Chapter 96 Knockturn Alley

"How do you know the reason why Professor Dracula published the book?" Ron looked at Fred and George and asked suspiciously.

In the living room, Mr. and Mrs. Wesley, Percy and Harry also looked over with curiosity on their faces.

Fred and George nodded with satisfaction and began to tell what they knew.

"You know Cedric Diggory, right?" Fred said, "He's in the third grade... No, he's in the fourth grade now. Anyway, he was the one who took first place in the final exam of our grade!"

"Then why don't you two hurry up and learn from Cedric?" Mrs. Weasley put the piles of bowls aside, put her hands on her hips, and looked at the two naughty boys with apathy.

"Mom, that's not the point!" George protested dissatisfied, "The two of us are talking about things!"

"Okay, I'd like to see what tricks you can come up with." Mrs. Weasley nodded and became quiet.

Then, she picked up the bowl and threw it into the kitchen, letting the sponge floating in the air rub the bowl to create sparkling foam.

"Harry should know about this, right?" Fred continued, "Cedric got a pendant made by Professor Dracula. I remember you also got one at that time."

'Not only did he remember it, he even made the twin brothers lose ten galleons! ’ Harry nodded uncomfortably.

He had a diary and Tom tutored him in his favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and his grades naturally improved quickly.

"Yes, everyone knows that Cedric is number one. But few people know that he almost became number two!" Fred didn't know what Harry was thinking, and continued to talk about the living room. Everyone inside said.

"How could it be? Isn't Cedric's score far ahead of the second place?" At this time, Mr. Weissley spoke, "Amos Diggory has been showing off his performance in front of me all day long. Son, my ears are about to get calluses. Isn’t Cedric as good as he says he is?”

"Dad, as much as I hate to admit it, Cedric is just that good." George shrugged, "His usual results can indeed keep him far away from the second place."

"Oh? Then why did you make a mistake this time? Did you make a mistake?" Mr. Weiss folded the newspaper, put it on the table that had just been cleared, and looked at Fred and George intently.

"No, no, no, Cedric didn't make a mistake." George said mysteriously, "It's just that he went to Professor Dracula's office before the exam..."

"Get to the point, George!"

Percy couldn't stand the twins' constant show-off, and he yelled at the two of them.

"Percy really has no sense of humor." Fred curled his lips, "Let's get to the point, George. They may be impatient to wait."

"The important point is later!" George glanced at Percy sideways and said dissatisfiedly, "Before the final exam, Cedric went to Professor Dracula's office and asked a question. The general meaning was—— "

"When answering the questions in the test paper, should I write according to the content in the textbook "Dark Magic: A Guide to Self-Defense", or according to what Professor Dracula taught in class."

"What George said is right, but do you know how Professor Dracula answered?" Fred smirked and imitated Dracula's tone and said, "Professor Dracula told him on the spot: 'I said The content that has been passed is correct. Any conflict with the textbook means there is a problem in the textbook!'"

"That's not right..." Percy said in surprise, "I filled in the answers on the test paper all from the textbook, but there was no deduction of points!"

"This is the crux of the matter!" George said to Percy, "The final exam papers were not written by Professor Dracula at all, nor were they marked by him. He even forgot to tell Dumbledore, who was marking the papers, Professor, please explain this clearly..."

"...So, Cedric, who filled in his answers exactly according to Professor Dracula's lecture content, was tragically deducted a lot of points..." Fred and George sang in harmony, "If it weren't for the book The content is not too different from what the professor taught, so Cedric’s first place is probably on the line!”

"Alas, Cedric is really pitiful." Mr. Weiss shook his head with sigh, raised his cup and took a sip of water.

Then, his eyes suddenly changed and he squirted out the water in his mouth.

"Wait, you just said...who is the person who corrects the test papers?" he asked in shock.

"Dad, you heard that right, it's Professor Dumbledore." George said with a playful smile, "The person who gave the paper was also Professor Dumbledore. I don't know what private deal he and Professor Dracula had reached..."

"That's right, so it actually makes sense for Harry and Ron to have doubts about Professor Dracula being able to write a book." Fred said, "How could Professor Dracula, such a lazy person, suddenly suddenly Qixiang ran to write a book?"

"Yes, Fred." Ron asked in confusion, "What does Professor Dracula's publication of a book have to do with Cedric's exam being deducted?"

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"You don't understand this, little Luo Luo." George said with a bad smile, "A few days ago we invited you to go to the hillside opposite to play Quidditch with Cedric. On that day, Cedric Grams told us the secret."

"But at that time you actually refused our kindness in order to study your wizard chess at home!"

Hearing the shameful nickname "Little Luo Luo", Ron stood up and tried to fight George. Harry held him tightly beside him.

"Cedric told us that after he got his results, he went to Professor Dracula's office again." Fred continued, "But this time he went to Professor Dracula to reason and asked him why he was So many points were deducted.”

"This is why Professor Dracula published a book." George smiled. "Cedric told us that the professor felt very embarrassed about this matter, so he planned to publish a book himself and select the characters from our textbooks. Everything wrong!”

Everyone present agreed with this explanation.

If they were surprised that Dracula would take the trouble to write a book, then it was in keeping with Professor Dracula's character that he wrote a book because he had lost face.

Just then, a dusty feather duster fell in from the crooked window. Harry looked at the feather duster and found that it was actually breathing!

"Errol!" Ron shouted.

He picked up the dirty, sick owl from the ground and pulled out a letter from under its wings. "It finally brought Hermione's reply. I wrote to her before and told her that we were going to Dursley." The family will rescue you."

He carried Errol to a crossbar by the back door and tried to get him to stand on it, but Errol was so tired that he fell down.

Ron had no choice but to place it on the wider table and muttered "Poor Errol".

"This feather duster... No, how old is this owl?" Harry almost said what he was thinking, but in the middle of the sentence he changed his words to Fred in embarrassment.

Fortunately, Weslai's family didn't care, maybe they thought so too.

"Errol, he is the owl that Bill's family bought for him when he first went to school." Fred shrugged and said to Harry, "Now, Bill has graduated five years ago."

Harry counted on his fingers and found that Errol was already 12 years old, which was about the same age as the oldest owl...

"Then it's really...not young anymore..." Harry glanced at Errol sympathetically.

"Actually, we have long wanted him to enjoy his old age, but the family has always been too poor to open up the pot. Ginny will also go to school this year, and there are a lot of things to buy." Mr. Weasley sighed next to him, "So we can only continue. It’s been a hard time for old Errol for a while. When the family is rich, we will definitely find a good place for him to retire!”

Harry glanced at the old owl slumped on the table again, hoping that he could live until Wes came home and had a lot of money.

By this time, Ron had finished reading Hermione's letter.

"Merlin's beard, Hermione is still busy doing homework during the summer vacation!" He was shocked.

"That's right, so it's unreasonable to say that Hermione didn't get first place in the final exam of Defense Against the Dark Arts!" George said, patting Harry on the shoulder.

He was still a little sad that Harry had cost him and Fred ten galleons.

"Then why don't you guys learn a lesson quickly?" Mrs. Weasley glared at him, "You, Fred, and Ron are the only three children who give me the most trouble!"

…

The days at the Burrow passed quickly, and the time soon came to the day when Hermione and I made an appointment to go to Diagon Alley to buy textbooks.

Mrs. Weasley woke the little wizards early in the morning. They each ate five or six quick sandwiches and put on their coats.

Mrs. Weasley lifted a flower pot from the kitchen mantelpiece and handed it to Harry first.

"Guests come first!" She said to Harry with a smile, "Harry, you come first!"

Harry looked at the flowerpot in front of his face and froze on the spot.

"I...should I water the flowerpot?" he asked stammering.

At the same time, his eyes began to search around for containers to collect water. I was wondering if watering the flower pots before departure might be some strange tradition among wizarding families.

"Mom, he has never used Floo powder to travel!" Looking at Harry who was confused, Ron suddenly said, "I'm sorry, Harry, I forgot about this."

"You've never used Floo powder?" Mr. Weiss asked in surprise, "Then how did you go to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies last year?"

"I went there by subway..." Harry said weakly.

"Hey, a new thing in the Muggle world?" Mr. Weasley asked enthusiastically, "What kind of transportation is the subway? Is it similar to a car? How does it operate..."

"Don't ask now, Arthur." Mrs. Weasley interrupted, "Using Floo powder will definitely be much faster than using the subway, but... Merlin, if you have never used it before..."

"He's fine, Mom." Fred was inexplicably confident in Harry and patted his shoulder and said, "Harry, let's see what we do first!"

He picked up a handful of sparkling powder from the flower pot, walked to the stove, and threw the powder into the flames.

With the sound of "hoo", the fire turned green.

The green flames rose higher than Fred's body. He walked straight into the fire and shouted one word clearly in his mouth -

"Diagon Alley!"

He disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"You must say these words clearly, child." Mrs. Westley said to Harry, "Don't go through the wrong door when you come out..."

At the same time George put his hand into the flowerpot and disappeared into the flames of the fireplace.

Mrs. Weasley and Ron told Harry many more things to note. Harry nervously memorized them and nodded from time to time.

After Mr. Weasley also left the fireplace, Harry looked at Mrs. Weasley and Ron's encouraging eyes and nodded firmly.

He tried his best to remember all the previous precautions in his mind, then reached for a pinch of Floo powder and walked to the flames.

Harry took a deep breath, sprinkled Floo powder into the flames, and walked forward.

The green flame suddenly shot up, bringing with it a blast of hot wind. As soon as he inhaled, he immediately inhaled a large mouthful of hot cigarette ash.

"Ahem...yes...Diagon Alley..." Harry coughed and muttered.

The next moment, he seemed to be sucked into a giant socket hole.

His body was spinning rapidly, and deafening whistling sounds kept coming from his ears. He desperately tried to open his eyes, but the rapidly rotating green flames made him feel dizzy...

Harry didn't know how long he kept spinning before he fell face down onto the cold stone ground. He felt like the lenses of his glasses were broken.

Harry was dizzy, his skin was bruised and covered in soot. He climbed up carefully, put the broken glasses on the bridge of his nose, and looked at the strange place in front of him——

This seemed to be a spacious and dim wizard's shop, and he was standing in front of the stone fireplace in the shop.

But the things here are all extremely weird, and none of them seem likely to be on the Hogwarts school shopping list.

On the mat in a glass box next to it, there is a withered human hand, a stack of blood-stained cards and a glass eyeball that is motionless. A ferocious mask stared down from the wall, various human bones were placed on the counter, and rusty, tooth-like instruments hung from the ceiling.

Looking out from the dusty shop window, one can see a dark and narrow alley -

This is definitely not Diagon Alley!

…

London, Knockturn Alley, White Dragon Bar.

This is an old looking bar located on the second floor of a dark wizard tattoo shop. Its outer wall is made of exquisite marble, and a huge metal tag hangs outside the door. On the tag is engraved a bipedal flying dragon covered with white scales.

Unlike most noisy and chaotic bars, this one is quiet.

The interior of the bar is divided into secret compartments, and extremely strict protective magic is placed on the door of each compartment to ensure that each group of guests has an extremely safe and secret space.

There is a luxurious compartment in the Bai Feilong Bar. Its walls are all made of gold, the windows are carved with crystal, the chandeliers are hung with blood-red gems, and the edges of the wine table are inlaid with many pure diamonds.

The decoration style of this compartment fully reflects the luxurious atmosphere of Feilong.

The bar has been around for at least hundreds of years, but it has never been open.

However, today, the guests in Bai Feilong Bar were surprised to see that the bar owner’s wife, whose appearance had not changed in decades and who was usually extremely cold, was respectfully leading a silver-haired man in and stood there. At the door of the luxurious compartment.

She stretched out her finger and drew a pattern on the door decorated with gold.

The next moment, the door that had not been opened for hundreds of years quietly opened...

The guests in the store looked at this scene in shock and couldn't help but ask each other about the identity of the silver-haired man. The quiet bar rarely became noisy.

At this moment, the landlady with a streak of blood red in her snow-white hair and a pair of black and red dragon horns extending from her head suddenly turned her head and glared at the whispering guests with a strange yellow stick.

"Have you forgotten the rules of keeping quiet in the bar?" she said coldly.

Everyone present felt cold and shivered at the same time. They decisively shut their mouths.

The landlady then calmed down her cold expression and walked through the door respectfully again.

"Master Dracula, do you have any other instructions?" she asked softly.

Dracula sat casually on the soft sofa and looked at the landlady in front of him.

"Bring me a bottle of wine, the kind of blood wine that your Feilong clan collected in the early years." He chuckled and said, "Also, someone will come to me in a while. It's not a big shot. You can arrange for a waiter to bring him up. good."

"Yes." The bar owner nodded gently, turned and left.

Not long after, a wizard with a pale pointed face, a pair of cold gray eyes, and light blond hair walked into the Bai Feilong Bar carrying a cane.

"I'm looking for Mr. Dracula." He said to the waiter at the door.

"Mr. Malfoy, right?" The waiter gave a standard smile.

Lucius nodded haughtily, obviously very confident in his surname.

However, the waiter did not pay any attention to the surname Malfoy, and just politely extended his hand to the door——

"this way please."

The two passed by a quiet hall, where many wizards were drinking quietly and talking very quietly.

Lucius saw many acquaintances among these people. They nodded to each other, but did not say hello, because they were afraid of breaking the rules of this bar and making the terrible landlady angry——

There was once a very powerful wizard who did not believe in evil and made a lot of noise here... Later, he turned into a ball of charcoal...

Lucius followed the waiter and walked all the way to the most luxuriously decorated door.

When he saw the waiter making a "please" gesture towards the door, he opened his eyes wide in shock.

…

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