339 Chapter 338 Cedric Diggory (2 in 1)
Jon searched the abandoned settlement of the Centaur for a while, trying to find some more useful clues.
However, just like the dead spiders, it looked like something that had happened a long time ago, so even if there had been some actual clues left at the beginning, nothing could possibly be found by now.
But in this place at least Jon hadn't seen a single Centaur carcass, which was a good thing in disguise.
After all, the Centaurs are a lot more intelligent than the eight-eyed giant spiders, and if Voldemort had intended to send someone to clean them out, they would have known that even if all the Centaurs in the world were to be added, there would be no way to resist.
So while it was unlikely that none of the Centaurs was harmed, it was probably not likely that they would be slaughtered outright.
Now where the Centaurs had fled to, Hoss wasn't sure, and Jon didn't feel the need to waste time looking any further, even if there might still be some of the Centaurs hiding in the Forbidden Forest, there was little he could do to help them by making contact.
"There's one last one, Morris, I heard Hagrid say he is a dog with a peculiar tail, can you find him?"
Jon asked Hoss about the last name Hagrid had given him, but in response, Hoss stared blankly with both his large and small eyes and eventually just shook his head.
It didn't look like he knew the dog named Morris.
Jon didn't dwell on it too much, he had already done more than he had previously anticipated, and even if he didn't hear from this Morris in the end, he felt that the information he had now got to Hagrid would be enough for Hagrid to digest for a while.
Today is the perfect day for Jon to conclude Hagrid's request, and he'll be focusing on the tournament task for the rest of the time.
But Jon wasn't in a hurry to spend the night trying to figure out how to deal with the dragons, Hoss might be a horny mule, but having him around would help keep Jon out of a lot of trouble.
At least he wouldn't have to worry about rushing through the Forbidden Forest to find out where those dragons might be.
As night fell over the Forbidden Forest, Jon didn't move to another place, but chose to build a campfire right in the middle of this abandoned settlement, and then wandered around the nearby woods for a while, catching some random wild rabbits.
It was unknown how Voldemort had controlled and managed the Forbidden Forest after taking control of Hogwarts Castle, but apart from the actions against the eight-eyed giant Acromantula spider colony and the Centaurs, the entire ecology of the Forbidden Forest seemed to be very much back to nature, and the creatures here, both magical and ordinary, looked as if they had never seen a human before. The rabbits reacted by thrashing their legs and trying to resist only after catching their ears.
When Hoss saw the prey he had caught, he had a look of regret in his big and small eyes, and Jon happened to meet his gaze as he was processing the rabbits.
At that moment he could surprisingly guess what this horny mule was thinking.
"You lamenting why I didn't catch a little doe or something like that, and get you high before eating it?"
Hoss kept nodding his head like a chicken pecking at rice with glowing eyes as if he thought that since Jon had guessed what he was thinking, he probably wouldn't mind adding another little doe to his meal afterwards.
However, the next second, Jon lightly smacked him on his lustful face.
"You're really quite a deviant pervert, I'll have to ask Hagrid when I get back whether you were brought up like this by him or whether you've learned to behave like this on your own since you left him. You certainly never forget to think about finding a little doe in everything you do."
Hoss wasn't embarrassed by Jon's comment, he flung his mouth around like he was trying to argue with Jon that it is the nature of the animal.
Jon didn't bother with him anymore, he placed the processed rabbit on the fire and skilfully prepared his dinner for the night.
When he had been at Hogwarts, Jon had done a lot of barbecuing on the deck of the ship with other students, and his skills were not quite as good as the others, but they were not considered bad either.
At least after he had given Hoss a rabbit leg (as a Pegasus, of course, he could eat meat too), he seemed quite pleased with Jon's cooking.
As the night gradually got darker, Jon was making some small plans for tomorrow's action around the campfire.
He was not in any way feeling numb (from fear) or negligent about facing the dragon, and he didn't quite believe that the Beauxbatons champion named Emil could truly be unprepared for this Triwizard Tournament Task that was selected by them.
As the two who had been chosen to represent Voldemort in this tournament, Jon had actually tried to do a little testing early in the day.
He had knocked out Draco and thrown him out of the tournament's defined range in front of Voldemort, not meaning to provoke that man or anything, Jon had wanted to see if Voldemort actually expected these two to get the ultimate victory in the tournament for him.
And from the curt reaction he had when Draco was out, Jon couldn't tell what kind of expectations he had for the youngest Malfoy.
On the contrary, Emil, if nothing else, did have a ruthless drive at a young age, actually using Draco as a meat shield to block the spell right in front of Draco's own father, which was not something that the average student who hadn't graduated yet could do, which meant that he was the one who should be more highly valued by Voldemort, judging by his behaviour.
After all, there is no restriction in the tournament rules against attacking each other to take the golden snitch that the other team has already got, and he was curious to see what this Emil had to offer.
A win or a loss in a single task meant nothing, but getting the exact information about the opponent would be of the greatest benefit to all the plans that would be made later on.
Jon thought as he lay with a blade of grass in his mouth on the blanket he had made using a transfiguration spell, Hoss had run off after supper to have a good time, Jon had not restrained him but had told him that he had to be back before dawn tomorrow and if he had run off to roll in the grass with some strange animal he had to clean himself up before he came back or else he would be disinfected over the campfire first.
Just as Jon looked out at the starry sky, which was mostly obscured by the branches of the trees, suddenly a strange feeling rose up in his mind!
It was a wonderful feeling, like a premonition of some sort, and then without hesitation, Jon raised the wand in his hand and aimed the tip at a bush behind him!
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Without a moment's hesitation, a bright full body-bind curse shot out of his wand and in the next instant, pierced through the dense patch of bushes!
Jon could hear a panicked movement, followed by a rush of footsteps.
The full body-bind curse hadn't scored a hit, the man was fleeing!
He frowned and stood up from the campfire, not bothering to risk going after him first; if Hoss had still been with him, perhaps he would have gone after him without hesitation, but now, even if he used his ring to fly, it would not be an easy task to catch up to someone in such dense woods and darkness.
What's more, who knew if this was a trap or not, he did not forget that this forbidden forest could be described completely as Voldemort's home turf, and if he had some kind of small trick up his sleeve here, it would never be difficult to lead him to trap.
Jon walked towards the bush that had been caved in by his full body-bind curse and soon found a ragged piece of cloth in a patch of broken foliage.
It was obviously left behind by the man from before, Jon's full body-bind curse had not hit him directly but had ripped his robe, except that from this piece of fabric alone, Jon couldn't quite tell a thing.
What he could be sure of was that Emil who was clearly hostile to him in this forbidden forest certainly did not wear a robe of this colour and style, and it was certainly not Diane's; its owner was more likely to be an outsider other than the one participating in the Triwizard Tournament.
So which side could this outsider, potentially, be from?
Jon walked back to the campfire and stared at the piece of cloth, as the pulsing firelight reflected on his face.
***
Cedric sat up from his four-poster bed at the first light of dawn, looking a little haggard.
His roommates in the same dormitory, most of them were already dressed and ready to head to the great hall for breakfast, and they were all waiting for Cedric.
"You look like you're in a bad state Cedric, do you want us to bring you breakfast and get you a leave of absence from the professor on the way?"
Cedric's state did feel a little worse as he stared blankly at the spot beside his bed for a moment, then nodded to the student who had spoken to him.
"Thank you, Armand, ask the professor for a half day off for me, just tell him I'm not feeling too well."
He was well-liked among his classmates, and everyone in his dormitory was concerned about his health.
"Then get some rest, and we'll explain it all to the professor."
After watching them leave the dormitory and being left alone in the room, Cedric slumped back onto his bed, not immediately catching up on his sleep, but gazing in a dull daze as his eyes festered.
One of the reasons for his poor state lay in the fact that his sleep had been intermittent, and he had awakened from his sleep every now and then.
Even now, his spirit was exhausted, yet he still wasn't able to fall asleep, still in a state where his brain didn't know whether to focus or let go, thinking about something terribly wrong.
It didn't take long for the roommate named Armand to return and bring him breakfast, and Cedric ate a sandwich with bacon and ham before falling back into bed.
Outside his dorm room, the sun was already rising high in the sky, and he changed position on his bed to look at the sunlight that was shining into his dorm room, thinking silently to himself that the three men who are competing in the Triwizard Tournament in the Forbidden Forest are probably starting their new day of action already.
Word of Draco's elimination on the first day of the tournament had spread to the ears of students throughout Hogwarts Castle yesterday at dinner.
It wasn't that the young Malfoy was so well-liked in the school that no one had mocked Draco, it was just that the half-bloods didn't dare to talk about the purebloods in private, and the purebloods didn't say anything too much because Lucius was keeping the security in the school right now.
Nothing was being said against Draco, but when it came to cursing Jon, these students didn't have a care in the world.
Whining about being a backstabbing troll, about truly being a little dark wizard student taught by the dark wizard Dumbledore, about how only someone of such lowly status could possibly be capable of doing such lowly things, saying anything that could tarnish his name in any way.
Whether they were purebloods or half-bloods, the winds were such right now as they had developed a sense of belonging under the education of Hogwarts which Voldemort had been leading, and such a sense of belonging certainly did not incline towards Dumbledore and the others.
However, Cedric had a different view on these matters from the rest of them, and he had been doing his best to discourage the students around him from insulting anyone behind their backs with words like this indiscriminately, but even if he was usually well-liked by the others, no one would listen to him at this time, instead, many of them advised him not to have these moralistic thoughts at this time; What could they not say now when their enemies had already arrived in front of their home?
But Cedric had one thing on his mind that he wanted to keep to himself.
Who is their enemy, and where is their home?
Luckily, he had the sense to know that if he said something like that, it would affect not only him but also his father, who is working in the Ministry of Magic.
As he was lying in his bed in his dormitory thinking, there was a sudden knock at the door, followed by a gentle female voice reaching in.
"Mr Diggory, may I come in?"
Some panic rose in Cedric's heart at the sound of that familiar voice, but he soon suppressed it and responded in a slightly weaker voice.
"Please come in."
The person who entered was an elderly witch with a tall, thin figure with a concerned expression on her face.
Adrianna Greengrass, the current head of the Greengrass family, a pureblood family, and the head of Hogwarts Castle Half-Blood House and Professor of Transfiguration.
Although she is a pureblood, she has always had a high reputation among her half-blood students and has never shown a clear discrimination between pureblood and half-blood students, for which there have been a number of pureblood professors and students who have made some criticisms behind her back.
The witch went straight to Cedric's side as soon as she entered the dormitory.
"I received the reason for the leave of absence given by Armand, he said you seem to be unwell with a cold?"
"Sorry, it must have been difficult for you to make a special trip, Professor; I may have caught a cold after Quidditch practice yesterday and woke up with a slight dizziness in the morning."
"Your father and I have been friends for a long time, and he asked me to look after you at school, you've always been his pride and joy, so, of course, I had to come and see you when you are ill. How do you feel now? Do you want me to take you to the school hospital wing for a check-up?"
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