A magical journey that begins in Azkaban.

Chapter 529 Questioning the Books
"Food...food..." Grawp muttered incoherently, his nostrils flaring back and forth, searching for the source of the fragrance in the air.

Hermione couldn't help but gasp, her voice full of worry: "Oh my God, Grawp won't..."

"Wait a minute." Roger quickly grabbed her, "Hagrid is not as delicious as roast chicken."

Sure enough, Grawp's target was not Hagrid. He lifted up the entire igloo and grabbed the remaining half of Ariana's roast chicken.

Compared to his palm, the food mixed with snow looked like a small piece of meat. Even with the chicken bones scattered around, it might not even be enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

Grawp opened his cavernous mouth and swallowed the roast chicken in one gulp. However, it seemed that this was just an appetizer.

He lay on the ground, searching like a hunting dog, and finally found the honey jar and the charcoal with oil on it.

Amid everyone's surprised gazes, he stuffed all of these things into his mouth without hesitation, making a creepy chewing sound.

"Hungry..." Grawp let go of Hagrid who had been struggling, and pointed at his mouth like a giant baby. There was a trace of grievance in his eyes, as if he was accusing his brother of not feeding him enough.

Hagrid rubbed his dislocated arm and smiled helplessly. He said something to Grawp in Giant language, as if he was comforting a mad child. Then, he pulled the rope on his brother and led him deep into the forbidden forest.

"You'd better not have any dangerous thoughts." Roger turned to Hermione and whispered, "Curiosity kills the cat."

"You... don't talk nonsense." Hermione's face flushed red instantly. Like a cat whose tail was stepped on, she immediately jumped up and argued loudly: "Don't slander my innocence out of thin air. I don't have any dangerous thoughts."

"Haha." Roger rolled his eyes at her and directly exposed her little thoughts: "Don't pretend, Hermione. Are you trying to use food to get close to Grawp? Or even have a giant friend?"

Hermione was shocked and secretly wondered how he guessed it, "Could it be that Roger can read minds?"

However, she still pretended to be calm and firmly denied Roger's guess: "I didn't! I'm not! Don't talk nonsense!"

Roger shook his head slightly. Such a direct and eager denial could only mean one thing: Hermione did have this idea and wanted to use food to get close to Grawp.

"If you really want to go to the Forbidden Forest, you must go with Hagrid. Because he definitely can't outrun you, Ariana, what do you think?"

"Yeah." Ariana smiled and gave him a reassuring look.

The magical bond between them meant that the two of them had to act together. Sometimes asking Ariana to help was more effective than reminding Hermione directly.

Hermione puffed her cheeks, her face full of annoyance at having her little thoughts exposed. She pulled Ariana's sleeve all the way and kept whispering: "Alia, you have to help me. Don't listen to Roger, we are best friends, right?"

Ariana just smiled and nodded, neither agreeing nor refusing. If Hermione really wanted to go to the Forbidden Forest to play with the giant, she would go with him.

In front of the hall, the night was getting darker. The windows of the castle were shining with warm yellow light, and the students who had gone to Hogsmeade for a walk were returning one after another.

Hermione suddenly stopped and turned to ask, "Rogge, will you go home for Christmas?"

Roger was stunned for a moment, his eyes drifting away, as if he was thinking about something. He answered uncertainly: "There are a lot of things to do, but I don't think I will stay in school."

"Go to bed early. The OWLs exam will be next year anyway." He showed a gentle smile, handed the other two roast chickens to them, and teased, "Don't forget my Christmas present."

"Got it~" Hermione took the paper bag, a blush on her face. She suddenly leaned in and kissed Roger on the face, her movements so fast that people were caught off guard.

Ariana followed her to Gryffindor and couldn't help but joked, "Hey, didn't you agree to be reserved? You're really taking the initiative today."

"This is because he compensated us for the roast chicken." Hermione's ears blushed.

"Well, whatever you say makes sense..."

After returning to the Slytherin tower, Roger and Daphne shared the last of the fruitwood roasted chicken. After half a night of tenderness, he climbed out of the gentle land quietly.

"What's wrong?" Daphne lay exhausted on the bed, her long golden hair floating on her snow-white shoulders. Her breasts were half exposed, slightly deformed by the pressure of her body.

Roger wrapped himself in his nightgown and said gently, "I'll read for a while and go to Diagon Alley tomorrow."

He took the hot tea from Daphne, his eyes lingering on her naked body involuntarily, "Don't go back to the dormitory so late, or my quilt will get cold soon."

"Go to hell." Daphne rolled her eyes at him coquettishly, yawning and slowly wrapping herself in the quilt. She smiled lazily, her eyes gradually becoming blurry.

Roger is reading a book called "Cryptozoology", the author is Branson, a maverick wizard. After graduation, he did not stay in the wizarding world, but pretended to be a Muggle to travel around the world.

During one of his adventures at the beginning of the century, he left behind a record of the White River Monster.

Rogge's fingers gently stroked a yellowed silver-plate magic photo on the page. In the photo, a mottled protrusion was looming, and as it swayed slightly, ripples appeared on the lake surface, as if there was a mysterious existence underneath.

"Looks like some kind of sturgeon." Roger muttered to himself, picked up a quill, and sketched the general outline of the river monster on a piece of parchment. However, there was too little information in the photo to complete the creature.

He went on to read Branson's account: "Whitey could make a hybrid noise between a cow and a horse and could crawl onto land."

The book included a diagram of a three-toed footprint left by a river monster in the mud after rain, which made Roger even more interested.
"13.5 inches..." He stared at the size of the footprint recorded in the book and frowned slightly. "So big? Could Branson have remembered it wrong?"

He began to do the math in his head. If the river monster's footprint was closer to 35 centimeters, then the foot would be almost as long as an elephant's.

"Wow, this is definitely a big guy that should not be underestimated." Rogge thought.

In order to better understand the size of the river monster, Roger decided to use a more familiar creature as a reference. "The common American alligator can be used to estimate..."

He quickly flipped through other reference books, found the corresponding proportional relationship, and then began to calculate.

After some calculations, Roger quickly concluded that the creature with such footprints was probably between 2.7 and 3.4 meters long and weighed about 1 ton. "But alligator footprints are usually less than 10 centimeters." Roger said to himself and began to examine the footprints in the book again: "If it is real, it means that the owner of the footprints is much larger than the alligator."

He quickly looked up more information about large reptiles. "Saltwater crocodiles are pretty good. Adult males are over 7 meters long and weigh over a ton. However, their feet are not as long as the river monsters."

Rogge took a deep breath, and before his eyes appeared a giant beast that could live on land and water, with a body length of more than 10 meters and a weight of nearly 3 tons.

"A river monster?" Rogge murmured, with a hint of doubt in his eyes.

He picked up a magnifying glass and carefully examined every detail in the photo. Branson's footprints were indeed very clear, and he could even see the claw marks on the toes.

But it is too clear!
Suddenly, an idea popped into Roger's mind: "Wait, why does this look more and more like a duck's foot?"

"It's the same three-pronged shape, with a concave fan-shaped space between each fork. And the footprints left by a river monster weighing several tons are too clear and too shallow, right?"

Although he was full of doubts, Roger decided to continue reading the following information. What if the White River monster mastered Qinggong or magic, so that he could be very heavy and walk very lightly?

Branson not only recorded his own observations, but also collected rumors from surrounding Muggle farmers.

The White River monster originated from the local indigenous people, the Kuapa tribe. The river monster once overturned the indigenous canoe, but the young people in the canoe returned to the shore. (The naughty river monster - Roger couldn't help but write his own complaints in the book: and he was also very kind.)
The loggers thought it was a 300-pound turtle, but the fishermen returned empty-handed. (The naked eye weighing device is more powerful than the goblins in Gringotts)

The river monster always surfaces in the evening and stays there for about 5 to 15 minutes. (No fishermen are around at this time??? Isn't this the prime time to catch it?)
Farmer reports: From a distance, it was 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, with a catfish face and gray elephant skin. (The fisherman was ecstatic, this catfish was the same size as the one that got away last time... or maybe even bigger.)
Roger put down his quill and pondered: "Do these records refer to the same creature? Or is this just an elaborate prank?"

Branson's record of river monsters ends here, and he continues his journey westward after leaving the White River.

Roger closed the book and rubbed his sore eyes. To be honest, the doubts in his heart were like bubbles in a beer glass, almost overflowing.

As a wizard, Branson encountered such a strange river monster, but he did not cast any magic to find out what was going on. He did not even have the urge to go into the water to explore, and just left. This behavior is really puzzling.

Unless, he knew the truth about the river monster all along and wrote it in the book just for fun.

Roger couldn't help but think of the disgraced Gilderoy Lockhart. "At least in Lockhart's story, everything is true except the name of the protagonist," he praised sincerely.

As for Branson's "Cryptozoology"... Roger flipped through the thick pages, which could be hollowed out to hold wine. The nearly one thousand mysterious animals he recorded are still just records, and have not been confirmed by any wizard or Muggle.

"This is fake." Rogge closed the book and was very sure, "Its value lies in entertainment and imagination. Maybe it should appear in the "Unsolved Mysteries of the World" instead of being regarded as a serious reading material."

He turned his eyes to Tiago's wand manuscript, and couldn't help but doubt the use of the spine of the White River monster to make a wand. After all, for a fictitious thing, even if Merlin came, he couldn't find it.

"What exactly is it? Unless we find the wand that Tiago made, or go back to his time." He snorted softly, "If Grindelwald didn't take the time turner away, I wouldn't have to worry so much."

Feeling disappointed and exhausted, Roger yawned, stood up and turned off the desk lamp.

There was a commotion in the clock square outside the tower, and he looked down curiously, only to see the Weasleys hurrying out of the main building, including Harry, as if something urgent had happened.

They followed Professor McGonagall through the corridor and walked quickly towards the Transfiguration classroom.

"Is there something wrong?" Roger immediately raised his head and looked towards the bright window of the headmaster's office. "Dumbledore is back. It seems that the matter at the Ministry of Magic has been dealt with."

He nodded thoughtfully, "That's right, old Barty has been tried, and the headmaster's position as Chief Magician of the Wizengamot has been dismissed."

"Dumbledore has no other place to go except Hogwarts. But Harry still hasn't mastered Occlumency? Even with a different teacher?" Roger shook his head slightly, not sure whether to say Harry was too sincere or too superficial.

He simply stopped thinking about what happened to Weasley tonight, and didn't care what actions Voldemort would take. As long as his plan went smoothly, he would let everything else take its course.

Roger closed the curtains and crawled into the warm bed.

"Hmm~" Daphne turned over in her deep sleep, and her right leg habitually rested on him. Roger sniffed the ylang-ylang scent in her hair and embraced her warmth.

The school does not have the annoying Umbridge, and the Department of Transportation controls the Floo Network externally but not internally. This means that Harry and the Weasleys can still use Professor McGonagall's fireplace to go to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Insects without using a portkey.

This magic hospital is hidden inside Tao Tao Co., Ltd., an old-fashioned red brick department store. A sign saying "Closed for renovation" is hung on the door, and this status will probably not change in another hundred years.

Typically, visitors to a patient's home stand outside a closet and tell the patient's name to a female dummy inside, who then nods and points a finger at them through the glass.

But Rogge had never walked through this entrance. He was only familiar with the VIP channel and had not even visited the hospital's brick-red exterior.

He also had an intensive care unit on a high floor, which remained empty even when the floor below was full, ready for Roger Travis.

The Weasleys obviously did not enjoy such privileges. Even though Molly brought the famous Harry Potter with her, and Sirius, Tonks, and Moody to protect her, the doctors still turned a blind eye to them.

This is not to disdain or look down on them, but they are just too busy.

The scene in the waiting room was jaw-dropping, it was like a fish market...or perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a zoo.

Some wizards have elephant trunks, some have an extra hand on their chest, some have their heads and butts swapped places... You never know what kind of bizarre injuries wizards may inflict on themselves.

"Excuse me..." Molly called out anxiously, but the therapists just hurried by and rushed to the next patient.

Her anxiety and helplessness seemed particularly harmonious in this busy environment. After all, this was a hospital, where there was no shortage of anxiety and helplessness. Even among the Muggles, there was no shortage of powerlessness and crying.

Seeing and hearing so much, sympathy and kindness become numb. Therapists must rush to the next patient and snatch more lives from the hands of death.

(End of this chapter)