Chapter 262 The Marauder’s Map

"Are you going to the dance, Ron?"

In the Gryffindor common room, Harry leaned listlessly on the sofa and asked his friends next to him.

"I'll forget it. It's not like you don't know that my dress..." Ron said in the same listless tone.

There were too many children at Weiss's house and there was not enough money, so Mrs. Weiss could only buy Ron a second-hand old dress, embroidered with purple lace, and the cuffs were open like flowers. I couldn’t tell for a moment whether it was a men’s or women’s model…

"Actually, it might still be useful if you tidy it up a bit," Harry patted Ron's shoulder sympathetically, and then sighed, "Professor McGonagall forced me to attend the dance, and you must accompany me then. Let’s go together!”

Ron also sighed sadly.

It can be seen that he actually really wants to go, but his dress is too unsightly, so he really can't accept the risk of making a fool of himself by going to this Christmas ball.

"Hermione, are you going to the dance?" Harry turned to look at Hermione who was lying on the coffee table reading a book. "You should stay at school during the Christmas vacation, right?"

"Well, you have become a Hogwarts warrior, and I will definitely stay and help you."

Hermione nodded slightly, looked away from the book in front of her, looked at Harry seriously and said, "Harry, I think instead of worrying about the ball, you should think more about the next project. It might It’s more dangerous than facing a fire dragon!”

"Don't worry yet, Hermione." Ron said nonchalantly, "There are still more than two months until the next project starts, which is enough time. But there are only a few days until the Yule Ball!"

"Yes, Hermione, I would rather go back and face the dragon than dance at the Christmas party." Harry agreed.

As always, Harry had little motivation without pressure, and all his pressure now was on dancing in public at the Yule Ball.

Just then, a Gryffindor girl whom he had never seen before came over from nowhere and asked Harry if he could be her dance partner.

Harry was shocked to find that this girl was actually in fifth grade, and judging from the way she acted, if Harry dared to refuse, he might be punched and knocked unconscious by her.

"Um...I made an appointment with Hermione and Ron today to go to the library to prepare for the next project." Harry quickly used Hermione's persuasion as a reason and brought the topic to the past. "Let me think about it again. May I?"

After saying that, he immediately pulled Ron and Hermione out of the common room as if they were running away.

When they ran to the corridor outside, Ron laughed for a long time. After laughing enough, he said fairly:

"Actually, she's quite pretty."

"She's a foot taller than me!" Harry, still a little shocked, gasped, "Imagine, I dance with a girl who is a bit taller than me, and she might wear high heels, then I Aren’t you going to make a fool of yourself?”

"Is this the reason why you used preparing for the next project as an excuse to run away?" At this time, Hermione pursed her lips and said quite sternly.

"I just... can't find any other excuse." Harry muttered.

"Anyway, I've already said this reason. In order to prevent you from becoming a liar, let's go to the library to research the next project now!"

With that said, Hermione pulled the reluctant Harry and Ron towards the library without any explanation.

…

"I'm sure there's no book in here that mentions a screaming golden egg," Ron complained, yawning as he walked back to the common room.

Harry, Hermione and Ron didn't find any useful information after checking the information until midnight, until Mrs. Pince kicked them out of the library.

"This is a specially made competition prop, Ron," Hermione said. "There will definitely not be the same relevant information as the golden egg in the library, but at least we can find something similar..."

"But we don't even know what this is." Harry said with some disappointment.

"Maybe you can ask Professor Dracula?" Ron said thoughtfully, "He seems to be very knowledgeable about all kinds of messy things."

"But the rules of the game say that warriors cannot seek help from professors!" Hermione retorted.

"What's the point? I don't think the principals of other schools follow this rule very much..." Ron muttered.

At this moment, a man wearing a moldy suit, with a pale face, sunken cheeks, and bulging eyes stopped in front of the three of them.

"Curfew is coming soon, you guys better walk faster, don't let me catch you violating school rules!" He held a dim oil lamp, and the flesh on his double chin trembled viciously.

"I know." Harry and the other three agreed perfunctorily, but their steps showed no intention of speeding up.

There were still a few minutes left before curfew, plenty of time for them to return to the common room without haste.

"Wait a minute." Filch suddenly called them from behind.

Harry and the others turned around and looked at the ferocious gatekeeper with frowns.

"It's not curfew time yet, is it, Mr. Filch?" Hermione asked confidently, putting on her good student attitude.

"It's true that it's not time yet, but that doesn't mean you haven't violated school rules at all." Filch said with a sinister expression, "I know you, you and the twins are in the same group."

"The two of them have been thinking about some messy props recently, and I suspect you guys also had a hand in it!"

"We didn't!" Hermione said angrily.

After being a good student for so long, today was the first time she was classified into the ranks of troublemakers like Fred and George who specialized in going against school rules.

This made Miss Xueba very angry.

"You said there must be none?" Filch grinned and said, "Those two little bastards don't know where they put those nasty and nasty prank props they made. Maybe they are hidden among you." On your body!"

"You're talking nonsense!" Ron stepped forward and retorted loudly, "This is a naked slander!"

He couldn't help but not be anxious, because he and Harry did carry some prank gadgets made by Fred and George, and if Filch really found out, he would definitely not let them go easily.

"Leave him alone, Ron," Harry whispered to Ron, taking his arm from behind.

"It's not long until curfew, and Filch must be trying to delay us from getting back to the common room in time...so he can snatch us away to help him clean up."

Hermione also reacted, turned around and glared at Filch, then ignored him and dragged Harry and Ron towards the Gryffindor common room...

"nonsense."

They made it back to the common room at the last minute before curfew, and Harry spoke the password to the Fat Lady's portrait.

After saying goodbye to Hermione in front of the stairs leading to the upper level of the common room, Harry and Ron walked into the boys' dormitory area together.

However, as soon as they entered this space, they found Fred and George lying next to the fireplace inside, studying something furtively by the light of the fire.

"What bad things are you two doing?" Ron asked angrily because he was implicated by these two guys just now.

"Shh-"

Fred put his finger in front of his mouth in a silencing gesture.

Then, he carefully looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping, and then took out a book from George's back.

"Books?" Ron looked at Fred and George in surprise and asked, "You two are so sneaky that you are studying here? Don't you have a fever?"

After being the elder brother for more than ten years, he never thought that these two troublemakers would like reading, let alone secretly read by the firelight of the fireplace after lights out.

Could it be said that there is something unseen in this book?

Ron showed a look of realization.

"Oh -" he protracted his tone, raised his eyebrows, and showed a knowing smile on his face, "I never expected that you two would actually be here to peek at such a boring novel!"

"What are you thinking about, little Luo Luo?" George glanced at Ron with a look of disgust on his face, "I really don't know what you learned at Hogwarts, but you didn't learn well all day long."

"No, why does it feel so strange to say such words from your mouth..." Ron's face wrinkled, "And what on earth is this book? Why should it be so mysteriously shrunken?" Do you want to watch it here?"

"You don't understand, this book has a lot of history!" Fred glanced around again, then whispered next to Ron and Harry, "This book was secretly obtained from Filch's office. of!"

"What?" Harry's eyes widened in shock, "You sneaked into Filch's office?"

Filch had been clamoring to catch these two troublemakers just now, but he didn't expect that they had already gone to Filch's office to steal the house!

"Yeah, let me tell you, Filch's office is a treasure trove!" Fred said excitedly, "You can find some very useful things there from time to time. I don't know where he confiscated them from. of."

"A few school years ago, we found a particularly magical piece of parchment from his file cabinet drawer. It was filled with various secret passages in Hogwarts, and you could also see the whereabouts of others! "George added, "It's because of that piece of parchment that we were able to fool Filch around repeatedly."

As he spoke, George proudly pulled out a square, tattered piece of parchment from his cloak, with nothing written on it.

Ron thought this was another joke played by the twins and stared at them with bulging eyes.

"Don't worry, little Luoluo, we haven't finished talking yet." Fred gave him a dissatisfied look, "We took a huge risk and threw several bullets into the corridor outside Filch's office. Dung bombs, that's what I took out of Filch's drawer."

"That drawer has the words 'Confiscated supplies, highly dangerous' written on it, but they are all good things for us..."

"Since then, the two of us have looked for opportunities to visit Filch's office every school year. Look, don't we find something quite useful again?"

Fred patted the book beside the fireplace.

"You're not making up so many things to deceive us, are you?" Ron asked suspiciously, looking at the tattered parchment.

"Oh, do we need to lie to you?" George stood up with a smile.

He took out his wand, tapped the parchment lightly, and said:

"I solemnly swear that I will do no evil."

After hearing his serious "oath", the expression on Harry's face almost became tense, and Ron even burst into laughter.

Ron was about to laugh at George's stupid behavior, but the next moment, the tattered parchment suddenly changed -

Thin lines of ink, like spider webs, began to appear where the wand touched. These lines merged with each other, crossed each other, and extended to every corner of the parchment.

Then, writing began to appear on the top of the parchment, large curved green characters that read:

Introducing Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, purveyors of magical mischief makers.

This map details all the details of Hogwarts Castle and various venues. This is not the most exaggerated. What is really worth noting are the small ink dots moving along the map. Each ink dot All marked with a name in tiny letters.

Harry and Ron opened their mouths in surprise and eagerly leaned over to take a closer look.

A small ink dot in the upper left corner shows that Dumbledore is pacing in the study of the principal's office; Professor McGonagall is motionless in his office; there are several Gryffindor juniors sneaking out for a night out in the teaching area. Little wizard...

"Hey, did Filch run so fast? He actually returned to his own office right now?" Ron noticed that at the bottom of the map, the name of the castle gatekeeper remained motionless in the gatekeeper's office. .

"Maybe he suddenly felt sleepy?" Fred shrugged, "Looking at Filch's frail state and staying up all night without sleeping, I feel it's not surprising that he suddenly died there."

"Wait a minute, look here." Harry suddenly pointed his finger at a location on the Marauder's Map, "Barty Crouch... do you remember him? I don't remember that he came to Hogwarts as a guest today. ah?"

"Maybe he just came here?" George guessed. "Sneakly come to Hogwarts at night to discuss issues during the game with Principal Dumbledore to prevent the warriors from hearing?"

"Maybe." Harry shrugged, no longer paying attention to the name of the Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and Exchange.

What they didn't notice was that after walking around the castle a few times, "Barty Crouch" didn't go to the principal's office as they thought.

He went straight to Filch's janitor's office...

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