Chapter 526 Number 12, Grimmauld Place

The night is dark.

It happened to be a day when the moon was full, and it happened to be flying high in the sky. The silver-white moonlight looked even colder.

Hermione's buried head lifted slightly, and her eyes opened a slit.

What caught her eyes was the silver-white moonlight, and the whole world suddenly widened. She was sitting on the back of the hippogriff that Loren had transformed into, holding his neck tightly with both hands, with a smooth smile. Cool scales.

The cold wind in the dark night blew the girl's hair. She looked down through the transparent body shrouded in the Phantom Body Curse. The scene on the ground quickly shrank into a pattern made of dark green and black. The square shapes on Privet Road were The true garden is getting further and further away.

This method was thought up by Loren.

First, they cast a disillusionment spell to hide their form, and then transformed and took her flying into the sky. Except for Mad-Eye, the other wizards didn't notice the difference between them. They just thought that they had been keeping their brooms in some kind of storage alchemy. In the equipment, it’s like their luggage.

In front was Tonks who was leading the way, and behind was Mad-Eye who was looking at the overall situation.

Hermione put her head against his neck again. As the flight altitude gradually climbed, the temperature became lower and lower, and the speed gradually increased. The wind blowing in front of her became even colder. Through the gaps in his scales, she could smell his usual scent. It has an orange flavor and a slight warmth.

There was a strange joy in her heart.

"Go left, go left, there's a Muggle looking up!" Moody shouted from behind.

The voice was scattered by the cold wind and sounded unreal, but Tonks reacted immediately, grabbed the broom handle and turned sharply, and the others followed closely.

"We need to fly higher...a quarter mile higher!"

As the height climbed again, nothing could be seen below except pinprick bright spots of light from streetlights and car headlights, two of which might have belonged to Uncle Vernon's car.

Until the shape of the clouds could be seen clearly, the scene on the ground was completely blurred. The cold wind at high altitude became more and more biting. The other wizards' robes were filled with the wind and made a fluttering hunting sound. Tonks tied the birdcage and empty box with a sling. Crunchy.

Along with the whistling wind, Harry's intermittent laughter reached his ears, which sounded particularly cheerful, as if all the frustration and depression of the past month had drifted away with the wind.

Mad-Eye is still commanding in a broken voice:

"Go south! There is a small town ahead! Fly southeast!"

The entire team turned to the right to avoid flying directly over the dotted lights of thousands of houses, but Mad-Eye seemed to not know the way. During the hour of flying, he always changed his route from time to time.

At least in Hermione's mind, he seemed to be going in circles.

"Continue to rise. There is a low cloud ahead. We can fly into it and hide in it!"

Hearing the command to turn again, Tonks shouted angrily: "Don't fly in the clouds! We will become drowned rats, Mad-Eye!"

Mad-Eye was silent for a while, but not long after, his gruff commanding voice appeared again:

"Turn southwest! We need to avoid the highway!"

"..."

"We'd better retrace our steps to make sure we're not being followed!"

Tonks couldn't stand it anymore, so she grabbed the broom handle and turned around and screamed: "Are you crazy, Mad-Eye? We're almost freezing on the broom! If we keep deviating from the route like this, we probably won't be able to get there next week." There! And we're almost there!"

"It's time to start landing." Lupine also spoke, his voice trembling and full of exhaustion, "Harry, Loren, Hermione, follow Tonks!"

"Very good!"

Tonks cheered, and Hermione vaguely saw her blowing a kiss to Lupine below, and then immediately swooped down to a large bright place below, with the wizard team following closely behind, drawing a smooth arc. .

The lights are getting brighter and clearer, criss-crossing and extending in all directions, until you can clearly see the car lights and street lights, the chimneys and the TV antennas, dotted with deep black The square is a house.

"Here we are!"

Everyone landed on the messy and barren grass next to the center of a small square. Hermione felt that the huge thing under her gradually shrank, and finally turned into a figure slightly taller than her, carrying her firmly on her back.

Loren felt a softness on his back, and patted the hand that was tightly clasping his chest. His voice was so narrow that only two people could hear it, with a weak but clear smile: "What, you want to stay on my back forever?"

Hermione quickly let go of her hands, fell to the ground to adjust her hair and clothes based on feeling, and finally patted her hot face calmly.

Fortunately, the Illusion Body Curse was there, otherwise he would have been laughed at again if he saw him like this...

Loren stopped in place, smiled, and the crystal blue light in his eyes flashed away.

"This is it, but there are still some necessary rituals required to enter." Moody muttered and walked forward, his eyes scanning the house numbers on both sides of the road one by one, as if he was looking for something.

The doors of nearby houses have gloomy faces, as if they are far away. Some houses had broken windows that gleamed dimly in the streetlights, paint was peeling off many doors, and a few had trash piled outside their front steps.

"What is this place?"

The wand spoke a counter-spell to himself, and Loren and Hermione became invisible one after another and revealed themselves.

"I know!" Harry suddenly appeared next to him, with uncontrollable excitement in his voice, "Sirius brought me here before, yes...yes..."

Harry was a little confused. He scratched his head and began to think about the address here. His brows slowly knitted together, but his eyes became more and more confused: "I obviously remember it. I should remember it, but..."

"Don't think about it. This place is protected by very powerful magic. You can't leak it without the permission of the secret keeper."

Moody explained gruffly, rummaging in his cloak, taking out his curved wine bottle and taking a sip. His thick-knuckled hands were too cold to function and were trembling slightly.

Loren and Hermione had already realized that this was the legendary Loyalty Curse.

Harry also recalled this spell. His parents had used this spell to avoid Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but in the end they mistakenly believed Peter Pettigrew...

"Come with me!"

Moody put the bottle back into his arms and limped along, finally stopping next to a dirty and dilapidated house.

There was the faint rumble of a stereo in the house's upstairs window, and the acrid stench of rotting garbage emanated from the bulging garbage bags in the dilapidated door.

"Here," Moody said gruffly, thrusting a piece of parchment into Harry's hands, "read it quickly and remember it."

Loren and Hermione approached curiously.

The handwriting on it is long and thin: The Order of the Phoenix headquarters is located at 12 Grimmauld Place, London.

The next moment, the paper curled up and burned, falling to the ground. Several people looked up and looked at the surrounding houses. They were standing in front of No. 11. The one on the left was No. 10, but when they came over, it immediately became No. 13.

"12 Grimmauld Place..."

Loren recited it silently in his heart, and a strange wave of magic power appeared, spreading out like ripples, and like an echo, corresponding ripples appeared in the space in front of him.

Sensing the invisible magic wave, his eyes fell on the gap between the two houses.

A tattered door appeared out of nowhere between numbers 11 and 13, and then dirty walls and gloomy windows appeared. It looked as if an extra house suddenly swelled, taking everything on both sides. They were all squeezed away.

Whether from the perspective of a Muggle, a wizard, or even a variety of other magical animals, the scene in front of them is magical enough.

Even if he didn't know the detailed principles of the Red Loyalty Curse, Loren could detect that such a curse contained almost regular power, rather than just hiding it in color and shape like the Disguise Curse.

The first thing to solve is the concealment and convergence in the basic space. The principle is similar to the reverse application of the Traceless Stretch Spell, but it is much more difficult to implement.

Finally and most importantly, how to erase the memory of this address from the minds of all insiders, not just the memory, but also the modification of impressions and concepts, without access to information about the hidden location. People are completely unable to detect anything wrong.

The so-called "soul magic" in charm science is completely different from Muggle medicine's methods of changing the brain without surgery——

In the relatively long history of Muggle brain medicine, some people once treated mental illness by destroying the prefrontal lobe, causing people to change their temperament and become sluggish. They also destroyed the hippocampus area, causing memory problems. In short, by destroying different areas of the brain, It can affect many aspects such as memory, language, behavioral cognition, and body control.

In the history of soul magic passed down from thousands of years ago, successive black wizards and scholars for research purposes have also developed and created various spells that affect the soul, such as amnesia spells, false memory spells, Legilimency, and brain spells. Occlumency, soul-stealing curse...

Without exception, they are all uncontrollable and will have serious consequences.

Under the above realistic conditions, the magic and complexity of this powerful concealment spell are simply unimaginable.

This was the first time for Loren to witness the unfolding of the Loyalty Curse with his own eyes, but even with just a cursory observation, he could see the unimaginable magical design of the Loyalty Curse. This is an almost perfect method of compressing space and modifying inner concepts. A spell that achieves confidentiality without affecting or even being noticed by relevant insiders.

I tried to say "12 Grimmauld Place", but found that I couldn't do it. The address was clearly on my lips, but when I wanted to express it, it was blurry.

This is the most powerful feature of the Red Loyalty Curse. Except for the designated secret keeper, no one else can leak the secret even if they know it.

Hermione was also shocked by this spell. She and Loren exchanged a look, and both of them tacitly agreed not to ask anything.

"Incredible, right..."

Moody seemed to have been used to the shock of others standing here. He grinned and limped up the broken stone steps inside, "Come on, we have been delayed a lot of time, Order of the Phoenix There is another meeting waiting for us."

The black paint on the door is peeling off and is covered with scratches on the left and right. The silver door knocker is in the shape of a coiled snake. There is no keyhole or mailbox.

Lupine pulled out his wand and knocked on the door. Suddenly there were many loud sounds of metal clashing inside, as well as the sound of chains rubbing against each other and shaking.

"Squeak——"

The old loose leaf groaned under its weight, and the door opened with a sound.

Following Lupin who led the way into the old house, Harry finally saw the scene in his memory. He smiled and warned mysteriously: "Don't go too far inside, don't touch anything, and don't make any noise."

Loren probably knew what he was talking about, and didn't ask any more questions. He silently held Hermione's hand and followed everyone inside.

Stepping over the threshold and into the dark hallway, a damp vapor hit my face, with the smell of rotten and moldy wood, like an empty house that had been abandoned for a long time.

It seemed that some magic in the wall was working. With a rustling sound, a row of old-fashioned gas lamps on the wall lit up one by one, and a chandelier decorated with crystal statues of coiled snakes cast a faint and hazy light. It swayed like a candle flame for a few times, and the light gradually stabilized, illuminating the long and gloomy hallway, peeling wallpaper, polished and frayed carpets, and some portraits hanging crookedly on the wall that had turned black due to age.

That was probably the ancestors of the Black family.

A sound of footsteps approached them from far away, and Mrs. Weasley came out of the hallway, walking towards them in two steps, with a warm smile on her face:

"Oh, Harry, Loren, Hermione, I'm so glad to see you!"

Molly hugged Harry into her arms, and Loren and Hermione standing next to her noticed that she was much thinner and paler than the last time they met.

"You must be hungry after traveling so fast. You need to eat more to replenish your energy, but I'm afraid you have to wait a while before dinner... The meeting is about to start, he just arrived and is about to make a report, you guys go quickly..."

Molly asked Moody to take people to the meeting first, and pulled the three people who wanted to follow, "No, children, only members of the Order of the Phoenix can attend the meeting. Ginny and her brothers are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meeting is over, and then we will have dinner..."

Watching her back hurried away, Loren and Hermione looked at Harry on the side.

Back in the familiar environment, Harry, who had calmed down, waved to follow him, and pressed his index finger on his lips: "Shh, don't speak loudly in the hallway."

Tiptoeing through two long, bug-hole curtains, they then walked around a large umbrella stand that looked like a broken leg of a troll, and then walked up the dark stairs. On the wall plaque next to them, there was a row of wrinkled heads - the heads of house elves.

Turn right on the second floor and push open the second door following the sound.

In the room, a group of red-haired little wizards turned their heads to look at them, their expressions gradually becoming vivid, and their eyes radiating surprise.