Professor Vampire.

Chapter 278: Mental Disorder

Mr. Crouch looked like he had been wandering outside for many days. The knees of his robe were torn and bloodstained. His face was also covered with scars, his beard was untidy, and his face was gray and haggard.

His hair and beard, which were originally combed meticulously, were now messy, and it seemed that they had not been washed and trimmed for some time.

However, although his appearance was very different from usual, his behavior seemed even more strange than his appearance.

Mr. Crouch seemed to be talking to someone, and this person could only be seen by himself. He kept mumbling in his mouth and gesticulating from time to time. His emotions were sometimes calm and sometimes excited. Harry and Bagman could not understand what he was doing at all.

When Harry saw him, he remembered an old tramp he met when he went out shopping with the Dursleys before entering Hogwarts... The mentally ill tramp also kept talking crazily to the air.

At that time, Aunt Petunia grabbed Dudley's hand and pulled him across the street to avoid the madman. Uncle Vernon took advantage of the situation and kept talking to the whole family about how he was going to treat beggars and tramps...

"Mr. Crouch, what's wrong with you?" Bagman looked startled and walked up to Mr. Crouch at a loss.

Crouch didn't seem to see him at all, just talking to a tree next to him.

"... Weatherby, after you finish this, send an owl to Dumbledore to confirm the number of students participating in the tournament at Durmstrang. Karkaroff sent a message saying that there are twelve..."

Harry still remembered that Weatherby was the name of Percy that Crouch remembered wrongly, and Fred and George laughed at Percy for a long time for this.

"Mr. Crouch?" Bagman asked carefully again.

"... and then send an owl to Madam Maxime to deliver a letter. She may also want to increase the number of students, since the number of students in Karkaroff has increased to twelve..." Crouch still seemed to have heard nothing, and said to himself, "Let's do it this way, Weatherby, okay? Okay..."

Bagman: "..."

"Why is Mr. Crouch here?" Harry walked to Bagman and asked in confusion, "Didn't Percy say that he was not feeling well and stayed at home to rest?"

"I don't know." Bagman shook his head blankly, "Could it be that he was too stressed out at work and made himself mentally ill?"

Crouch still didn't hear the two people's discussion. He stood there stiffly with his eyes bulging, staring at a tree in front of him, muttering silently.

Then, he suddenly staggered a few steps to the side and fell to his knees with a "thump".

"Mr. Crouch?" Harry shouted, "Are you okay?"

Crouch's eyes rolled up, and most of the whites of his eyes were exposed.

Harry turned his head to look at Bagman, who gritted his teeth and rushed into the bushes with Harry, looking down at Crouch who was kneeling on the ground in panic.

"Something must have happened to him... What should we do?" Bagman did not look like a Ministry of Magic official in the face of such a situation. He had lost his mind and paced around like an ant on a hot pot.

"I think we'd better go and call someone quickly," Harry said to him in a low voice, seeing that Bagman was unreliable, "Listen, Mr. Bagman, we'd better call Madam Pomfrey..."

"Dumbledore!" At this moment, Crouch suddenly shouted.

He gasped and rushed towards Harry, grabbed the Hogwarts school robes and pulled him to his side.

But Crouch's eyes were staring straight above Harry's head, as if there was something there.

"I want to... see... Dumbledore..." he said in a rough tone.

"Okay," Harry said quickly, "As soon as you get up, Mr. Crouch, we'll go find Dumbledore right away..."

"I did...something...stupid..." Crouch said, panting, as if Harry didn't hear him.

He looked completely crazy, his eyes bulging out, turning strangely, and saliva dripping down his chin, "You must...tell this...to Dumbledore!"

Crouch's eyes suddenly turned around and stared at Harry.

"Who...are you?" he whispered.

"Oh my God, Mr. Crouch, how can you not recognize who this is?" Bagman said in a fuss, "Are you out of your mind?"

Harry turned his head and glared at Bagman, raised his hand to signal him not to interrupt them, and then turned to Crouch again.

"I'm a student at Hogwarts," Harry said carefully.

At the same time, his expression was very nervous, and his brain was spinning rapidly, trying to find a way to quickly find the professors.

"You're not...his?" Crouch asked softly, his mouth drooping.

"No." Harry followed Crouch's words.

In fact, he didn't understand what Crouch was talking about at all.

"Then it's Dumbledore's people?" Crouch asked again.

"Yes." Harry said.

Now he understood a little bit that the "he" Crouch just mentioned should be the opposite of Dumbledore's camp, that is to say... that "he" represents Voldemort!

Crouch's expression relaxed slightly and pulled Harry closer.

Harry tried to pry open Crouch's hand holding his robe, but he was holding it too tightly and couldn't pry it off.

"Give Dumbledore... a reminder..." Crouch said.

"If you let me go, I'll go find Dumbledore," Harry said impatiently, "Let me go, Mr. Crouch, I'll go find him..."

"Thank you, Weatherby, I'd like a cup of tea after you finish that. My wife and son will be here soon, and we're going to a concert with the Fudges tonight."

Suddenly, Crouch let go of Harry and started talking to a tree again, as if he had forgotten Harry all of a sudden.

Harry was very surprised, and Bagman also stared at him in amazement, feeling that the image of Crouch in his mind was impacted.

"Yes, my son recently passed the twelve ordinary wizard level examinations with satisfactory results, thank you..." Crouch's words became coherent again, but it became confusing again.

"Yes, I am indeed very proud of him... But don't let this matter delay our work. If you can give me the memorandum from the Andorran Minister of Magic, I may have time to draft a reply..."

"You stay here and watch him!" Harry took a deep breath and turned to Bagman, "I'll go find Dumbledore. I know the password to his office, so it can be faster-"

"But he is crazy..." Bagman said hesitantly, turning to look at Crouch, "How about we put him here with a binding spell, and then go find Dumbledore together?"

Crouch was still chattering at the tree, as if he was sure that it was Percy.

"But are you sure you can trap Mr. Crouch with just a binding spell?" Harry asked, "At least one person should stay here to prevent him from running around Hogwarts... Are you going to leave a student here?"

Bagman was convinced.

He nodded helplessly, then carefully put a layer of armor charm on himself and stood several trees away from Crouch.

Harry was about to leave, but his action seemed to irritate Mr. Crouch, causing him to change his posture suddenly, grab Harry's knees, and drag him to the ground again.

"Don't... leave... me!" He whispered, his eyes bulging again, "I... escaped... must remind... Dumbledore... he's back... broke into... the house... and took control..."

"It's all my fault... my son... it's all my fault... telling Dumbledore... Harry Potter... the Dark Lord... has recovered..."

"As long as you let me go, I'll go find Dumbledore, Mr. Crouch!" Harry said irritably.

He didn't pay any attention to what Crouch was saying, just thinking he was still talking nonsense.

"Help me, Mr. Bagman!" Harry looked at Bagman and said upset.

Bagman hesitated and raised his wand at Crouch.

"Relashio."

Crouch finally lost his strength and let go of Harry's knees.

Harry took the opportunity to break free from Crouch, ran out of the Forbidden Forest and ran across the dark Quidditch pitch.

At this time, the Quidditch pitch was empty. John, Krum, Cedric and Fleur were gone.

Harry ran back to the castle as fast as he could, climbed the stone steps in two steps, passed through two oak doors, jumped up the marble stairs, and ran to the third floor -

There was an empty corridor on the third floor, with a gargoyle in the middle, and a spiral staircase behind the gargoyle that led directly to the headmaster's office on the eighth floor.

"Ice... iced lemon juice!" he said to it breathlessly.

This was the password to the secret staircase leading to Dumbledore's office - at least it was like this two years ago.

However, it was obvious that the password had changed. The stone monster did not move and jump to the side, but stood still, staring at Harry fiercely.

"Get out of the way!" Harry shouted at it anxiously, "I'm in a hurry, hurry up!"

However, the stone monster obviously would not open the door because of the threat of a little wizard, and the look in his eyes when staring at Harry became more ferocious.

Harry looked around anxiously in the corridor, wanting to see if there would be any professors passing by who could tell him the password to the principal's office.

Before other professors passed by here, Harry's eyes suddenly lit up.

He suddenly thought that Professor Dracula's office was also on the third floor of the castle, not far from here... If he made some noise here, Professor Dracula would appear in an instant with his speed.

So Harry took out an explosive wand made by Fred and George from his pocket... Before going to find Bagman, he was playing with Ron in the Transfiguration classroom with this new joke product.

This wand is like a firecracker. It can make a lot of noise after breaking, but it will not cause any harm to the user.

Sure enough, the moment the explosion sounded, a silver-haired figure suddenly appeared in front of the gargoyle.

"Potter?" Dracula looked a little surprised to see Harry here.

He heard the explosion in the corridor from a distance in the office.

Dracula thought that the two troublemakers who were playing with the explosion in the corridor should be Fred and George, and thought that the two guys wanted to die in front of him again.

He wanted to catch the two troublemakers in the act and teach them a lesson... However, unexpectedly, the one who made such an explosion was Harry, who had always been honest in front of Dracula.

Dracula narrowed his eyes and looked around, but did not find the figures of the Weisslai twins around.

"So... are you planning to inherit the mantle of the two Weisslais?" Dracula looked at Harry and sneered.

"No, Professor!" Harry explained hurriedly, "I really have something urgent this time, so I need to find you urgently, so I thought of this way..."

"Professor, Crouch... Mr. Barty Crouch, the referee of the semi-finals, is crazy!"

Dracula's eyes suddenly condensed.

"Several months have passed... Has Barty Crouch finally shown up?"

Since the remnant soul of Barty Crouch's mother was found on the island of Azkaban, Dracula has confirmed one thing-

Barty Crouch has a big problem, and Barty, a Death Eater, is probably not dead yet!

However, Barty Crouch seemed to have evaporated during this period of time, and he could not be found anywhere or by any means.

It was not until today that Dracula learned about Crouch's appearance from Harry.

"Where is he now?!" Dracula asked in a deep voice.

"Just at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Mr. Bagman is watching over him there." Harry said hurriedly.

"Tell me the exact location and I'll take you there." Dracula grabbed Harry's hood and said quickly.

"Wait a minute, Professor!" Harry said hurriedly, "Mr. Crouch said he wanted to find Headmaster Dumbledore and told him something important... He's already at the door, why don't we go up and call him first?"

"What a hassle..." Dracula pouted and stood in front of the gargoyle.

Harry looked at him expectantly, wanting to hear what password Dumbledore had changed recently.

Dracula: "..."

Gargoyle: "..."

The air suddenly became quiet.

"Professor?" Harry asked tremblingly.

"Ahem." Dracula coughed twice, "I don't think I know the password here..."

"But... I remember you often go to the principal's office, don't you?" Harry was stunned.

"Yes, I often go to see him..." Dracula's mouth twitched a little, "But I always go in through the window... Who would go through the door?"

Harry: "..."

Professor, you really don't take the usual path.

"That... Professor Dracula, why don't you go through the window?" At this moment, the gargoyle looked at Dracula's increasingly dangerous eyes and panicked, "I really can't open the door for you on my own initiative!"

It was afraid that the professor in front of it would tear its body apart because of shame...