Chapter 063: Life and Death (Part I)

"I don't have a wand in my hand!" Dumbledore said innocently, using his magic to move Demeter and Lockhart to the hospital bed and dry their clothes, "How is Catherine's injury?" ”

"Her right hand was a complete mess of flesh, and she needed to regrow bones, nerves, and muscles, and potions worked so badly on her that she would have to stay here for at least a month before she could get back to her original form. Also—" Madam Pomfrey said worriedly, "I am concerned about whether her soul and magic will be shaken, and the forbidden spell on her body prevents all means of examination, so it is best to stay in the hospital for some time after her right hand has been restored." ”

"In that case, then they should send it directly to St. Mungo!" Dumbledore looked at the other two patients, "After all, your energy is limited, and I don't feel comfortable handing over Catherine to someone else. He walked over to the fireplace.

"Don't you have to deal with the outside first?" Madam Pomfrey asked, puzzled.

"Don't worry!" Dumbledore threw out a pinch of Floo powder and said, "The three of us are finishing up in the Forbidden Forest." Immediately into the green flames that had just burst out, Fawkes flew to Catherine's bedside, looking at her with some schadenfreude.

Madam Pomfrey was stunned for a moment, then looked at Snape in surprise, "You used a time-turner. ”

Snape nodded, his eyes still fixed on Catherine.

"No wonder!" Madam Pomfrey grumbled dissatisfiedly, "No wonder Catherine was so badly wounded. ”

Back at six o'clock in the morning, when Snape and Catherine had just arrived in the foyer, they saw Dumbledore standing in the doorway, holding an object with a long, fine gold chain in his hand.

"Will you come with me to clean up in the Forbidden Forest?" Dumbledore said to them with a smirk, and he let go of his hand, and Catherine saw a small shiny golden timepiece hanging from the gold chain.

"You asked a second-year student to accompany you to the Forbidden Forest to deal with the eight-eyed giant spider!" Snape walked up to Catherine and roared angrily at Dumbledore.

"My abilities will only destroy the Forbidden Forest, and your potion is not very effective against the Eight-Eyed Spider, so I need to use Catherine's power to prevent this man-eating creature from remaining in the Forbidden Forest." Dumbledore explained to Snape seriously before looking at the red-haired girl, "Can you help me, Catherine?" ”

"Yes!" Catherine agreed before looking at Snape, "I don't want to stay in a school where the Eight-Eyed Spider could pop up at any moment. ”

Snape pursed his lips and frowned at Catherine for a long time before he shouted angrily, "Follow me!" ”

Catherine immediately walked over and clasped his left hand and smiled at Snape.

The last time Catherine entered the Forbidden Forest was at midnight in June, and although the night sky was only shining with stars and the atmosphere was terrifying, at least it wasn't very cold, and a thin school robe was enough. This time, although it was early in the morning when I entered the Forbidden Forest, the crescent moon had just risen, and the sun would not appear until two hours later, and the temperature was only minus ten degrees Celsius.

Of course, this was not unbearable for the two Slytherins, who got up at six o'clock every morning for morning exercises; Dumbledore was not used to it, but wizards had handy magic such as the Thermal Preservation Charm, which allowed him to move in the snow even when he was wearing only thin clothing.

"I've spoken to the centaurs at length, and I've personally explored the territory of the Eight-Eyed Spiders, which are located in the deepest part of the Forbidden Forest, the westernmost part of Hogwarts," but Dumbledore didn't immediately go to their destination, but led them to the junction of the Forbidden Forest and the Black Lagoon.

"Their number is very terrifying, the leader is called Aragog, the centaurs say that it is the size of a baby elephant, it is a male spider who has lived for fifty years, and his wife is called Mosag, because Aragog's eyes are blind, so they will not leave the nest lightly, and they come out to hunt those adult giant spiders the size of horses, and there are about a hundred of them."

"Is your head covered in honey?" Snape snarled under his breath, "More than a hundred horse-sized eight-eyed spiders, do you think Catherine has three heads and six arms?" ”

"That's the job of the grown-ups." Dumbledore turned his head and winked at Snape, "Catherine, I want you to deal with those young spiders, the centaurs don't know how many of them there are, that's why I need you, after all, if you miss a pair, you will be in the same situation again in a dozen years." ”

"In this season, the Freeze Charm is indeed a good choice," Catherine looked up at the dark night sky, "It's just that you chose the wrong time, the weather is very sunny today, and not even snow falls." ”

"It's okay, I've found helpers, and they'll help you create an artificial rain." Dumbledore walked over to the lake and let out a few piercing screams towards the frozen lake.

"Beep pop!" There was a loud cracking sound on the surface of the lake, and a large area of ice quickly split and sank into the lake, and then a large number of green heads emerged from the water, and the mermaid leader at the front swam to the shore and quickly communicated with Dumbledore in a piercing mermaid language.

"Catherine, come here!" When the girl couldn't help but want to reach out and cover her ears, Dumbledore suddenly turned around and called out to her, "The mermaid leader wants to talk to you." ”

"He wants me to go into the water in December?" Catherine walked over in disbelief.

"That's not necessary." Dumbledore looked at her with a smile but didn't explain much.

Catherine immediately understood that this was another test, and she took out her wand and waved it lightly, and a strong stream of water erupted from the tip of the wand, "banging" the three wizards on the shore, and also smashed the merfolk back into the lake with their heads in their hands, only the mermaid leader looked up at her wand in surprise.

"Queen Jona's illusion!" A strong voice came from the mouth of the merfolk leader, who looked above his head in shock.

The water spewed out from the tip of Catherine's staff gathered into a hemispherical shape centered on her, as if a huge transparent bowl was clasped upside down on the heads of all the "people".

"Is this an illusion?" "But it's really water!"

The merfolk were surprised to get out of the lake, reaching out to fiddle with the water, and when some stupid and daring creature jumped out of the lake and swam freely in the water, which they didn't know if it was real or not, the merfolk jumped out of the lake.

Just like the old fairy tale "The Daughter of the Sea", the land and the sky have a fatal temptation for mermaids, even if they have to endure severe pain all the time, can no longer sing beautifully, and even eventually turn into foam, they have no regrets.

So even though they knew it was just an illusion, all the merfolk involuntarily left the black lake where they depended for their livelihood, and even the merfolk leader swam ashore and obsessively stroked the grass.

"Excuse me," Catherine looked at the merfolk leader in embarrassment, "how long do I have to keep it going?" ”

"Sorry, Young-Fairy!" The merfolk leader hurriedly shouted around, "Kids, get back to the lake!" ”

"Why?"

"Don't!"

"It's hard to get on land!"

"I want to fly a little longer!"

"Well—" said the merfolk leader with a smile and turned back to Catherine, "as you please." With that, he jumped back into the lake.

Catherine was stupid, and Snape was stupid, but Dumbledore smiled and said, "Withdraw, it's uncomfortable." ”

"My name is Tina!" As Catherine prepares to do so, the little mermaid who had harassed her from the previous school year suddenly swam up to her and stretched out a small, webbed gray hand.

"My name is Catherine!" As soon as the red-haired girl grabbed the little hand, the little mermaid named Tina immediately retracted her hand and swung her tail back into the lake.

Catherine was stunned for a moment, smiled and lowered her wand, and the mermaids who had not returned to the lake immediately fell straight down like dumplings, and if they were lucky, they fell back into the lake, and the worst ones fell on the softer ground, and the worst thing was the ones that fell on the ice, and they didn't dare to move again for a long time.

"I think when it rains, the spiders hide from the rain, but if it's foggy, they should still be active as usual." Catherine ignored the merfolk who were still trying to move themselves back into the lake, and directly proposed her own proposal, "And it's early winter, and it's the season when morning fog is most likely to appear. ”

Dumbledore nodded in agreement, and the merfolk leader, who had listened to the translation, immediately agreed, and when all the merfolk were back in the lake, they began this artificial rain - no, fog reduction.

Fog formation requires two conditions, one is cooling and the other is humidification. The winter morning was the coldest time of the day after a night of cooling, and the weather at this time was very clear, but the wind was a little stronger, blowing away a lot of moisture, otherwise they would have been shrouded in a white expanse.

Therefore, to successfully reduce fog, you only need to reduce the wind speed and increase the humidity in the air. Dumbledore opened the school's defensive barrier, the wind stopped, and the merfolk began to use their best water magic to humidify the air, and Catherine's task was to act as a "central processing unit", moving the mist and letting it descend as directly as possible on the territory of the eight-eyed spider, because a large part of the direct spread would be absorbed by the trees along the way.

A white mist began to form on the surface of the lake, and as if summoned by something, they slowly floated to Catherine's side, swirling around her until she and the phantom Tracey were completely obscured.

Suddenly, a blue-white light shot out from the white mist, streaked across half of the sky, and landed in the deepest part of the Forbidden Forest, the white mist wrapped around the blue-white light and slowly swirled forward, and slowly moved forward along the trajectory it had crossed.

Catherine's thoughts drifted over the Forbidden Forest with the white mist, silently falling into the Forbidden Forest, slowly spreading along the ground, across the roots of the trees, looking for the trail of the Eight-Eyed Giant Spider.

Soon, Catherine spotted a five-inch-sized eight-eyed giant spider, which was obviously a little one who had just been born for a short time, and when the white mist approached it, it was immediately frightened and ran back, until it ran to a five-foot-sized eight-eyed giant spider, it stopped and looked curiously at the slowly approaching white fog with its eight eyes, and behind them, nearly a hundred white spider eggs the size of floating balloons were lying quietly on a dome-shaped spider web.

Catherine controlled the white mist and let them spread rapidly along the female's territory, and her magic awakened the female.