The days at Hogwarts

"If something happens in Azkaban, we are in the North Sea and might be affected."

Thinking of this, Loren's face gradually became serious. "Or rather, we have been affected. This time it was the Dementors, and we can resist them with the Patronus Charm. If we encounter a dark wizard next time, we will be in trouble."

They didn't know what had happened in Azkaban, whether any dark wizards had escaped from the prison, or whether the Ministry of Magic had the situation under control.

When it comes to the safety of themselves and their loved ones, they can only think of the worst possible scenario. The Death Eaters and dark wizards imprisoned in Azkaban are not something they can handle at the moment. They can't bet that they just escaped from prison and don't have a suitable wand.

"We have to go ashore!" Hermione said with a tense face, "We are at sea, we have to find a legitimate reason and not arouse suspicion."

"We had a physical examination before boarding the ship. There is a doctor on board. We can't hide it with physical reasons." Loren pursed his lips.

"How about using Transfiguration to create a heavy rain, just like we created the fog just now, and use the weather to interrupt the voyage." Hermione stretched out her hand, feeling the gentle sea breeze brushing through her fingers.

For the safety of crew members and tourists, if extreme weather occurs, the cruise ship should dock nearby and end the journey.

Loren shook his head. “This place is not far from the coastline, and abnormal weather would attract attention. For a cruise ship of this size, an ordinary rainstorm would not be a big obstacle.”

The tense atmosphere enveloped the two of them once again, and it felt terrible.

"It's not suitable for personal reasons, nor for weather reasons," Hermione's eyes suddenly lit up, "We can let the ship have a little problem."

Hermione caught the clue and expressed her idea smoothly: "Let the ship have some problems, but it must be able to sustain until it can return to the nearest port."

"There's no need to cause a malfunction. Just make sure there's a little problem with the ship, and if the crew can't find the cause of the problem, they will dock as soon as possible for safety reasons." Loren knocked on the board beneath him.

Hermione looked at him thoughtfully, "Do you have any good ideas?"

With the solution, Loren was no longer so nervous. He stood up and patted his pants, "Just wait and see."

He pointed his wand at the junction of a railing and a board in the front right corner. "[Quickly change to soft]"

The Softening Charm, one of the spells in The Standard Book of Spells: Elementary, which they had just learned the previous school year.

A flash of white light disappeared into the steel plank, and soon that area became like sponge cloth, with wrinkles formed under the influence of gravity.

Loren put away his wand, and the cloth-like plank became hard again, but the wrinkles remained on it.

"Let's go, someone will be here soon and notice the abnormality here." Loren stretched out his hand and pulled Hermione up from the ground.

The hull of the ship was deformed, but the cause could not be found. No captain would dare to take the risk to continue sailing, and no one knew whether the next deformation would occur in the engine.

……

Half an hour later, in the cabin dining room.

Looking at Hermione who still looked a little uneasy, Loren handed the first spoonful of ice cream to her mouth and said, "Don't worry, even if the softening spell doesn't work, I still have other ways."

Hermione hesitated for a moment, then took a sip of the ice cream into her mouth. The cool, sweet and sour orange taste made her relax a little.

"Om~"

"Buzz~" A harsh electric sound came from the radio.

"Dear passengers: We are very sorry to tell you that due to a hull failure, for the sake of navigation safety, we have decided to dock nearby. The ship will arrive in Sunland in 3 hours. More information will be informed to you in due course. We express our deepest apologies for the inconvenience caused to you. We hope to gain your understanding. Thank you all."

After hearing the news, Hermione finally felt relieved.

"You--" Hermione was interrupted before she could finish her words.

"Don't worry, I will restore the hull after the ship docks. I will use the repair spell." Loren swallowed a big mouthful of ice cream and exhaled a breath of cold air.

"I—" Hermione was interrupted again.

"We can also use magic to speed up our landing, so we can rest in a hotel on land tonight."

Hermione finally got anxious, she slammed the table, "The spoon in your hand is the one I used!"

Loren froze while eating the ice cream, his ears became red with blood, he calmly put the spoon into the ice cream, raised his head and said, "It's okay, I don't mind the dirt."

Bang!

……

Chapter 153: The Soul-stealing Stone

Late at night, in a hotel by the sea in Sunderland.

Wendel still felt it was a bit unreal. A few hours ago, he was still weighing the weight of the capelin he caught, and in the blink of an eye, he was on shore and staying in a high-end hotel as compensation.

The full refund of the ticket price, as well as compensation for accommodation and return travel expenses, made Bates feel that it was a good deal after playing for so many days for free. He smiled and said, "Go to bed early, because we have to go back to London tomorrow morning."

It was indeed late, and everyone was a little tired, especially Loren and Hermione, who were exhausted. After saying goodnight to each other, they returned to their respective rooms, washed up and rested.

The bright lights in the hotel room went out, and the moonlight outside seemed softer.

"Azkaban, Dementors..." Loren lay on the bed, playing with the black stone in his hand, thinking about what happened today.

Magic is weakening day by day, wizards are getting weaker and weaker, and the entire wizarding world seems to be turbulent, but it is still like a stagnant pool of water. Only occasionally, Dumbledore and Voldemort, who jump out of the water, splash waves.

No matter how the situation changes, the wizarding world will still focus on the second duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort in the next few years.

Was the Azkaban Rebellion planned by the Death Eaters? How are they planning to bring back Voldemort?

Loren didn't know the answer. His mind was in a mess and all kinds of thoughts kept popping up.

Nagini was restored to human form, and if Voldemort used something else to create another Horcrux, he would lose his first-mover advantage.

Harry put it aside for the time being, Ravenclaw's diadem had been taken away by Dumbledore, the diary would appear in the next school year, and only three Horcruxes were left.

Gaunt's ring, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup.

"We have to speed up the Horcrux mission..." Loren muttered, his chaotic thoughts gradually becoming blurred.

It was late at night and he fell into a deep sleep.

……

Dim light shone down from the water surface, and Loren's consciousness continued to sink.

"Where is this?" He tried hard to open his eyes and see the scene clearly, but his hazy vision made it impossible to see clearly.

It was like being under water. There was a biting chill everywhere and the noisy sound of water and bubbles came into his ears, but he could not hear anything clearly. He could only feel that he was sinking.

The perception of time becomes blurred under the influence of dreams. I don’t know how much time has passed. It may be a moment or a long time.

"Little Loren, do you know what is the most delicious thing?" a gentle voice sounded.

Loren blinked, and a middle-aged man with bald spots appeared in front of him. He was wearing priest's clothes and had a warm smile on his face.

"I don't know, Mr. Bumble. But it's definitely not potatoes." The child's childish voice sounded.

Mr. Bumble!?

Mr. Bumble of the Orphanage!

And this voice is the voice of his childhood.

So, this is my memory? Loren had a thought in his mind.

But he had no impression of this scene at all.

Loren wanted to move and check the surrounding environment, but no matter what movements he gave in his mind, his body did not respond. He was confined to this perspective.

"It's the flesh of a pure child!" The middle-aged man's gentle voice suddenly became gloomy, and his face was full of a hideous smile.

Little Loren was so frightened that his breathing almost stopped. After a while, his childish voice rang out: "Are you going to kill me here?"

His voice was calm and composed, not at all like that of a child.

"Hahaha!" Bumble seemed very satisfied with his performance, his voice filled with morbid obsession, "Yes, that's right. Ever since you were assigned to this orphanage, I knew that you were a child favored by the Lord."

"You are smarter than other children. I will send your soul to thank God for his gift. Ho ho ho ha ha!" The muscles on Bumble's face were twitching, and he looked crazy. "And your body will become my medicine!"

Little Loren wanted to call for help, but when he opened his mouth hard, his lips only moved slightly and no sound came out.

As if seeing his confusion, Bumble took the initiative to explain, "Psychotropic drugs, prescribed to me by a doctor outside the church. I stopped taking them a few years ago. He didn't know that you little angels are my remedy."

Loren, who recalled this memory through perception, was filled with huge waves in his heart. So Bumble was a mental patient who killed children and ate their corpses, and that the biscuits given to him in the past were mixed with drugs.

He almost died in the orphanage!

Bumble began to rummage through his suitcase, took out a notebook, and wrote something on it: "Let me see, Maxwell, Isabella... You are the seventh, and 7 is a magic number..."

As Bumble was mumbling, he spread a large piece of nylon cloth on the ground, almost covering the entire floor of the room: "This will prevent your blood from leaving any traces. You don't know that the police are getting more and more difficult to deal with nowadays."

He was very meticulous, carefully smoothing out every wrinkle on the nylon cloth, trying to make it fit perfectly to the ground.

It took a long time to lay the nylon carpet. He stood up and straightened his back. "Don't worry, Joyce won't be sad. I will tell her that a kind and well-off family adopted you."

"It won't hurt. This medicine is very effective." Bumble came closer with a small knife in his hand, as if comforting a child, with a gentle and kind smile on his face.

When death was about to come, little Loren's eyes suddenly burst into a bright crystal blue light, and Bumble seemed to be hit on the head by a huge hammer and fainted.

The blue light in front of his eyes became brighter and brighter, but his vision became more and more blurred. Finally, he closed his eyes and the world fell into darkness.

Before he fell asleep, he heard someone breaking into the door, and then a pair of warm hands protected him. It was Joyce's voice: "Loren, hold on!"

"Ms. Maggie! Ms. Maggie..." Joyce's anxious voice gradually faded away.

The sound became farther and farther away and more and more blurred, and finally returned to the sound of sinking to the bottom of the water. It was so noisy that nothing could be heard clearly.

Loren became slightly more conscious, but he did not wake up. The feeling of weightlessness came over him and he began to sink again.

However, the gurgling sound in the water not only did not disappear, but became louder and louder. Amidst this harsh noise, a new picture unfolded.

He couldn't see anything clearly. He could only see a dim blue in front of him, as if a piece of blue cloth was blocking his vision.

Then a pool of crimson spread out, dyeing the blue cloth the color of blood, and he heard screams coming from far away, terrible, panicked, pleading screams.

There seemed to be chaos outside, and something terrible had happened.

But before Loren had time to feel it carefully, his eyes were covered by a blue light again. The noise became louder and louder, and closer and closer, gradually drilling into his brain from his ears, as if it was going to blow his skull apart.

"hiss!"

"Huff—Huff—Huff." Loren suddenly sat up from the bed, taking deep breaths.

As if breaking through the water surface, the noisy sounds became clearer and smaller, then gradually disappeared, and everything returned to silence.

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva to moisten his throat, and the heart that was stuck in his throat also went down with the breath.

Outside the window, the moonlight was bright. Everything he had just seen seemed like a dream, but Loren was sure it was not a dream. The nylon carpet, Bumble's hideous smile, and the sky blue fabric gradually soaked with blood, all of it was too clear.

He was sure that it was his memory, the memory of the time traveler Loren.

Before tonight, he had always thought that Bumble's departure from the welfare home was a normal transfer, but now it seemed that he was arrested after the incident. As for the welfare home concealing this matter, it was normal.

If the cannibalism of a welfare home staff member is reported, the government, the church, and the welfare home will all be affected. The best option is to keep the matter secret.

The fact that he suddenly knocked Bumble unconscious was probably the result of his magic awakening and the riot of magic power. In the face of life and death crisis, he spontaneously used his magic power to knock Bumble unconscious.

Loren felt sick whenever he thought of that person, which was why he lost that memory and kept missing Bumble afterwards.

Was it because of the drugs Bumble had given him?

Or is it the blue light that appears before your eyes when magic power rages?

There was also a sky-blue cloth soaked in blood that appeared in the next scene, which directly overturned Loren's self-identification. He thought he had traveled through time when the original owner had a car accident, but now it seems that this is not the case.

There was a gap in his memory, and this discovery made Loren feel a little uneasy. It was not the uneasiness about the perception of danger, but an urgent pursuit of his own integrity.

Human memory is the cornerstone of building self-cognition, and Loren is eager to recover the missing memory.

"It seems I have to find time to go back to the orphanage." Loren thought secretly, and his fingers unconsciously pinched the stone.

It doesn't feel right... Loren held the stone in front of his eyes and looked around.

"It looks a little bigger," Loren said to himself.

In order to verify his guess, Loren placed the stone next to his pillow, and then: "[Expecto Patronus]"

The Dementors were originally burned into a stone under the illumination of the Patronus Light. If the stone becomes larger, then it can be shrunk again by burning it with the Patronus Light.

He controlled his magic power and did not summon the giant whale, but instead wrapped the stone with silver-white light.

Under this light, Loren felt much more at peace.

The surface of the black stone was smooth, but it could not reflect any light. Under the illumination of the guardian light, it slowly shrank in size and returned to its original state when it was first boarded the ship.

Loren's face was filled with confusion and shock, so his nightmare, or memory, tonight was brought out by this stone.

Even if it is burned to a small piece, it still retains the instinct of a Dementor, awakening people's despair and pain and robbing them of their happiness.

And after absorbing his emotions, the stone has grown to a certain extent. So can we conclude that after getting enough emotional nutrients, a new Dementor will be born.

"What an evil creature," Loren exclaimed.