harry potter book of crimes

At the end of 1980, snowflakes were falling slowly and accumulated overnight, decorating the entire Paris like a silver-white fairy tale.

On the roof, on the street, in front of the shop... almost everywhere seems to be covered with a layer of pure white cream, so bulging that people can't help but want to pick up a handful and taste it.

Muggles were coming and going in this cold morning, making crunching sounds on the snow quilts they stepped on, and the water vapor they exhaled floated up lightly, escaping into the hazy air.

The rotation of the four seasons is the charm of nature.

It was this morning that Blois Castle was also covered with a thick white cotton quilt. It looked soft and not so cold.

Blois Castle seemed very busy today, and the snow in the atrium had not yet been cleared. The servants were rushing back and forth on the snow, most of them with cheerful smiles, as if some great event had happened in the castle.

A series of footprints became more and more clear in the vast courtyard, and finally they were trampled on a wet path in the snow.

"Is the kitchen ready? The first batch of guests should be arriving soon, everyone should hurry up -"

A heroic head maid stood at the door of the main castle, waving her hands quickly and loudly ordering the servants, like a female conductor of a symphony orchestra.

But after saying a few words, he disappeared on the spot with a "crack" sound, leaving only a pair of deep footprints on the ground.

It seemed that she saw that there was no big problem here, so she disappeared and went to wave the baton somewhere else.

"Oh! The eldest lady is about to give birth, and I don't know whether the child will follow the father or the mother!"

In the corridor next to the atrium, two young maids apparated almost at the same time. They greeted each other and then chatted while walking...

"You should be called 'Madam'! Even if you came with Madam, you should change your name!" Another maid poked her waist with one hand and said with a smile, "With the looks of the Master and Madam,

No matter who you follow, it’s all the same!”

"Yes, yes! You said..." the maid who spoke first whispered, "is it a boy or a girl?"

"I heard that the master doesn't care about men and women, he only likes children! So the lady and the master don't plan to do divination, they are just waiting for Waldo's blessing!"

"Alas... Miss, you are so happy! I don't know where my other half is?"

"It's 'Madam', oh my god - why can't you remember it! Let me tell you..."

The pair of maids were exuding joy, and while teasing each other with envious expressions, they headed to the other side of the corridor.

Not long after, the first group of guests had already arrived at the gate, and a series of noble carriages were accurately parked in the square in front of the courtyard. Without exception, the carriages were all printed with exquisite family crests.

France's Blois family has always kept a low profile, but no matter how low-key it is, the wife of the new head of the family is giving birth to her first child, and they must not be ignored.

In the modern magical world where pure-blood families are declining day by day, the rebirth of ancient bloodlines represents the continuation of noble traditions and is the glory of the pure-blood family as a whole.

It's just that this generation of the head of the Blois family is a little different, because he didn't ask a prophet for divination as in the past.

Having said that, given the invisible status of the Blois family in the French magical world, other families will not stop coming just because of this trivial matter.

Soon, many guests who had done their best were led by servants and headed to the second auditorium of the main castle one after another.

The first group of guests who arrived early were not of high status. They came here just to enjoy the big scene and to become familiar with the big families that they could not interact with on weekdays.

Social conventions like this are not much different whether in the Muggle world or the wizarding world.

But no matter what, today's Castle of Blois is finally really lively.

However, it was exactly the opposite of the warm atmosphere in the main castle. In the temporary delivery room where the housekeeper's wife was, the warm air seemed to be filled with a tense feeling like a military preparing for war.

This temporary delivery room was specially set up as a pregnant woman's bedroom by the wife of the house owner when she was found to be pregnant. Now that the wife is about to give birth, it is naturally used as a temporary delivery room.

At this moment, the lady was lying flat on the soft bed with her big belly, her hair on her forehead was wet with sweat.

"Is it almost time?"

"We have to wait, wait and wait..."

Beside the bed, a handsome man anxiously asked the head nurse of the family. The sweat on his cheeks was not much less than that of his wife.

"Honey, how do you feel?" The man came to the bed and held his wife's hand and asked.

But his wife just shook her head gently, signaling him not to be so anxious.

Time passed little by little, and the young householder couldn't hold back the torment anymore, wandering back and forth, and finally walked out of the room on his own initiative in order not to make his wife uneasy.

Leaning against the wall of the corridor outside, the man took a deep breath and began to mutter the two names he had just booked last night.

This waiting time seems to have been stretched infinitely, and the wait will never end.

The servants running around in the corridor would salute him every time they passed by. But now his mind was full of his wife and the child who was about to be born in her belly, so he had no time to care about it.

Gotta get these.

Suddenly, there was a commotion in the temporary delivery room. It seemed that the most critical moment had finally arrived!

"Oh! May Waldo bless you! It doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a girl, as long as my wife and children are healthy!" The man stretched out his finger and drew an ancient symbol on his forehead.

This time he didn't have to wait too long. With a clear cry, the child was born!

The man's eyes suddenly widened, and his handsome face showed great joy. He turned around suddenly, took a step across, opened the door and wanted to go in, and almost bumped into the maid carrying the basin.

"Oh! I'm sorry, old——"

"Give me, let me! It's okay, let me go!"

He couldn't wait any longer, so he simply stepped aside and squeezed past the maid.

"Oh! Madam, how about-"

Before he finished speaking, an inexplicable aura suddenly spread in the delivery room. Everyone, including the wife who had just given birth, looked stunned and their eyes lost focus.

In the room, only the baby, who had just been wiped clean and was still lying on the soft crib, was still crying and crying. The cry echoed in the room, looking extremely mysterious.

At this moment, with a "click" sound, the gem pendant on the man's chest suddenly cracked.

He was suddenly startled and came to his senses in a daze.

"What...what's going on?"

He looked around, only to find that everyone else was staring straight ahead with blank faces. The scene was horrifying.

"..."

The man's eyes were full of astonishment, his mouth was half-opened but he didn't know what to say or who to say it to.

For a moment, as if he remembered something, he roughly pulled open the collar of his coat and stretched his hand to his chest. Then he took out the necklace that had been hanging on his chest since he was a child and looked at it in surprise.

Towards the pendant part.

"...Cracked? Really cracked?" He stared deeply at the broken pendant gem and murmured to himself, "The warning recorded on the title page of the genealogy...is it true?"

Just as he was stunned, everyone in the room suddenly turned their necks and looked strangely at the baby who was still crying.

The young head of the family suddenly came back to his senses. He decisively drew out his magic wand, which he never left behind, and cast dozens of spells in succession.

But when the tip of the stick pointed at his wife, his arm stiffened subconsciously.

No matter how safe the curse is, it is still a curse. My wife has just given birth and her body is at her weakest. What if the effect of the curse affects her body...

After just a moment's hesitation, the young woman sitting on the bed suddenly stood up, rolled out of the quilt, and fell to the floor.

But she seemed unaware, roaring lowly in her throat, and crawled towards him crazily.

A bright red stream flowed out from the woman's lower body and fell to the floor, where it was rubbed into a blurry, sticky blood mark.

"Tong, all petrified——"

Seeing that the situation would inevitably get worse the longer it was delayed, the man finally made up his mind and imprisoned his wife with a wave of his magic wand.

After he finished casting the spell, he immediately picked up his beloved wife who was stiff and put her back on the bed.

Immediately afterwards, he hurriedly rummaged through the potion cabinet that had been prepared aside, took out a bottle of potion, opened his wife's mouth and fed it to her.

After all this was done, he glanced at his wife a few more times with worry on his face, then reluctantly picked up the still crying baby and ran outside.

The child is still too young and cannot be moved with the help of a follower. What he regrets most right now is why he did not exercise his body properly.

There were too many servants along the way, so he had to free his hands and cast spells while running wildly, knocking out or imprisoning all the people he met along the way.

For a time, the side fort of Blois Castle was in complete chaos. Wherever he passed, someone would fall to the ground unconscious almost every distance.

When he went downstairs out of breath and plunged into the basement, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

According to the record on the title page of the family tree, the person who is likely to awaken the curse must be a girl. However, the time for the awakening of the curse is not fixed. It is possible from the moment of birth until the age of 22.

But the chance of the curse awakening is too low. In the past hundreds of years, there has not been a single instance. And the warning on the title page of the family tree has even become a kind of "inheritance ritual".

Only during the ceremony to appoint the next head of the family, the ancient family tree will be invited and read out, and that's it.

"Why...why is it my child? Why is it...my Willy!"