"Bang bang bang—bang bang bang—"
A knock on the door suddenly sounded on the streets of London, but no matter how hard Ginny knocked, her hand hurt, no one came to look at the familiar door.
No, there wasn't even the most basic response, as if there was no one on the other side of the door.
"...Hermione? What should I do?"
The Leaky Cauldron, which had always been bustling with people, seemed to be deserted now. The black oak door of the bar was shut tightly, and even if someone knocked on the door, there would be no response from inside.
It was as if even the owner of the bar, Tom, had left it.
"Perhaps in order to prevent the fog from entering Diagon Alley, the Ministry of Magic simply sealed it off?" Hermione thought for a moment, but then quickly shook her head and said, "No, logically speaking, this place should become a temporary Shelters are the right place - when there was a disaster in London last time, the Leaky Cauldron and St. Mungo's were the only two places of refuge in the city! No matter how you think about it, you won't suddenly decide to seal it off this time."
After thinking about it, she simply stretched out her wand and pointed the tip of the wand at the door lock, planning to try to see if she could open it from the outside first.
But to be honest, Hermione didn't actually have much confidence in picking locks.
However, with just a simple "Open the Alajo Cave", the door of the Leaky Cauldron opened with a soft "click".
"Um?"
As soon as they saw the door being opened, they hurried into the bar even though they thought it seemed incredibly smooth.
After entering and taking a closer look, this time it was as expected - there was indeed no one in the bar from the bar counter to the small round tables for entertaining guests, and the entire bar was in a rare silence.
It is worth mentioning that the closed door seemed to have been closed only afterward, because the bar was also filled with a very thick fog. It's just that the amount of fog is not as large as that outside, which seems to block the sky and the sun.
In order to prevent the gray fog from entering and reducing the visibility in the bar, Hermione closed the oak door again with her backhand.
"Well?"
Suddenly, Luna stretched her neck, and when her nose closed slightly, she frowned as if she smelled something.
"Do you smell anything?"
"What?" Ron also sniffed, but after a while he scratched his head in confusion, "No? Hmm... If I have to say it, it's the smell of alcohol, right? There's also the smell of mold that Old Tom can't get rid of. Taste…”
However, Ginny beside him also frowned immediately.
"There is a strange smell, like... the smell of blood?" Her expression became more and more serious, and she felt a little more worried.
At this time, Hermione actually raised her eyebrows and called to her friends:
"I smell it too. Is it coming from the stairs? Someone may be injured... upstairs! Let's go up and have a look..."
Seeing that the three girls seemed to have determined the direction of the smell in a short time, and ran towards the stairs leading to the guest room on the second floor, Ron couldn't help but froze on the spot.
"Is my nose broken? Or is a girl's sense of smell naturally more sensitive than a boy's?"
Of course, the current situation didn't give him much time to think about this kind of problem. After a short pause, he hurriedly caught up.
And when a few people quickly climbed up the stairs and ran into the corridor on the second floor, the large blood stains left here immediately proved that Luna and others' sense of smell was indeed correct.
Although the blood stains in the corridor have begun to solidify, obviously not left in a short period of time, the amount of blood in several pools still leaves a lot of the disgusting fishy smell.
Someone was injured here, and it seemed that the injury was not serious, and... there was probably more than one person!
Upon seeing so much blood that had turned into dark red, everyone immediately took a step back with some discomfort, and then stood in the corridor looking at each other for a while.
"It seems that London is not just foggy..."
Since they flew here directly with Hermione's broomstick and did not encounter any obstacles from dark wizards along the way, it was only now that everyone was reminded of this by the blood stains.
"Anyway, get your wands! Let's open all the doors and take a look first!"
Hermione stared at the shocking blood stains, said something to everyone without looking back, and then took the lead in walking towards the door closest to the stairs.
Just like the door of the bar downstairs, none of the doors to these guest rooms have been cast with protective spells. Basically, they can be easily opened with a lock-picking spell.
They even found that two doors were simply open, and the items inside were extremely messy, which showed that the guest living here must have left in a hurry.
Unfortunately, apart from these situations, it seems that no one can find any more valuable information. Even when they returned downstairs and searched as thoroughly as possible, they still found nothing.
"Let's go to Diagon Alley... I hope there's at least someone there."
After seeing the misery in the Leaky Cauldron, they now just hope that Diagon Alley won't be like the bar, where not a single soul can be seen. If there is no one there, they really don't know where to go.
After a while, the four of them arrived at the backyard of the bar while maintaining a certain degree of vigilance. Then they saw that the magical courtyard wall was wide open, and they could directly see the streets of Diagon Alley from the courtyard.
When they saw this scene, the hearts of several friends sank - it was obvious that Diagon Alley had been invaded, and it seemed that they had forcibly opened and destroyed the magic brick wall that served as the entrance.
After being stunned for a moment, Hermione was the first to come to her senses. She quickly motioned for everyone to be silent, and then pulled the other three people to the side with a gentle step.
After they all leaned against the wall and hid themselves, Hermione pursed her lips and slightly lowered her head, glancing hastily into Diagon Alley.
"How's it going?" Seeing Hermione shrink back again, Ron quickly lowered his voice and asked.
Hermione looked at him and blinked, then shook her head with a strange look on her face.
"I think... we'd better go in directly!"
"Um?"
Before Ron could react, he saw a person suddenly walking in from outside the open courtyard wall, which frightened him so much that he hurriedly raised the wand in his hand.
"Why are you here?"
No one expected that it was Sirius who came in.
I saw that he just casually looked at the wand pointed at him, and then continued:
"It's very dangerous here now. There are a lot of dark wizards wandering around in the fog and hurting people... I don't know how you got here, but I think you have seen it. Even Diagon Alley was attacked."
"So... how is the situation in Diagon Alley now?" Hermione asked immediately.
Sirius couldn't help but shrugged when he heard this.
"We have beaten those guys away for the time being. There is no one outside now, right? But I guess they will come again... Stop standing here talking, come here first!"
After that, he turned around and walked back, and Hermione and others hurriedly followed.
As soon as they entered the streets of Diagon Alley, Ron and the others understood why Hermione's expression was so strange just now.
It turned out that there were many Aurors and Dark Wizard strikers standing on both sides behind the courtyard wall. When she poked her head out before, she must have discovered that she was being watched by a large group of people.
Oh, I think it must feel very subtle!
Among these people, they also saw a few familiar figures, such as Tonks and other members of the Order of the Phoenix whom they had met several times in the past.
As she followed Sirius inside, Ginny suddenly couldn't help but ask:
"Sirius, is Percy here? Or has he been here?"
"Percy?" Sirius paused and then suddenly said, "Oh, it's your brother Percy Weasley, right? No, he hasn't been here... At least he hasn't seen him since we settled here. Been to him."
Having said this, he turned around and said:
"It's true that your parents have been here, saying they came to see their two sons and daughter-in-law. Because London is indeed full of crises at the moment, I originally wanted to keep them, but they both insisted on leaving. In order to ensure To ensure their safety, I also sent a few Aurors to accompany them to find someone... "
"Oh! Thank you, Sirius." Ron said gratefully.
Upon hearing this, Sirius waved his hands indifferently and suddenly said:
"By the way, don't leave - the magical abilities of those dark wizards are somewhat unexpected, and I can't split them up. As for finding people, I have already contacted Lupine, and he will arrange for others to go there. Searched.”
"Oh, but—"
Ron was about to say something, but Hermione secretly tugged on his clothes, causing him to suddenly stop.
"we know."
After Sirius temporarily placed them in a nearby crucible shop, Ron watched the other party leave, and then looked at Hermione with some confusion.
"Why didn't you just tell Sirius directly?" He said, "As you know, Sirius is different from other adults. He has never been very opposed to our actions."
"That's why I won't let you talk to him in detail," Hermione glared at him and said, "Didn't you hear everything? He doesn't have enough manpower here anymore. If we made it clear that we were leaving, That will only make him feel embarrassed! You said, if he separates for our safety, and then even himself is in danger due to insufficient defensive strength... "
"Ah! That's really not good," Ron nodded immediately, "Then... what should we do next? Do we still want to leave?"
"Of course," Hermione said, "After all, Percy's situation must be very bad now! But before leaving, I want to go find someone to ask about the situation - remember what Sirius mentioned just now? There seem to be a lot of extraordinary things outside. Dangerous dark wizard!"