Chapter 265 Witch Hunt
The eight of them finally climbed to the top of the White Weasel Mountain, and the journey was a great torture for the little wizards.
"Percy made the right decision not to come with us," muttered Ron.
"If you pass the Apparition test, you can get up later," George said from the side.
Their three older brothers, Bill, Charlie and Percy, did not have to suffer as they did.
You can sleep until the game is about to start, and then Apparate directly to the stadium.
"Then I may never be able to Apparate again in my life." Ron never had any hope for himself.
When they reached the top of the mountain, they successfully met up with Digory and his son.
Bruce met Cedric again, who greeted him warmly.
It was funny because the last time they met, they were both trying to pin each other to the ground and beat each other up.
"Is that a long way to go, Arthur?" asked Cedric's father, Amos Diggory, a red-faced wizard with a brown beard.
"That's fine," said Mr. Weasley. "We live in Devonshire, just over the village."
Mr. Diggory looked kindly at the children around him.
"Arthur, are these your children?"
"Oh, no, the red-haired one is."
Mr. Weasley pointed out his children one by one and said, "This is Harry, this is Hermione, and her brother Bruce."
"Bruce?"
At this moment, Mr. Diggory's brows suddenly frowned, and his eyes were fixed on Bruce.
"Any questions, sir?" Bruce asked.
Mr. Diggory seemed to have just woken up from his dream. He stammered, "Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if we had met before."
"I don't think so." Bruce was quite sure that he and Mr. Diggory had never met.
"That may just be a coincidence," said Mr. Diggory with a wry smile, "I saw you in my dream."
Bruce's expression suddenly became strange. Meeting a man in his forties in a dream was not a romantic thing.
"Dad, you're here again!" At this time, Cedric covered his forehead and interrupted his father's words with helplessness.
Then he turned to Bruce and apologized: "I'm sorry, my dad has been a little weird lately. One moment he said he dreamed that I died, and the next moment he said he dreamed that someone else died."
Mr. Weasley listened and asked with concern: "Have you checked it out? Could it be affected by dark magic?"
"I checked it out, and there's nothing wrong with it."
Cedric signaled Mr. Weasley not to worry. "Someone has indeed said that my father's condition is a bit like a precognitive dream, but there has never been a fortune teller in my family from ancient times to the present, so we don't have any talent in this area."
The so-called precognitive dream is a dream with a prophetic nature, which is not uncommon in the wizarding world.
But a person who does not have the talent for divination will not have such a dream.
Mr. Diggory is over forty years old. If he had talent, he would have shown it long ago and would not have waited until now.
Mr. Weasley was relieved. He joked, "Maybe you've been too busy at work recently, Amos. You should take a vacation and relax."
Mr. Diggory just smiled and said nothing more.
After the pleasantries, it’s time to get going.
Mr. Weasley reminded everyone to take their seats.
"We have..." He pointed and counted the number of people.
Eleven people.
"Okay, it looks like everyone is here, let's go!"
Not far from them, on the grass, was an old boot, the key to the World Cup stadium.
Everyone gathered together and reached out to grasp the door key at the same time.
In an instant, the eleven people felt as if the world was spinning around them, and there seemed to be a hook behind their belly buttons, hooking them forward with irresistible momentum, and everyone flew off the ground with their feet.
Bruce had experienced portkeys more than once, and Dumbledore had taught him how to make one.
But it was the first time for eleven people to use one portkey at the same time.
etc--
Suddenly, like a flash of inspiration in his mind, Bruce realized that something was wrong.
Eleven people?
Where did these eleven people come from?
Bruce, Hermione, Harry, Mr. Weasley and his four children - the twins, Ron, Ginny, plus the Diggory father and son.
No matter how you count, there are only ten people!
Bruce wanted to see who the extra person was, but he was spinning in the air and the wind was pressing down on his head, making it impossible for him to lift it up.
After finally waiting for the wind to die down a bit, his feet landed heavily on the ground.
The destination has arrived.
Everyone around was staggering, and Bruce supported a person who was about to fall, then he saw that it was Hermione.
Ginny, who was a little further away, fell straight to the ground.
Harry and Ron were even worse.
Harry could have stood still, but when Ron fell, he knocked him down with him. Ron seemed to be a little confused, and his limbs tightly wrapped around Harry, making him unable to move.
Bruce counted and found that there were only ten people around him.
"All right, kids, get up!"
Mr. Weasley helped them to their feet and Bruce immediately joined him.
"Mr. Weasley," Bruce asked, "Did you really count eleven people just now?"
"Yes." Mr. Weasley nodded.
"But there are only ten of us," Bruce said, "How come there is one more person?"
Mr. Weasley was also puzzled by this.
He thought about it, then suddenly smiled: "Then I must have counted wrong! Anyway, we are all here, and there is no shortage of people!"
"this--"
Bruce didn't think he had counted wrong, he had just watched Mr. Weasley counting them one by one.
But what's strange is that when Bruce counted the number of people, he didn't even realize that there was one more person.
The place they came to was a large, desolate, foggy swamp.
A few steps away stood two exhausted, sullen-looking wizards, to whom Mr. Weasley handed the Portkey.
"Good job, Basil," said Mr. Weasley to one of the wizards. "A full night's work?"
"We are not as lucky as you." The wizard Basil said tiredly, "Your camp is in the first field, Diggory's camp is in the second field..."
After he finished his instructions with a yawn, he signaled them to hurry over as a large group of people would be arriving soon.
We walked through the deserted swamp and could hardly see anything in the thick fog.
Bruce walked among the crowd and always felt that something was wrong.
But he couldn't tell what the problem was.
In fact, if Bruce looked back now, he would find a set of footprints twenty feet away, silently following them.
There was no entity, the footprints seemed to appear out of thin air. It was a very strange footprint, it looked like a donkey's hoof, four inches long and about two and three-quarters inches wide.
But unlike animals, which walk one step to the left and then one step to the right, all their steps are in a straight line.
The footprints appeared silently and disappeared silently, following everyone like this, silently.
……
Bruce and his group quickly arrived at their campsite and set up their tents.
The place is extremely lively now. The 100,000 people mentioned by Mr. Weasley are not just talk. Bruce has never seen so many wizards gathered together.
Wizards from all over the world gathered together to showcase magical styles from all over the world.
Not far from Bruce, two witches were talking.
One of the witches was tall and fat, like a huge balloon, but the other witch was thin and short, and someone who didn't know her might think she was a fairy.
Judging from their clothes, they should be wizards from America, because there was a banner of "Salem Witch Academy" hanging on the tent next to them.
Bruce overheard their conversation.
"The Muggles have been acting crazy lately. They are really scared."
"Who says it isn't? Some people have already started calling for a witch trial."
"We didn't commit those murders, why are you blaming us?"
"Maybe it's because I'm used to witch hunting."
Witch hunt?
Bruce then remembered that it was no wonder that the name Salem sounded familiar to him.
The Salem Witch Trials was a famous witch hunt!
In 1692, the daughter of a pastor in Salem, Massachusetts, suddenly fell ill with a strange disease. People believed that it was caused by a "witch", so they began a witch hunt.
As the witch case continued to expand, the mutual accusations between neighbors in Salem and surrounding towns reached a fever pitch. In the end, a total of 19 people were hanged and one was crushed to death by a pile of stones.
Bruce immediately became interested.
"Excuse me! Did I just hear you talking about witch hunting?" He moved closer to the two witches.
Suddenly someone interrupted and the two witches were obviously startled, but then when they found out that it was a handsome boy, the two witches quickly smiled again.
They pulled Bruce between them, and the two of them, one fat and one thin, almost squeezed Bruce so hard that he couldn't move.
"Little brother, is there any problem?" the fat witch asked with a very kind expression.
"Which school are you from? You're so cute!" The thin witch reached out and touched Bruce's face.
Bruce was not one to get hung up on details, so he continued asking his questions.
"You mean witch hunt? Oh, it's just a bunch of Muggles scaring themselves." The fat witch squeezed towards Bruce again.
Bruce was fine, but the thin witch was knocked all over the place by the impact.
"But what did I just hear you talking about a murder?"
"Oh, that's true, but it wasn't us who did it."
The thin witch managed to sit up straight and adjusted the wizard hat on her head.
"Can you be more specific?" Bruce asked.
The thin witch thought about it and felt that there was nothing she couldn't say, so she began to tell the story.
"About two months ago, a few strange deaths suddenly occurred in Salem. Several Muggles were found hanged in their homes, with strange symbols painted all over their bodies with red paint."
"What symbol?" Bruce asked quickly.
"I don't know." The fat witch shook her head. "It doesn't have any practical meaning, but in the eyes of those Muggles, it is the symbol of witches."
"Now those Muggles think everyone is a witch." The thin witch added, "I think it won't be long before a new witch hunt really begins."
Both witches faced the witch hunt with a joking attitude.
After all, it is impossible to harm real wizards with Muggle methods. Instead, the ones who can be harmed by them are innocent humans.
Most wizards keep their distance from the Muggle world, and naturally will not take the initiative to intervene and stop it.
Bruce felt a little heavy-hearted as he listened. He finally asked, "Has the murderer been found?"
But the fat witch shook her head and said, "No one can find it, at least Muggles can't find it, because the murderer is not human."
what?
Even Bruce didn't expect this turn of events.
"Not human?" he asked in surprise.
"That's right." The thin witch said, "In fact, when the murders began, the magic community sent people to investigate. Although the real murderer was not found, it can be basically concluded that it was some kind of magical creature."
The fat witch also added: "It's a bit strange. We compared the characteristics of many magical creatures, but none of them matched. It seems to be a new monster."
Ok.
Bruce could probably guess the origin of this monster at this point, it was probably caused by the intersection of celestial bodies.
Since the world of evil and Harry's world are essentially too similar, and their core planet is the Earth, their intersection is more of a form of fusion.
Bruce discovered this as soon as he returned, because when he looked up, he did not see an extra sun or moon in the sky.
After learning about the witch hunt schedule, Bruce said goodbye and left.
When he had walked some distance away, he could still hear the laughter of the two witches coming from behind him.
They didn't take the incident seriously at all.
But is there really no need to worry?
Bruce heard Katoom briefly introduce the special features of the world of evil forces.
Because of the frequent occurrence of various strange stories and supernatural events in that world, Muggles have to start thinking of various ways to protect themselves.
They gave birth to many similar professions, such as ghost hunter, vampire hunter, werewolf hunter and so on.
Just in case, Bruce meant just in case.
Among these hunters, are there professions targeting wizards?
Like witch hunters or something like that.
By then, will there still be peace between wizards and Muggles?
……
The next night, the Quidditch World Cup final was held as scheduled.
Mr. Weasley led the way, and everyone, clutching their purchases in their hands, walked quickly into the woods along the lantern-lit path toward the stadium.
They could hear thousands of people moving around, shouting, laughing, and intermittent singing.
Walking out of the woods, a huge stadium appeared before our eyes.
At this moment, there are really 100,000 wizards here.
Their seats were first class and had their own box, and when Bruce took his seat and looked down, he could see an extremely spectacular sight.
Everything on the field was shrouded in a mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the stadium itself.
The one hundred thousand spectators were roaring with enthusiasm, as if they were going to overturn the entire stadium.
For some reason, a strange thought came to Bruce's mind.
What he witnessed at this moment was the wizards' final carnival.
(End of this chapter)
