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Chapter 262: Marauder's Map

"Forget it, you know my dress..." Ron said listlessly.

The Weasley family had too many children and not enough money, so Mrs. Weasley could only buy Ron a second-hand old dress with purple lace embroidered on it. The cuffs were open like a flower. It was hard to tell whether it was a man's or a woman's dress...

"In fact, it might still be usable after a little tidying up," Harry patted Ron's shoulder sympathetically, and then sighed, "Professor McGonagall forced me to go to the ball, and you must go with me when the time comes!"

Ron also sighed with a sad face.

It can be seen that he actually wanted to go in his heart, but he was suffering from his dress being too unsightly, so he really couldn't accept the risk of making a fool of himself to attend this 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, you have become a Hogwarts warrior, I must stay to help you."

Hermione nodded slightly, moved 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 the dragon!"

"Don't worry now, Hermione." Ron said nonchalantly, "There are more than two months before the next project starts, and the time is enough. But there are only a few days before the Christmas ball!"

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

As always, Harry has no motivation without pressure. His current pressure is all about dancing in public at the Christmas ball.

At this moment, a Gryffindor girl whom Harry 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 a fifth-year student, and judging from the way she acted, if Harry dared to refuse, he might be knocked unconscious by her punch.

"Um... I have an appointment with Hermione and Ron to go to the library to prepare for the next project today," Harry quickly used Hermione's persuasion as an excuse and changed the subject, "Let me think about it again, okay?"

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

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

"She is actually quite pretty."

"She is a foot taller than me!" Harry was still a little shocked and said with a heavy breath, "Imagine dancing with a girl who is taller than me. She may also 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 find any other excuses." Harry stammered.

"Anyway, this reason has been said. In order to prevent you from becoming a liar, let's go to the library to study the next project now!"

As she said that, Hermione dragged Harry and Ron, who were reluctant on their faces, to the library without saying anything.

...

"I'm sure there's no book here that mentions a screaming golden egg." Ron yawned and complained on the way back to the common room.

Harry, Hermione and Ron searched for information until midnight, until Madam Pince drove them out of the library, but they didn't find any useful information.

"This is a specially made competition prop, Ron," said Hermione, "There will definitely not be relevant 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." Harry said a little disappointed.

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

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

"What's the matter, I don't think the principals of other schools follow this rule..." Ron muttered.

At this moment, 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 coming soon. You guys better walk faster. Don't let me catch you breaking the school rules!" He held a dim oil lamp, and the flesh on his double chin trembled fiercely.

"Got it." Harry and the other two agreed perfunctorily, but there was no intention of speeding up their pace.

There were still a few minutes before curfew, which was enough for them to return to the common room at a leisurely pace.

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

Harry and the others turned around and frowned at the ferocious gatekeeper.

"It's not curfew yet, is it, Mr. Filch?" Hermione asked confidently, posing as a good student.

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

"I don't know what kind of messy props they have been thinking about recently, I suspect you guys have also contributed to it!"

"We didn't!" Hermione said angrily.

She has been a good student for so long, but today is the first time she has been classified as a troublemaker like Fred and George who specifically go against the school rules.

This really pissed off the top student.

"Just because you say there are none, does that mean there are none?" Filch said with a grin, "Those two little bastards don't know where they put those nasty and bad prank props they made. They might be hidden on you!"

"Nonsense!" Ron stepped forward and retorted loudly, "This is a naked slander!"

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

"Don't worry about him, Ron," Harry pulled Ron's arm from behind and whispered to him.

"It's not long before curfew. Filch must be trying to delay us so that we can't get back to the common room in time... so that he can catch us and help him clean up."

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

"Nonsense."

They rushed back to the common room at the last minute before curfew, and Harry spoke the password to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

Saying goodbye to Hermione in front of the stairs leading to the upper floor 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 in the light of the fire.

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

"Shhh--"

Fred put his finger in front of his mouth to make a silent gesture.

Then, he carefully looked around and took out a book from behind George after making sure no one was eavesdropping.

"Book?" Ron looked at Fred and George in surprise and asked, "You two are sneaking around and reading here? You don't have a fever, do you?"

Having been an older brother for more than a decade, he never thought that these two mischievous guys would like to read, let alone secretly read by the light of the fireplace after turning off the lights.

Could it be that there is something about this book that cannot be seen by others?

Ron showed an expression of sudden enlightenment.

"Oh——" he said in a long tone, raised his eyebrows, and smiled knowingly, "I didn't expect that you two would sneak a peek at that kind of obscure novel here!"

"What on earth are you thinking about, little Luo Luo?" 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, why does it feel so strange to hear such words coming out of your mouth..." Ron's face wrinkled, "And what exactly is this book? Is it necessary to shrink here so mysteriously to read it?"

"You don't understand, this book has a great origin!" Fred glanced around again, and then whispered to Ron and Harry, "This was secretly taken from Filch's office!"

"What?" Harry widened his eyes in astonishment, "You sneaked 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 to steal the house!

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

"A few school years ago, we found a particularly magical parchment in the drawer of his filing cabinet. It was full of various secret passages in Hogwarts, and you can also see other people's whereabouts!" George added, "It was because of that parchment that we were able to trick Filch repeatedly."

As he said this, George proudly pulled out a square, tattered-looking parchment from his cloak, with nothing written on it.

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

"Don't be impatient, little Luo Luo, we haven't finished talking yet." Fred looked at him dissatisfiedly, "We took a great risk and threw several dung bombs into the corridor outside Filch's office to get these things out of Filch's drawer."

"The words 'confiscated materials, highly dangerous' are written on that drawer, but they are all good things 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 again?"

Fred patted the book next to the fireplace.

"You didn't make up so many things to deceive us?" Ron asked suspiciously, looking at the tattered parchment.

"Oh, do we need to deceive 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 good."

After hearing his serious "oath", Harry's expression almost couldn't be held back, and Ron laughed out loud.

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

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

Then, words began to appear above the parchment, in large curved green letters, saying:

Suppliers who specialize in helping magic prank makers-Moon Face, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, grandly introduced

This map detailed all the details of Hogwarts Castle and various venues, and this was not the most exaggerated. What is really worth noting is the small ink dots moving along the map, each of which is marked with a name 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 showed that Dumbledore was pacing in the study of the headmaster's office; Professor McGonagall was motionless in her office; there were a few Gryffindor junior wizards who sneaked out for a night out in the teaching area...

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

"Maybe he suddenly felt sleepy?" Fred shrugged. "Look at Filch's weak appearance and staying up all night. I think 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 him coming to Hogwarts as a guest today?"

"Maybe he just came?" George guessed, "He came to Hogwarts secretly at night to discuss problems during the competition with Principal Dumbledore to prevent the warriors from hearing?"

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

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

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