Chapter 734: Owl Fortress
After Hagrid talked about his mother, the atmosphere suddenly fell silent, and Evan and Sirius exchanged uneasy glances.
“Hagrid, are you going to look for her?” Evan hesitated and continued to ask, “This is a good opportunity to meet your mother. You haven’t seen her for a long time, have you?”
“I don’t want to see her. It has nothing to do with our mission this time,” Hagrid muttered, shrugging his broad shoulders. “I don’t remember her much. She wasn’t a good mother. When I was young, she abandoned me and left me alone with my father.”
“But you and she are blood after all…”
“So what? She’s a giant, and I’ve sworn never to see her again!” said Hagrid, raising his voice.
“You’re lying, Rubeus!” Madame Maxime, who had heard what he said, came in carrying the tea tray, she looked at Hagrid seriously. “You really want to see your mother. We can see that you care about her.”
“But she didn’t care about me or my dad. She probably forgot about us long ago,” said Hagrid sadly. “Olympe, they are not the same as your parents. They didn’t love one another freely. My father didn’t want to be with her at the beginning. She forced him to do it. There was only hatred between them…”
Hagrid’s voice was getting lower and lower, and there was a mist in his black eyes.
“Yeah, he might have liked her later, and wanted to go out to find her, but he didn’t know where the giants had gone. My dad kept saying her name before he died,” said Hagrid, his tears welling up. “He’s been thinking about her until he died.”
“Since this is the case, you should go to her even more!” Madame Maxime came over, handed the tea tray full of drinks to Sirius, and whispered, “Leave him to me. When the carriage arrives to Dijon, remember to call us. We will stay there tonight.”
She finished, and helped Hagrid back to the room, ready to comfort him…
Evan and Sirius continued to talk about the giants for a while, and the topic shifted to Ravenclaw’s Diadem and the whirlpool.
As time passed, the sky gradually dimmed, and the carriage reached over Dijon.
Dijon is a small city in eastern France and has been the historical capital of the Duchy of Burgundy since the Middle Ages.
From Muggle’s point of view, this historic town has many well-preserved ancient buildings and has high artistic value. In addition, it also produces the best wines in the world.
In the wizarding world, this small town is also very famous. It is also known as the City of Owls, and has a special magic building – the Owl Fortress, which is a huge military fortress located near the river valley outside the city.
The fortress, which historically belonged to the Duke of Burgundy, is said to have been one of his main palaces.
It is famous because of the numerous owl ghosts in it.
No one knows what the Dark wizard who once lived there did, and why there are so many owl ghosts.
The International confederation of Wizards had explored this huge black fortress more than once, but found nothing.
The wizards, who entered the castle, could only see countless owl ghosts staring at them. That feeling could absolutely drive people crazy.
Evan had previously read the description of the Owl Fortress in books. It was described as an evil and colorless place. That huge castle was made of black granite and was full of all kinds of weird owl statues.
The structure of the whole castle was very strange, there were no windows, and the only way to get in was through the solid gate below.
And the most bizarre were the owl ghosts that were standing quietly everywhere in the castle.
It was well known that only wizards could become ghosts after death, retaining their memories and habits.
Very few animals became ghosts, and it was really abnormal to see so many in one place all at once.
According to the final survey results of the International Confederation of Wizards, the souls of these owls were not ghosts in a pure sense. They were imprisoned there by a special Dark magic and could not leave the castle. Most wizards believed that this weird black magic was witchcraft or a curse from Africa.
And this evil Dark magic might not have been completed. It had problems in the casting process, causing the souls of thousands of owls as sacrifices to remain in the castle forever…
Anyway, this huge fortress was just abandoned outside the city, and no one would approach or enter it.
Just like Hogsmeade’s Shrieking Shack, local wizards were terrified of the Owl Fortress.
It had a Muggle-Repelling Charm cast on the outside, and no Muggles would be near that area.
If there was no mission on this trip, Evan would come to think of that fortress and see why there were so many owl ghosts. But now he couldn’t. He’d better not take the initiative to get into trouble.
The carriage descended slowly, and Hagrid and Madame Maxime walked out of the room. He looked much better now.
Hagrid also had a photo in his hand, the one he had shown to Evan before.
There was a short wizard in the photo. His eyes were black and narrow like Hagrid’s. He was sitting on Hagrid’s shoulder and smiled happily. Looking at an apple tree next to him, Hagrid was seven or eight feet tall, but his face was young, full, smooth, beardless, and looked up to eleven years old.
The short wizard in the photo was Hagrid’s father, and that was the only photo he had left.
Hagrid’s father was a breeder during his lifetime, working for the Ministry of Magic’s Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and was mainly responsible for taking care of dangerous magical creatures.
The main reason Hagrid liked those monsters was probably inherited from his father.
“How are you, Hagrid?” Evan asked.
“I’m fine!” Hagrid waved his hand, a little embarrassed, “I just thought of my mother, a little over-excited. Speaking of which, Olympe is really amazing. I never thought she would be so considerate. She convinced me that I have never seen a woman as good as her …”
The carriage landed to the ground. Under the action of magic, the huge Abraxans had been turned into ordinary horses.
Dijon still maintained the customs of the past, and Muggles were not too surprised by the sudden appearance of carriages.
More than ten minutes later, under Madame Maxime’s control, they stopped in front of a tavern called “Burgundy Style”.
Like the Leaky Cauldron, it was a wizards’ tavern. She had obviously been here before.
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