Chapter 360: Battle and Flight

Under the strange gazes of Harry and Zhang Qiu, the two seemed to realize something and began to tidy their appearance. Just at this moment, Colin happened to bring his broom to the Room of Requirement. After seeing Neville, he determined in almost an instant: "Since Neville and Hannah are safe, the one encountering danger must be Hermione."

"We need to go save her." Neville said after a moment of silence.

Harry still felt something was wrong; he felt tonight's events were a farce, but Jin Ni ran back quickly, and her words disrupted Harry's thoughts once again.

"Draco said no one there rubbed the ring randomly, and the ring points in the direction of Hogwarts." She said, panting. "For this, the dance party was even paused. I told him that the members of Deng Buliduo's Army at school would organize a rescue, and he barely put his heart at ease."

At this moment, Harry was in no mood to criticize whether Draco was a hypocrite, and he shouted loudly, "Who has a map? What is between Hogwarts and Ma Erfu Manor?"

"It's no use." Ivy shook her head. "We can't find Ma Erfu Manor on the map; they have never made the location public."

"But if Hermione encountered danger, where could she encounter anything? Not to mention Hermione has no enemies, even if she did, would Elina be too late to notify Donald, so that Hermione had to rub the ring to call for help?" The more Harry thought, the more suspicious he felt.

"Could it be that something happened in the Muggle World?" Neville guessed irresponsibly. "Muggles took her wand, so she could only rely on the ring."

"Hufflepuff gathered!" Justin suddenly shouted loudly.

"Ravenclaw gathered!" Marietta shouted, following suit.

Luo En rushed into the room holding three brooms. He glanced around, then shouted: "Gryffindor gathered!"

"There are no Slytherins left; let's go." Jin Ni took a broom from his hand and looked at Harry with burning eyes.

Harry swallowed. Things had reached this point; if they didn't do something, it would be very hard to end today. He hesitated for a moment before taking his Firebolt from Luo En, then tried hard to throw away the worry in his heart and said loudly: "Let's go out through the secret passage."

The Room of Requirement didn't reveal the secret passage to the Hog's Head, but opened the ceiling directly. Several children couldn't help but cheer; they excitedly mounted their brooms and were about to take off.

"Don't be chaotic!" Harry tried his best to remind them. "Fly in pairs, keep alert at all times!"

For the children, this was an exciting armed parade. Perhaps not everyone was worried about Hermione, but everyone was very willing to use the reason of "justice" to do something very crazy, especially at this time just after finishing the O. W. L. exams.

Harry mounted his Firebolt; Zhang Qiu didn't have a broom, but sat sideways on that thin sword like a toothpick. Before he could say anything, someone zoomed into the sky, and the students followed him one after another, beginning to fly out of the school in the direction indicated by the ring.

Harry looked at Zhang Qiu again; she chose to pair with Marietta because the speed of the sword was clearly not as fast as the Firebolt—Harry resisted thinking about anything else, but kicked off the ground and flew up as well. Luo En followed him closely, clutching his Nimbus 2000; without accelerating to the limit, the performance difference between these two brooms wasn't much.

"Why are they in such a hurry!" Harry muttered as he took off, leaning down and preparing to accelerate.

Soon, Hogwarts Castle became smaller and smaller in his eyes, and some impatient students zoomed past him. Harry immediately discovered a disadvantage of night flying: they couldn't see where their friendly forces were.

"Light up!" Harry raised his wand with one hand and shouted as hard as he could.

Some students began to follow suit, raising their wands with one hand, and suddenly a piece of glittering light appeared in the sky. For students who happened to be looking at the moon on the lawn at this moment, they thought it was a meteor shower passing by.

When accelerating past Zhang Qiu, Harry could see her face was flushed and she was humming a song. He pricked up his ears to identify the melody, but Zhang Qiu stuck her tongue out at him.

Suddenly, a red light flashed before their eyes, and Harry was stunned.

Harry, who had come back to his senses, hurriedly turned his head to look, and his heart tightened—several hooded figures were suspended in the air, casting spells toward here, and a bright white light spot was spinning and falling toward the ground.

"Land! Land! Extinguish lights and land!" Harry shouted at the top of his lungs, and then he did a backflip in the sky, dodging another red light. "Extinguish lights! Land!"

Luo En flew toward him, bringing a spell to counterattack. Those hooded people scattered; they didn't fly fast, but soon fired another round of spells.

Two red lights whizzed past Harry's left ear; he took a breath and continued to maintain his altitude. He knew he could easily shake off these people and land on the ground, but for the students, if no one reminded them what to do at high altitude, they would definitely be at a loss.

Harry adjusted his direction again, fired a Stunning Spell at the attackers, but it was easily dodged. He hurriedly did a side roll, and another spell grazed his clothes and disappeared into the dark night.

"Their target is you!" Neville's voice came from the wind.

Harry felt this was a redundant statement; he continued to circle in the air while shouting at the top of his lungs: "Land!"

"You come down first, Harry!" Zhang Qiu's voice also came from below.

Harry felt his brain had been blocked before; how could he not have figured out this problem—luring the attackers to the ground was absolutely better than fighting chaotically in the air.

Just while he was stunned, a red light hit the tail of the Firebolt. Harry felt his flight lose balance instantly, so he simply went with the flow, stopped any operation, and let the broom free-fall in the air.

"I shot him down!" A voice came; Harry felt it was somewhat familiar.

Harry saw clearly what was on the ground; it was a forest. He couldn't help but be a bit afraid, in case there was an ambush in the forest or—but he didn't have time to think; if he didn't restore the broom's power, he would definitely fall to his death.

Harry grabbed the broom handle hard, letting this magical creation work again. Fortunately, the Firebolt wasn't damaged in the slightest by that spell; it faithfully fulfilled the advertisement's claim of accelerating to a hundred miles per hour in seven seconds, pulling Harry's speed back instantly.

When Harry skimmed over the treetops, he saw Luo En also diving toward here, and he was still firing spells at the pursuers behind him. Harry lit his wand again, fired a spell to attract the attention of the two men in black robes, and then dived into the forest.

The Firebolt stopped a foot above the ground. Harry threw the broom on the ground, hid behind a tree, and observed the situation cautiously. He couldn't figure out what was going on; he felt he must have fallen into a trick—there was no call for help at all, the burning ring was just to lure him out.

Harry gripped his wand tightly; he didn't know how many ambushes were in this forest, but he didn't intend to let them catch him easily. Harry took out his Invisibility Cloak from his inner pocket, then calmed his breathing. With the help of this Deathly Hallow, he had the confidence to circle with the enemy, but what he worried about most was that if someone caught his classmates and used the lives of innocent students to threaten him, this would place him in a dilemma.

At this time, Harry heard two dull "bangs" from not far away; he guessed those attackers had landed.

"Potter must be here." A very strange voice came.

"Success or failure depends on this one move; we must catch him." The voice that Harry felt was somewhat familiar sounded again.

Harry hid behind the tree, watching the two hooded figures walk slowly toward here; he tried hard to suppress his pounding heart, thinking about what spell to cast.

Suddenly, a rustling sound rang out, and seven or eight students jumped down from the trees. They pointed their wands at the two attackers in unison, and then in less than half a second, seven or eight Disarming Charms hit the two simultaneously, blowing their clothes away.

Harry recognized one of the faces instantly: William, the White House agent mixed in among the Death Eaters.

"Who are you!" Neville questioned sternly.

William raised his hands somewhat helplessly, lamenting: "How did so many of you come out!"

Harry noticed this problem; there were at least thirty students who found brooms and took off, while the attackers didn't seem to be ten.

He joined the encirclement of William somewhat amusedly. Harry said while putting the Invisibility Cloak back into his pocket: "Are there any other attackers? How many of you are there in total?"

"No more, seven people in total." William said somewhat dejectedly. "We were acting hastily anyway."

"We shouldn't easily believe the words of Death Eaters; stay alert." Neville still gripped his wand.

"If it's William, perhaps he doesn't need to lie; he's not a Death Eater." Harry said. "He's from the White House."

"But the one next to him is Rabastan Lestrange." Hannah said. "I remember him; he's the brother of that crazy woman Bellatrix."

Rabastan had a gray, defeated look and said nothing.

"You intended to use the ring to lure me out, but didn't expect Deng Buliduo's Army to come out in full force," Harry analyzed. "Is that it?"

"Accept the bet and admit defeat." William sighed. "You won, won thoroughly."

"What did you bet on?" Harry looked at the surroundings somewhat puzzled. "Do you expect this loophole-filled plan to work? If it weren't for the students really wanting to go out for a stroll, we wouldn't have prepared to go out at all."

"We bet on being able to catch you, so there would still be a chance for a comeback." William adjusted his posture to sit more comfortably. "We could use the method of exchanging hostages to get Bellatrix and Delphini back." ===== CHAPTER 361 =====