Wanted Poster

As the saying went, you got a soft mouth from eating others' food and a weak hand from taking others' things. After obtaining the Disillusionment Charm, Hoffa did not immediately begin exploring the school. Yinduo had given him the clue to obtaining the charm. Now, he still had to go to Hogsmeade to accept Yinduo's invitation.

Having just acquired the Disillusionment Charm and completed his first goal at school, he could not wait to find somewhere to properly test out his new spell.

What place was more suitable than Hogsmeade?

He had only collected (2/3) of the spell fragments.

Even now, he did not know exactly what use the system's ability to upgrade spells had.

If he was lucky enough, or had enough time, he also wanted to complete fifty percent of Hogsmeade's exploration and obtain the final spell fragment.

It was a good plan, but Hoffa ran into a problem.

He was lost.

He remembered that in Harry Potter's third year, Harry had been unable to visit Hogsmeade Village because he could not get his guardian's signature. With the help of the Invisibility Cloak and a secret passage, Harry had snuck into Hogsmeade.

Now Hoffa had invisibility, and he vaguely remembered the location of the secret passage.

It should have been hidden behind a statue of a one-eyed witch, in a fourth-floor corridor.

But when Hoffa arrived on the fourth floor, he was dumbfounded.

Before him were dozens of staircases leading up and down, with eight or nine branching paths. Several staircases were even restlessly shifting about.

Harry could find the statue because he had the Marauder's Map, but Hoffa did not. Faced with the vast and complicated fourth-floor corridors, Hoffa lost his bearings.

Fortunately, there was always a way out.

Just then, a pearl-white beauty slowly floated past Hoffa. She carried herself with haughty elegance. Hoffa recognized her. She was Ravenclaw's female ghost, Helena Ravenclaw.

Hoffa hurriedly rushed in front of her and raised a hand to stop her.

"Miss Helena."

Helena floated through Hoffa's body, all the way to the fourth-floor railing, before slowly turning back to look at him. Hoffa felt as though he had fallen into a bucket of ice water.

"Bach..."

the female ghost said softly. Her misty eyes blinked a few times, and she actually recognized him. Perhaps because he was a Ravenclaw student.

Hoffa quickly bent forward and asked, "Miss Helena, I'm looking for a statue of a hunchbacked witch. Do you know where it is?"

Helena raised her head and thought for a moment. "Oh, the statue with the secret passage to Honeydukes behind it..."

"Shh, shh, shh!!"

Hoffa jumped in fright and quickly put a finger to his lips. Hogwarts was tightly controlled in this era. Who knew what would happen if someone overheard them?

Helena curled her lips almost imperceptibly. "Come with me, child."

With that, she changed direction and floated away.

Hoffa let out a breath. Perhaps ghosts had existed for too long and no longer cared much about certain rules.

Helena led Hoffa through seven consecutive turns. Sometimes she went straight through walls, while Hoffa had to rush around several classrooms just to barely keep up with her.

At last, Helena brought the panting Hoffa before the hunchbacked witch.

"I won't tell you the spell. I merely happened to pass by here." With that, the female ghost passed straight through a wall and vanished.

Ghosts really did favor students from their own House, Hoffa thought.

Although Helena had not told Hoffa the spell, that was no obstacle to someone who had read the original books.

Hoffa took out his wand and lightly tapped the hunchbacked witch statue.

"Dissendium."

The statue's hump immediately opened, large enough for a fairly thin person to enter. Hoffa quickly looked up and down the corridor. There was no one around, so he crawled inside.

Boom!

The statue closed. The light vanished, and before Hoffa could even react—

His feet suddenly slipped. He dropped onto the ground and shot forward at high speed.

After a very long stretch of sliding, he did not know how much time had passed before he finally hit cold, damp earth. He stood up and looked around. It was pitch-black. Raising his wand, he muttered, "Lumos!"

Silver light shone from Hoffa's wand, illuminating the darkness around him.

He was in a narrow, low passage. It twisted and turned like a rabbit burrow. Hoffa hurried onward, stumbling from time to time over the uneven ground, his wand held before him the entire way.

The pitch-black atmosphere made Hoffa feel somewhat stifled. This was the second time he had traveled through a castle's secret passage. The last time, he had followed behind Miranda.

After walking for a very, very long time, perhaps an hour, the passage began to slope upward.

Ten minutes later, he ran to the foot of a damaged stone staircase that extended upward beyond the limits of his sight.

Above was a trapdoor. Hoffa slowly pushed it open and found himself in a cellar, surrounded by wooden chairs and crates. He climbed out, then closed the trapdoor—the door blended seamlessly with the dusty floor. No one would ever guess there was such a door there.

The instant he closed it—

The long-silent system sent another notification.

Discovered Wizarding Secret Realm

[Current Wizarding Secret Realm—Hogsmeade]

Complete 50% Secret Realm exploration—you will receive [One-Third Spell Fragment]

(One-Third Spell Fragment: contains strange energy. Once you obtain three, you can upgrade one of your spell abilities.)

Complete 100% Secret Realm exploration—you will receive [Knowledge of the Great God]

(Knowledge of the Great God: mysterious and unfathomable. Before possessing it, you have no idea what power it may hold.)

The system was as it had always been, and Hoffa was not surprised.

Exploring one hundred percent was probably impossible. He could only see whether he could reach fifty percent. Hoffa remembered that this place was not as large as Diagon Alley. If he could explore fifty percent before returning, perhaps he could obtain another spell fragment. He did not know what would happen when three spell fragments were put together, but he was very much looking forward to it.

He withdrew from his mindscape.

The sounds of people chatting and laughing drifted down from upstairs.

Just in case, Hoffa first cast the Disillusionment Charm on himself.

"Disler Falconment."

At once, the sensation of being wrapped in icy liquid returned.

Hoffa knew he had entered stealth mode.

Hoffa slowly crawled toward the wooden stairs leading upstairs. Now he could clearly hear all kinds of voices, not to mention bells ringing and doors opening and closing. Reaching the door at the top of the stairs, he slipped through it and found himself behind the Honeydukes counter. He crouched low and crawled to the side before straightening up.

No one noticed his presence. The Disillusionment Charm worked exactly like the Invisibility Cloak, perhaps even better. A cloak could be stepped on and pulled off, but a spell could not.

Honeydukes was packed with Hogwarts students. Shelf after shelf filled the shop, laden with the most enticing sweets people could imagine: huge chunks of peanut brittle, faintly glowing pink coconut ice, neatly arranged rows of hundreds upon hundreds of different chocolates, a large barrel of Every Flavor Beans, a barrel of Fizzing Whizzbees, and fruit drinks.

People selected goods here, bursting into laughter now and then.

The stealthy Hoffa edged through the crowd, looking around while keeping alert for older students.

Then he spotted a very pretty older girl standing by the door, laughing and chatting with several boys. Mischief rising in him, Hoffa ran a finger across the beauty's waist and hip, then followed a boy opening the door out of Honeydukes.

The pretty girl became furious. Turning around, she slapped a passing boy.

The boy who had been hit was stunned, both aggrieved and baffled.

A small commotion was born.

Hoffa silently threw back his head and laughed. His mind immediately supplied him with ten thousand uses for this spell.

For example, entering the girls' lavatory, the girls' dormitory, the girls' bathroom...

Now this was a real wizard...

Hiss!

A sudden faint stab of pain in his head interrupted Hoffa's fantasy.

Something began to feel off, as though his body were unwell. But the feeling quickly vanished without a trace.

Hoffa shifted his attention to increasing his exploration progress.

The system in his mindscape rapidly raised the exploration percentage. Though it was not as exaggerated as King's Cross Station, compared with the snail-like speed at Hogwarts, it was already incredibly fast.

After walking through only two streets, the system's exploration progress had risen to five percent.

Zonko's Joke Shop? It had existed this early?

A post office? Wizards actually had post offices too.

Hoffa wanted to take a look at the Shrieking Shack, Hogsmeade's famous attraction. But then he remembered that the Shrieking Shack had only become famous during the era of Harry Potter's father, because a werewolf had howled inside it.

But Remus Lupin had not yet been born, so naturally there was no Shrieking Shack here.

When he turned onto a street behind the post office, Hoffa learned what the post office was for.

Wizarding post offices also used owls to deliver letters—public owls, at that.

As he watched, more than a dozen wanted posters beneath rows of owl cages caught Hoffa's attention.

The conflicts of wizards never end. Kill all German dark wizards.

(A reward of 500 Gold Galleons for the head of every German dark wizard.)

They were rows of moving photographs, each showing a roaring head, with a line of small print beneath it.

Another faint wave of dizziness struck his mind, and Hoffa froze before the posters.

The conflicts of wizards never end. Five hundred Galleons for a head. The notices also bore the official seal of the British Ministry of Magic. Hoffa seemed to smell the bloodshed hidden beneath this village's tranquility.

He remembered seeing World War II recruitment propaganda on the streets of London.

And here, he saw the same thing again.

These posters were very new, probably put up only a day or two ago.

Had the shadow of war already spread to the wizarding world? Or had wars between wizards of different countries never stopped in the first place?

After reading the posters, Hoffa's frivolous mood settled somewhat. He remembered that Yinduo had called him here for something extremely important.

He had no idea what the urgent matter actually was.

Crossing the road, Hoffa followed behind a tall wizard into the Two Broomsticks Inn a few minutes later.

It was worth mentioning that this place would later be called the Three Broomsticks.

Of course, that was after Madam Rosmerta became its owner.

The place was crowded and noisy, but its atmosphere was far better than the Leaky Cauldron's.

It was warm and hazy with smoke, the mist produced by the patrons' pipes. Pale smoke curled around candles set along the walls, making their yellow halos even more dreamlike. Several loudly arguing oil paintings hung on the surrounding walls, most stained with spilled liquor and altered in color.

A burly, bearded man was tending to a group of noisy wizards at the bar.

A large sign behind the bar listed all kinds of brews.

Forgetfulness Water, Canyon Water, Nettle Wine, Sherry, Mead, Elderflower Wine, Cherry Syrup, Licorice Beer... and, of course, Butterbeer, which Hoffa knew best, was prominently listed among them.

But he was invisible now, so he could not stop for a drink.

Hoffa carefully tiptoed about, weaving through the crowd.

Suddenly, the dizziness surged again.

Hoffa felt that something was wrong and quickened his search for Yinduo.

A roar of laughter erupted from the crowd, loud enough to nearly lift the roof.

"Ha, excuse me, two cups of Forgetfulness Water. Put them on my tab," a familiar voice said.

"You really are the most generous goblin I've ever seen."

"Goblins don't lack money. Hurry up, one more round."

Hoffa turned and saw a crowd gathered together. The center was filled with the clattering sound of cards. Hoffa found an empty chair and climbed onto it.

Just as he thought. It was that guy, and that guy was gambling again.

Yinduo sat carelessly beside the table in that familiar suit.

Coins were scattered across the tabletop. Several burly men beside him guzzled Licorice Beer, their cheeks flushed red and their mouths covered in froth.

Hoffa was somewhat unhappy. This was the supposedly urgent matter?

He had called Hoffa out of Hogwarts, only to gamble recklessly here. What the hell was going through that guy's head?

He jumped down from the chair and struggled through the robes of several wizards craning their necks forward.

But when Hoffa entered the center of the gambling game, the dizziness grew worse. He had to grab a chair just to barely remain standing.

He took a deep breath, steadying his body's inexplicably awful condition.

Hoffa quickly stepped forward, grabbed the goblin by the ear, and whispered, "You'd better give me a reasonable explanation, or I'll test the nasty curse I just learned at Hogwarts on you."