At Hogwarts, the walls of the Great Hall were covered in glittering silver frost, and the ceiling was a starry night sky, with hundreds of wreaths of mistletoe and ivy. The four academy tables were gone, replaced by a hundred small tables lit with lanterns, each with a dozen or so people seated next to it.

Men and women from Europe's three major universities gathered at the same time, and the girls wore colorful dresses in groups, shy, unrestrained, or showy. The boys also gathered in a bush on the left, holding their glasses and talking about Sven, and their eyes were turning around the girls.

After a while, the four warriors led their dance partners into the auditorium, and the people in the auditorium applauded.

He sat in the corner, watching the four warriors and their dancing partners pass by, and a great depression hovered over his head, making him completely unable to blend in with the environment, as if he could see Hoffa's aging and dead body as soon as he closed his eyes.

Forcibly enduring the discomfort, he sat in his place, and the people next to him made his debut for him. Not far from his seat, the Warriors were making small talk, after winning over two events. Harry, the young man he and Hoffa had been tricked into, was now comfortable with his role as a warrior. At the moment, he was talking to Percy Weasley.

Posy Weasley: "I've been promoted, I'm Mr. Crouch's personal assistant now, and I'm here on his behalf." ”

Harry: "Why didn't he come?"

Posy Weasley: "I'm sorry that Mr. Crouch is not doing well, very badly. He's been wrong since the World Cup......"

"What a nosy guy. ”

Miller thought to himself.

Again.

He took out the parchment with the sacrificial circle on it and glanced at it. "It has nothing to do with me. ”

He muttered to himself.

Putting away the parchment, tilting his head, and pouring three glasses of strong brandy in succession, a slight dizziness coming from Alastor Moody's body did not ease his anxiety.

A few warriors around him were still chatting, and Victor Krum, dressed like a bear, was chatting with his female companion: "Ah, we also have a castle, and I don't think it's as big as here, and it's not as comfortable as here." Ours is only four floors, and fires can only be lit when magic is cast. But our venue is bigger than this one – but in winter the days are too short to play on the field. In the summer, we flew around outside every day, over the lake, over the mountains—"

"Alright, alright, Victor!" said Karkaroff, "don't give more secrets, or your charming friend will find out where we are!"

Dumbledore smiled, his eyes sparkling. "Igor, keep it a secret like this...... People think you don't welcome people to visit. ”

"Oh, Dumbledore," Karkaroff said, grinning wide and showing a mouthful of yellow teeth, "we all want to protect our private domain, don't we? don't we need to be careful to guard the school hall we have entrusted with it?

The conversation between several people about the secret entered Miller's mind, and he was a little uneasy, and some invisible oppression was crowded in from all sides, as if this scene was familiar. Makes him want to escape.

"Oh, I wouldn't have dreamed I knew all the secrets of Hogwarts, Igor. ”

Miller whispered.

"Oh, I wouldn't have dreamed I knew all the secrets of Hogwarts, Igor. Dumbledore said happily, "Let's say, this morning......"

Jingle bell...

The glass on the table shook.

Everyone's eyes were attracted, and Miller stood up with a pale face and staggered out.

Dumbledore asked him kindly, "Alasto, where are you going?"

Miller perfunctory: "Just go around." ”

Karkaroff said contemptuously, "Calm down, old man, there are no dark wizards tonight. ”

Miller glanced at Karkaroff coldly, Karkaroff looked like he wanted to say something, and after being glared at by him, he swallowed his words stiffly.

Miller manipulated Alastor Moody's body and walked out of the hall, the more he walked, the more panicked he became, the panic came from the bottom of his heart, and after leaving his seat, he was as strange as entering a swamp in this colorful and gorgeous hall.

"Wait a minute, Professor Moody. ”

Someone stopped him again, this time it was a woman.

A dark-skinned middle-aged woman, wearing a tall wizard's pointed hat and a long black dress, rubbing her hands, looked a little cramped and uneasy.

It's Professor Aurora Sinista.

Miller recognized her, who was the Hogwarts astronomy professor who lived in the tower all year round and almost never showed up. There are no social activities, and this time at the Christmas ball, it is rare that she can actually take her eyes off the stars.

"What's wrong?"

For some reason, after seeing her, the strangeness of falling into a flood swamp disappeared. It's like a drowning man finds land.

"Uh....."

Aurora Sinista looked cramped, looking uneasily at the blue magic eye on Moody's face, and she stopped talking.

"What the hell is going on?"

Miller narrowed his eyes, "It's okay, I'll go first." ”

"Wait a minute, Professor Moody, excuse me, excuse me, can you dance with me at the ball?"

Aurora Sinista uttered the words very quickly, turning her head sideways as if she had lost all her strength, not daring to look at him.

This......

Miller didn't expect the other party to make this request, but it's normal to think about it carefully, this Tianwenke professor looks at the stars in the planetary tower every day, and he has no intersection with others on weekdays. Surely no one would invite her to dance either.

To say that usually, he should have agreed to this woman's request, because there is no more compatible pair than them, a lame man and an autistic woman are simply more real than a bitch and a dog.

To say that it is simply a match made in heaven.

But the annoyance in Miller's heart suddenly increased at this moment, a kind of boredom bound by all kinds of rules, promises, disguises, and a vague sense of immediacy, and he felt that Aurora Sinista's face was almost vomiting.

"Good ....."

Miller clutched his head.

"What's wrong with you?"

Aurora Sinista hurriedly stepped forward and asked with concern.

When the words of promise came to his lips, Miller swallowed hard, and he suddenly raised his hand, pushed away the astronomy professor, and angrily scolded: "Get out of the way, old woman, I won't dance with you." ”

The astronomy professor froze in place, stupidly looking at Moody's scarred face, suddenly hiding his face and crying, turning around and running, and even stepped on the hem of his skirt when he ran around the corner, almost falling to the ground.

After scolding an irrelevant woman, Miller suddenly felt inexplicably refreshed, as if all of a sudden, the sky was high and the sea was wide, and all good things became within reach.

He straightened the bow tie around his neck, looked around, and then walked up to a Beauxbatons senior girl ten meters away from him, bent down, and asked, "Excuse me, can you dance with me?"

The pretty blonde girl was talking and laughing with her friends, and when she turned her head to see Alastor Moody's broken face, she couldn't help but let out a short scream, and subconsciously splashed the glass of fruit wine in her hand on his face.

The people next to him couldn't help but burst out laughing, and Miller laughed too. The drink rolled down his face, and he raised his hand to slap the pretty girl in the face.

Syllable!

All the Beauxbatons students around him were stunned. They stared at Miller with the eyes of an ancient beast, completely unable to understand who could do such a thing.

Miller couldn't help but put his arms around the beautiful girl's shoulders, tilted his head and smiled: "Why, haven't you ever seen a woman beaten?"

An extremely provocative sentence was like ice water poured into a pan of hot oil, triggering a violent riot on the spot. Almost all of the Beauxbatons students put down their cups, and chaos erupted.

"Come on, come on!"

Miller was short of breath and clutched the shoulders of the girls next to him.

But before the chaos could spread, all the Beauxbatons students who gathered around had their eyes glazed, and they were silent for a few seconds as if they were sleepwalking, and then mechanically picked up their cups again, as if they hadn't seen anything, chatting when they should have talked, drinking when they should have drunk, and dancing when they should have danced.

Miller's unusual movements are like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, causing a small splash and then disappearing.

Cold sweat dripped down Miller's pale face.

He realized that something was wrong with this place.

Everything is controlled.

"Yes, yes!"

Miller gritted his teeth, unceremoniously grabbed the young beauty's waist, and squeezed her ass hard with his palm.

But the girl looked at him with unusually calm eyes.

......

......

In Helheim, on the sand of the arena, Arvada asked Hoffa with a smile: "It's all here, do you want to continue playing?"

"What are you playing?" asked Hoffa coldly.

"The game of the Grim Reaper. ”

"What?" Barty Jr. threw away the stone and asked in wonder, "Didn't we just win, why do we continue?"

"How can that be counted. ”

Arvada patiently explained: "It was a game made by the Grim Reaper and Davis Sawyer, not a game played with Mr. Hofabach, just now Mr. Bach just appeared as an opponent friendship, if he really participated in the game, Mr. Bach must defeat his opponent." ”

"Don't. ”

Hoffa thought of the souls who were hung on the path of thorns, and thought of what Aglaia had said to herself, and couldn't help but blurt out, "I don't participate in the game of death." ”

"I see, it's a shame. ”

Arvada sighed slightly, "It's okay, but I'll kindly remind you." Death is on the verge of forgetting you. If you don't participate now, I'm afraid you won't have another chance in the future. ”

"What happens when you are forgotten by death?"

"Nothing will happen, you will be like them. ”

Arvada pointed to the ghosts in the stands in the revelry and said, "The ghosts who just came to Helheim, they have passion, they have warmth, they have memories, and they have hope, but those are the only things they have. When they forget all this, there is no value, the remnants of the soul stay here, neither entering into reincarnation nor having a goal, this is the real underworld, repetitive and monotonous, I hope you can enjoy it, Mr. Hofabach. ”

With that, Arvada turned to leave, and his figure quickly blurred in the mist of the realm of the dead.

"It's only been a few days, can you make me think about it again!?" called Hoffa behind him.

"How many people do you think die every day, and although there are not many people who can cross the bridge of passing, you are not the only one. Arvada's ethereal voice came from afar.

Barty Jr. said anxiously: "Mr. Bach, he is leaving." What to do?"

"Wait!"

Hoffa shouted to Avada.

Arvada stood still, looking back at Hoffa.

Hoffa gritted his teeth: "What if I win the Grim Reaper? Can I take people out?"

"Win the Grim Reaper, and you can even become the Grim Reaper. Nature can do whatever you want. ”

Arvada didn't speak amazingly, and he didn't know whether he was overconfident or open-mouthed, so he said it casually.

Hoffa's heart is pounding, if he has a heart now, I'm afraid it has jumped to 200, how to choose, the answer is self-evident.

In the underworld, where time passes, only the worms that keep turning into flesh are the only visible changes. He didn't have anything to do, he didn't want to be like those meaningless ghosts, thrown into endless revelry, and he didn't want to just sit where he was, meaninglessly, forever.

He wants to take Aglaia back to the real world, walking on the soft and delicate seaside beach, tasting different flavors of ice cream, the scenery and food of various countries, and experiencing the change of seasons like a normal person, with ups and downs.

"What's the game?" he asked Arvada with difficulty.

Avada clapped his hands, and two huge konjac flowers squirmed on the blood-red sand, and the konjac spun and opened, and each one contained a human body with a red fruit lying inside.

The human body was featureless, hairless, and like Arvada, had no genitals, but other than that, was a standard male.

"This is the body that the god of death has prepared for you, of course, you can also prepare your own body and ask who you want to know. In short, there is no need to die twice in Helheim, but as long as the body is destroyed, salvation will be judged a failure of the game, understand?"

"If you fail, you will be sent to the path of thorns. ”

"Exactly. ”

Arvada said.

"Are everyone the same rules?"

"Ah~ Of course. ”

Arvada smiled, and a bubble appeared out of thin air under his feet, and the bubble grew larger and larger, eventually turning into a pleasant clown head.

Hoffa clenched his fists secretly. He only thought that when he fought Davis just now, he didn't have a body at all, which meant that Davis couldn't kill himself at all, but he had a body, and he could destroy it at will, his defeat was doomed, and the Grim Reaper didn't want him to win at the beginning.

He wanted to question Arvada, but he had already stepped on the balloon and flew back into the air. The sound in the arena was like a volume knob being turned louder, and the cries of countless ghosts rushed to the top of the arena like a torrent.

Hoffa and little Barty burrowed into the bodies that the Grim Reaper had prepared for them, and it felt like putting on a rubber suit, without much discomfort and without being very sensitive, like controlling a strange game character, using it to see and do movements, but not feeling much with it.

Amid the cries of countless fanatical ghosts, the doors of the dueling arena slowly opened. Little Barty looked nervous, and he leaned against Hoffa tightly: "What kind of opponent will the Grim Reaper arrange for you?"

"I don't know. "Hoffa was also very nervous.

"Your opponents should be terrible. ”

"Yes. Hoffa said dryly.

Arvada flew into the sky in a balloon and held up the microphone: "Next challenger, let's welcome the quiet and fanatical, intelligent but stupid, simple but complex, young and old Ravenclaw wizard from the wizarding world, Mr. Hoffa Bach!"

Hush!!

The unexplained ghost also booed, as did Davis, expressing disdain for the challenger.

Hoffa listened to Arvada's introduction to herself, and thought to herself that she might as well just say that she was a schizophrenic. He didn't even know he had so many strange traits in him.

Listen to Arvada continue: "In his short but tumultuous life, he has faced countless opponents and defeated countless enemies, but he never seems to really care about external enemies. It is rumored that every proud Ravenclaw will always have an opponent, the only opponent, and that opponent is always with him, looming, and it is difficult for anyone who uses it to peek into its true face even for the rest of his life.

But in the land of the dead, in the eternal arena. Death has prepared a special gift for him, so that he can peek into the mysteries of life, and now, please, Hofabach's first opponent, from his past self - the Master of Transfiguration!"

Squeak.

The door on the other side of the arena slowly opened.

Hoffa kept backing away as little Barty guarded, and then he saw a boy with black hair and black eyes, two or three years younger than himself, walk out on the other side of the dueling arena. The boy wears a black Hogwarts uniform with the blue eagle print of Ravenclaw House on the uniform.

He froze.

That's a younger version of yourself.