Chapter 181 - 181 Search for relics

Chapter 181: Chapter 181 Search for relics

Harry would have almost forgotten about the fact that he was a Serpent's Old Cavity if Rolf hadn't brought it up out of the blue.

At that time, Professor Dracula carried him to his office and drew a tube of his blood, saying that he wanted to test whether he was related to Salazar Slytherin, the founder of Slytherin Academy.

Although it was ultimately proven that Harry was indeed not related to Slytherin, it still left a lasting impression on him.

All this time, the little alchemical bat that had been used to draw his blood was still sitting in his luggage pile!

"So ... is there any necessary connection between the old snake cavity and this whole rescuing Luna thing?" Harry asked, "Could it be that Luna fell into the snakes?"

He winced.

If she had fallen into the snakes, after a long day, Luna would have had a hard time keeping herself alive, I'm afraid.

"It's actually a bit easier if you do fall into the snakes, I can find some of the andrographis powder from inside Hagrid's things, it's still quite handy for expelling a few snakes." Rolf said, "But that's not what happened, I searched along the footprints left by Luna and found a relic!"

"A relic?!"

Harry and Ginny exclaimed at the same time.

Even Ginny, who had already learned part of the situation from Rolf, only knew that Luna was trapped inside some trap, or animal colony in the Forbidden Forest, and didn't know that her disappearance was also connected to a certain relic that had disappeared from the magical world for a long time.

Harry was even more shocked.

He had never known that there were ancient ruins in the Forbidden Forest, and he didn't know if it was Luna's good or bad luck that she had stepped into one that had never been known.

"It's still uncertain exactly how Luna's situation is, so let's just walk and talk." Rolf grabbed his snake-fork pliers and led the way out of the Hagrid Shack.

Harry and Ginny naturally approved of his decision and followed out of the room.

"Won't you help Hagrid lock the door?" Harry asked in a hurry as he watched Rolf walk straight towards the Forbidden Forest.

He now knew that Hagrid's shed was full of precious goodies, and completely retracted his earlier judgment that Hagrid's hut didn't need to lock the door.

Rolf stopped in his tracks and shot a snickering glance at Harry, with a look in his eyes that clearly said:

'I thought you were just saying that Hagrid's Hut didn't have to lock its doors, why did you change your mind so quickly?'

Harry lowered his head, practically wanting to find a crack in the ground to burrow into.

After locking the door, the three of them walked into the deep forbidden forest together.

...

As time passed, the sky gradually darkened, and a bright evening sunset lit up the sky.

The trees of the Forbidden Forest were towering and dense, blocking the sunlight that was already dimming, casting dense shadows and appearing incomparably eerie.

The entire large forest was shrouded in a mist, and the huge and dense trees were linked together like a giant beast that wanted to choose people to devour, swallowing the three little wizards in one gulp.

"Rolf, have you seen how that relic looks like?" Walking in the deep forbidden forest, Harry couldn't help but ask Rolf.

After this short period of time together, the three had become quite close, no longer calling each other by their surnames, but affectionately calling the others by their first names.

"I didn't see the full extent of the ruins even when I was there this morning." Rolf said with a soft shake of his head, "There seemed to be some magical creatures in charge of protection around there, and even after bypassing the gatekeepers, there seemed to be other animals in charge of patrolling."

"I had wanted to do some good poking around the neighborhood to find a way into the ruins, but before I could circle around the ruins enough for a third of a circle, I was driven out by a large python."

Saying that, Rolf also gnashed his teeth indignantly.

"Those snakes were obviously enchanted, or else where would they have been willing to chase me away with the animal affinity of a future Pokémonologist like me?"

Harry and Ginny both twitched at the corners of their mouths, automatically ignoring Rolf's last comment.

"But how can you be sure there aren't any guardian animals other than snakes, Rolf?" Ginny asked with a somewhat worried look at Harry, "Harry's old snake cavity can only manipulate snake-like animals, wouldn't we become dangerous if we encountered any other kind of animal?"

"If my judgment is not wrong, we shouldn't encounter other kinds of animals." Rolf pondered slightly and said to the two of them, "The building of that relic has a lot of apocryphal images of snakes withered on it, the owner of the relic should have a paranoid fondness for animals like snakes, and it's unlikely that he would fill such a space of snakes with other animals."

"A love of snakes?" Harry couldn't help but laugh out loud, "Who else would want to use a not-so-nice animal like a snake as an apothecary image except for that group of people at Slytherin Academy?"

Ginny covered her mouth and laughed quite cooperatively as well.

"It's quite fortunate to say that I thought this spell looked very cool when I was working as a young assistant under my grandfather, so I pestered him and asked him to teach me to learn this spell."

"And it sure came in handy today!"

Harry and Ginny stood beyond the golden glow at a certain distance from Rolf, eyeing the trajectories of the various animals illuminated by the golden light and unconsciously frowning.

"Rolf, how is this magic spell going to work?" Ginny curiously reached out her hand to touch towards a golden line, but her hand passed right through it and touched nothing.

"It's actually quite simple to use," Rolf said, "Each golden shape represents a creature's trail of activity, and according to the amount of magic output and the proficiency in using the spell, it's able to see a timeframe ranging from an hour all the way up to several years."

"But there are so many lines and shapes here, how are we going to find the trail that belongs to Luna?" Harry felt a little guilty as he looked at the dizzying array of golden lines.

"Not to mention that you found Luna's trail in the morning, and now that an afternoon has passed, the animals that have passed through this area should become more numerous and make a greater interference in our judgment."

In the face of Harry and Ginny's less than optimistic moods, Rolf instead held his head up with a confident expression.

"If we were looking for other magical creatures it might indeed be a bit of a challenge, but since we're looking for wizards, and Luna at that, the task becomes a lot easier." He said, pointing to the patch of golden trails in front of him.

"This is already the depths of the Forbidden Forest, it's supposed to be a place where very few sorcerers will arrive, usually even if someone comes here it's those more powerful professors who might enter the Forbidden Forest to collect some materials."

"But don't you guys forget!" Rolf suddenly focused and emphasized.

"Today, Professor Dracula brought all the faculty members to his house, even Professor McGonagall didn't stay at the castle, so it's conceivable that none of the other professors must have stayed here, so it's only necessary to look for the trajectories of the little wizards."

"On top of that, even if there really is another little wizard who has to violate the school rules to appear in the depths of this forest at a time like this before the exams, we don't have to worry too much."

"I've already found out during the morning, and if you guys see Luna's footprints, you'll most likely be surprised ... Anyway, her footprints are very unique."

Rolf led both Harry and Ginny into the area covered by the golden glow, eliminating one by one the tracks and movement trails that were obviously left by animals, eliminating the golden shapes that represented those things.

Soon the area covered by the golden glow became empty, leaving only a pair of very specific tracks still lingering in it.

"This is ..."

"Huh?"

Looking at the trail, both Harry and Ginny's eyes widened in dismay.

Only to see that the footprints representing Luna stretched out along a path forward, with varying spacing of her feet, as if she had traveled the distance with a bounce in her step, and appeared to be in a good mood.

And the more startling point was by no means Luna's cheerful mood, but the picture left by the footprints of her two feet--

The two footprints left by Luna were different from each other, the one representing the left foot was a round, shoe print with a cute rabbit's head, while the one representing the right foot was a bare foot print, the direct of the toes very clearly illuminated by the golden light, left on the ground in front of the trio.

"I didn't lie to you guys, did I?" Rolf gave Harry and Ginny a smug look, "I told you that Luna's footprints were definitely easy to find, and you guys just didn't believe me!"

Harry and Ginny glanced at each other, both thinking that walking barefoot on the dirt paths of the Forbidden Forest was a strange thing to do; and it was even stranger to have one foot in a shoe while the other was bare!

The two of them then thought that since the person who did such a thing was Luna, it was quite normal to think of it this way ...

"This shoe print is indeed Luna's." Ginny pointed at the round shoe print with a cute rabbit head on it and said, "I've seen her wearing those slippers, which have a pair of fluffy rabbit heads of the same style on them, super cute ..."

Ginny then sighed a little regretfully, "If it wasn't for the lack of pocket money, I'd actually want to buy a pair for myself."

"But why is she only wearing one shoe?" Harry was still a little puzzled, "Was she wearing just one shoe when she was at Hogwarts Castle and then came straight inside the Forbidden Forest to feed Night Ti?"

"I don't think so?" Ginny shook her head, "When I met up with her last night, she had both slippers on her feet in perfect condition."

"I guess according to Luna's character, she should have accidentally dumped the slipper on her right foot after entering the forbidden forest." Rolf pondered for a moment and quickly analyzed what happened.

"It was like this when the two of us came together to explore the Forbidden Forest before, walking along the road, her attention was easily hooked by other small animals or something interesting, so it's not too unusual for her to have thrown off her slippers while chasing after those small things!"

He covered his forehead with some heartburn, feeling that Luna's fluttering personality was really not something that ordinary people could handle.

"Then let's hurry over there, now that Luna is even missing a shoe, I really don't know what kind of danger she's enduring!" Ginny interrupted Rolf's thoughts and grabbed Harry's arm and headed in the direction of the footprints.

"Hey Rolf, can you extend this tracking spell of yours a bit?" She walked over to where the edge of the golden glow was and noticed that Luna's footprints disappeared along with it, "Does that mean you need to use this spell again every few steps?"

"The tracking spell isn't that low end, or my grandfather wouldn't have loved it so much." Rolf smiled and propped his own wand in the palm of his hand, "This spell often has to be used in conjunction with a directional spell for maximum effect."

"Point Me." He recited the spell.

The golden glow slowly disappeared, while at the same time, Rolf's wand spun in the palm of his hand, pointing straight in the direction where Luna's footprints had disappeared.