harry potter book of crimes

In southern England, there is a river that cuts into the land from the Solent Strait, meandering from south to north until it passes through Winchester before turning east and gradually weakening.

This river is called Yiqin River.

To be honest, this river is actually not too long, and it is not too famous. It is not even ranked highly in the UK where there are already many rivers.

But this time, its existence brought great convenience to Hermione and her group's trip.

"Let's go into the water."

After re-entering the fog along the river, and encountering more and more living corpses, Hermione decided to start walking underwater.

The flowing river water will naturally hinder the movement of the living zombies, so there are not many enemies underwater. As long as the breathing problem is ensured, the safety will be greatly improved.

And when it comes to breathing underwater... for Hermione and the others nowadays, it is obviously just a trivial matter.

After everyone in the team, including Harry, had cast the Bubble Curse, everyone put away their brooms and sank into the water of the Itchen River.

The weather has actually been very warm recently. Unfortunately, the UK has not seen sunshine for too long and the temperature has been very low. Now everyone is soaking in the water and can't help shivering.

However, after experiencing the previous near-fatal crisis, instead of fighting hard and worrying about the terror of dying on the battlefield at any time, being slightly frozen in the water seemed to be nothing at all.

"Prrr..."

Hermione, who had a big bubble on her head, turned to look at Harry. After confirming that there was nothing wrong, she made a "go" gesture to her friends.

The next moment, she suddenly waved her wand and pointed behind herself.

"Bang!"

As a ball of air exploded from the tip of her staff, she rushed forward suddenly. Although her speed was much slower than that of a broomstick, it was at least much better than swimming by herself.

Seeing this, everyone imitated her and followed her up, all the way along the river to Winchester in the north.

…

"Wow!"

When Hermione and the rest of the group surfaced for the unknown number of times and reapplied the Bubble Curse, the sky had gradually turned dark. Looking left and right in the middle of the river, the surrounding space became dim again, and it was impossible to see much.

Far.

"You guys stay here for a while, I'll go to the shore to take a look."

Hermione gasped slightly and paddled slowly towards the river. As she gradually approached the river bank, a large figure in the shadow of the thick fog came into view again.

The density of living corpses here is already quite high, even higher than when they were besieged by a large group of living corpses at Downton. Going ashore here to look for identifiable road signs is definitely not a good choice.

.

Hermione didn't even dare to get too close to the shore, because those living corpses were very sensitive to the magic fluctuations of living people, and they might be noticed at any time once they got close.

Fortunately, she soon discovered that she was lucky this time, because there was a road along the river on the bank, and there was a road sign not far ahead.

"We're here! Winchester is ahead!"

When Hermione could barely decipher a few letters on the road sign, a look of joy suddenly appeared on her tired face - even though she relied on magic to travel underwater, in order to maintain balance in the water, she had to go so far.

The journey still takes a lot of energy.

"Further forward, once we actually enter the area near the ancient city of Winchester, the number of living corpses will be greatly reduced." Neville, who also swam over, said, "It was like this last time when we came here -

—Maka has sent people to clear out all the living corpses in the ancient city, and there are wizards who can control black flames patrolling everywhere. Soon we will be completely safe."

"Um."

Hermione nodded, then followed Neville back to the middle of the river, beckoning everyone to move on.

However, when they emerged from the water again, Hermione discovered that the situation did not seem to be exactly what Neville said...

"We should have reached the ancient city area here, right?" Hermione held her hands on the rocks on the riverside and glanced at the shore a few more times, but suddenly felt a chill, "What are those?"

Yes, there do seem to be many figures on the shore constantly walking and patrolling, but... black flame wizards? No, no, no, those guys who can use black flames to defend themselves look a bit weird, but Hermione heard Harry say

However, except when fighting, they usually still behave like normal people.

However, the figures on the shore all had humanoid postures, even if the specific appearance could not be clearly seen through the fog. However, the very stiff and weird walking posture of those "figures" made it impossible for Hermione to look like them.

people.

To be honest, compared to those guys above, Hermione felt that the living corpses outside looked more like humans!

After hesitating by the river for a while, she quietly returned to her companions and told everyone what she saw.

"...Have you ever seen puppets? To be honest, after seeing those figures on the shore, the first thing I thought of was puppets controlled by puppet masters holding silk threads."

Friends who have already faced too many terrible realities will naturally not have much fear of this scene.

However, when they thought that this place should be Maka's territory, and several of them had just been here not long ago. This time, such big and strange changes had happened, which made everyone very upset.

It's uneasy.

"Oh! What the hell is Maka doing here!" Ron wiped the cold river water on his face and muttered in a low voice, "Last time, even though I came in 'lying down', I saw a lot.

Thing...I think those Black Flames are scary enough - they all look like dead people. But this time...Hermione, what did you just say? Dolls?"

However, Neville on the side shook his head and said:

"Actually! I think it shouldn't matter... Anyway, this must be Maka's territory, and this will never change, right? When I came here before, I felt that he was planning to stay here for a long time.

- and as long as this is Maca's place, we don't have to worry too much."

"Um……"

Hermione couldn't help but nodded when she heard this. After pondering for a moment, she said:

"That's right! Besides, we're all here, we have to go up and have a look - let's do this! Neville, you protect everyone here, I'll go ashore first to test it out."

After that, when she saw that other people were still talking, she immediately waved her hand to indicate that she didn't need to say more.

"give it to me."