"Are you going to that ball, Ron?"
In the Gryffindor common room, Harry leaned listlessly on the sofa and asked his friend next to him.
"I'll forget it. You know my dress..." Ron said in the same listless tone.
The Wesley family had too many children and not enough money, so Mrs. Wesley could only buy Ron a second-hand old dress with purple lace embroidered on it and the cuffs were open like flowers. It was hard to tell whether it was for men or women...
"In fact, if you tidy it up a little, it might still be useful," Harry patted Ron's shoulder sympathetically, and then sighed, "Professor McGonagall forced me to attend the ball, so you must go with me then!"
Ron also sighed sadly.
It was obvious that he really wanted to go, but his dress was too ugly, so he couldn't accept the risk of making a fool of himself by attending the Christmas ball.
"Hermione, are you going to the ball?" Harry turned his head and looked at Hermione who was lying on the coffee table reading a book. "You should stay in school during the Christmas holiday, right?"
"Well, now that you've become a champion of Hogwarts, I must definitely stay and help you."
Hermione nodded slightly, shifted her eyes away from the book in front of her, looked at Harry seriously and said, "Harry, I think you should think more about the next project instead of worrying about the ball. It may be more dangerous than facing a dragon!"
"Don't worry yet, Hermione," Ron said nonchalantly. "There are still more than two months before the next project starts, which is plenty of time. But there are only a few days left until the Yule Ball!"
"Yeah, Hermione, I'd rather go back and face a dragon than dance at the Christmas party now," Harry agreed.
As always, Harry had no motivation without pressure, and his current pressure was all about dancing in public at the Yule Ball.
Just then, a Gryffindor girl whom Harry had never seen before came over from somewhere and asked if she could be her dance partner.
Harry was shocked to find that this girl was actually a fifth grader, and judging from the look on her face, if Harry dared to refuse, she would probably knock him unconscious with one punch.
"Um... I have an appointment with Hermione and Ron to go to the library today to prepare for the next project." Harry quickly used Hermione's persuasion as an excuse and changed the subject. "Let me think about it, okay?"
After saying that, he immediately pulled Ron and Hermione away from the common room as if they were escaping.
When they were out in the corridor, Ron laughed for a long time, and when he had laughed enough, he said impartially:
"She's actually quite pretty."
"She's a foot taller than me!" Harry was still a little shocked and gasped. "Imagine dancing with a girl who is a head taller than me, and she might even wear high heels. Wouldn't I make a fool of myself?"
"Is this your excuse for running away under the pretext of preparing for the next project?" At this time, Hermione pursed her lips and said sternly.
"I just... can't think of any other excuse," Harry muttered.
"Now that we have said this, in order to prevent you from becoming a liar, let's go to the library and research the next project!"
Having said that, Hermione dragged the reluctant Harry and Ron towards the library without further ado.
…
"I'm sure there isn't any book in here that mentions a screaming golden egg," Ron complained, yawning as he walked back to the common room.
Harry, Hermione and Ron searched for information until midnight, and until Madam Pince kicked them out of the library, they still didn't find any useful information.
"This is a specially made competition prop, Ron," Hermione said. "There won't be any information in the library that is exactly the same as the golden egg, but at least we can find something similar..."
"But we don't even know what this is," said Harry, somewhat disappointed.
"Maybe we can ask Professor Dracula?" Ron said thoughtfully, "He seems to be very knowledgeable about all kinds of random things."
"But the rules of the competition say that warriors cannot seek help from professors!" Hermione retorted.
"What's the big deal? I see that principals of other schools don't really follow this rule..." Ron muttered.
Just then, a man wearing a moldy suit, with a pale face, sunken cheeks, and a pair of bulging eyes stopped the three of them.
"Curfew is about to begin. You guys better walk faster. Don't let me catch you breaking school rules!" He was holding a dim oil lamp, and the flesh on his double chin was trembling viciously.
"Got it." Harry and the other two agreed perfunctorily, but there was no intention of quickening their pace.
There were still a few minutes until curfew, enough time for them to return to the common room at a leisurely pace.
"Wait a minute." Filch suddenly called to them from behind.
Harry and the others turned around and frowned at the ferocious-looking gatekeeper.
"It's not curfew yet, is it, Mr. Filch?" Hermione asked confidently, assuming her good student attitude.
"It's true that it's not time yet, but that doesn't mean you haven't violated any school rules." Filch said sinisterly, "I know you. You are in cahoots with the twins."
"I don't know what kind of messed up props these two have been thinking about lately. I suspect you guys have also contributed to it!"
"We didn't!" said Hermione angrily.
She had been a good student for so long, but today was the first time she was classified into the group of troublemakers like Fred and George who specifically went against school rules.
This made the academic lady very angry.
"Just because you say it's gone, does that mean it's gone?" said Filch, grinning. "Those two bastards may have put all those nasty, nasty prank props somewhere. They might be on you!"
"You're talking nonsense!" Ron stepped forward and retorted loudly, "This is blatant slander!"
He couldn't help but be anxious, because he and Harry were indeed carrying some prank gadgets made by Fred and George. If Filch really found out, he would definitely not let them go easily.
"Leave him alone, Ron," Harry whispered to him, grabbing Ron's arm from behind.
"It's not long until curfew. Filch must be trying to stall for time so that we can't get back to the common room in time... so he can capture us and make us 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 portrait of the Fat Lady.
After saying goodbye to Hermione at 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 the space, they found Fred and George lying beside the fireplace, furtively studying something in the light of the fire.
"What bad things are you two doing now?" Ron asked unhappily because he had just been implicated by these two guys.
"Sh ...
Fred put his finger to his mouth as a silencing gesture.
Then he looked around carefully, made sure no one was eavesdropping, and took out a book from behind George.
"Books?" Ron looked at Fred and George in surprise and asked, "You two are sneaking around here just to read? You don't have a fever, do you?"
Having been an older brother and younger brother for more than ten years, he had never imagined that these two troublemakers would like reading, let alone reading secretly by the light of the fireplace after turning off the lights.
Is it possible that there is something in this book that no one can see
Ron showed a look of sudden enlightenment.
"Oh—" He said in a long tone, raised his eyebrows, and showed a knowing smile on his face, "I didn't expect that you two would be secretly reading such a difficult novel here!"
"What on earth are you thinking about, little Ron?" George looked at Ron with disgust. "I really don't know what you learned in Hogwarts. You don't learn well all day long."
"No, it's so strange to hear you say this..." Ron's face wrinkled, "And what exactly is this book? Is it necessary to hide here in such a mysterious way to read it?"
"You don't understand, this book has a great origin!" Fred glanced around again, then whispered to Ron and Harry, "This was secretly taken from Filch's office!"
"What?" Harry's eyes widened in astonishment. "You snuck into Filch's office?"
Filch was just clamoring to catch these two troublemakers, but he didn't expect that they had already run to Filch's office and steal the house!
"Yeah, let me tell you, Filch's office is a treasure trove!" Fred said excitedly, "From time to time you can find some very useful things there. I don't know where he confiscated them from."
"A few years ago, we found a magical parchment in his filing cabinet drawer. It was filled with all kinds of secret passages in Hogwarts, and we could even see other people's whereabouts!" George added. "It was because of that parchment that we were able to trick Filch time and time again."
As he spoke, George proudly pulled out a square, tattered-looking piece of parchment from his cloak with nothing written on it.
Ron thought it was another joke from the twins and glared at them with bulging eyes.
"Don't be impatient, little Luo Luo, we haven't finished yet." Fred gave him a dissatisfied look, "We took a huge risk and threw several dung bombs into the corridor outside Filch's office to get this thing out of Filch's drawer."
"That drawer says 'Confiscated Supplies, Highly Dangerous', but it's all good stuff for us..."
"Since then, the two of us have found opportunities to visit Filch's office every school year. Look, haven't we found something quite useful?"
Fred patted the book that lay by the fireplace.
"You guys didn't make up so many things to deceive us, did 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 it lightly on the parchment, and said:
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
After hearing his serious "oath", Harry's expression almost couldn't be restrained, and Ron even laughed out loud.
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 from the place where the wand touched, merging and crossing each other, extending to every corner of the parchment.
Then, words began to appear on the parchment. They were large, curved green characters that read:
Introducing Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, the magical mischief-makers' go-to vendors
The map depicts every detail of Hogwarts Castle and its grounds, but that's not the most amazing thing. The really noteworthy things are the tiny ink dots moving along the map, each of which has a name marked in tiny letters.
Harry and Ron opened their mouths in surprise and leaned over to take a closer look.
A small ink spot in the upper left corner shows that Dumbledore is pacing in the study of the headmaster's office; Professor McGonagall is motionless in her office; in the teaching area, there are a few Gryffindor junior wizards who sneak out for a night stroll...
"Huh, is Filch running so fast? He's actually back in his own office?" Ron noticed that at the bottom of the map, the name of the castle caretaker was lying motionless in the caretaker's office.
"Maybe he suddenly felt sleepy?" Fred shrugged. "Looking at Filch's frail appearance and his staying up all night without sleeping, I don't think it's strange that he died suddenly there."
"Wait a minute, look here." Harry suddenly pointed his finger at a location on the Marauder's Map, "Barty Crouch... do you have any impression of him? I don't remember him coming to Hogwarts as a guest today?"
"Maybe he just arrived?" George guessed, "He sneaked into Hogwarts at night to discuss issues during the competition with Headmaster Dumbledore to prevent the warriors from hearing him?"
"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 this "Barty Crouch", after walking around the castle a few times, did not go to the principal's office as they expected.
He went straight to the janitor's office, which belonged to Filch...
…
…