Snape, the Sunshine of Hogwarts.

Chapter 177 Dragon Skin Map
After searching the area for some time, Severus did not find any ghosts.

I did see a group of wild fairies.

This magical creature can be found all over the world, wherever there are wizards.

There are many of them in the gardens of Hogwarts. They range in height from 1 to 5 inches and have human-like bodies, heads and limbs, but on their backs they have a pair of large, insect-like wings. Some of these wings are transparent, while others are colorful.

This magical creature is classified as XX by the British Department of Magic.

It is a small animal that poses no threat and has little intelligence, and in most cases, it is only used as an ornament.

Instead of opposing it, they are quite willing to do so because of their strong vanity.

From the perspective of magic potions, fairies' wings are also a material with medicinal value. Moreover, taking their wings off their bodies will not cause them any real harm, but it will damage their vanity.

Because of these habits, fairies are rarely seen in the wild anymore. Most of them live in symbiosis with wizards and can be easily found in many magical streets, school lawns, and the Ministry of Magic.

Severus had an idea after seeing the group of wild fairies.

Although this magical creature is not very intelligent, it is still stronger than a troll!
They are naturally argumentative and have their own language, a sound that is even more jarring than the buzzing of flies.

Severus, of course, did not understand the fairies' language, but he could see some of the scenes they had witnessed in their memories.

Soon, he attracted several fairies with some nectar. He opened one hand and let the fairies stand in his palm and lick the nectar, while waving his magic wand with his other hand.

Although these creatures only resembled humans in appearance, in reality, trolls were much closer to humans in some ways. But Severus still felt a little strange about killing them.

His spellcasting was not brutal, ensuring that these fairies would not die, but it was unavoidable that they would experience a mental lapse for two or three days afterward.

And from their memories, Severus actually made some discoveries!
Most of these fairies do not live for more than two years. In the memory of one of them, shortly after it emerged from its cocoon and grew into an adult fairy, it saw a ghost floating in the southeast while it was out foraging for food. The ghost was muttering something.

'It hid there. It hid over there.'

After that, no fairy ever saw her in this area again.

After seeing this memory, Severus released the greedy fairies, his brow furrowed as he looked southeast.

This direction leads directly to Troll Valley!

According to the images from that memory, the female ghost seemed to have made some unusual discovery more than a year ago and moved in this direction.

But Severus came from there and did not encounter anything related to the black mist or meet the ghost along the way.

If she went this way, did she eventually leave the forest, or did she stay somewhere else?
But now, Severus had no intention of continuing the pursuit; he needed to go back and have dinner with Harry and the others.

He used Apparition to return directly to the valley.

When he returned, he found that the lunch he had expected had not been prepared, and even Lulu was nowhere to be seen in the troll camp, except for the trolls who were resting and slacking off!
After Severus looked around, he saw the troll Lulu and Andrews, Harry and his group doing something on the lake about a mile away from the camp.

With another apparition, Severus instantly appeared beside them, only to find that Lupin was not there, but instead a conspicuous skull was on the ground!
"What happened?" he asked.

The moment he Apparated, Harry was already shouting.

"There are mermaid skulls in the lake! Mr. Lupin and Mr. Andrews suspect that there should be a mermaid tribe under this lake!"

"I found it! I found it first!" Draco shouted impatiently from the side, as if afraid that Harry would steal his credit.

Andrews, who had been waiting by the lake with his wand in hand, turned around in surprise and said to Severus.

“I just found out about this too. Lulu and I have been living here with these giants for over three years, and we never imagined that there would be mermaids living underground in this lake! How can those mermaids accept these giants living next to their home?”

"Has Lupin gone down?" Severus asked.

"Yes, he cast a head-bubbling spell on himself and has been swimming for more than twenty minutes."

After thinking for a moment, he patted Andrews on the shoulder.

"Take the children to prepare lunch first. As for those trolls, they've been slacking off since Lulu isn't here. I'll wait for Lupin here and call you immediately if anything happens."

Afterwards, Andrews, along with Harry and Draco, who were still reluctant to leave, carried two large buckets of fish back to the camp.

Only Severus remained, continuing to wait for Lupin.

He didn't have to wait long. About ten minutes later, Lupin, with the Bubble Head Curse on him, surfaced. He saw Severus and immediately reached out his hand to him.

"Quick, help me up!"

Severus immediately grabbed his arm, pulled him along with what he was holding in his other hand, and dragged him back to the shore.

Only then did he see what Lupin had brought up from underwater.

It was a huge piece of leather, taken from some unknown animal!
But just by getting a closer look at the piece of skin, Severus immediately recognized what kind of animal's body tissue it was.

Dragon skin!

Dragon skin is valuable regardless of the time or place, let alone such a large piece.

"There is a mermaid tribe down there, but it's full of mermaid skeletons; you can't see any living mermaids at all!"

Lupin, having climbed ashore, immediately cast a spell on his soaked clothes and then spoke.

"Those mermaids died under very strange circumstances. Their tribe did not appear to have suffered any damage, and their remains were intact. They did not seem to have fought with any natural enemies. And in that ruin, I found this."

By this time, Severus had completely spread out the dragon skin he had brought up from underwater; it looked as big as a blanket and was as if it had been peeled off the belly of some dragon.

On that piece of dragon skin, one could vaguely see many stripes painted with some unknown pigment; they didn't look like any kind of writing, but rather like a map of some place.

However, the lines are messy and there are no markings. There is only a pattern in the middle with two circles of different sizes stacked together, which looks a bit like a double-layered cream cake, or a fountain viewed from above.

Lupin, who had already tidied himself up, turned and saw the contents of the dragon skin. He examined it closely and asked, "What is this? A treasure map? Is there treasure in this forest?"

Severus was also pondering, staring at the pattern in the middle of the picture, and said softly.

There is no legend about the treasure, but there is a legend about the Fountain of Good Fortune.

Lupin was clearly surprised.

"Lucky Fountain? You mean the one from the Tales of Beedle the Bard?"

Severus didn't keep Lupin in suspense; he quickly told him the legend of the Fountain of Good Fortune that Andrews had told him at noon.

Like Severus's initial reaction, Lupin also felt that the effects of this legendary Fountain of Good Fortune were somewhat like a specially enhanced version of Felix Felicis.

"But Felix Felicis, in theory, works by enhancing a wizard's mental activity and perception, thereby indirectly bringing good luck. Therefore, the number of times one can drink this potion in a lifetime is limited. Once the body gets used to such changes, it becomes useless."

Severus stroked his chin and said.

"I wonder if the legendary Fountain of Good Luck in this forest is like Felix Felicis, or if it really increases people's luck."

Lupin rolled up the dragon skin.

"What about this skin and the mermaid skeleton at the bottom of the lake?"

“Either there’s something wrong with this lake, or there’s something wrong with this dragon skin.” Severus turned to look at the calm surface of the lake. “Under normal circumstances, it’s impossible for a large-scale mermaid massacre to occur, especially since, as you said, they’ve already built a tribe underwater in this lake.”

"Let Andrews have time to report the mermaid matter to the Albanian Ministry of Magic; the Division for the Protection of Magical Creatures has a duty to investigate such incidents. As for the dragon skin..."

Severus hesitated for a moment, then winked at Lupin.

"Why don't you keep it? Even if it doesn't have any additional value, the skin itself is already very valuable, after all, it's your discovery."

“It should be said that Draco discovered it,” Lupin corrected, clearly not intending to steal the credit from the children. “I’ll keep it. After we finish building the troll’s house, if Harry and Draco are interested, I’ll take them to the forest with this map to find the treasure.”

"A great idea!"

France, Paris, Lemaître Cottage.

The Lemaîtres were both early risers. No matter how late they went to bed the night before, their biological clock, which had been maintained for nearly a hundred years, would wake them up precisely at six o'clock in the morning.

Just as Madame Lemaître picked up her wand to water the flowers in the garden, she suddenly saw an uninvited guest who should not belong to the house sleeping in the corner of the garden, which almost made her cry out in surprise.

"Nico! What's going on?! Why is there a dog in our house?!"

She hurried back into the house and asked Nicole, who was sitting on a recliner, seemingly lost in thought.

Nico laughed.

"What was our last pet called again? Alice or Mary? Oh right, it was a snow-white tabby cat. We haven't had a pet for over eighty years since it died. How about that black dog?"

Hearing his words, Lemaître finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"If you like it, of course you can keep it, but you should have told me in advance. I was startled when I saw such a big dog."

"Sorry, I told Chimi when I brought it home last night, but I forgot to tell you after I woke up."

Although Madame Lemaître didn't mind that Nico had taken a dog to keep, she was still a little curious about the dog's origins.

"Where did you see it? It doesn't look like a stray dog ​​at all; it's so big!"

“At the Stalingrad metro station, it was drinking with a drunkard. I thought it was funny, so I brought it back with me.” Nico picked up today’s newspaper. “Let it sleep a little longer. It drank quite a bit last night and peed three times on the way back.”

Madame Lemaître was already considering preparations for getting a pet at this time.

"I'll go to Fisher's Magical Animal Supplies store later to buy it some dog food and toys. Do you need Chimi to build it a bed? We can't let it sleep in the garden like this forever."

At this moment, Nico put down the newspaper and shook his head.

"You don't need to buy it anything."

"Then what does it eat? Where does it live?" Madame Lemaître didn't understand.

"We'll have Chimi cook whatever we want for it. As for where it lives, this house is so big, it can sleep anywhere it wants except our bedroom."

Are you sure it won't poop or pee indiscriminately?

"I can be sure that it wasn't drunk."

Madame Lemaître was persuaded by Nicolas.

“Okay, if you’re sure, then I can make it two outfits, right? We need to give it a present as soon as it arrives in this home.”

Nico naturally did not refuse.

"You can pick out some clothes you like for it to wear."

Madame Lemaître found something to do, and she quickly put on her coat and prepared to go out to buy some clothes for the new member of the Lemaître family.

After she left, Nico, who had been sitting on the recliner deep in thought, stood up and went to his alchemy area. He rummaged through the cabinet next to him and soon found a book with a phoenix relief on the cover!

Anyone with a discerning eye can recognize that this is a legendary alchemical artifact that is in no way inferior to the Philosopher's Stone, and its function is said to be to allow one to contact any wizard in the world at any time!
Nicole carried it and, with some difficulty, placed the embossed book on the desk.

He sat down at the table, opened the book cover, picked up a quill pen, filled it with ink, and slowly wrote a name on the page.

Albus Percival Woolfrick Bryan Dumbledore

(End of this chapter)