Gaunt's Old House
On the hills on the south bank of the River Thames, a group of granite buildings forms a magnificent and historic castle town.
At the entrance of the castle, a long stretch of green grass extends to the horizon, and the crisp wind refreshes the mind and lungs, making people unconsciously slow down to appreciate the autumn and winter woods.
Dumbledore the collar turned up, looked relaxed. Loren's oversized robes were transformed into a regular black long-sleeved jacket by Transfiguration, making the two look like an ordinary father and son visiting the Castle on the weekend.
Dumbledore changed into a middle-aged man's appearance, but his steps had not become more agile. He looked at the green plants on both sides of the road with great interest, and his pace slowed down even more.
Loren had to keep to his pace, walking and stopping frequently. He had no time to appreciate the scenery; his mind was solely focused on getting inside and retrieving the Unicorn Horn, his face etched with urgency.
After walking for nearly half an hour, and seeing that they were still halfway through the long path outside the Castle, Loren couldn't contain himself any longer. "Headmaster, why don't you stay outside and enjoy the scenery, and I'll go in and get the Unicorn Horn myself?"
Surrounded by lush greenery, Dumbledore said leisurely, "Loren, the more you desire something, the less you should let yourself be blinded. This is the old wizard's advice."
That wretched riddle teller...
Loren took a deep breath, suppressing his eagerness, and asked, "Is there something I haven't noticed?"
"Recently, Hogwarts Castle has been quite lively at night, with two House-elf roaming around the school. You know, House-elf ' magic is different from wizards', and the Castle can't contain them." Dumbledore spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he were talking about something trivial.
Loren was taken aback when he heard this; Harry seemed to have mentioned this matter after being discharged from the hospital.
One of them was Dobby, who always came to the school at night to observe Harry and try to keep Harry away from the Castle. They ran into Dobby the night they went to the Library.
Dobby had warned Harry that there was a foreign House-elf in the Castle who seemed to have ill intentions, and that they should be careful.
"A while ago, Winky from the Kitchen came to me and said that he often saw a strange House-elf staring at you. He asked all the House-elf in the Castle, but no one knew him. Winky was worried that someone wanted to harm you, so he mustered up the courage to ask me for help."
Speaking of this, Dumbledore looked at Loren with emotion, his opinion of him improving even further.
The fact that the House-elf were genuinely grateful and mustered the courage to ask him, the headmaster, for help shows that Loren also sincerely wanted to get along with the House-elf, without discrimination or prejudice, and gave them the respect they deserved.
"Winky ..." Loren repeated the somewhat unfamiliar name, and it took some effort to recall the somewhat blurry face of this House-elf from his memory.
The last time I saw Winky was during the Christmas holidays... He went to the Kitchen to ask for some pears while making Frozen Pear, and casually gave Winky a Chocolate Frog as a gift. As a result, Winky was so grateful that she insisted on being loyal to him forever.
Loren felt uncomfortable and never went to the Kitchen again, nor did he ever see the House-elf again.
His thoughts were somewhat hazy. "Why didn't he just tell me directly?"
"Hmm," Dumbledore said softly, "I asked him that question too, and his exact words were, ' Winky is a tactless House-elf. Mr. Morgan dislikes Winky. Mr. Morgan doesn't want to see Winky, and Winky doesn't want to bother Mr. Morgan.'"
The autumn and winter winds were already quite cold. Loren sniffed, not wanting to continue the conversation, "So who is that House-elf's been following me, and what's his purpose?"
Dumbledore chuckled silently, not dwelling on the matter of Winky: "It's from Crabbe family. Voldemort and Crabbe Jr. are working together. He's using House-elf to send messages to the outside world, while also having this House-elf observe you and Harry."
Loren's brows furrowed deeply. He could understand why Harry was observing him. "Voldemort already knows that I was the one who destroyed the Diary?"
"I suspect he wasn't sure. It was just the words at the end of the Diary that caught Voldemort's attention. He was trying to find out what made you different, through— the House-elf ' constant observation." Dumbledore said meaningfully.
"You mean..."
That House-elf is still with him!
Loren calmed himself, closed his eyes, and tried to summon his fighting instincts, sensing the strange gazes around him.
Through long-term sparring with Flamel in the dueling practice room, he accumulated combat instincts through rich practical experience and easily noticed the House-elf...
The House-elf ' gazes were nothing special, nor did they possess any Magic Power. Loren had previously ignored these prying eyes simply because there were so many of them.
The Castle's many House-elf serve the young wizards, washing their clothes, preparing their food, cleaning their bedrooms, and so on. They try their best to minimize their presence and avoid being noticed by the young wizards.
In such an environment, Loren would subconsciously ignore their gaze most of the time.
Fortunately, he had specifically checked the area the night he dealt with the Basilisk and confirmed that there weren't even House-elf on the Third Floor, otherwise the Sorcerer's Stone might have been exposed. Thinking of this, Loren breathed a sigh of relief.
What he didn't know was that Dumbledore had also confirmed it for him.
Yes, there were indeed no House-elf on the Third Floor at that time.
When he opened his eyes again, Loren's eyes shone with a crystal blue light. Behind a beech tree to his side, he easily observed a Magic Power different from that of the wizard.
His hand immediately reached for the magic wand hidden in his sleeve.
Dumbledore took his hand and gently shook his head to stop him.
"Why?" Loren asked, puzzled.
Voldemort will definitely return, and Harry doesn't have much time left. He hopes Harry can seize every opportunity to face Voldemort and learn from it.
Loren's suggestion to visit Windsor Castle was a convenient way to divert Voldemort's attention and prevent him from realizing that Gaunt's old house had been discovered and that his darkest secrets had been laid bare.
"Voldemort has other uses for staying in the Castle, and I don't want to disturb him right now." Dumbledore looked up at the beech tree.
Emmmm...
Loren pulled his wand from his sleeve. "I'll go get the Unicorn Horn first..."
The House-elf hiding behind the beech tree trembled violently. Considering the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, he dared not get too close. He could not hear their conversation, but he could vaguely sense two extremely oppressive gazes.
"Won't we be discovered...?" The House-elf's heart seemed to be gripped by some unseen hand, and the flow of blood throughout its body became stiff.
He was afraid of being discovered, and even more afraid of failing to complete his master's orders. He cautiously peeked out from behind the beech tree, wanting to take a look.
Loren held his wand and tapped it lightly against his chest. A wave of water-like energy spread from the tip of the wand throughout his body.
"Thank goodness, we weren't discovered." He patted his chest in relief, but then his eyes widened as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.
Disillusionment Charm! The little wizard vanished from sight!
Loren Morgan was the main target his master had instructed him to observe; surely he hadn't lost track of him!
The House-elf trembled even more violently, overwhelmed with fear.
To the man whose name cannot even be mentioned, the lives of these lowly, enslaved little people are worthless, and so his men treat the House-elf like vermin.
If he fails to fulfill his master's orders, the master will allow a terrible venomous snake to crawl into his nostril and all the way into his head, where it will lay its eggs and hatch the young snakes using its body.
The thought of those horrible venomous snakes writhing in his mind brought tears of fear to his eyes, and snot dripped onto the dirty rag he was wearing.
Overwhelmed with fear, he forced himself to calm down and reassured himself by saying, "Dumbledore is still here. The little wizard won't go far. He'll come back."
Even from a great distance, Dumbledore could still sense the House-elf ' every move.
Winky was grateful to Loren and offered him his unwavering loyalty. The House-elf, on the other hand, feared Voldemort Crabbe.
Comparing the two, Dumbledore sighed softly, "The power that truly commands respect is never strength, never fear."
"Yes, Loren Morgan will come back, he will come back..." The House-elf kept repeating this phrase, as if grasping at a straw, making his already high-pitched voice even higher in panic.
Sure enough, the young wizard Loren Morgan soon appeared, holding a white, pointed object in his hand.
To his despair, Dumbledore disappeared with Loren this time.
The House-elf shrieked and snapped his fingers, teleporting to the spot where Dumbledore and Loren had just been.
He could teleport from the wilderness outside the Castle to the wilderness Thames Riverside by following Loren Morgan's Magic Power trail. But this time, Dumbledore teleported with Loren Morgan, and he couldn't detect any Apparition Magic Power.
The House-elf froze, then grabbed a thick branch from a nearby tree and started hitting his head with it.
He felt a pang of sorrow as he punished himself for failing to complete the task assigned by his master.
If you can smash their heads, you won't need to incubate the snake eggs.
Suddenly, he stopped hammering, staring at Windsor Castle with bloodshot eyes, blood streaming down his forehead blurring his vision. Pain and despair caused a glimmer of light to flash through his blurred vision.
"Although I don't know what Loren Morgan took from the Castle, or where they went... but if, if it could please the master... perhaps the master would simply cut off my head..."
The House-elf's shrill voice turned sinister and terrifying. He didn't want his head to be riddled with holes by venomous snakes. His expression of fear gradually turned into madness, and a blazing red light appeared on his fingertips...
A squeezing sensation like rubber tubing ran through my body, as if every part of me was being reassembled and merged. My brain was stretched into a long strip and then pulled back. The dizziness and the feeling of falling indicated that the distance of this Apparition was very long.
The Transfiguration on the coat had been dispelled, and the Unicorn Horn was stored in the pocket inside the robe.
Loren took a deep breath to calm the discomfort from the teleportation, and opened his eyes. They were standing on a country road, with tall, tangled hedges on both sides, and the sky above was slightly overcast.
"Headmaster, your Apparition seems a little different," Loren said.
Dumbledore was reading a wooden signpost sticking out of the brambles on the left side of the path. "The Magic Power of Fawkes, which will allow us to leave the House-elf behind."
"Oh." Loren looked at the road sign, which had two arrows pointing to them. The arrow pointing behind them read: Great Hangleton, 5 miles. The arrow pointing ahead read: Little Hangleton, 1 mile.
Dumbledore compared the scenes of the journey with Bob Ogden's memories, attempting to discern what things were like fifty years ago.
"Although you may not be interested, I still want to tell you a story from many years ago." He led Loren along the tall hedges on both sides of the road.
Loren focused on tackling the difficult, steep path beneath his feet.
The path turned left, and the view suddenly opened up; they were standing on a high hillside. Looking down, Loren could see a village, which was undoubtedly Little Hangleton. The village nestled between two steep slopes, with its church and Graveyard clearly visible.
But their destination wasn't that village. They walked straight down the steep hillside, and before entering the village, the path turned right and slipped through a gap in the fence.
This is a steeper and narrower dirt road, with denser shrubs on both sides. The dirt road is winding, full of potholes and scattered with rocks. Because no one has walked on it for decades, the vegetation has grown wildly and spread, making it almost impossible to see any trace of the road.
"Many years ago, the Gaunt family lived here. Marvolo, his son Morfin, and his daughter Merope were the last descendants of the Gaunt family, a very ancient wizarding family. They were irrational, notorious for violence, and considered themselves descendants of Slytherin. In fact, they were. It's just that little of their ancestors' wealth was left in their hands."
Dumbledore narrated calmly, without any emotion, as if telling an insignificant story. He took Loren's hand and pulled him slightly, lifting him over a large boulder blocking his path.
Continuing on, the dirt road led to a dark forest. The ground was covered with tangled tree roots, and overhead, dense, verdant branches almost completely blocked out the sky, preventing any sunlight from entering. With a rustling sound, Loren could vaguely see several large snakes coiling and writhing among the branches.
"Morfin attacked Tom Riddle, the son of Muggle gentleman. When Mr. Bob Ogden summoned him, his father Marvolo joined him in rebelling against the Aurors and injuring Ministry of Magic officials; both were imprisoned in Azkaban."
"Freed from the rule of her father and brother Merope became capricious and used some secret means to force Riddle to elope with her."
Passing through the gaps in the tree trunks, we finally came into view a strange old house.
The walls were covered in moss, and the roof tiles were broken and also overgrown with branches and moss. Dense nettles grew around the house, taller than the windows, almost engulfing it. Every corner of the house exuded a strong sense of strangeness and an indescribable mystery.
As he approached, Loren saw moss and some decaying snake bones on the ground in front of the rotten gate. Pushing the door open, he saw that the cracks in the stone walls were covered with moss, and the wooden walls had long been hollowed out by various insects and covered with all kinds of fungi.