For the creatures that inhabit the earth, the fall of meteorites is undoubtedly extremely terrifying.

Depending on the composition, sometimes just a hundred feet in size can leave a huge crater on the ground with a diameter of more than a kilometer, not to mention what a terrible catastrophe the terrifying shock wave can cause.

But what Maca and Eun Sr. picked was a "big guy" with an actual size of nearly 300 feet (100 meters)!

Of course, given the magical nature of Comet Haile-Pop, its main constituent is by no means the high-specific gravity metals found in alchemy.

Although, it also seems to contain a certain metal component in a high proportion.

According to the phenomenon of the magic projection produced by the two comet nuclei colliding with each other at that time, Maca could more or less guess the scene when the large stone less than 300 feet hit the ground, so he chose to go to Azkaban to set up the rune array.

Since those Dementors were made by Helbo, it would be better for them to be turned into dust along with Helbo's Horcruxes - this is what Maca had in mind when she decided where to fall.

However, whatever ideas he once had, they have now become empty words with unpredictable changes.

"Whoa—"

In the office of the Ancient Magic Section, Maca crumpled up another piece of parchment and tossed it at her feet.

He certainly won't compromise...... The more you find that it's too late, the more you have to hurry up and find a way. If the entire Hogwarts faculty and students were forced to abandon the school, what face would he have to continue to fight against Helmo?

It's a pity that everything else is easy to say, but there is no room for sloppiness in terms of data. Even if he can go without eating, drinking, or sleeping for three months, in the absence of basic data, there is no possibility of even starting to calculate.

"Whoa—"

In just a few minutes, he had once again constructed a sketch of a rune array, only to crumple it up and toss it aside.

Using the power of the rune array to forcibly slow down the meteorite's falling speed is also unrealistic.

"Since it is impossible to bear it directly, then ...... What if you try to intercept it as early as possible? ”

After pondering left and right, Maca dipped the quill pen in her hand and began to write again. It didn't take long for him to rub off another piece of meaningless waste paper, and couldn't help but raise his hand and rub his eyebrows.

Since he came back until now, he has been frowning for too long, and he has felt a burst of soreness between his eyebrows.

However, there is no time to rest for him!

After a while, he leaned over again and began to write and draw, and this was the whole night.

I don't know how long it took, but when the first rays of the morning sun suddenly came through the cracks in the curtains, Maca raised her head tiredly.

"It's sunny today?"

He twisted his slightly stiff neck, and the corner of his eye swept inadvertently, but he caught a glimpse of a familiar map of the solar system where the sunlight sparked.

"Oh?"

Suddenly, he was stunned, and then his eyes lit up suddenly.

……

This night, Maca was obviously very tired.

But his fatigue is mainly not that he doesn't sleep - after all, staying up all night has long become a habit for him, and his fatigue actually comes from pressure.

And on the same night, there was another person who was quite uncomfortable.

Almost yesterday when Maca returned to the office, Hermione was lying on her fluffy bed, curled up under the covers and staring out the window at the night sky.

At that point in time, it was still snowing outside, and the momentum was not small. She looked out of the bedroom window, and she could barely see anything.

But it doesn't really matter to her.

Because she is not looking at the scenery outside, but constantly speculating on Maka's whereabouts outside through this "distant looking" action.

"Why did he resign? Why not say goodbye? What exactly is he going to do? ”

To be honest, since Maca had been with them all day before leaving, she couldn't help but be suspicious.

It's like, maybe Maca won't come back.

So, as she thought about it, Hermione's heart became more and more uneasy.

She tossed back and forth in bed a few times, but her mind was full of imagination that she would never see Maca again, and in the end she couldn't even close her eyes and pretend to sleep, let alone manage to fall asleep.

After about an hour, Hermione suddenly lifted the warm quilt and unhurriedly dressed in the dark.

And when she opened the door to the dorm room and went to the common room, the dead silence of no one made her want to stay here at all, so she simply crept out into the hallway outside the doorway.

The fat lady in the portrait was still dozing, and Hermione's outing did not wake her.

Hermione, who always felt that her heart couldn't calm down, actually wanted to leave Hogwarts secretly and go to the outside world to find traces of Maca.

But reason told her that this kind of behavior was tantamount to fooling around.

Therefore, Hermione, who had no good ideas, walked silently in the dark corridor.

Perhaps her behavior could not be described as a "walk", because walks are usually at least usually purposeful. And she burrowed her head forward in a place where there was no light, but in fact she was not much different from a blind mouse.

But just as she passed by a window opening by pure chance, a vague figure appeared on the top of the astronomical tower at the other end of the castle, attracting her attention.

“…… Who's that? ”

Hermione subconsciously leaned on the windowsill and looked through the misty snow curtain. The moonless night makes everything seem to be soaked in ink, and even the outline is not really visible.

It was only because of her familiarity with Hogwarts that she was sure that someone was there.

Hermione, who was wondering what she should do for the night, turned around and walked in the direction of the Astronomy Tower.

But she didn't know that she only needed to turn a little further to see a brightly lit window from the window on the other side......

Not long after, Hermione hurried down the corridor to the outer corridor of the main fort leading to the Astronomy Tower.

To reach the tower from inside the castle, you have to cross an open-air tower bridge that connects the tower to the main fort. As soon as she came outside, the strong wind mixed with the flying snow immediately made her feel a chill all over her body.

The snowflakes scraped against Hermione's delicate cheeks like a knife cutting her face, forcing her to raise her sleeve to cover the side of her face.

After all, it was Christmas night, and the whole year was about to change, and it was the cold winter of Ling Ran.

Fortunately, the bridge was not long, and she hurriedly trotted a few steps against the wind characteristic of the high altitude, and soon pushed open the door of the opposite tower, and plunged headlong into the windless room.

After scrambling to close the door, she let out a few sighs of relief with her back against the door, which was still slightly shaken by the wind—now she was already thinking about whether she should go to the platform at the top of the Astronomy Tower!

But when she came back to her senses, she glanced at the room, and the starlight made her suddenly stunned.

"Ahh

After a few seconds, Hermione couldn't help but realize that this was the Starry Sky Café that Maca had brought them to during the day.

The Gryffindor common room is located on the highest level of the main castle, and the top of the Astronomy Tower is the highest in all of Hogwarts. Compared to the two, she naturally happened to be in astronomy class from here.

Generally speaking, when it is time to take an astronomy class, people will not go out of their way to the top floor of the main fort and then go to the Astronomy Tower, because almost every floor will have a verandah tower bridge like the one just now.

That's why Hermione didn't react at once this time.

It's just that after being surprised by the little starlight, her eyes gradually dim a little - well, Maca seems to have sat at that round table with them in the morning, right?

She walked over and gently stroked the tabletop, but even if there were any traces left at the time, they had already been cleaned up by Professor Sinista with a spell.

Standing at the table for a moment, Hermione finally shook her head, and slowly moved her gaze to the spiral wooden staircase that led to the top of the tower.

After a little pause, she still planned to go up again. Even if it wasn't for the sake of seeing who the figure was, she actually wanted to use the biting cold wind to calm herself down.

"Squeak-"

The trapdoor at the top of the staircase was a little sluggish due to the cold snow, and it took a lot of force to open it, and it also made a screeching grinding sound.

Knowing that there should be someone up there, the sound caused Hermione to pause slightly in her push against the door before continuing to push it away.

And the moment she poked her head out of the doorway, she couldn't open her eyes blown by the wind and snow, and she tried her best to squint and look out, only to see that there was already a dark shadow looking at her.

It's a pity that even if you get here, you still can't see clearly-it's too dark outside, and the wind and snow are terrifyingly big, and being able to distinguish between the front and the back is already the limit of this distance.

I don't know what Hermione thinks, but only now does she seem to start to feel a little empty in her heart.

No, if she had to say it, she had already realized that it must be a very suspicious thing for someone to hang around the tower at such a late hour. And perhaps it was precisely because she thought of this that she tried to come here to take a look, and she acted alone.

But if you want to ask why she did this...... I'm afraid this has a lot to do with Maca's "goodbye".

“…… Who is where? ”

As she shouted this, Hermione reached for the wand in her sleeve with minimal movements, which she had hidden in her sleeve since Maca had taught her.

It seems that this has become a habit of hers.

However, her question went unanswered.