The Land of the Mountain Eagles

While Dumbledore and Harry were talking late into the night, in Albania—in that land of mountain eagles that had built seven hundred and fifty thousand bunkers despite having a population of only a little over two million—deep within the old forests of the mountains, ancient trees towered overhead. The canopy blotted out the sky, and against the gloomy night, the forest looked even more sinister, terrifying, and unfathomably mysterious.

Deep in the dense woods, many vine-like tendrils hung upside down from the branches. The moment they touched a living creature passing by, they would contract and hoist it into the air. The trees were covered in white bones; after capturing prey, those tendrils would secrete a highly poisonous, corrosive venom. Anyone caught by them would die a truly miserable death. Yet when these man-eating trees encountered several people in black robes, they drew back their tendrils as if they did not dare touch them at all.

A wizard whose face somewhat resembled a python's head put away the wand in his right hand. With his left, he tugged again on the rust-red, short-haired creature he was leading. Its back was covered in black bony spines, and it looked like an oversized hyena. Two sharp black horns jutted from its cheeks, and its eyes shone with red light. This thing was precisely the Hell Hound that British Aurors liked to use.

After heavily patting the dog's head to make the not-so-obedient Hell Hound continue forward, Rabastan Lestrange said in disgust, "If Master didn't still need these trees to conceal the base, I'd have my dog spit out a mouthful of fire and burn them all down. These endlessly flailing tendrils are as annoying as those Muggles howling day and night."

Beside him, the short blond-haired Gilderoy Lockhart carefully straightened the hat