If someone has been feeding something, it probably didn't appear suddenly in a short period of time.
Most likely it has been going on for a long time.
It's just that Ministry of Magic has been too busy with Voldemort to care about anything else, so it's reasonable that he didn't notice such anomalies.
Lin Ze sighed, then stuffed the diary back into his arms.
"Ben, help me check London and surrounding areas in the past ten years to see if there have been any cases similar to this one. The ones labeled Death Eaters that tortured wizards also count."
"Nearly ten years? The scope is not small." Ben wiped his sweat, but still agreed to do it.
Lin Ze opened the curtain and walked to Arthur: "Arthur, Evan·Rosier is the manager of the apartment where he lives?"
"Here, that old man is very timid. After the accident, he has been hiding in his room and not daring to come out."
"That's good, come with me again."
The two of them followed the path on the south side of Diagon Alley and turned into a back street. Arthur raised his hand and pointed. "That's the building."
Lin Ze looked up.
It was an old brick building with a height of four stories. The walls were blackened by rainwater and half of the windows were boarded up.
There were several black bags filled with garbage piled up at the door of the building. A few crows stopped and pecked nearby, not hiding when someone came.
The administrator was a hunchbacked old man in his sixties. After hearing the knock on the door, he hesitated for a while before opening the door a crack.
"Ministry of Magic Auror Office, I want to see Rosier's room." Lin Ze showed his badge.
The old man searched for a long time with his cloudy eyes, then took off the door chain and took out a bunch of clattering keys.
"The one who died here?" the old man asked in a hoarse voice.
Lin Ze nodded. "Yes, that's him."
It seems that Rosier did not check in with his real name, but this is reasonable.
The old man said nothing more and led Lin Ze all the way to the stairs.
Rosier's room is at the far end of the fourth floor.
As soon as the door opened, a musty smell mixed with the strong smell of inferior alcohol rushed out.
The room was not big, with a camp bed and a square table with a few empty wine bottles and half candles piled on it.
The curtains were drawn tightly and the floorboards creaked when you walked on them.
Lin Ze walked around the room and found nothing.
"Has he been in contact with anyone during this time? Letters, owls, visitors, anything."
"No letter." The old man held the door frame, his voice dry and hoarse.
"A woman came to see him last week. She stayed in his room for less than ten minutes and then left."
"What kind of woman?"
"I couldn't see my face clearly, and I was wearing a black turban."
Lin Ze and Arthur looked at each other.
After leaving the apartment, the two went to the place where Rosier was last found.
That place is outside Knockturn Alley, near a long-abandoned culvert.
There was still a faint fishy smell in the air. The floor had been cleaned, but a few dark brown stains could still be seen in the corners.
Lin Ze squatted down and lightly swept the wand at the base of the wall.
"The magic power remains very weak." He murmured.
"Is it Dark Magic?"
"I can't tell." Lin Ze shook his head.
He stood up and was about to look around again when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a dilapidated house opposite the culvert.
There seemed to be a figure flashing past behind the window on the second floor of the house.
"Arthur, I remember that house must have been abandoned for a long time, right?"
Arthur looked in the direction he pointed. "Yes, no one has lived there for a long time."
Lin Ze nodded without saying anything. He motioned for Arthur to follow him.
The two of them walked around to the front door of the house. The bronze plate on the door was covered with green rust, but the door handle was surprisingly clean.
The two looked at each other and saw the solemn look in each other's eyes.
"I'll go in and you'll take care of me outside." Lin Ze said.
Arthur opened his mouth, obviously uneasy, but in the end he just stepped back to the alley across the street, holding the wand in his hand.
Lin Ze Push the door open.
There is not much dust in the house, but there are a lot of broken glass on the ground.
He stepped on the broken glass on the ground and walked in, trying to be as gentle as possible.
There was nothing unusual on the first floor, but there was an unpleasant smell coming from deep in the kitchen. Lin Ze It was probably that someone had cooked something here Potions.
He walked to the kitchen door and saw candles scattered on the floor and a few things wrapped in old cloth.
Lin Ze Use the wand to pick up one of the pieces of cloth.
Inside was a mass of dried black material, like coagulated blood or burnt gum.
He got closer and smelled it, smelling of strong rust.
Then he put the cloth back on him.
Just when he was about to exit, a "boom" sound suddenly came from upstairs.
Like something hit the wooden floor.
Lin Ze Without thinking, he held the wand tightly and walked up.
There are three rooms on the second floor. Two of the rooms have their doors open and there is nothing inside. The door of the third room is ajar.
He leaned against the wall and gently pushed the door open.
Behind the door is an empty room with the windows closed and a half-person-high wooden box placed in the corner.
He walked in and opened the wooden box.
There were several women's old dresses piled inside, and at the bottom was a leather-bound notebook with the cover tied with a string.
Lin Ze took out the notebook and turned to the first page, which read:
"Our blood has not dried yet"
At this moment, Arthur downstairs suddenly shouted, "Lin! There is someone on the second floor!"
Lin Ze stuffed the notebook into his arms and jumped up to the window in two steps as if he were being bounced by a spring.
He leaned against the window frame and glanced outside, and sure enough he saw a shadow wrapped in a black turban climbing out of the narrow window on the side of the second floor and running along the base of the wall toward the culvert.
"Chase!"
Lin Ze jumped directly from the second floor window.
In an instant, Dragon Transformation's back legs caused him to bend his knees slightly when he landed. The soles of his boots scratched two shallow marks on the gravel ground, and then his whole body was shot out like an arrow.
Arthur rushed out of the alley, throwing Leg-Locker Curse at the figure as he ran.
The red light flew past the man's calf and hit the iron railing beside the culvert, splashing up a string of sparks.
"Don't let Killing Curse go! Catch him alive!" Lin Ze shouted.
The figure didn't even look back, his figure flickered in and out of the shadow of the culvert, running very fast.
Lin Ze cursed secretly, what kind of ordinary dark wizard is this? With this running posture, he can run better than Seeker when he was taking Quidditch class in Hogwarts.
He speeded up, stepped on the side wall of the culvert with his right foot, and used the force to move out laterally. His whole figure was like a big bat flying close to the ground, blocking the man's path from mid-air.
"Run, why don't you run?" Lin Ze landed and stopped in front of the only exit of the culvert.
Under the black turban, a pair of eyes stared at him.
The eyes were very bright, glowing with an unnatural dark red, like two coals burning in the night.
Lin Ze's pupils shrank slightly, and he had some guesses about his identity.
"Wizard... damn..."
The voice was high-pitched and thin, and it was difficult to distinguish between male and female.
Lin Ze shook his arms and walked forward slowly, "What the hell is this age? Aren't you all the rats in the gutter dead yet?"
The eyes under the turban shrank suddenly.
"You..."
"The stench on my body can be smelled from a long distance."
But the man screamed, and a blood-red light came out of his sleeves.
Lin Ze dodged sideways and drew a circle on the ground with his backhand "Incendio", surrounding him in place.
Arthur caught up from behind and threw a "Stupefy" from a distance.
The red cursed light hits accurately.
The man fell down as if his bones had been knocked out.
Lin Ze added another shot of "Binding Charm" before calling Arthur over.
"This... is this the murderer?" Arthur gasped, looking at the body wrapped in a black cloak on the ground with a look of disbelief on his face.
"It's hard to say, but it certainly has something to do with it."
Lin Ze squatted down and lifted the opponent's headscarf.
It's a woman.
The mouth is very thin, the chin is so pointed that it can be used as an awl, the ears have a strange outline, and the tips of the ears are slightly pointed.
Lin Ze noticed that she was wearing a thin blood-red ring on her right wrist.
The ring was embedded in the flesh, and the blood on the edges had already crusted and turned black.
"Blood Leech Ring?" Lin Ze's pupils shrank.
He stretched out his wand and touched the thin ring lightly.
The unconscious woman suddenly twitched violently and made a "ho ho" sound in her throat, as if someone was pouring boiling water into her throat.
Lin Ze quickly stopped.
The ring body has lit up, and densely packed runes emerge from the ring, like countless small insects burrowing under the woman's skin.
"What the hell is this?" Arthur's face turned pale.
"A very old Dark Magic creation that can drain the blood and magic of its wearer."
Lin Ze stood up and frowned, "Looking at this posture, someone else put it on her."
The woman's body stiffened suddenly, and then stopped completely.
The Blood Ring gave off the last trace of red light and dimmed like a burnt tungsten wire.
She... is dead?
Lin Ze and Arthur looked at each other.