Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 270 The Return of the Viper

There is a villa on a hillside in Little Hangleton. Although the owners of the villa are no longer the Riddle family, the villagers still call the villa Riddle House.

On the one hand, this is because the current owner of the villa does not live here, and has never even been here. On the other hand, it is because the impression left on them by the Riddle family back then was too deep.

The Riddles were that typical annoying family. They were sarcastic, arrogant, and unkind to their wealth. No one in Little Hangleton liked them.

And one night fifty years later, the bodies of the three members of the Riddle family were found neatly laid out in the Riddle Mansion.

Frank, the gardener of Riddle House, is the biggest suspect, but he insists that he is innocent and says that he saw a teenager enter Riddle House that night, and it should be a child who killed the Riddle family.

The police didn't believe it at all and continued to interrogate him.

But in the end, Frank was released because the police had no evidence to prove that Frank killed the Riddle family.

Their deaths were very strange. The forensic doctors did not find any signs of poisoning, shooting, etc. on their bodies that might have caused their death, but they just stopped breathing.

The villagers didn't care about the truth of the matter. The Riddle family was rich and stingy, and Frank, the gardener who had returned from the battlefield, was a little neurotic. The villagers all had the same attitude towards them, disgust.

The only effect that what happened at Riddle Hall had on the villagers was that it gave them something to eat for a long time, and gave them more things to talk about when they boasted in the tavern.

Today, fifty years have passed since that terrible incident.

Perhaps out of pity, or perhaps because he had too much money to spend, the new owner of Riddle Mansion did not fire Frank, which gave the lame old soldier a place to stay.

Frank has been guarding Riddle Mansion for the past fifty years. Although its owner may never live in it in this lifetime, Frank is still doing his job to the best of his ability, mowing the lawn.

As for maintenance and cleaning of the house, Frank would not do it. His employer only paid him as a gardener, so he only did the work that was required of him as a gardener, and he had a clear boundary here.

Time will heal everything, but this sentence does not apply to Little Hangleton. Even after fifty years, the villagers still regard him as a murderer and use him as a negative example to teach their children to abide by the law.

This made his job very difficult, because the children in Murakami were always playing tricks on him, smashing windows with stones one day and riding bicycles on the neat lawn the next. These children called this behavior a just punishment, and the one who punished him was of course the "murderer".

Now he is over seventy years old and his body can no longer take the strain, especially his lame leg, which has now reached the point where he has to use a cane.

As you get older, you will naturally wake up more often in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

But this time, when he walked out of the cottage with a cane, he found that the lights were on in the Riddle Mansion opposite.

"These damned brats!"

Frank walked into the Riddle Mansion cursing. He was determined to teach those naughty kids who liked to make trouble for him a memorable lesson this time!

Frank moved very gently because he was afraid the children would run away.

He used to be a scout and had some experience in infiltration.

He slowly approached the lighted room, but before he got close, he heard voices inside.

"Master, I may be dying."

This was a weak voice that sounded very shrill. After this shrill voice appeared, another hoarse voice like a dream came out soon.

"Where's Nagini? It's time for her to drink milk."

Frank immediately shrank into a dark corner. These two people were obviously not those naughty kids. He instinctively felt that something was wrong.

"I... I don't know. It's probably somewhere in the house." The shrill voice suddenly trembled with fear. "Master, I feel terrible. I may die and can't serve you anymore. Woo woo woo!"

"Shut up! Wormtail (Peter's nickname)!"

The crying stopped suddenly.

"Your injuries are not fatal! Don't think I don't know what you're thinking. You're already regretting coming to me! I disgust you. I can see that you tremble all over when you see me! If you didn't have nowhere to go, you would have abandoned me, a piece of trash who needs you to feed me every few hours!"

"No! Master, I am loyal to you..."

"You're lying! If you're really as loyal as you say, then how do you explain how you escaped from Azkaban? How do you explain that as soon as you found me, a dozen wizards appeared and attacked us?"

"I...I don't know."

"Idiot! You've been set up! They got you out of Azkaban just to find me! If they didn't want to capture us alive, if I hadn't accumulated some strength over the years, I would have been captured by that group of people long ago! And you! Would have turned into a corpse long ago!

Now! Stop talking nonsense to me! Decorate the graveyard as soon as possible, and then, according to the plan, go get me Harry Potter's blood!"

"I...I understand! Master! The great Lord Voldemort!"

The hoarse voice seemed tired after speaking such a long paragraph continuously. It was breathing heavily and looked very strenuous.

Frank backed away slowly. He felt something was wrong. The two men in the room kept talking about corpses and murders. They didn't look like good people.

He planned to call the police, but just as he turned around and was about to go downstairs to make the call, he found a python at least twelve feet long slowly approaching him.

Frank was terrified. He stared blankly at the python's huge body twisting like waves, leaving wide, winding tracks on the dusty floor.

Frank closed his eyes in despair. He had seen an introduction to pythons in a BBC documentary and knew that although the behemoth in front of him looked bulky, it actually moved very fast. He had no way of escaping with his old arms and legs.

However, just when he was in despair, the big snake slowly passed by him and entered the bright room, making a hissing sound as it crawled, and finally stopped in front of a recliner and coiled up like a pet dog.

"Hiss, hiss~"

There was a hissing sound in the room, which made Frank a little strange. Could there be a snake in the room?

But he immediately put the thought aside because the hoarse voice spoke again. "Oh, Wormtail, my Nagini has brought shocking news. A dirty Muggle is hiding outside the door and heard our conversation clearly!"

Frank was shocked. A guess came to his mind: Could it be that the extra hissing sound just now was made by that hoarse male voice? Could he communicate with snakes?

Before Frank could recover from his shock, a short and fat man who looked like a mouse walked out of the room and looked at him in surprise.

The short and fat man had a lot of gauze wrapped around his body, an eye patch on his right eye, and one of his legs seemed to be limping.

Frank's mouth opened and closed silently, as if he wanted to explain something.

But before he could open his mouth, the badly injured fat man in front of him grinned, pointed a short wooden stick at him, and recited a sentence that he could not understand at all.

An ominous green light flashed, and Frank fell to the floor with a thud, the light in his eyes gradually dimming.

……

At the same time, the Thestral carriage that Mike and Penelope were riding in slowly landed on an open space.

"Welcome, Mr. Townley, Miss Clearwater."

As soon as the two got out of the car, a young man in the uniform of a Ministry of Magic official came to greet them. On the other side, a staff member guided the coachman to drive the carriage to the parking area.

"Thank you for your hard work, Dick." After greeting the young official, Mac introduced him to Penelope, "This is Dick Roman, clerk of the British and Irish Quidditch Union Headquarters."

"Good evening, Dick."

"My dear fellow, Miss Clearwater, you are absolutely the most beautiful lady I have ever seen tonight."

Although she knew that the other party was just being polite, Penelope was still very happy and laughed with her hands covering her mouth.

Dick also knew who was in charge between the two. After greeting Penelope, he turned his gaze to Mike, pointed to a winding dirt road and said:

"Please follow me. Your tents are ready. All the facilities inside are the best. I hope you will be satisfied."

Several people set off immediately. Penelope, who was wearing high heels, was worried that it would be inconvenient for her to walk on the muddy road, but what she didn't expect was that this seemingly fragile muddy road was actually extremely hard and its smoothness was no less than that of a wooden board.

"This road was prepared by our colleagues for VIPs. Every inch of the road surface has been deformed to ensure that its hardness and smoothness are similar to marble," Dick explained.

"It must be hard, I mean hosting the Quidditch World Cup Finals," said Mike.

Mike was just asking casually, but unexpectedly this question seemed to touch Dick's g-spot, and he began to complain to Mike incessantly.

"It's more than just hard work, it's simply not a human job! It is expected that nearly 10 people will come to watch the game, which means we have to build a large stadium that can accommodate at least 10 people. We mobilized 500 people just for this stadium, and it took a whole year to build it!

And this is just a small problem. The key is how to prevent such a large-scale collective activity of wizards from being discovered by Muggles. This is a serious problem. You know, we can't let these 100,000 people come from Diagon Alley or 9 3/4 Station at once, right? This is too exaggerated and it is absolutely impossible to hide it from those Muggles.

So we had to stagger everyone's arrival time, so we divided the tickets into several tiers. Expensive tickets not only had better seats and tents, but also allowed for later arrival times. Those who bought the cheapest tickets were out of luck, as they had to arrive two weeks in advance.

We also differentiated the modes of transport, with a small number of people using Muggle transport, some using Apparition, and the vast majority relying on Portkeys. Yes, you heard it right, Portkeys. We have 200 Portkeys in total across the UK, and more in other countries. Everyone who has bought a ticket must arrive at the teleportation point strictly according to the schedule to be teleported. "

Mike was secretly shocked. He didn't expect that organizing such a competition would be so difficult.

Dick also realized that he was a bit rude as a receptionist, and said quickly:

"This is not a good experience for ordinary spectators, but it is different for you. Our Department of Magical Sports and Games has prepared a one-stop service for distinguished guests like you, including priority fast-track channels, the best viewing venues, full-time escorts, and super-star accommodation to ensure that you can have fun."

Mike smiled politely, but he had already started cursing in his heart.

Damn, you are still a distinguished guest. It’s because I gave you 100,000 gold galleons and became the biggest sponsor of this game!
The thought of the 100,000 gold Galleons made him feel a little sad. Even for him, such a large sum of money felt a bit too much.

The three of them continued to talk and laugh as they walked towards the tent, but halfway there a middle-aged man in hunting clothes suddenly emerged from the woods next to them and looked at Mike and the others with a confused look on his face.

"What are you..."

Before he could finish his words, Dick attacked him fiercely, knocking him to the ground with one blow.

After doing all this, Dick turned to Mike with an apologetic look and said, "I'm really sorry, this happened because of our work error."

"Is this, a Muggle?" Penelope asked.

"Yes, ma'am. This is another serious problem we encounter in our work. There are always Muggles that suddenly appear in front of us from some inexplicable places. For this reason, our colleagues in the Memory Deletion Command have to erase their memories again and again and strengthen the Muggle Expelling Spells around them."

As soon as Dick finished speaking, two more men in uniform emerged from the woods.

They looked at the man in hunting suit lying on the ground, then looked at Mike and the others, with somewhat ugly expressions on their faces.

"Damn it, this guy has bumped into a wizard for the third time today. The Muggle-Repelling Charm around here must have failed!"

One of the men complained.

Dick was obviously very dissatisfied with the man's complaints.

He put on a serious expression and said sternly to the two men, "Hurry up and throw this guy out! This is the VIP channel!"

The two men were older than Dick, but at this moment, they lost their temper after being scolded by Dick, and disappeared into the woods dragging the unconscious man in hunting suit.

Then, Dick changed his expression and said to Mike with a flattering look:

"Mr. Townley, let's keep going. We'll be there soon."

(End of this chapter)