Struggling to survive at Hogwarts

Chapter 287 A Disheveled Escape

As Harry slowly regained his senses, the strong smell of blood made his heart pound, and a bad premonition arose.

"Ron!"

Despite being prepared, Harry was still terrified by Ron's blood-soaked state.

Hermione didn't have time to explain anything. She tried to calm her trembling hands and frantically instructed Harry to take the white powder from her purse.

After a flurry of activity, Ron's bleeding finally stopped.

“Harry, I…we might not be able to go back.”

Hermione stammered, her eyes filled with guilt.

“When we escaped the Ministry of Magic, Alex grabbed me… I couldn’t shake him off, but thankfully Ron helped me…”

"But...but we've lost Alex too late...he's seen our destination!"

"I had no choice... I could only bring you here."

"And Ron... he's injured... it's all my fault—"

Harry had never seen Hermione like this before; guilt and regret tormented her, bringing tears to her eyes.

One piece of bad news after another gave Harry a headache, but he still cheered himself up and, as before, took on the role of comforter.

“It’s alright, Hermione,” Harry said, trying to sound cheerful. “I know you did your best. We just had some bad luck.”

"Besides, even if Alex didn't see the old house, we can't hide there forever. We already have the locket, so it doesn't matter whether we go back or not."

"Really?"

Hermione had stopped crying, but her eyes were still a little red.

"real!"

Harry looked completely sincere, and even Hermione couldn't immediately see through his facade.

"Bro...buddy," a weak voice interrupted their conversation, "I think I heard you guys say you got the locket?"

"That's right!"

Hermione leaned over to look the moment Ron spoke and answered him immediately.

"That...that's fantastic!"

The arrival of this good news brought a blush to Ron's pale face, which was flushed from his injury, but he quickly fell silent again.

Finally, after Harry and Hermione had set up the tent and protective measures, they half-dragged and half-carried Ron to the bed.

"I really hope that our bad luck just now has used up all our bad luck."

Harry remained silent in the face of Hermione's sincere request.

He knew perfectly well that this was very likely just the beginning.

He had no clue about the upcoming Horcrux quest, which was bound to be a heavy blow to their morale.

In addition, the availability of food, the safety of accommodation, and the lack of medicine are all severe challenges they are about to face.

With a sense of deep apprehension about the future, Harry forced himself to close his eyes.

In his hazy state, he once again saw his enemy—Voldemort—from a bizarre perspective.

"Gregorich, hand him over to me!"

He heard himself utter a high-pitched, cold voice, his wand pointing at an old man with gray hair who was hanging upside down from the ceiling.

The wand was very familiar to Harry—it was made of cedar, and in all these years, he had only ever seen one other person possess it.

Harry knew he was dreaming, which is why he could clearly hear "himself" threatening the poor old man while simultaneously searching his mind for information about the old man.

Grigorovich?

The name doesn't sound very British, but it has a strange familiarity to it.

Is he a very famous person?

Harry knew his own limitations. In terms of memory and reading range, even three of him combined might not be able to match Hermione's. As for someone whose name sounded familiar to him... Hermione definitely knew that!

Having firmly memorized the name, Harry continued to focus on the image before him.

"It was stolen... by a very handsome thief—"

Before the old man could finish speaking, a spell struck him mercilessly. Harry initially thought it was the Killing Curse, but when he saw the image appearing in the white mist in front of him, he realized it wasn't the Killing Curse.

In the scene through the white mist, Harry could see clearly: it was a rainy night, and the blond boy was crouching on the windowsill. When he saw the person coming, he was not flustered at all. Instead, he showed a smug smile, as if he had successfully played a prank. The next second, he leaped out of the window like a big bird.

Before Harry could react after watching the silent film, a beam of green light gently struck Grigorovich.

Harry was stunned.

All I heard was a cold, disdainful voice: "Useless!"

The dream seemed to end there, and Harry lost consciousness.

The next day, Harry's premonition came true without any surprise.

They encountered their first difficulty – food.

"Are you... sure this is edible?"

Although Ron desperately wanted to identify the ingredients of the unidentified object in front of him, he failed despite his efforts.

"What do you mean?!"

Hermione's cheeks flushed red when she finally met with a setback, which Harry interpreted as her embarrassment.

"Alright, alright, don't be so irritable..."

Harry skillfully took on the role of firefighter, timely interrupting the argument that was about to erupt.

Although small arguments won't cause the earth to explode, tempers can build up, and Harry doesn't want those bad tempers to eventually explode during their most difficult time.

"Perhaps these can still be saved—"

Harry had never been so grateful to Aunt Petunia for raising him; at least his mediocre cooking skills were good enough to cook the food in front of him.

Taking advantage of Hermione's good mood, Harry quickly asked for the person's name.

“Grigovich? V…the mysterious man killed him?”

Hermione frowned. Instead of immediately thinking about Harry's problem, she became concerned about his strange dreams.

“Harry, perhaps you shouldn’t be going into…his brain so often…and don’t you think it’s weird? You can see everything he can see…”

Harry listened silently to Hermione's worries until she could say nothing more, then he forced a smile. "But Hermione... this might be our only chance. I need to know more about him."

"Otherwise, how can we defeat him?"

Hermione paused, then lowered her head silently after a long while, saying in a muffled voice, "...I'll go check some information about Gregorovich...I remember seeing that name before..."

Hermione got up and left, leaving Harry alone.

The sunlight shone alone on him, and it was only then that Ron, hiding behind the tent, noticed that Harry... had lost a lot of weight.