A certain broken Hogwarts

Chapter 23 The First Night Out

After the topic of the Sorting Houses was over, Harry fell silent, lost in his own wild imagination.

Irving seized the opportunity and said to Hagrid, "Hagrid, do you have a map of the Forbidden Forest or something? Or a map showing the exact distribution of those magical creatures?"

Hagrid blinked his beetle-like eyes, then smiled and narrowed his eyes: "I never need a map of the Forbidden Forest, the routes are all in my head!" He pointed to his temple.

"Um, may I ask if you can..." Owen carefully chose his words.

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid that won't work." Hagrid immediately understood Owen's intention and shook his head vigorously. "I've spent almost my entire life trying to drive the Weasley twins out of the Forbidden Forest, and I don't want to have to worry about driving away another one..."

Hagrid glanced at Owen. Although he was honest and simple, he was by no means a fool.

"But you know, people who really want to explore the Forbidden Forest won't be stopped by the lack of a map," Owen said with a nonchalant smile.

"But at least it can stop them from going any deeper in," Hagrid said seriously. "There are too many dangerous creatures deep in the Forbidden Forest. Although they have an agreement with the school and generally won't attack students easily, if someone accidentally angers them, the enraged magical creatures won't care about any agreement. If a student gets into danger deep in the Forbidden Forest, I might not be able to rescue them in time."

"I told you, the Forbidden Forest is dangerous, especially for younger students," Hagrid earnestly advised. "Don't lose your life because of curiosity."

"Don't worry, I value my life." Owen pondered for a moment, nodded, and didn't continue the topic. His main focus right now was indeed on practicing spells; the Forbidden Forest could wait.

"Hagrid, this report..." At this moment, Harry pulled out a newspaper from the stack of newspapers in his hand and waved it. The headline was: Latest report on the Gringotts trespassing incident.

"It happened on my birthday, and we were probably there at the time!" Harry said. "And it says: the underground vault searched by the intruders was emptied earlier that day..."

If Hagrid taking that one dirty little bag from the vault that day meant he had emptied it, then that must be what the intruder was looking for.

Hagrid avoided Harry's gaze, abruptly changed the subject, and began to talk at length about what was happening inside the castle.

In just half an afternoon, Owen had already become quite familiar with Hagrid, and their interactions had become much more harmonious and natural. If Owen wanted, he could easily make himself very popular.

For example, right now, as Owen and Harry were about to return to the castle, Hagrid enthusiastically stuffed their pockets with rock bread and gave each of them a small unicorn hair charm. He had noticed Owen had been examining the decorations in his hut earlier.

"Hagrid, aren't you really planning to use these things to improve your life?" Owen waved a rough-looking pendant in his hand at Hagrid, its snow-white fur shimmering like flowing silver moonlight as he waved it. "They're worth quite a bit of money."

As one of the main materials for wand cores, unicorn hair is much easier to obtain than phoenix tail feathers or dragon heartstrings. However, unicorns are few in number, and their shed hair is quite precious and has many other uses.

"Oh? Then I can't accept it," Harry said quickly.

"It's alright, take it. I have plenty of these. Besides, I'm quite satisfied with my life right now." Hagrid patted Tooth's head, deep smile lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. Clearly, he wasn't completely unaware of the value of these things, he just didn't care much about them.

"Okay, thanks." Owen smiled and waved to him before returning to the Great Hall with Harry for dinner.

"Don't tell me, Owen, that you went with him to see that, that..." Draco drawled as soon as he sat down at the long table. He glanced at Harry at the end, but ultimately didn't say anything unpleasant about the nickname.

"That's Hagrid, he's a very nice guy!" Harry got angry the moment he saw him.

"Yeah, I went to afternoon tea with Harry." Owen yawned. "Overall it was quite enjoyable, well, except for the rock-skin biscuits..." He touched the rock-like biscuits that had been stuffed into his pocket, took them out, and put them on his plate.

"As it turns out, some people aren't what others say they are; you have to judge for yourself." Having received favors from others, Irving didn't hesitate to say a few good words about him in front of others.

"Well, I have reservations," Draco said, arms crossed. "My dad never liked having him at school. He was always hiding on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, doing all sorts of sneaky things by himself. If it weren't for Dumbledore's support..."

"Since Dumbledore believes in him, doesn't that prove something?" Harry frowned, not wanting to hear the other person talk about this topic anymore.

"That's not necessarily true. You know, Dumbledore is probably getting a little senile..." Draco said, pursing his lips.

While the two were arguing, Irving stopped talking, picked up a steak, and slowly used his knife and fork.

After dinner, he quickly wrote a letter and mailed it home from the owl's hut.

Back in the common room, Owen quickly finished his assignments as usual. With his current knowledge, these assignments, which would be a headache for other young wizards, were very simple for him, like a high school student going back to do first-year middle school exercises.

For the rest of the time, Irving unusually didn't curl up in the armchair in front of the fireplace to warm himself. Instead, he greeted the others and then sneaked out of the common room.

"Come to think of it, this is my first time strolling through the castle at night," Owen thought with amusement. "I had no idea I was such a rule-abiding person."

In fact, he hadn't been wandering around these past few days mainly because he had been immersed in practicing spells, keeping himself very busy every day. Going out at night was pointless for him; he didn't need the books in the forbidden section at the moment.

"Besides, I haven't learned the Disillusionment Charm yet."

Owen had long coveted this spell that could make someone invisible. However, the Disappearance Charm was a high-level spell, and even many adult wizards might not know how to use it. Although Owen had learned about the principles of the Disappearance Charm beforehand, he hadn't been able to find the time to study and practice it.

One must eat one bite at a time. He is currently focusing most of his energy on Defense Against the Dark Arts spells, since Hogwarts is really not a safe place.

By now, Owen had mastered most of the commonly used Dark Magic Defense Spells, such as defensive spells like Disarming Charm, Barrier Charm, and Binding Charm, and offensive spells like Stunning Charm and Shattering Charm. As for more advanced spells like Ironclad Charm, Explosion Charm, and Patronus Charm, Owen hadn't even begun practicing them yet.

"Silent... conceal your presence..." Owen chanted two spells to himself, shielding himself from any noise or scent he might make.

"Hopefully, we can catch a Hufflepuff kid out for a night stroll tonight." He was very curious about the purpose of these people; perhaps it was the anomaly he had caused.

"However, since nothing major has happened in a week, this anomaly should be harmless," Owen thought. "And it's been very low-key... hopefully it's not brewing some big news."

Having become familiar with the castle's layout during the day, Owen strolled confidently to the vicinity of the Hufflepuff common room, intending to lie in wait. However, he nearly bumped into Lady Lorris, who was patrolling the area, as soon as he arrived. Owen quickly ducked around a corner in the corridor to avoid her sharp yellow cat eyes.

"It seems Mr. Filch and I are thinking the same thing." Owen shook his head helplessly. He had been secretly observing for a long time and finally saw Filch hiding behind a wall near the entrance to the Hufflepuff lounge, waiting to catch the guys who tried to run out.

There's clearly nothing to be gained tonight.

Owen turned and left, wandering around the castle for a while, where he encountered Barrow, the Blood Man, a ghost from Slytherin.

Well, Mr. Barrow seems to be having a lot of fun lately. Draco foolishly asked him how he got the bloodstains on him, and as a result, Draco chased and scared him for days, almost driving him to a nervous breakdown.

Fortunately, Owen had always gotten along well with the Blood Man Barrow. He chatted with the gloomy, taciturn ghost for a while and asked him to keep an eye out for anything unusual in the castle.

Irving didn't finish his nighttime stroll until it was quite late, and went back to rest.

(End of this chapter)