them to accept.

"Where are you going?"

The three of them moved deeper along the passage, during which Ash asked with some doubts.

George and Fred looked at each other and said in unison:

"Hogsmeade! We're going to the Three Broomsticks!"

Ash asked a little funny:

"But I remember you are in third grade now. You can wait until tomorrow and go out openly, right?"

Fred said without hesitation:

"That would be so boring!"

George solemnly warned:

"Ash, remember this. If the way to leave Hogwarts is not to sneak out, there's no point!"

Fred asked curiously:

"Why did you go out?"

Ash said half-truthfully:

"Go buy some gifts. I'm going to give some gifts to Harley and the others."

"cool!"

George and Fred looked at each other and sighed in admiration.

George teased:

"If Percy had your mobility, he wouldn't be single forever. Did you know? Percy has been secretly in love with your Ravenclaw girl, Fred, what's her name?"

"Penelo Crevat, fifth-year prefect."

The two brothers winked, sang along, and betrayed their brother without mercy.

"How did you know?" Ash looked a little weird.

George teased:

"He himself mentioned in his diary: 'She rejected me because I am not a prefect, so when I become a prefect of Gryffindor, I must confess to her again'."

Ash shrugged and said:

"Then he'll just be rejected one more time."

"We think so too." George and Fred said with a smile.