"Narcissa, you stay here!"
Leaning on his wife, Lucius slowly walked toward the door of the long-sealed basement. He looked at the wooden door, which hadn't been opened in ten years, his heart filled with a sense of unease.
He had never allowed his family to go behind this door before, simply because the basement contained an item that Voldemort had entrusted to his keeping.
Locking the basement door behind him, Lucius held a magic lamp and began to slowly descend, leaving a trail of clear footprints on the dusty stairs. At the end of the staircase was another iron door. Lucius aimed his wand at a gem on the door, said a password, and with a metallic groan, the door opened.
He walked past the iron door and saw an incredibly empty space. Besides a table and some old portraits, there was nothing else. Lucius walked over to the only table in the basement, pulled open the drawer, and saw a black leather-bound diary.
Lucius did not dare touch it, but as he looked at the name on the cover, "Tom Marvolo Riddle," the diary instantly brought back memories of that dark period.
For a long time, he had no idea what this diary was. But out of fear of Voldemort, he never dared to investigate it. Even after Voldemort disappeared ten years ago, he didn't dare to throw it away, choosing instead to seal it in his family's basement.
It wasn't until Dumbledore told him about the Horcruxes just now that he immediately realized that the diary Voldemort had given him to keep was likely one of the Horcruxes.
Looking at Voldemort's Horcrux in front of him, Lucius's mind was in turmoil. He was debating whether to destroy the Horcrux or to keep it safe for Voldemort's return, to ensure the survival of his family.
But after a long deliberation, he still couldn't make up his mind. As a former Death Eater, he knew just how terrifying Voldemort's methods were.
Lucius's tightly clenched fists were bloodless from the strain. Then, some of the things Dumbledore had said to him re-emerged in his mind:
Dumbledore had said, "Horcruxes are the secret to Voldemort's immortality, but no one knows how many Horcruxes he made. But if we can find all of the Horcruxes, then he will be no different from a venomous snake that has had its fangs removed…"
Thinking of this, Lucius seemed to have made a decision. He slammed the drawer containing Voldemort's Horcrux shut, then turned and left the basement.
Narcissa, who had been anxiously waiting for her husband at the basement door, saw him coming up and immediately rushed to him. "Lucius, what on earth happened?"
"Narcissa, I need you to do something…"
.....
Just as Lucius Malfoy began to plan for his family's future because of the Horcrux, the conversation between Victor and Dumbledore in the Hogwarts office was suddenly interrupted by two people.
"Headmaster…"
Snape stormed in with a gloomy face. When he saw that Victor was also there, his face became even darker. He immediately said to Victor in a cold voice, "Dreyar, I order you to release my students at once!"
He had used many methods to try and get his students off the wall in the third-floor corridor, but none had worked. After grabbing a student and asking them what was going on, he learned that it was Victor's magic.
But Victor, in the face of what Snape called an order, looked indifferent and replied, "Professor Snape, I can release them from the wall, but their parents must come to Hogwarts personally to pick them up."
"Otherwise, I guarantee they will be stuck to that wall for the rest of their lives! Of course, their parents can also choose to dig out the part of the wall they are attached to and take it with them."
Did Snape really think he would release them just like that? Did he think Victor was a softie who could be easily bullied?!
But at the same time, not just Snape but also Professor McGonagall, the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, wanted to persuade Victor to release them quickly.
"Mr. Dreyar, this is not the time to be joking. Do you know what kind of impact it will have on the school if they remain like that?" Professor McGonagall said sternly.
It was a well-known fact that Slytherin students came from pure-blood families, and they all had a certain degree of influence in the British wizarding world. If they were to collectively make trouble for Hogwarts, there was no telling what kind of problems would arise.
"No matter what the impact is, those pure-blood families can come after me," Victor said. "Since they dared to instruct their family members to deal with me, they should also have the courage to bear the consequences of their failure."
"Deal with you?" McGonagall latched on to the key point in Victor's words. "What on earth is this about?"
Victor was speechless upon hearing this question. It seemed that these two professors had rushed here without even understanding what was going on. So, he started to complain, "Professors, you didn't rush over here without first finding out the cause of the matter, did you?!"
As expected, upon hearing this question, Professor McGonagall and Snape fell silent. Victor sighed helplessly. "Let Professor Dumbledore explain what happened. As the person involved, it doesn't seem right for me to say anything."
He then looked at Dumbledore. "Professor, the things we just discussed, I hope you will seriously consider them, and I have left the application to establish the guild here."
With that, he vanished from the office. Snape immediately looked at Dumbledore without a word, his expression clearly saying he wanted an explanation. Dumbledore remained silent for a while before finally speaking:
"Severus, the Slytherin students have indeed done something very bad. So, for now, let's just leave it at that. Let the parents of those students come to Hogwarts. This matter cannot be simply dropped. If we were to follow the school rules, these Slytherin students would all have to be expelled."
Upon hearing this last sentence, Snape finally realized the seriousness of the situation.
Every year, there was already a small number of new students. Don't let the size of Hogwarts fool you; the number of new students each year doesn't exceed 100. So, to ensure the student population, expelling students was a very rare occurrence. The last time this happened at Hogwarts was decades ago, and that expelled student was now living on the edge of the Forbidden Forest and was forbidden by the Ministry of Magic to use his wand.
Snape turned and left the headmaster's office. He was now going to ask his lovely students what they had done that could lead to them all being expelled.
As Professor McGonagall watched Snape leave, she also recalled that there were many questions about the events of this evening.
Logically, with such a big incident, she, as the Deputy Headmistress, should have been the first to know. After all, her office wasn't like the headmaster's office, which required a password to enter; any student could walk in.
But it was strange that she was almost the last to know about the incident tonight. By the time she arrived at the scene, some Hufflepuffs had already started carrying stretchers for the injured eagles.
"Albus?" Professor McGonagall just wanted to understand what had happened from Dumbledore.
.....
Meanwhile, after leaving the headmaster's office, Victor went straight to the Room of Requirement.
He had already spoken to Dumbledore about establishing a guild and had received his agreement in principle. So, he now needed to prepare a base or headquarters for the guild.
After much thought, Victor still felt that the Room of Requirement was the most suitable place. It was big enough and rarely visited, so it was basically a deserted space.
Victor pushed open the door of the Room of Requirement and looked at the mountain of junk inside. Without a word, he began to cast Fiendfyre. It was impossible to clean out all this stuff in a short amount of time, and these old items were useless anyway, so it was better to just destroy them all on the spot to save trouble.
But why was his Fiendfyre this color?
Victor closed the door of the Room of Requirement with a question in his mind and waited by the door.
With the immense power of Fiendfyre, the junk inside should be completely burned to ashes in about a minute. So he just sat outside for a short while.
But just as Victor was sitting by the door and eating a chocolate frog, the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office suddenly slowly opened, and Professor McGonagall walked out with a worried look on her face.
"Professor McGonagall!" Victor greeted her. Professor McGonagall looked up at the sound and saw that the source of all evil at Hogwarts was the one who had spoken. Her headache instantly worsened a bit.
"Mr. Dreyar, what are you doing here?" Professor McGonagall asked with a straight face.
"I'm not doing anything!" Victor said nonchalantly, chewing on his chocolate. "Just burning some stuff!"
"Burning some stuff?!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed, her voice raising a few dozen decibels. "Explain yourself immediately!"
"I'm just burning some stuff…"
With that, Victor pushed open the door of the Room of Requirement behind him, and instantly, a huge plume of blue and purple flames rushed out.
"Oh! My goodness!" Professor McGonagall was so shocked she quickly took a few steps back.
"Oh (⊙o⊙)… it's not all burned yet!" Victor scratched his head, and while maintaining the power of Finite Incantatem, he began to ask curiously, "Professor, do you know why the Fiendfyre I summon is this color? Does the color of Fiendfyre vary from person to person?"
But it was obvious that Professor McGonagall did not want to answer Victor's question. She clutched her chest, looking at Victor with an incredulous expression:
"Mr. Dreyar, you dared to use Fiendfyre in the school! Do you have any idea how dangerous that spell is?!"
"Of course, I do!" Victor replied. "That's why I'm controlling it with Finite Incantatem! Don't worry, Professor! You know what I'm capable of, don't you?"
Professor McGonagall looked at Victor's grinning face and felt helpless. After all, Dumbledore had once told her that Victor was a very special student with a unique personality, so when dealing with him, she should never use the same approach as she would with an ordinary student. Otherwise, she would be driven mad…
Professor McGonagall checked the state of the Fiendfyre with her wand and was slightly relieved after confirming there was no great danger. But then, she suddenly noticed something else.
"When did this room get here?" Professor McGonagall frowned. She had been at Hogwarts for so many years and, after becoming a professor, she often walked around the eighth floor, but she had never noticed this room here before.
"Huh?!"
Upon hearing Professor McGonagall's question, Victor was greatly puzzled. As far as he knew, the Room of Requirement was not a secret to the senior students at Hogwarts, and many students who often stayed up late at night had accidentally discovered this place.
However, they had all assumed it was just an ordinary room and very few of them had been able to discover the Room of Requirement's unique characteristics. So, with confusion in his voice, Victor began to ask, "Professor, this is the Room of Requirement, didn't you know? Didn't you ever find this place when you were wandering the corridors at night when you were a student?"
"The Room of Requirement? I've never heard of it!" Professor McGonagall replied, then a hint of awkwardness appeared on her face. "And I never wandered the corridors at night when I was a student."
"Pfft! Who are you trying to fool, Professor McGonagall!" Victor couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Is there a single student in Gryffindor who hasn't wandered the corridors at night? Isn't that your House's tradition?"
This made Professor McGonagall even more embarrassed. Because Victor was right. Ninety-nine percent of the students who were caught wandering the corridors at night at Hogwarts were Gryffindors. Even if some of the little lions were initially too well-behaved to go out because of the school rules, the atmosphere of the House was so influential that they were eventually led astray.
As for Professor McGonagall, the fact that she had once dared to fight with the Sorting Hat showed that she was by no means a well-behaved student.
Saying that she never wandered the corridors at night?
Who would believe it?!
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