Hogwarts: Don't call me Wandmaker

Chapter 104 The Bloody Baron

Harry and his two friends reluctantly entered the underground classroom. They were already there, and they couldn't very well turn back at the door.

Nick, who was almost headless, warmly welcomed them. Although they were a little late, he was already very happy that there were living people willing to attend the party.

However, Harry and Ron did not stay for long. Perhaps the rotten food in the underground classroom had stirred up some unpleasant memories for them. Harry and Ron only took one look around before pursing their lips and rushing out.

Hermione was worried about them, so she left as well, leaving only Siron alive.

Xiren glanced at the blackened, charred cake in front of her, large chunks of rotten, maggot-infested meat, and moldy, spoiled pudding cheese...

The taste here wasn't exactly amazing or pleasant, but thankfully he could still barely bear it.

Siren originally intended to approach Nick first, but he was so popular today that the ghosts were lining up to invite him to dance.

There was nothing else he could do but go somewhere else for a while.

He glanced around and saw hundreds of milky-white ghosts crowding into the small underground classroom.

Of course, the ghosts wouldn't feel crowded, but it wasn't so friendly to Siron, a living person. If he made even a slightly larger movement, he could pass through one or more ghosts' bodies.

He could only walk slowly around the edge of the dance floor, and after circling the small room, he came out of the doorway to the outside corridor.

Xilun had intended to warm up by stretching, but then he suddenly noticed a lone ghost floating in the corner.

It was a ghost that Xilun had never seen before, dressed in medieval clothing and wearing an odd old cloak stained with silver blood.

He was facing the wall, swaying and floating in mid-air, seemingly doing something... He looked a bit like he was drunk.

Can ghosts get drunk?
Xilun didn't know, but he realized that this might be a rare opportunity.

He didn't know how long he would have to wait to find Nick, and he couldn't just stay here forever.

So, a fraction of a second later, the wand with silver mane fell into Xiren's hands.

With a whisper, a bright blue light flashed across the dark corridor.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? What happened!" The ghost by the wall seemed to be frightened by something, its upper body jerking up, but its lower body remained in place.

Xilun could even clearly see his intestines floating in mid-air.

“A living person…” The ghost noticed Xilun at this moment, “Aren’t you in the wrong place? Your banquet should be upstairs!”

“Sir Nicholas invited me,” Sir Nicholas said, his eyes subconsciously glancing at the cloak behind him.

It was intact and unchanged... It seemed that the unicorn couldn't directly harm the ghost, which made him somewhat disappointed.

"Are you feeling disappointed?"

Upon hearing someone say that, Xilun nodded subconsciously, "That's true to some extent."

The next second he realized that it was the ghost who had said those words, but he had clearly misunderstood.

"Disappointment is normal, after all, ghosts celebrate in a completely different way than the living."

Xiren seemed to see a hint of bitterness flash in the ghost's eyes, "Because they can't eat, they let the food rot, as if doing so would make the flavor stronger. As they become more and more numb, they stimulate their brains with increasingly shrill sounds... if we still had that kind of thing."

As he spoke, the ghost suddenly became melancholy, as if he were a collection of negative emotions, exuding a ghostly blue aura all over his body.

Seeing that Xilun didn't speak, he sighed again, haphazardly stuffed the intestines that had fallen outside back in, and returned to the corner, floating motionless.

I feel like he and Myrtle should get along well.

Xilun glanced at his cloak again before returning to the underground classroom.

Although the cloak was not damaged, judging from his sudden reaction just now, it seems that he was not completely oblivious to it and it still had some effect.

In the underground classroom, Nick was still dancing, but he found another ghost that he recognized somewhat.

The fat monk from Hufflepuff, a very good-natured ghost, was talking to Patrick of the Headless Hunters when Siren walked by.

However, being a living person, Xilun was like a large searchlight among hundreds of ghosts. The fat monk noticed him early on and greeted him warmly when he saw Xilun coming over.

"Ah, I know you, Ollivander's child, right?"

“Hello, Fat Monk,” Siren said.

“I thought you left with Mr. Potter,” the fat monk said with a smile.

“Actually, I wanted to ask some questions about ghosts,” Siren said, “but Nick keeps dancing…” “Oh?” The fat monk looked at Siren with interest. “If you don’t mind, tell me. Maybe I can help you answer some of your questions.”

“It’s our Defense Against the Dark Arts class,” Siron said. “I really like Professor Lockhart’s book, ‘Breaking Up with the Ghost,’ and I’m curious if there’s anything like the Ghost of Wren in Britain.”

The fat monk froze for a moment, then looked embarrassed, because he really didn't know the answer to this question.

He was a ghost who had become one over six hundred years ago. In his dazed state, he knew nothing and instinctively returned to Hogwarts, the place he missed most, and then never left again...

He's never even left the castle, so how could he possibly know what kind of ghosts are out there?
But it doesn't matter. Although he has never left Hogwarts, there is no shortage of ghosts today.

At the fat monk's call, the place was quickly surrounded by milky-white ghosts. Xilun was squeezed in the middle, and waves of biting cold washed over him, as if he were standing in a freezer.

Moreover, this coldness was a characteristic of ghosts, unrelated to magic, so even if Xiren grasped the silver mane, it was useless. In just a few seconds, a thin layer of white frost condensed on the ends of his hair.

But at the same time, he finally got the information he wanted.

“I’ve never been to Wanlun, but if you’re referring to the kind of ghost that takes pleasure in torturing and killing Muggles, then it must be the Blood Baron,” said a chained, ragged ghost.

Xilun's eyes lit up; this name didn't sound like a good ghost at all.

Then he asked, "Isn't that Blood Baron a ghost? How can he hurt Muggles?"

“Most ghosts are no good, but there are always some special ones,” said the chained ghost. “He killed 16 Muggles and a wizard, but the Aurors of the Ministry of Magic couldn’t do anything to him. Those useless guys have been useless for hundreds of years.”

It's clear that this ghost harbors deep prejudice against the Aurors of the Ministry of Magic.

"How is he now?" Xilun continued to ask.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Then the Blood Baron disappeared inexplicably, and nobody knows what happened.”

“I know, I know.” Another ghost floated up from behind, its voice tinged with excitement. “About seventy years ago, a foreign wizard trapped the Blood Baron in an abandoned village, and then the Ministry of Magic cast a Muggle-repelling charm around the area.”

"I forgot what that foreign wizard's name was, but I remember he later ran for president of the International Federation of Wizards. He was a big shot."

"How do you know so much?" The chained ghost turned around in surprise, but twisted its head off with too much force.

"Hmph..." Nick, who was almost headless, let out a cold snort from afar that had no meaning.

"Never mind me, keep going." The head shouted from the floor, "I even specifically inquired about it, but I didn't get any information. How did you know?"

"Because I was the wizard who was killed by the Blood Baron, and I was there watching him get trapped."

"..."

This answer is very authoritative.

The ghosts fell silent, except for a pair of chained hands that silently picked up their heads and put them back on their necks.

"Where is he... that Blood Baron?" There were even more ghosts around, and as soon as Xilun spoke, wisps of mist condensed in front of him.

The other person didn't answer, but just stared at Xilun and said seriously, "If you just want to seek thrills, I suggest you find another way. That ghost can even kill wizards."

“Thank you, I have no doubt about that.” Xiren glanced at him.

He was very young, at most twenty years old, and clean all over, without any obvious wounds, unlike other ghosts who were covered in blood and had arrows stuck in their bodies.

He just doesn't look very bright.

“I’m asking on behalf of our… Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.” Siren rubbed his shoulders vigorously to warm them up. “Giddro Lockhart… he’s a very capable wizard, and might even be able to kill that Blood Baron… help, help you get revenge.”

The other party didn't take Xilun's words to heart at all, treating them as a joke. Ghosts are the marks left in the world by wizards after their death; they have no life of their own, so how could they be killed a second time?

However, he still told Xilun the address.

"South of Wiltshire, remember to have Professor Lockhart find a fork-shaped mountain, climb over it, and then cross a river..."

Well, this ghost seems to be really not very bright; he even got Lockhart's last name wrong... Hopefully, he's just bad at remembering names.

Xilun carefully wrote down that long address, planning to go and look for it during his holiday.

After that, he received two more names and corresponding addresses from other ghosts, one in Kent and the other in Cornwall.

Although their achievements were not as illustrious as the first one, they were still notorious dark wizards in life, and after becoming ghosts, they went around scaring Muggles and causing trouble for the Ministry of Magic, which could be considered to meet Siron's requirements.

……

(End of this chapter)