Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 541 The Gaunt Family's Mass Production of Miracles

One by one, they crawled into the silvery substance in the meditation basin, passed through the ever-swirling darkness, and finally landed steadily on the ground.

The sudden sunlight forced Harry to close his eyes, but Cohen looked around first.

This is a country road with tangled bushes on both sides. The summer sky is bright and open, but there is no heat.

Memory doesn't have heat.

"If we can pass through the phantoms of memories, why don't we sink into the ground?" Cohen asked, looking down at the solid ground beneath his feet. "It's like ghosts would pass through the floor."

“A novel subject, Cohen,” Dumbledore said. “Perhaps we can study it more carefully later, but for now we need to catch up with Mr. Ogden.”

Dumbledore pointed in a direction, and about ten steps ahead of them, a short, stout man was reading a wooden signpost beside the path.

He wore glasses with exceptionally thick lenses, making his eyes appear like a mole's starry eyes behind the lenses.

His attire was just as outlandish as those wizards trying to disguise themselves as Muggles; Ogden wore a striped swimsuit with a dress over it and shoe covers on his feet.

Cohen actually thought that instead of dressing like this, he would have been better off wearing a robe, preferably black, with a small white square piece of cloth pinned to the collar, which would have allowed him to pretend to be a priest from some distant church.

“Be careful, Harry, this could very well happen if you gain weight…” Cohen whispered to Harry.

“You only do this when you’re old!” Harry nudged Cohen. “I’m much taller than him—and my eyes are bigger too…”

“Mr. Ogden would be very unhappy if he heard this,” Dumbledore said. “Of course, he probably can’t hear right now, since he’s in St. Mungo’s for hearing rehabilitation, poor Bob, his precious grandson has a popping balloon stuck in his ear.”

They followed Ogden, and according to the road signs, they were heading to Little Hangleton.

Cohen remembered this as the home of Voldemort's grandfather, the Gaunt family, a fallen, almost entirely insane, pure-blood family.

It seems that pure bloodlines are prone to producing madmen—which suggests that magical bloodlines may not be a good thing.

At a secluded fork in the path downhill, Ogden disappeared into the bushes.

Dumbledore led Cohen and the others directly through the bushes, and a strange house appeared before them.

Cohen had actually visited the Gaunt family's old house with Dumbledore during the summer vacation, but in Ogden's memory, it was still intact.

A dead snake was nailed to the door of Gaunt's old house, and it suddenly moved, startling Harry who was next to Cohen—only then did Harry realize that it was the door that moved, not the snake that came to life.

"Hiss (You're not welcome)."

A raggedly dressed man popped out in a way that neither Cohen nor Harry had anticipated—

The door was open, but he didn't come out from behind it; instead, he jumped down from a nearby tree.

“Uh—good morning, I’m from the Ministry of Magic—” Ogden wanted to greet the man, even though his right hand was already in his pocket, and Cohen felt he had already grabbed his wand.

“Hiss (You’re not welcome),” the ragged man said again.

“I’m sorry—I don’t understand what you’re saying…” Ogden took a step back somewhat uneasily.

Harry looked at Cohen, puzzled—he thought Ogden was being rather slow-witted.

“Parasitic, Harry,” Cohen said. “But even so, the little basilisk wouldn’t like someone like that—he looks very unstable.”

Cohen pointed to the bloody knife the man was clutching in his right hand.

The man was still closing in on Ogden step by step.

"Hey—don't—" Ogden was about to speak when a loud crash interrupted him. Ogden collapsed to the ground, disgusting yellow snot dripping from his nose. "Morfin!"

Another older man shouted and rushed out of the house. He was shorter than the one outside, Mofen, with broad shoulders, extremely long arms, and wrinkled skin, looking like an old monkey.

“Cohen, this looks like that one in your trunk…” Harry suddenly realized something, “…the Slytherin statue?”

Dumbledore laughed.

“The Gaunt family does indeed inherit some characteristics that make it immediately clear they are related to Slytherin,” Dumbledore said. “Parsleyan speech, highly recognizable appearance, and some eccentric habits.”

“He nailed his pet to the door,” Cohen said, “and was proud of his ability to defeat the little snake.”

“It’s uncomfortable,” Harry agreed.

"Pure-blood marriages often have these drawbacks, but even in the wizarding world today, people still take pride in this distorted view of bloodlines," Dumbledore said. "However, it is undeniable that these people's average magical ability is indeed much higher than that of ordinary people, but I cannot comment on whether the magic obtained at the cost of humanity is truly worthwhile."

“Not at all,” Harry said.

At this moment, Ogden and the Gaunt family's conversation had gotten down to business. Before this, old Gaunt and Morfin had made a sarcastic remark about Ogden's impure bloodline.

“Mr. Gaunt, as I already told you, I’m here about Morfin. We sent an owl—”

“Owls are useless to me; I never read letters,” Gunter said haughtily.

Is being illiterate something to be proud of?

Cohen's expression furrowed.
"I'm starting to think that promoting marriage and having children between wizards and Muggles is a very necessary thing, otherwise I feel that a lot of wizard descendants will turn into some kind of mindless magical creatures."

“Then you can’t complain that nobody knew someone was coming,” Ogden said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “I’m here to deal with a serious violation of wizarding law that happened early this morning—”

“Fine, fine, fine!” Gaunt roared irritably. “Go back to that damn house, you’ll be much more comfortable there!”

Ogden followed Gaunt into the house, where Morfin was already sitting by the fireplace, where a cool flame burned.

Hiss, hiss, baby snake!

Hurry up and crawl over on the ground.

You should be especially good to Mofen.

Otherwise, I'll nail you outside the gate.

Mofen hummed a song sung in a snake-like voice, while her large, thick fingers manipulated a live snake.

There was another person in the room, a girl, wearing a gray, tattered dress, with straight, dull hair and a pale face.

If you ignore her eyes, her appearance is actually quite average.

But if you look at her eyes—like the other two in the Gaunt family, her eyes stare in opposite directions, which makes her appearance far from "average".

"Professor, may I take a picture?" Cohen asked Dumbledore curiously.

"?" Dumbledore was somewhat puzzled.

"I'm going to hang this photo out and say it's Voldemort's mother."

(End of this chapter)