Hogwarts: Nagini captured at the start

Chapter 106 Hunter's Spider Mask

"Don't be afraid. Spiders may look fierce, but they are gentle at heart. My old friend Ara... Uh, I shouldn't be saying this. Robin, here, the gentleman asked me to give this to you. He thinks you might need it during the summer vacation."

Robin took the large paper package and was about to tear it open when Hagrid spoke up again, "The master said it can only be opened after we board the train."

"All right."

A short while later, a steam train with a chugging sound pulled into the station.

Under Hagrid's guidance, the students boarded the train in an orderly fashion.

After putting his luggage away in the private room, Luo Bin tore open the paper package with a ripping sound and found a thick book inside with a dark red cover and gold thread inlaid at the top.

Is this the original seal that sealed Blackie?!

(The version I saw before was a replica made using the "Bo Fu Qun Shu" (博复群书) by the silverfish spirit insect.)

"Robin, can I take a look at this book?" Hermione asked curiously after sitting down by the window.

Luo Bin pushed the book towards her, and she casually flipped through a dozen pages. After realizing she didn't recognize a single word, she pushed the book back to Luo Bin.

A short while later, Ron and Harry also entered the box.

Harry had just placed Hedwig next to Big Fat when the train started chugging along.

Through the glass window, you can see the slope, vegetable garden, forest, and snow-capped mountains rushing past.

Afterwards, the two entered the private room and quietly read books, chatted, and ate snacks in a peaceful atmosphere.

When the train was halfway there, the clattering sound of wheels turning and the noisy laughter of students suddenly drifted from the aisle. After a while, the clattering sound disappeared at the door of Luo Bin's compartment.

Crunch!

A short, plump, smiling witch pushed open the door to the private room and asked, "Darling, the journey is still long. Would you like to buy some snacks to pass the time?"

"Thank you, we won't buy it."

Ron leaned back, revealing a small hill of snacks piled on the table.

"Okay, have a pleasant trip."

After she finished speaking, she reached out to close the door to the private room. When the door was two-thirds closed, Harry suddenly spoke up.

"Madam, could you please give me one or four large bottles of water? Thank you."

"OK."

After the witch left, Ron asked in surprise, "Harry, why did you buy so much water?"

"Here you go, one bottle each. Ron, you've eaten five bags of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, three Chocolate Frogs, two bags of compressed biscuits, and five pieces of Monster Bubble Gum. Aren't you thirsty?"

"Uh, now that you mention it, I am a bit thirsty," Ron said, burping.

Hermione sat by the window, bathed in sunlight. She was quite thirsty, so she took the bottle and gulped down a third of it.

Robin, who was obsessed with finding differences between the two books (the original and the reprint), moistened his lips slightly and then casually placed the water on the table.

Afterwards, the two returned to the private room and quietly read books, chatted, and ate snacks in a peaceful atmosphere.

Mountains, villages, fields, and dense forests flashed by like slides through the private room window.

When the view outside the window was a vast purple swamp, the door to the private room was opened again from the outside.

"Malfoy, what do you want to do?"

Ron said warily toward the door.

"I want to give you a parting gift," Malfoy grinned maliciously, then roared, "Goyle!"

Gore pulled a box from behind his back, unlocked it, and threw it forcefully at Ron.

Boom!

(The box hits Ron's arms)

Shh! Shh!

Two light brown, hairy, wriggling claws emerged from the crack in the box. Then, an ugly, ferocious head peeked out from the crack, and six wriggling spider claws could be vaguely seen through the gap.

Ron jumped up in fright, his knee hitting the table, which shook violently and knocked over four bottles of water.

Ron jumped onto the chair, buried his face in Harry's arms, and pleaded, "Hurry... hurry and get rid of it."

The three men at the door burst into laughter upon seeing Ron's reaction; Malfoy even laughed until tears streamed down his face.

Hermione drew her grapevine wand, then remembered the "promise" and angrily put it away.

Robin stomped on a palm-sized hunter spider (non-venomous) and exclaimed in cryptic praise, "Malfoy, you're brave!"

Malfoy: ? ? ?

While Malfoy was still wondering, Robin slowly raised his foot, and the freed hunter spider, as if receiving a command from a superior, rushed quickly toward—Malfoy's gleaming little leather shoes.

Then, it climbed up Malfoy's crisp suit trousers and all the way to his neck. Malfoy jumped up and down and screamed in fright, but he still couldn't escape the fate of the spider sticking to his face.

"Oh, as expected of the young master of the Malfoy family, he spent a fortune to get a really unique werewolf spider mask as soon as he left school," Robin mocked.

Malfoy was too weak to retort. He was so frightened by the werewolf spider that his face turned pale. He leaned against the box door, trembling. Goyle and Crabbe wanted to help him take the werewolf spider down, but neither of them had the guts.

Finally, when Lee Jordan found the box, the three were out of trouble.

"Alright, you've even tried to steal from me. Hurry up, or I'll teach you three a lesson later."

Lee Jordan shoved the three of them away.

After the farce ended, Luo Bin closed and locked the door of the private room. Turning around, he saw an empty water bottle lying on the open pages of a book, with transparent water droplets dripping down the pages.

Oops!

Robin rushed forward, picked up the book, and found that it was soaked through from the first page to the last.

"It's my fault. If I hadn't bumped the table, your water wouldn't have spilled," Ron said apologetically, rubbing his knee.

"It's not your fault. Malfoy started this, and I forgot to screw the cap back on after I drank the water."

After saying that, he took the tissues Hermione handed him, wiped the water off the floor and table, and then laid the tissues flat to absorb the water from the book page by page.

When he reached the fourth page, he noticed that the word "Poland" was slightly curved to the right. He clearly remembered that before the water got in, the text in both the original and the reprint was perfectly straight.

Is it that the ink deforms when it comes into contact with water, or something else?

Confused, Robin continued sucking up water, and when he reached the eighteenth page, he encountered the distorted text again.

The word "bent" in the book is slightly bent to the left.

When I got to page thirty-three, I found another one: the word "藏" (cáng, meaning "to hide") was bent to the right.

Once is never enough; a third time is not an option. This time, the guess that the ink deforms when it comes into contact with water can be ruled out.

When he reached page 47, he ran out of tissues and asked Hermione for another pack.

Then, he devoured the entire book in one go, not even sparing the bottom.

In this book, he found a total of eleven sets of curved words: Poland, curved, hide, fox, Charnover, follow, treasure, forest, pine tree, three tails, instruction.

After arranging and combining these words several times, Robin concluded that the combination "Treasures are hidden in the crooked pine forest of Çarnovo, Poland; follow the directions of the three-tailed fox" was more accurate.

As he cleaned up the wet wipes, the train pulled into King's Cross Station with a clattering sound.

The four of them, carrying their luggage, struggled to squeeze off the train and then queued for a long time before finally breaking through the partition wall of Platform 9¾ to return to the Muggle world.

(End of this chapter)