Chapter 345 Astrology (2 in 1)

When Jon had finished his conversation with Cedric, and was about to go and rest to continue his journey to catch the Golden Snitches tomorrow, Firenze suddenly approached Jon on his own.

He looked like he had something to say to Jon in private and waited specifically until an unoccupied time.

"About what you said regarding why the Dark Lord suddenly wants to hold the Triwizard Tournament, I don't know the reason for it, but perhaps there is one thing that can provide you with some help."

Jon's face turned serious as he listened to Firenze carry on saying.

"Our tribe in general is relatively proficient in astrology and divination, and I was particularly well versed in it when I was young. But I have always taken this talent as a hobby, and rarely actually believed in the results of divination. Many of human divinations are centred around minor mishaps, which in fact are as insignificant as specks of dust in the face of the vast and grand universe, which remains unaffected by the orbits of the planets and is not understood by any life."

"The day before the Dark Lord seized Hogwarts Castle, there was a change in the stars that I had observed, the stars in the constellation Centaurus were dimmed and the whole sky, which was obviously not covered by any dark clouds, seemed particularly obscure, I sent someone to find Hagrid, knowing that something big was going to happen and wanted him to pass the news to Dumbledore, but by then it was actually too late. By the time I learned of all this from the astrological signs, Dumbledore himself had presumably known that war was inevitable and that there was bound to be a duel between him and the Dark Lord over the future of Britain."

"It was just after that day that the stars, which had been so brilliant, began to grow obscure, Saturn's rings flared up with several disturbances, and Pluto began to change and deviate from its established planetary orbit. From that day forth, such astrological signs were actually established, and at the same time, the Dark Lord ruled the whole of Britain and the castle. But while the trajectory of destiny was having a deviation, one thing remained unchanged."

As Firenze spoke, he simultaneously pointed a finger at the starry sky above his and Jon's heads.

"See that star directly above us? It's the one directly above the Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts Castle."

Jon narrowed his eyes as he followed Firenze's guidance and saw the bright star in the sky at that moment.

"What does that star mean?"

"This star began to shine after the Dark Lord defeated Dumbledore, and before that, it never shone this bright."

Jon mused.

"It represents the Dark Lord's rule over Hogwarts?"

"Who is your Professor for Astrology and Divination? Still Sybill Trelawney?"

"Erm, Professor Trelawney seems to have fled to Northern Europe when her failed prophecy put a lot of people in harm's way, and while no one blamed her for it in any way, she's blaming herself a lot and ashamed to follow Professor Dumbledore anymore."

"Which means that you guys aren't actually being taught Divination lessons right now?"

"Professor Potter occasionally gives us a lecture on crystal ball-related knowledge."

Hearing Jon's answer, Firenze had a look of realization on his face as well.

"Normal prophecies and omens brought to light naturally are ambiguous, and the point of a diviner's existence is to interpret these ambiguous omens as a way of seeing how the universe and nature affect people. Some people who are naturally gifted in reading omens can even see clear forecasts of the future directly with their eyes. But in any case, the most direct interpretation of these omens is inevitably wrong divination, something that has been unquestionably true from the beginning of time and is the basis of what is learned at the beginning of the study of divination."

"The meaning of this star, which appeared only after the Dark Lord had taken Hogwarts Castle, is definitely not about him alone, but about this castle."

Hearing Firenze's explanation of the astrological sign, Jon couldn't help but blink.

"Then why did this star shine brighter during the time when the Dark Lord became Headmaster of Hogwarts Castle though?"

"To interpret such an astrological sign is actually quite simple, we need to see such foreshadowing in the context of the star itself." Firenze said softly, "It is burning itself out."

"Burning itself?"

"Yes, it is protecting itself as best it can from being engulfed in darkness in this night sky, of course, but in fact, such aggression is constantly happening until one day the star turns red, and then it is going to die out completely."

Firenze turned his head to look at Jon.

"All it represents is this castle, and although the Dark Lord defeated Dumbledore and proclaimed himself as Headmaster of Hogwarts, this castle has never actually acknowledged him. There was no way for him to stay at the school for long, this school was rejecting him and keeping him from being the true master of Hogwarts!"

Firenze's words suddenly reminded Jon of the fact that Voldemort would only be present in Hogwarts castle on the nights that school started and the end of the school term.

The rest of the time, even on Christmas dinner night, he as Headmaster would not come to the castle to celebrate with the students, which was of course an extremely unusual thing to do!

Jon looked back up at the starry sky overhead, his eyes fixed on the star that was directly above Hogwarts Castle, he could feel the seemingly bright starlight actually decaying, the darkness staring silently at it, like a pack of wolves surrounding their prey, following every moment and trying to tear a piece of flesh from it every second.

"He's taken over the whole of Britain and become the nominal Headmaster of Hogwarts, but has no control over this castle at all." Jon muttered, "He's been forbidding any of us from entering the castle privately since we arrived at Hogwarts, because of the same reason. The castle isn't his yet, and during the time he can't stay at the school, that's why he has to forbid anyone else from doing any small tricks on his self-owned property"

Firenze said seriously.

"He has always wanted to gain complete control of this castle, I don't know what he has been doing to do so, but he has certainly made his moves, and all he wants is to be the true owner of this school. If he has placed the legitimacy of Hogwarts on the line in this Triwizard Tournament, then I think that perhaps this tournament has some connection to the ownership of this castle."

Jon thought in silence.

He had never thought of such a thing, perhaps Dumbledore knew a little more than he did, which was why he was making certain moves in that castle even while the Triwizard Tournament is going on, but these things had not been communicated to Jon.

Jon knew that it wasn't that Dumbledore didn't trust him or anything, but that he didn't want to burden him with so many things at once given his young age; the Triwizard Tournament alone would be more than enough for Jon to handle now.

"Thank you, Firenze, what you told me tonight was very informative, I will discuss it with Professor Dumbledore when I return."

After communicating the information about Hogwarts Castle to Jon, Firenze did not disturb his rest any further and returned to the Centaur's camp, while Cedric left the Forbidden Forest to return to the castle as soon as Jon had finished his private conversation with him, he had almost revealed himself during the day and could not go back too late tonight, or it would be too likely to arouse the suspicions of the others.

The next morning Jon woke up early and rode on Hoss to leave this camp of Centaurs.

The matter of the Centaurs and the subsequent arrangements would have to wait until he was finished with this tournament task in the Forbidden Forest, and it was already the third day since the start of the first task.

At eight o'clock this evening, it would be time to finish the task, and the three men who were competing in the Forbidden Forest would be free to decide to end the tournament at any time they wished, and the results would also be calculated according to the length of time they would be using.

Jon had no intention of competing for first place time-wise, as scores counted according to the ratio of the number of golden flying snitches caught is higher, so getting more number of golden snitches would give him a point advantage in the ranking.

Now with Draco already confirmed to be out of the picture, even if he pressed on and walked out of the Forbidden Forest on the last day, he would still have finished in third place in terms of time and would still gain twenty points.

Of course, he certainly wouldn't choose to be that late, with the number of Golden Snitches that Jon had got now, according to his plan, he only had to find a hundred more Golden Snitches to bring the number up to two hundred or two-fifths of the total, and then he would basically already be guaranteed first place in terms of numbers.

In the time it had taken him to deal with dragons and get the golden snitches, he could make it out of the forbidden forest by midnight, which would ensure that he was not too far behind in finishing the match.

For the rest of the day after that, Jon worked with Hoss to go after the dragons following the Forbidden Forest map that he had drawn out earlier, to find the less nimble and more manageable targets to collect the golden snitches.

For example, the two Ukrainian Ironbellys he had found at the entrance to the valley where the Centaurs had been trapped before, such oversized dragons can be difficult to take down, but if you want to get past them to catch the Golden Snitches it is much easier than other dragons.

Before entering the Forbidden Forest, Matthew gave all four of them a pouch each with an Undetectable Extension Charm, in which he kept all the golden snitches he had collected, without affecting his carrying capacity.

After finding something random for lunch, he moved on to find the other dragons in the Forbidden Forest.

During this time, Jon also spotted two dragons around which had all the Golden Snitches already been taken, it was obvious that either Diane or Emil had been here in advance.

Even if their means of taking the golden snitches were not as convenient as Jon's, they each had their own methods, and Jon found one dragon with no golden snitches around it showing signs of having been hit by a Conjunctivitis Curse.

And just as the sun was setting and Jon counted the number of golden snitches in his hand and was about to go to the last dragon and get the golden snitches around it to complete his goal of two hundred , he came across Diane, the champion of Durmstrang.

"Professor Green!"

Diane was obviously pleased to see Jon too, but she soon became a little wary again, her grip on her wand not relaxing in the slightest.

"You're really Professor Greene?"

Jon shrugged in the face of her wariness.

"Who else here would imitate me?"

"That bastard Lestrange sneaked up on me, can't rule out that he won't do it again in Professor Green's disguise."

Diane held her wand up, keeping the distance between her and Jon.

Until she heard Jon say to her.

"So a little chat about something only we know about, you were the one who took me to the Headmaster's office back at Durmstrang Castle, remember?"

Hearing these words, Diane breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her wand.

There is the possibility of Emil pretending to be Jon, but there is no chance that he will be able to access the memories of Jon.

Having established that Jon was Jon, Diane completely dropped her guard and approached Jon, gleefully telling him about her encounter after entering the forbidden forest.

"The first day I entered this forest I stumbled upon an Antipodean Opaleye, the dragon wasn't much aggressive towards human beings, but it also didn't let me near its territory, and at first I didn't have much experience, so I just sneaked around and caught some golden snitches that wandered off the outskirts while it was resting. Luckily, that dragon didn't give me much trouble even when it noticed it later on, and even helped me out by actively driving them all to me after knowing I was only after those golden blobs so that I could easily catch it and leave."

"But later on I wasn't that lucky, especially after I met that black dragon of the Hebrides islands of Scotland, which was extremely berserk and considered those golden snitches as its treasures, I only caught two of them, but it kept chasing me until I was about to run out of its territory, and it still spat some fire at me and almost set my robe on fire. "

Diane actually had pretty good luck and didn't encounter any dragon species that were too aggressive, the one that could be more aggressive than the black dragon of the Hebrides islands.

But Jon was actually more interested in the fact that she had been attacked by Emil.

"When did Lestrange sneak up on you? He tried to take the golden snitches you got?"

Diane said with a nod.

"Just this morning, I had just got 18 golden snitches from a Portuguese Long-Snout Dragon, and then he sneaked up on me from behind. It's a good thing I kept my guard up against this kind of thing, and his stunning spell was blocked by my shield charm. Then we fought with each other and a few of the spells landed on the face of that long-snout dragon, which enraged it, and it spewed out so much flames and tried to grab us both with its claws, so I had to escape from there."

Such behaviour from Emil did not come as a surprise to Jon.

If Jon hadn't found him on the second day of the tournament to make the first move and made it clear to him the difference in strength between the two, then he probably would have already sneaked up on him as well.

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