Chapter 182 - 182 The Snake’s accent comes in handy.

Chapter 182: Chapter 182 The Snake's accent comes in handy.

As the three walked together into a dense thicket of trees, Rolf's wand, which he was resting vaguely in the middle of his hand and was pointing them in the right direction, suddenly shook violently.

"Is your wand malfunctioning, Rolf?" Ginny asked worriedly.

"It's fine, there's nothing wrong with the wand, there's nothing wrong with the locator spell, and this manifestation of the wand is on the contrary a good thing!" Instead of worrying, Rolf smiled happily, "It means we're in the place!"

He gripped his wand and disarmed the locator spell on it.

"In the place?" Harry craned his head around for a few moments, seeing only trees so thick that there was almost no way to land on them, as well as haystacks that inexplicably looked a little eerie as countless shadows were reflected in the light of his wand's illumination spell.

There was no sign of any buildings around at all, making him think that the neighborhood was simply a pristine jungle with nothing in it by comparison.

"Indeed, we have arrived at the place." Rolf nodded and said, "There is only one possibility as to why the locator spell is having problems - and that is that it has been affected by other magic."

"Our magic isn't like a muggle compass, it can also be interfered with by magnetic fields or something like that, that would seem too strange ... Only something on the same side of the magic can affect this spell!"

"Rolf, what do you mean ..." Ginny asked as she stood on her tiptoes to survey her surroundings and opened her mouth to ask, "There's some other magic around here obscuring the ruins, and in fact, all these trees are magic that's giving us an hallucinations?"

She touched a tree trunk beside her, "But this is indeed a real tree."

"Just because this one is real doesn't mean all the trees in front of it are real." Rolf raised his head and gave a confident smile, "Then watch me operate!"

He picked up his wand again and released another tracking spell.

This time, however, instead of spraying the golden powder produced by the tracking spell into a large circular area around him, he concentrated these golden powders in one direction and blew them far away to a faraway place.

These golden powders flew through the air very skillfully, silently circling around one thick tree trunk after another and landing on a patch of ground that was either flat or in a sizable area.

Luna's golden footprints, wearing only one shoe, were once again visible, but the sight of them gave both Harry and Ginny a strange look.

"Luna's footprints have changed the direction of her walk here and the alignment has become ... well, isn't that a little weird?" Harry asked dryly as he looked at the image in front of him.

Ginny nodded back, agreeing with Harry's judgment, "What is Luna doing here? It can't be dancing in the Forbidden Forest, can it?"

They saw, within the area shrouded in golden powder, pairs of footprints fluttering from side to side etched between the bushes, and every now and then a long interval cut off from the front and back pairs, as if they had suddenly jumped forward a few steps.

"I have no idea what she's doing." Rolf shrugged, "But all I know is that we don't have enough power to disarm the protective and illusionary magic around here, so it's never wrong to follow in Luna's footsteps."

With that, he took the lead and stepped into Luna's golden footprints, marching forward with precision and accuracy in the direction Luna was traveling, following the long intervals of bouncing every now and then.

Harry and Ginny looked at each other helplessly for a moment, and had no choice but to follow Rolf's movements and step on Luna's footprints as well.

"You're usually more knowledgeable, can you recognize what kind of protective magic this is, Rolf?" Harry asked curiously to Rolf as he staggered and hopped.

His pace was nowhere near as agile or skillful as Rolf's, even slow enough for Ginny behind him to bump into his back.

"It should be a hidden layer of labyrinth magic formation." Rolf said, "Only by stepping out of a specific track can we walk into the middle of the destination protected by the maze."

"And the magic spell used to deceive our sight would be a variation of the Illusionary Body spell, after all, there is no Illusionary Body spell I know of that lasts this long, nor can it disguise an area as any other sight without a trace."

"I'm a little curious, how did Luna know the particular trajectory into the maze?" Ginny inquired with some boredom as she once again stopped behind a stiffly moving Harry and crossed her arms.

"That's what I'd like to know," Rolf's voice came from the distance, having advanced a good distance ahead of him along the footprints, "Luna's a pretty amazing little witch in her own right, and I don't think you can judge her as a person by common sense... ..."

Slowly, Rolf's figure grew further and further away until it disappeared completely.

And Harry was still moving stiffly as he stepped on Luna's footprints one by one, wobbling forward.

If it weren't for the fact that there was only one column of footprints, and if it weren't for the fear of triggering the rest of the maze magic, Ginny would probably have overtaken Harry from the side and gone ahead of him to the ruins where Luna was.

It was completely dark, not a single ray of starlight shone down from the dense jungle canopy, and only a faint glow from the column of golden footprints, and the illumination spells on the front of the two wands, added a tiny bit of light to the pitch black Forbidden Forest.

After who knows how long, Harry and Ginny finally came to the end of Luna's golden footprints.

"This is the end?" Harry looked at a huge tree trunk in front of him that was impossible for two people to hold together, and a confused look appeared in his eyes, "How is it that I can't see anything at all that looks like there are any ruins present."

"And ... where did Rolf go?"

His voice echoed in the silent Forbidden Forest, which in turn appeared to have an eerie atmosphere flowing amongst it.

It was as if there were pitch-black eyes growing in the many surrounding haystacks and bushes, and at any moment a monster could poke its head out from the dense jungle, dragging the two little wizards into the bottomless abyss.

Ginny was still a little girl in the end, and her face clearly showed fear as she shivered.

"Don't be afraid, we'll be fine, Ginny." Harry said softly as he turned around and patted Ginny on the back.

"Wow, unbelievable ... Hogwarts' forbidden forest actually has such a piece of ruins inside!" Ginny exclaimed.

Harry also nodded with emotion, still not completely recovered from the shock of entering this place.

"You two, don't just focus on sighing, come over and help me!"

Just then, Rolf's obviously somewhat exasperated voice came over.

Harry and Ginny turned their heads to see Rolf with the long snake forked pliers in his hand, scurrying around the various dilapidated courtyards, with a giant python, almost a dozen feet long, snaking after him, showing its teeth and slobbering as if it wanted to swallow it in one gulp.

The python, however, was not the usual green color, but a very plain grayish-white color, as if it were a rock.

Every now and then, Rolf turned back and poked at the snake's seven inches a few times with the snake fork pliers in his hand.

However, because of the snake's overly thick body and overly tough outer skin, his attacks had no effect at all and even slowed down his own escape.

"Come on Harry, it's up to you!" Rolf shouted.

Harry took a deep breath and gave Ginny a small nod before stepping forward.

"First things first, Rolf, I'm not really sure I can control it." He walked up next to a compound ahead of Rolf's line of travel and took the lead in explaining before the snake came over, "Other than that unintentional one at the dueling club, it's the first time I've used the snake's old accent in a fight today."

"It's fine, try it first ... first." Rolf panted and ran to Harry's side, coming up for air, "You try to see if you can get rid of the snake first, or we'll have to find another way."

Harry nodded and looked over at the python, which was covered in a grayish-white color.

"Stop." He said aloud as he stared into the python's eyes.

However the python ignored him for a moment, crawling one way or another towards the side of the compound where the two were, its eyes glaring menacingly.

"I can't really seem to control it." Harry said with an apologetic glance at Rolf.

"Nonsense, of course you can't control it!" Rolf shouted as he jumped to his feet, "What you just said out loud was clearly English, it's a wonder this python understands it!"

"Uhm ..." Harry blushed and scratched his head in embarrassment, then once again looked into the python's eyes, "It's my fault, give me a second ... "

"Stop!" This time off the top of his head a version that no one could understand.

He turned his head to Rolf.

"Indeed it is a language I don't understand anymore." Rolf looked at the scene and nodded softly.

Looking again at the grayish-white python, it too had literally stopped where it was, its huge mouth wide open, almost coming up to Harry's face.

The entire snake was motionless, even its breathing had stopped, as if it was a boulder that hadn't changed in ten thousand years.

"Why isn't this snake moving?" Harry asked in a whisper as he came up next to Rolf.

"Is that even a question to ask ... weren't you the one who just told it to 'stop'?" Rolf rolled his eyes helplessly.

He really didn't understand the Old Snake Cavity, but Rolf did hear Harry's "stop" in the previous sentence, so he then also knew what the Old Snake Cavity meant in the latter sentence.

"The Old Snake Cave can be considered a magic that is specific to snakes, and can make nearly all of them do whatever you say." Rolf explained, then said with some excitement, "Now that we can be sure that you actually know how to use the Serpent's Old Cavity, it's a good idea to move on to the next step!"

He pulled Harry over to the seven tall stone steps of the largest palace.

"Don't go up all seven stone steps at once just yet, be ready to go one at a time." Rolf admonished, "I tried it this morning, every time you go up a step a larger group of snakes will come and attack you, and I don't want to see you get bitten by a mess of snakes before you have a chance to use your snake old cavity."

Harry nodded with a cautious expression and stepped onto the first stone step first under the gaze of Rolf and Ginny.

"Rumble-"

As Harry stepped onto the first stone step, a heavy scuffling sound suddenly rang out.

On the ornate railings around the stone steps, each of the parapet's stanchions was entangled with a not-so-small stone serpent.

Now these stone snakes were crawling down the parapets in a tangled mass, slithering towards Harry's position.

Having had the experience of the first time, Harry acted very quickly this time, and was ready to pronounce the old serpent's cadence as soon as he had walked up the first stone step -

"All of you back up where you belong!" He said in the old snake accent.

Each of the stone snakes that had been so aggressive and spread out on the ground instantly dropped back to their respective parapet stanchions as if they had heard their master's command.

Harry looked back at Rolf and Ginny and gave a thumbs up.

"That was so cool, Harry!" Rolf waved his fist excitedly.