Perhaps for other Hogwarts students, the castle being alive is more of a metaphor.
Admittedly, Hogwarts Castle has over a hundred magical staircases that shift their positions from time to time according to rules or requests. The castle also contains various secret passages, contraptions, and magical rooms, but these are more like scattered pieces of magic rather than an integrated will.
At least in the eyes of most wizarding families' children, it's just a larger, more peculiar magical house.
But this definitely doesn't include James Potter and his group of four, who personally created the Marauder's Map.
It was a truly wonderful experience. Unlike the conjectures of those problem students who yearned for nocturnal escapades and thrills, the Marauder's Map was never intended as a prank device made by Sirius and the others to break school rules from the very beginning. Instead, it was created to help Lupin endure the torment of lycanthropy.
Before the invention of Wolfsbane Potion, Lupin had to endure a painful transformation every full moon night. And when his good friends discovered this secret, their first reaction was to find ways to alleviate and relieve Lupin's pain. To this end, Sirius, James, and Peter learned how to become Animagi to accompany Lupin's transformation and nocturnal wanderings in the castle every night.
The prototype of the Marauder's Map was gradually drawn and perfected during their repeated night trips.
However, with their strength at the time, they were simply unable to complete such a vast and detailed magical map, especially the marking of all wizards and ghosts in the castle. This simply exceeded what they could find in books—no one knew how to mark a ghost, nor did anyone know how to display everyone's real name, especially when it had to be reflected in real time.
Yet, the Marauder's Map appeared inexplicably and miraculously.
When James tapped the parchment and said the idea jokingly, this incredible magic was realized.
From that moment on, Sirius and James and others vaguely felt that they might have received some remarkable help from Hogwarts Castle—after all, Professor Dumbledore's name would truthfully appear on the parchment, which was already incredible.
Does Hogwarts Castle have life?
What an interesting point of view. And... what interesting and surprising colleagues.
Grindelwald raised his eyebrows and said softly with interest.
"You don't seem surprised? Professor Black. You seem even more certain than Mr. Filch."
As the current head of the Apocalypses family, he naturally knew about the research topics outside the school at this time.
One very important hypothesis and direction is the research on the "semi-intelligent ripples" of Hogwarts Castle. Quirrell is the research object of this project. Elena hopes to allow Quirrell to reconnect to the "Hogwarts network" and regain certain spellcasting abilities.
What surprised Grindelwald was that a Squib and a wizard who had been in prison for eleven years were able to find new clues.
"Oh, no, I just think Mrs. Norris... is a bit special."
Sirius Black came back to his senses, his eyes lingering on the Maine Coon cat, which was much fatter than before, for a few seconds.
"As for the gifts of Hogwarts Castle, this has been a long-standing legend in the school, and I heard that many students seem to have received help."
After Filch's reminder, he remembered another oddity that he had previously ignored:
In addition to wizards and ghosts, there is a third kind of creature name on the Marauder's Map: Mrs. Norris!
Now that he thinks about it carefully, this is indeed very incredible.
You should know that there is more than just this Maine Coon cat in Hogwarts. Even if you only count those pets with names, whether it is the phoenix in Dumbledore's office or the pets raised by the students, they will not appear on the Marauder's Map.
When they were night-touring Hogwarts more than a decade ago, they didn't realize this problem.
At that time, they focused more on those magical secret passages, how to avoid the pursuit of the castle administrator and his minions—compared to the clumsy and slow Argus Filch, Mrs. Norris was undoubtedly more annoying, so they directly ignored this problem.
Why does the Marauder's Map show a cat's footprints and name?!
"I didn't expect that for so many years, we have been playing hide-and-seek with ourselves... How interesting..."
Sirius Black touched Mrs. Norris and murmured softly, his eyes gradually brightening.
He may not be as good as Remus and James in terms of academic performance, but he can be said to be the most vigorous of the four in terms of intuition and adventurous desire. After knowing that such an unknown treasure may exist, he can't wait to go and see it quickly.
Since Filch, as a Squib, can obtain "Mrs. Norris", it shows that this inheritance has played a role.
Hogwarts appointment letters, these things are all bound by magical contracts.
Perhaps the castle administrator cannot rely on whether he can manipulate the hourglass to determine the validity of this contract, as the professors can, but this position has another clearer judgment—any castle administrator will inevitably become Peeves's nemesis.
Judging from Peeves' anger that he couldn't wait to pounce on him and bite him to death, his position was obviously recognized by the castle.
That is to say...
"It looks like I have to go to the castle administrator's office first tonight."
Sirius Black pondered for a few seconds and said softly, he turned his head to look at the old man next to him.
"What about you? Do you want to go and see together, Professor Apocalypses?"
"Uh, I won't go—"
Grindelwald glanced at the intricate stairs below, then at the two castle administrators in front of him, and shook his head with a smile.
"Someone has to patrol the corridors, right? I'll send the students back first. If you find anything there, I believe you will definitely tell me later. I'm not in such a hurry. Okay, don't worry about me, you go first..."
"Well, okay. Thank you for your hard work."
"Professor Apocalypses, the area above the sixth floor is up to you."
"No problem, don't worry—"
Grindelwald stood at the entrance of the headmaster's office, waving his hand with a kind smile.
It wasn't until Sirius and Filch's figures completely disappeared on the stairs, and several minutes had passed, that he retracted his gaze.
"Hey. Hogwarts, what an interesting place—"
The old Dark Lord shook his head noncommittally, but unfortunately these things have nothing to do with him.
As an old retired fellow, his work for today is long over. Now he just wants to go back to his bedroom bed, have a good, comfortable sleep, and by the way, laugh at an old buddy before going to sleep—there won't be too many opportunities to show off like this.
Grindelwald turned around, looked at the two ugly stone statues behind him, and cleared his throat.
"Lemon Sherbet!"
————
————
OMG!
I accidentally posted a chapter twice! So I stayed up late and wrote an extra chapter to apologize.
The content has been replaced, and the word count is much, much higher than the price! Life is not easy, forced to say OMG, sigh~~