The three meals served daily at Durmstrang were all excellent.
In the morning, Jon and the others ate toasted bread smeared with warm goat cheese, which was sweet and salty, creamy, with a strong milky taste, which tasted like milk sweet, with a side dish of vegetables like cucumber along with sliced salmon.
Lunch was already halfway through when Jon arrived at the great hall from the library, and the table had been filled with smoked salmon, dried cod and other hot seafood dishes, along with savoury lamb chops.
It is estimated that because of the proximity to the sea, the proportion of seafood on the menu is quite a lot, but Durmstrang's house elves are great at their craft, and even after having sampled enough seafood in the past few months, the Hogwarts students no longer felt resistant.
Jon learned about their classes today from Hermione at the table, Hogwarts students received a good reception, except for a few professors whose English accents are a bit strange, there was nothing that made them uncomfortable.
After lunch, all the Hogwarts students were organized together and went to the lake behind Durmstrang Castle to receive their first flying lesson in their lives.
To save the energy of the flight class Professor, the flying lesson was turned into a big one because everyone had the same starting point when it came to controlling the flying broom.
This was not the first time Jon touched the flying broom, he had been taught by Dumbledore when he was travelling with him in France, and he had learned the most basic methods of using the flying broom.
After all, some places are not accessible by means such as Apparition and Floo network, and can only be visited via walking or other means like flying.
After taking the flying lesson, Jon did not delay any longer, he went directly to the door of Headmaster Grindelwald's office and knocked on the door of the room.
When he entered, Grindelwald was reading a newspaper from France called "Starlight Daily".
This newspaper agency was established in recent months by Dumbledore's Witching Horizons organization as a magical daily newspaper, and the symbolism of "Starlight" refers to the concept that every wizard should be equal and free like stars even when the night looms over them.
The daily newspaper Starlight is now fighting a war of public opinion with the magical press under the control of the French Ministry of Magic and also reports on the current war situation.
"In fact, Albus never would have anticipated that he would at one point lead an organization with political significance."
Grindelwald put down the newspaper in his hand and looked at Jon who walked in with a smile that had a hint of what looked like gloating.
"He's spent his life trying to stay away from anything that has to do with politics other than some honorary position, and even in the days when he was at the height of his popularity when countless people wanted him to be the British Minister of Magic, and people believed that if he came to power, he would give everyone what they wanted, he still didn't have any intention of running for the post. He was just a mascot-like head known as Supreme Mugwump of the so-called International Confederation of Wizards."
Jon was a little puzzled.
"Professor Dumbledore probably prefers to be a Headmaster in a school?"
"It's just he got sick of all the scheming in the political sphere." Grindelwald put down the newspaper in his hand, "To be able to triumph over those who seek high positions for fame and fortune, you have to become more vicious and smarter than them. Just like how Albus never resorted to using the Unforgivable Curses, such a thing, went against his heart's wish, so even though more people wanted him to, he kept away from it."
"But now he has to do it, if he is still not willing to shoulder this, then the so-called defeat of Voldemort can only be a joke."
Grindelwald looked at Jon and said calmly.
"That's why I want to teach you something. I would never deny the excellence and greatness of Albus, but all people have their own flaws, too much idealism is his biggest flaw, and he knows exactly what his biggest flaw is. But if he doesn't insist on that, then he won't be called Albus Dumbledore."
"You have been following him all the way on that Hogwarts wagon, so you might have been unknowingly influenced by such a mentality of his. I can tell that from the curse you used out at sea yesterday, you have successfully cast the curse, but it was obvious that you did not confront your enemy with a firm idea of killing from the start, which is bad and is the biggest flaw you have when using the Unforgivable Curse. Because your emotions are not stable; temporary killing intent may let you successfully cast that curse, but the human memory will fade with the passage of time, sooner or later your memories and feelings of the scene that makes you have a killing intent will be blurred, once there is no way to immerse yourself in such a scene, then even if you use the killing curse, it will only make people's noses bleed at most."
Grindelwald said these words while standing up from the chair, and the long trench coat and black round hat hanging on the coat rack not far away flew to his body by itself.
Seeing that he looked like he is going to head out, Jon immediately followed him.
"Where are we going?"
Grindelwald did not head for the door, he came to the fireplace and pinched up a small cluster of green powder.
"A secret place, do not ask too many questions, you will know when the time comes, grab some floo powder and listen to the name of the place I will say, then you repeat my words."
He sprinkled the floo powder in the middle of the fire, the original orange fire instantly turned into a ghastly green.
Grindelwald stepped into the midst of the flame in which one could not feel any semblance of burning heat while saying a destination with unmistakable clarity.
"Ramo Hans' abbey."
The next moment he was swept away by the green flames and disappeared in front of Jon.
Jon also did not stay, he also sprinkled the green powder into the fire which turned back to orange, after the flame turned completely green, he walked into the green flame and recited the name of the monastery.
A barren mountain range in the far north of Norway, there are withered trees and snow that can be submerged to the knees of people, the only living creatures here are crested eagles that are gliding in the sky.
And in this desolate mountainside, there is a dilapidated human building, that is a monastery which has been abandoned, the building is in the middle of the ragged wooden fences for the protection of the building from wild animals, but this layer of protection is not even a little defensive, as any medium-sized animal will be able to break it.
Grindelwald led Jon out of the monastery, with each breath they exhaled, a white mist will form in the air, lingering in the cold wind.
Jon tightened his robe, he was not thinly dressed, but suddenly coming from the warm confines of the Headmaster's office to such a place left his body temporarily unaccustomed.
Grindelwald, however, seemed unaffected, and he walked ahead of Jon, leading him out of the dilapidated convent and into the dry woods.
Jon followed behind him, not asking again where they are going on this trip, but was just a little curious, about what exactly Grindelwald wanted to teach him by bringing him out.
Just as they walked into the dry woods, from a distance Jon saw some things overhead in the depths of the woods, as if something were hanging.
Those things being hung on the branches of dead trees, each one of them is not small, and it reminds Jon of the winter of his previous life, in the countryside in front of his home his grandma would hang the pig legs and body to air-dry them and prepare the red meat.
When Jon's attention was on the "bacon", a thin figure, somehow suddenly appeared in front of him and Grindelwald.
An old man of great age, his appearance alone made Jon feel that he is not much younger than that Durmstrang library administrator.
He is unusually short, as tall as Professor Flitwick, but much slimmer, which, together with the aged face made him resemble a bone-thin monkey.
But distinguishing from his appearance and body language, his emotions were extremely exuberant after seeing Grindelwald, and he gesticulated with his hands and said something in the German language that Jon did not understand.
"My supreme and greatest lord! You are like a stellar star in the sky! You guide the future of the magical world! Your contribution must be passed down for all eternity! All wizards must appreciate your name before they learn magic."
He babbled on and on with his mushy compliments until he saw Grindelwald's hand impatiently fondling his wand, and he honestly stopped talking.
"Sometimes I really want to sew up that broken mouth of yours!"
The old dwarf smiled cheekily.
"Then I won't be able to recite the incantations to help my lord. It's better to let me exert my remaining capacity and sew up my mouth the day my lord's ideal is realized."
The old man spoke before turning his gaze to Jon.
"Who is this child? A relative of my lord's?"
It was inevitable that he would make such speculation because even after Grindelwald became the Headmaster of Durmstrang, he never brought any child to this place.
"Ask less about things you shouldn't ask."
Grindelwald did not mean to introduce Jon's identity to him, and the old dwarf man obediently retreated to the other side of him, while not forgetting to observe Jon's face, as if trying to concoct corroboration for his suspicions.
Jon didn't understand a word of their conversation, and after noticing the old man's gaze, he just returned a polite smile.
"How many are still alive?"
Grindelwald suddenly asked the old man without making a glance.
As they proceeded to walk deeper into the woods, the old man named Ramo Hans reported to Grindelwald with some embarrassment.
"I have tried to stay and be as careful as possible, but all I can say is that these people are just a little too weak ."
"The number."
"Fourteen!" Hearing Grindelwald's voice getting softer and calmer, Hans immediately said honestly, "14 people still have their breath."
Although he hadn't expected to hear much of a satisfactory number, the number fourteen still caused Grindelwald's gaze to become unmistakably eerie.
"You're eager to go back to the Arctic to study those stupid bears?"
Hans became visibly horrified as he explained in a panic.
"It's really not my big hand! My lord! You know, this kind of research needs a lot of comparison samples to add to it in the very beginning! It's not something that five or ten individuals can fulfil! If we're lucky, we might make a major discovery on the first sample we study, but if we're unlucky, we'll have to continue to do what we're doing now."
Jon could not understand the conversation between them, but the further they went in, the more Jon could smell a strange odour.
The smell was not very obvious, the cold air and snow masked and retarded the flow of the vast majority of things so that the smell was not emitted as quickly as it would have been under normal conditions.
But gradually, the smell is getting stronger and stronger as they moved forward, even the cold environment seems to have no way to cover up the smell.
Jon frowned at this indescribable smell, his mind could not help but recall an article he read in his previous life about Eskimo's special cuisine of pickled puffins, they would peel open the belly of the seal, put hundreds of puffins into the stomach of the seal, and then sew the opening, then bury it in the frozen soil to let the seal's stomach acid to ferment the puffins.
After a year or two, they would dig it out again, pull out the puffins from the seal's stomach, and finally use their mouths to suck from the puffins' anus to suck out the already fermented and decayed internal organs.
It was said to taste similar to chaff and natto.
Jon has never tried this anti-human food, but he imagined in his mind the taste of such food would resemble the flavour he now smells, similar to fermented rotting meat, at the beginning it just feels stinky, but after getting closer it will make a person gag.
And after they got a little closer, Jon finally saw what the "bacon" that had been hanging on the tree actually is.
It is indeed similar to the meat preserving procedure as he expected, hanging some kind of meat on the tree to dry, but that large piece of meat is not some kind of pig, but a human being!
People with their chests and stomachs peeled open!
Just as Jon imagined the pickled puffin to be made by peeling open the belly of the seal, these people's bodies were also "opened"!
Through the half-open, half-hidden gaping opening, one could faintly see the various internal organs that had been frozen into a pile of ice!
There is no more white snow on the ground, there is scarlet red everywhere like the Dead Sea of hell!
Jon could not smell a bit of blood when he truly walked in front of the scene that was like purgatory on earth as if the devil who had committed all the sins had blocked everything in the snow and ice, it just this scene alone is enough to make normal people lose their minds.
Jon recognized the faces of these people hanging in the trees, similar to "bacon" waving with the cold wind.
All these people were at sea yesterday, the death eaters brought by the two brothers Rabastan and Rodolphus, they were riding on the flying broom yesterday, waving their wands to hunt him, but now they have become cold rotten meat!
Jon stared blankly at this scene for two or three minutes, during which Hans had impatiently tried to lead Grindelwald onward, but was deterred by his cold gaze.
It was not until three minutes later that Jon turned his head again, his lips turned white, as he looked at Grindelwald's eyes as he had never seen him before, with incomprehensibility and inability to accept.
He was truly shocked at this time, the "dark lord" title, in the end, had been intertwined with cruelty and blood, and after more than thirty years, this man who came out of that castle now.
What does he want to do!
----
Thanks for all your love and support.
Read advance chapters on P@treon. If you have some extra pocket money, Support me at P@treon: www.p@treon.com/Crazy_Cat.
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Thanks for all your love and support.
Read advance chapters on P@treon. If you have some extra pocket money, Support me at P@treon: www.p@treon.com/Crazy_Cat.
Happy Reading!!!