Chapter 417 Summer vacation is over

Chapter 417 Summer vacation is over
On July 7th, there are only 26 days left until the end of July, which will also mean that half of the summer vacation has passed.

In the past 25 days, after settling his family and friends, Sherin first went to the old house of Gaunt. Although the mission failed, he also realized new magical mysteries. Then, after visiting Andromeda, he successfully persuaded her to return to the family and successfully conquered Nymphadora as a new servant.

Then he invested in acquiring one-third of the shares of the Tutshill Tornado Team, and formally met with the head of the Carrow family to sign a closer alliance. On the same day, he also won over the Runcorn family and helped Mr. Runcorn take control of a brand new force of the Ministry of Magic.

Then he went to the Ministry of Magic to apply for the international use rights of the wand, and took the opportunity to control Percy Weasley with the Imperius Curse.

Finally, there is the meeting with Grindelwald, where he obtains valuable information about the Cult of Death and gets a promise to fight against the Cult together.

From this perspective, it can be said that Xie Ling gained a lot and had a very fulfilling first half of his summer vacation.

Let's turn the focus to other people and see how their summer vacation is going!

Harry has been trapped at 4 Privet Drive since the summer vacation, living a life out of touch with the wizarding world every day. His only entertainment is hiding at the window sill outside the living room, secretly listening to the news broadcast on TV every day, trying to find any clues of Voldemort's resurrection. However, the facts are not as people wish, most of the news is meaningless news such as workers' strikes, regional droughts, or budgies water skiing.

This made Harry feel extremely distressed. As the first person to personally witness Voldemort's resurrection, he believed that he should be rewarded instead of being abandoned alone in this life isolated from the wizarding world.

Ron and Hermione lived better than Harry. They lived at 12 Grimmauld Place. At least they could get together with other members of the Order of the Phoenix and know the changes in the situation outside. But other than that, their life was not much different from Harry's. They were immersed in the boring and depressing cleaning work every day.

The Blake ancestral home had not been cleaned for more than ten years. Thick dust had accumulated in all the corners and many pests had bred there. This made them feel powerless, as if no matter how hard they tried, they could not clean the entire house.

The three of them didn't realize that almost half of the summer vacation had already passed, and they still hadn't accomplished anything and were wasting their time.

Draco followed Shalling's advice and signed up for professional Quidditch training hosted by Puddlemere United shortly after the start of the summer vacation. For safety reasons, he used a pseudonym when signing up and drank the Polyjuice Potion beforehand, pretending to be a Muggle to attend the training.

Pansy also participated in similar training, but she participated in the Holyhead Harpy team's training camp. Draco, the captain of Slytherin Quidditch, had already selected her as the new Chaser. In order to cater to and achieve Draco's goal, Pansy also devoted herself to the training and was very hardworking. Even the captain Gwenog thought she had made a lot of progress.

With the return of two outstanding players, Adrian Puse and Terence Higgs, who were kicked out of the team by the previous captain, and the leadership of three old players, Graham Montague, Cassius Warrington and Draco, the new team only needed to find two new members - Pansy was one of them, and the other one that Draco liked was Frank Urquhart, who was a year younger than him. He had extremely strong arm strength and was very suitable to be a batsman.

Of course, what Draco didn't know was that Frank Urquhart was the next captain in the original book, which shows how good he is.

Daphne, Astoria, Murray, and Luna all lived in Greengrass Manor. Since the manor employed several experienced retired Aurors as guards, the four of them often asked them for advice and skills in actual combat.

The four of them had no shortage of powerful magical secrets in the study plan that Xie Lin had arranged for them. Rather than mastering new magic, they needed to fill the gap caused by their lack of practical experience. Therefore, they had made obvious progress since the summer vacation.

Xie Ling didn't know all this. He only knew that he had been working non-stop to become stronger, and that was enough.

……

An abandoned old port in Aalborg, northern Denmark.

At dusk, there were not many people at the pier. Several Muggles seemed to have remembered something important and left in a hurry. However, some people stayed.

"It seems that Durmstrang's ship has a built-in Muggle Repelling Charm. These people should be Durmstrang's students."

Schelling looked at the remaining people. Most of them were in their teens, staring at the sea in boredom. Although Schelling was an international celebrity, he dressed very low-key. The hood on his cloak covered his platinum blond hair, forehead and eyes, leaving only the part below his nose exposed, so no one recognized him.

At this moment, somewhere in the Black Sea, the surface of the sea was boiling, as if something big was about to rise from under the sea. The sea was surging, and even from a distance, the waves quickly advanced to the seaside and violently beat on the beach.

Immediately afterwards, a huge whirlpool suddenly appeared on the sea, and several long, pitch-black masts suddenly protruded from it, followed by sails and rigging... Finally, the front half of the ship suddenly jumped out of the sea with a majestic momentum, and then fell heavily on the sea, stirring up a large and even higher wave.

The wet side of the boat seemed to gleam in the moonlight.

This is none other than Durmstrang's ghost ship.

The ship began to move toward the coast, bobbing on the choppy water. A moment later, Schelling heard a loud splash as several anchors were thrown into the sea, and then another snap as a long plank of wood was placed on the shore.

The people on the dock stepped onto the planks with excitement on their faces. Sherin tightened his cloak and followed the others onto the ghost ship.

Muggle schools in Northern Europe usually start in mid-August, half a month earlier than Hogwarts. However, because Durmstrang's school spirit places great emphasis on competition, many students choose to return to school early to study on their own or take extra classes in order to stand out in the undercurrent of competition. In other words, regardless of the students' talents, this is a school where everyone is Hermione-style!

There were several people standing on the deck who seemed to be guiding the students. They were all wearing thick fur cloaks, their faces could not be seen clearly, and they were wearing fur gloves. As soon as Schelling stepped onto the deck, a man walked towards them.

When he got closer, Xie Ling could see his face clearly with the help of the weak light. He was a young man with a feminine face, and his cold temperament was very consistent with the ice and snow in Northern Europe. He had some dark brown shoulder-length curly hair and thick brown eyebrows.

"Hello, sir. I'm Kritov, one of the 7th grade prefects and the person in charge of welcoming the new students today." He then frowned and said, "You are not on the list or photo in my hand. Do you have any identification?"

Kritov's magic power was not bad, maybe not as good as Eleanor's after she unlocked the wand seal and unleashed her full power, but not much worse than Krum's. Schelling understood his cautious attitude. After all, the location of Durmstrang was one of the biggest mysteries in the global wizarding world. Every year, countless fools would find information about the ghost ship's landing and try to conceal their identities and take the ghost ship to Durmstrang.

"Hello, uh, this is not a good place to talk. I have something to show you." Xie Ling said sincerely.

Kritov looked at Schelling suspiciously for a few times, then winked at his two followers, then held the wand in his hand and said to Schelling, "Then let's go to the room. There's no one else there, but you have to walk in front of me, and keep your hands where I can see them."

Damn, this is basically treating Xie Ling as a suspect.

Xie Ling did not get angry. He chuckled, nodded in agreement, and then entered a room in the direction he pointed.

Who knew that as soon as Xie Ling stepped into the room, a sharp wind sounded behind him - this guy was attacking by surprise!

Unfortunately, the person he met was Xie Ling. In front of Xie Ling who possessed the divine power of Amaterasu, the success rate of sneak attacks from any direction was infinitely close to zero!

Xie Ling did not take out the wand at all. He slightly turned sideways, gently stretched out his hand and waved it backwards. The red light shot from behind by the other party seemed to be decomposed into threads and turned into nothingness in an instant.

Kritov was stunned for a moment, then he shouted as if he had just woken up: "There's an intruder here, everyone come and help!"

At this time, Xie Ling took off his hood and said with a slight dissatisfaction in his tone: "I am a distinguished guest invited by Karkaroff. Is Durmstrang's reception so unreasonable? They attacked me before I even confirmed my identity?"

"Everyone who has sneaked into the ghost ship says so - in the past few years, we have captured several relatives of the principal, from cousins ​​to grandfather. You have no evidence, so why should we believe you?" A fat follower behind Kritov shouted.

For some reason, even though the two men's faces had no similarities, Schelling couldn't help but see the shadows of Goyle and Crabbe in this follower.

Schelling suppressed his smile and took out the Durmstrang school badge that Karkaroff had given him. "Here, you want evidence. This is the ID that Karkaroff gave me. I was just about to show it to you in private, but I didn't expect you to take the initiative."

Kritov and his followers looked at each other in bewilderment. They didn't know what to do in this situation.

They naturally knew of the existence of this iron plate with the Durmstrang school emblem, and knew that people with this certificate could enter and leave Durmstrang freely, but they did not know how to authenticate its authenticity, and they had never heard that Karkaroff had given this iron plate to anyone.

"A bunch of useless people," a pleasant female voice was carried into the room by the wind, "I just went to the communication station to receive the latest instructions from the principal. It only took five minutes, and you guys messed up the reception of the new students. It seems that your position as prefect is really unworthy. I think I should propose a new round of prefect selection competition to the principal later."

"No! Don't do that!" Kritov let out a heart-wrenching scream. "I spent countless efforts and five years to climb to this position. I can't lose it! Please, beautiful Miss Savannah, a beautiful angel like you will not be so cruel, right?"

Xie Ling instantly understood the whole story from the whispers of others.

Unlike Hogwarts, where the prefects are appointed by the headmaster alone, a decision that no one else can object to, Durmstrang uses a cruel selection system.

Every student can earn points through test scores, extracurricular activities, Quidditch matches, and completing tasks from professors or the school. Those with the highest points can obtain the resources provided by the school - such as class leaders, Quidditch competition seats, and even restricted book area certificates, and obtain the qualification to participate in academic clubs privately founded by professors.

Of course, the most famous way to earn points is dueling.

Durmstrang's school is full of dueling. On the most conspicuous wall of the castle lobby, there is a curtain showing the battle power list, which publishes and updates the duelists' rankings calculated based on their win-loss ratio in real time. Therefore, Durmstrang's dueling club is also the largest and most popular club in the entire school.

The half-open door was suddenly pushed open, and a cool breath came with the sound of high heels.

Sherin subconsciously turned his head and his eyes fell on the person who came. What came into his sight was a tall woman in a white robe. From the looks of it, she seemed not much older than Sherin, and was probably about the same age as Nymphadora Tonks. The moonlight outside the door poured on her, as if covering her with a layer of mysterious veil.

She was tall and graceful, with a well-cut white robe that outlined her smooth lines. Her silver hair and snow-white skin glowed in the moonlight, contrasting with her blue eyes as clear as an icy lake.

"That's enough." Her cold voice was low and clear, with a chill that no one dared to cross, and an irresistible majesty. The room fell silent in an instant, "Who can tell me what happened?"