Chapter 37: Lockhart Hung Up in the Great Hall as a Public Display
Lockhart stood right in the center of the podium.
The dim candlelight from the Great Hall's ceiling fell upon his face.
Those eight teeth gleamed with a blinding whiteness.
A thick scent of lavender perfume wafted through the air.
The smell was overbearing.
It was strong enough to make several Ravenclaw students in the front row wrinkle their noses.
Someone even stifled a sneeze.
Lockhart didn't notice the dead, suffocating silence below the stage at all.
He thought everyone was simply awestruck by his dazzling celebrity aura.
"Order of Merlin, Third Class; Honorary Member of the Anti-Dark Arts League."
Lockhart cleared his throat, his voice echoing through the empty-feeling Great Hall.
It carried an affected tone that gave people goosebumps.
"Five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award."
"But I don't talk about that."
"I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"
He gave an exaggerated wink with his right eye.
The hem of his plum-colored velvet robes swept back and forth across the stage.
No one below said a word.
There was no applause.
Even the Gryffindor twins, usually the first to cause trouble, were as quiet as two frozen rocks.
Lockhart's smile froze on his face for half a second.
But he quickly put that fake smile back on.
His leather shoes thumped loudly against the wooden platform.
"I see many of you have bought my complete works. That's splendid!"
He pulled a thick hardcover book from inside his robes and shook it vigorously in the air.
His own picture on the cover winked flirtatiously at the audience.
"In the coming year, I will personally teach you how to face those dreadful dark creatures."
"I assure you, with me around, you are completely safe."
He patted his chest with loud thumps.
Snape sat slightly behind him to the side.
His dark, hollow eyes glared intently at the back of Lockhart's head.
Snape gripped his goblet with his left hand, his knuckles turning white from the tension.
His fingernails were practically digging into the glass.
He desperately wanted to draw his wand right now and blast this blabbering idiot off the stage with a Killing Curse.
But Snape didn't dare move.
He didn't even dare to breathe loudly.
Because over at the Slytherin table sat a true abyss.
Before the Demon Lord spoke, any unnecessary movement could bring about instant death.
Lockhart was still pacing back and forth on the stage.
He felt the atmosphere wasn't enthusiastic enough.
His fans at book signings certainly never reacted like this.
He planned to call a student up to participate in a live demonstration.
As long as someone cooperated, the mood would surely liven up.
His gaze swept across the four house tables.
The Gryffindors were all ducking their heads, wishing they could crawl under the tables.
The Hufflepuffs buried their heads in their empty plates.
Lockhart's gaze shifted to the Slytherins.
He immediately spotted the blonde youth sitting right in the center.
He was far too conspicuous.
A wide empty space surrounded him; no one dared to get close.
The youth was dressed in pure black robes, leaning back in his chair in a relaxed posture.
In Lockhart's straw-filled head...
...this was definitely a wealthy, aloof pure-blood young master.
Perfect for an interactive volunteer.
A few compliments, and a young master like this would surely be flattered beyond measure.
"You there, the Slytherin student sitting in the middle!"
Lockhart extended his wand hand, pointing directly at Arthur.
"Yes, you! The blonde lad!"
Lockhart's smile stretched even wider, revealing pink gums.
"Come up here and help me demonstrate!"
"Don't be afraid, everyone. I'm going to demonstrate how I subdued the Wagga Wagga Werewolf with my bare hands back in the day!"
"Don't be shy, lad. I... I'll award Slytherin ten points!"
As he spoke, he even tapped his wand against the edge of the podium.
The moment those words left his mouth...
...the air in the entire Great Hall instantly froze.
Ron was sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table.
Half a pumpkin pasty dropped straight onto his lap from his hand.
His mouth hung open, a leaky, wheezing hiss escaping his throat.
Harry felt his stomach churn wildly, his breathing stopping completely.
His lightning-bolt scar throbbed with a prickling phantom pain.
Hermione had been reading, but now she slammed her book shut in utter terror.
She stared at Lockhart, her eyes filled with the horrifying realization that she was looking at a corpse.
Draco stood behind Arthur.
Cold sweat instantly drenched his back, pinning his shirt against his spine.
His legs turned to jelly, his knees knocking together uncontrollably.
He looked at Lockhart on stage as if looking at a lump of rotten meat about to be blasted to pieces.
Dumbledore suddenly gripped the edge of the table.
The old man's lips twitched, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"Professor Lockhart, he—"
He wanted to interrupt this suicidal fool.
Too late.
Arthur felt as if a sickening blowfly had buzzed into his ear.
Noisy.
Foolish.
That cheap, pungent perfume ruined his post-meal tranquility.
Arthur did not say a word.
He didn't even have the inclination to stand up.
His heterochromatic eyes—intertwined with pale grey and pitch black—glanced coldly at Lockhart on stage.
The grey mist in his right eye swirled slowly through half a circle.
His right hand rested on the table, index and middle fingers pressed together.
Pointing in the direction of the podium.
He raised them flicking upward, utterly casually.
No incantation was spoken.
No blinding magical light flared.
The laws of space at the front of the Great Hall were violently crushed by a brutally monstrous force.
Before the fake smile on Lockhart's face could fade...
...the air around him was instantaneously sucked into a vacuum.
*Bang!*
A dull sonic boom erupted on the platform.
The sound was as deafening as a cannon blast inside a sealed iron barrel.
It left the ears of the students in the front row ringing.
Lockhart's chest felt as though it had been slammed by an invisible multi-ton sledgehammer.
A sickening crack of breaking ribs echoed out.
He couldn't even squeeze out half a cry of pain.
The air in his lungs was forced straight out by the immense force.
Both of his feet lifted off the ground.
His plum-colored robes were torn open in several large gashes by the violent airflow.
Tattered strips of cloth fluttered wildly in the wind.
Like a ragdoll, he was hurled backward toward the high stone wall behind the staff table.
He flew so fast that the naked eye could only see a plum-colored blur.
Soaring over Dumbledore's head.
Soaring over Snape's head.
The furious wind he created flipped several golden plates off the table.
*Boom!*
A deafening, ear-numbing crash echoed.
Lockhart smashed hard into the stone wall at the highest point of the Great Hall.
Full twenty feet above the ground.
The solid stone wall was dented into a crater.
Several thick cracks spiderwebbed wildly outward from behind his back.
Fine stone fragments and dust rained down.
Clattering onto the staff table.
A few pieces of plaster fell right into the silver goblet in front of Dumbledore.
That invisible, massive force did not dissipate.
Like several invisible, thick steel spikes, it pinned Lockhart's neck, wrists, and ankles firmly.
Pinning him forcibly against the stone wall high in the air.
Flattened against the wall, he looked like a hideous insect pinned into a repulsive specimen.
*Clatter.*
The ruby-encrusted wand in Lockhart's hand dropped to the floor.
Producing a sharp clatter in the quiet Great Hall.
The wand rolled down a few stone steps, stopping right beside Professor McGonagall's foot.
Professor McGonagall shuddered, shrinking her foot back, not daring to look down at it at all.
Lockhart on the wall finally managed to catch a breath.
His windpipe compressed, he inhaled a mouthful of dusty air.
He let out a distorted shriek of agony.
"H-Help... help..."
His voice was raspy and broken, like a leaky bellows.
He struggled desperately.
But his limbs couldn't move at all; the more he struggled, the tighter the invisible pressure strangled his neck.
Extreme terror and severe pain broke him completely.
The boastful courage and dignity he feigned shattered beyond recovery.
Snot and tears mixed together, smearing his meticulously groomed face.
Dripping down from his chin.
Because his head scraped against the wall too violently...
...the thick, wavy blonde hair atop his head...
...suddenly shifted out of place.
It was a toupee.
The wig slipped off completely.
Floating gently down from twenty feet in the air.
Plumping right into an empty pumpkin pudding bowl below.
Splattering a few drops of sweet yellow syrup.
Lockhart's balding head was exposed before hundreds of pairs of eyes.
Ringed by a sparse fringe of yellow hair.
The light reflected off his hairless scalp with a ridiculous greasy sheen.
A foul odor suddenly rose from his crotch.
A warm yellow liquid trickled down his plum-colored robes.
Dripping onto the stone wall, leaving a long wet streak behind.
He had literally wet himself in terror.
Hanging on the wall like a blubbering, ludicrous clown.
Silence fell over the entire school.
A dead, heavy silence.
Hundreds of people were rooted to their seats like wooden posts.
Staring intently at the new Professor hanging at the very top.
No one dared laugh at his bald head, nor did anyone dare mock him for wetting his pants.
Even the faint sound of breathing was suppressed.
Arthur leaned back against his chair.
The chill in his eyes remained unchanged.
As if he had merely brushed away a fleck of dust.
Deep within his mind...
...the system's cold, mechanical voice chimed with unprecedented intensity.
An extreme terror settlement interface packed with lavish rewards...
...popped up directly before him.
Chapter 38: Max-Level Obliviate!
Lockhart's screams echoed violently against the vaulted ceiling of the Great Hall.
His voice had long since cracked,
sounding like a duck being throttled by its neck.
Warm urine trickled down the stone wall,
dripping onto the wooden floor of the staff table,
making a sticky, tapping sound.
Professor McGonagall took a small step backward,
her heel catching against a chair leg.
She swayed slightly and hurriedly reached out to steady herself on the edge of the table.
A wooden splinter wedged beneath her fingernail, but she felt no pain at all.
She simply stared intently at the man covered in tears and snot hanging on the wall, her stomach churning violently.
Dumbledore sat right in the center,
veins bulging on the back of his withered hand.
He did not draw his wand.
The air in the entire Great Hall was locked down by a tyrannical surge of magic.
The air drawn into their lungs felt heavy as lead.
At this moment, even a sliver of aggressive intent would instantly detonate that brutal, abyssal aura.
Arthur did not even turn his head.
He did not care about the clown hanging on the wall at all.
His gaze rested on the faint blue light screen floating in the air before him.
No one else could see this panel.
Red warning lights were flashing frantically along the edges of the system interface.
A rapid succession of mechanical chimes rang out in his mind.
[Target Gilderoy Lockhart's mental defense has completely collapsed.]
[Fear value has reached the threshold.]
[Beginning extraction of core ability.]
Arthur saw right through Lockhart.
A pure fraud.
He couldn't even cast a basic Expelliarmus correctly.
Yet this con man managed to thrive in the wizarding world, running circles around Wizards who constantly walked the line between life and death.
He possessed only a single barely presentable fig leaf.
[Extraction successful.]
[Congratulations Host, you have obtained the max-level Memory Charm.]
A surge of icy information crashed directly into Arthur's mind.
There was no pain,
only a slight swelling pressure at his temples.
He closed his eyes briefly.
The grey mist in his right eye spun rapidly.
The fundamental laws of memory instantly unfolded within his consciousness.
A Memory Charm cast by an ordinary Wizard was like wielding a crude hammer,
forcibly smashing the images in a person's mind.
The method was brutal
and left behind vast blank spots, easily exposed by skilled Legilimency.
However, the max-level Memory Charm refined by the system's laws was completely different.
Arthur raised his right hand
and glanced at his fingertips.
He could now precisely sever every memory anchor within a person's neural network—
smells, pain, emotions.
Like a tailor cutting parchment, he could casually snip a person's past into pieces,
and stitch in a completely fabricated experience.
Even the victim's own logic would automatically patch up any illogical details.
The victim would firmly believe it was a true life they had personally lived through.
This was far more useful than the Killing Curse.
Killing someone only created a rotting corpse,
but altering memories could craft a hound that would never betray him.
Whether it was making an Auror believe he was a Death Eater, or making a mother forget her own child,
it was all within a single thought of his.
This was the sharpest blade for controlling the wizarding world.
The stench in the Great Hall grew increasingly foul.
The scent of cheap perfume mixed with the smell of urine was nauseating.
Lockhart had screamed himself hoarse.
He coughed up a thick glob of bloody spit, which dribbled down his chin onto his clothes.
Nothing remained of his voice except the wheezing of a broken bellows.
Arthur found it boring now.
He lowered the right hand he had raised.
The magical pull at his fingertips instantly snapped.
The invisible restraint on the wall vanished.
Losing all support, Lockhart fell straight down like a lump of mud from twenty feet in the air.
Gravity dragged him down.
"Thud."
A dull, heavy impact of flesh hitting the floor.
He slammed hard onto the open floor before the staff table.
The sound of breaking bones was chillingly crisp.
Lockhart couldn't even utter a scream before passing out instantly from the pain.
His bald head struck the hard stone floor, scraping off a large patch of scalp.
Dark red blood slowly seeped out, pooling into a small puddle on the ground.
Arthur stood up.
The legs of his wooden chair scraped across the stone tiles with a brief, sharp noise.
Several hundred people in the Great Hall shuddered at the same time.
Sitting in the distance, Harry felt a needle-like pain in the scar on his forehead.
He kept his head lowered, not even possessing the courage to look at that black robe.
Arthur turned around.
His leather boots clicked on the floor
as he walked toward the doors of the Great Hall.
Students on both sides of the aisle shrank back desperately, terrified that breathing too loudly would attract his attention.
Draco's legs were still weak.
Holding onto the edge of the table, he barely managed to stand up and staggered after Arthur,
keeping his head down like a servant who had failed his duties.
The heavy oak doors were pushed open, then slowly closed shut,
sealing the dead silence of the Great Hall behind them.
Only when the suffocating pressure of magical power completely disappeared
did Dumbledore slump weakly back against his chair.
The elder wand slipped from his hand and clattered onto the table.
Madam Pomfrey ran out from behind the long table carrying a medical kit,
her high heels stumbling on the floor.
She hurried to Lockhart's side, wrinkled her nose at the stench, and knelt down to inspect his injuries.
Night fell deep.
The corridors of the Slytherin dungeons were pitch-black.
The air carried a damp chill seeping from the bottom of the Black Lake.
Torches on the walls crackled loudly.
Arthur pushed open the door to his single dormitory.
The moment the door closed,
the firewood in the fireplace ignited on its own.
Eerie green flames dispelled the darkness in the room.
He walked to the mahogany desk,
reached his hand into the pocket of his robe,
and touched the rough-surfaced object.
He pulled out the black leather diary with charred edges
and tossed it casually onto the wooden tabletop.
It landed with a dull thud.
The sound was muffled.
The diary lay there quietly.
The black hole burned into the cover by Fiendfyreremained,
its edges coated in an ashen layer of carbonized crust.
A faint, sickly stench of rot seeped from within.
The sixteen-year-old remnant soul of Lord Voldemort hid deep within the pages,
without uttering a sound,
completely concealing every trace of its magical fluctuations.
It was feigning death.
That blast of Fiendfyre earlier had nearly drained all the energy required to maintain its consciousness.
Arthur pulled out a chair and sat down.
He tapped his fingers on the tabletop twice.
Tap. Tap.
He stared at the black hole,
the coldness in his eyes slowly spreading.
Lord Voldemort's main soul had already fled,
yet inside this Horcrux remained the wisdom and memories of Tom Riddle in his youth.
Hidden within those memories were the secrets of the Chamber of Secrets, as well as a list of the early Death Eaters.
Arthur did not intend to just leave it as a mere ornament.
He had already reaped fear from it once; now it was time to squeeze out substantial intelligence.
He had no intention of using gentle methods.
Chapter 39: The Diary is Roasted
The black leather cover slammed onto the solid wood desk.
Producing a muffled thud.
Stirring up a small cloud of invisible dust.
The diary lay there quietly.
At the charred gap, the edges of the hardened ashes were somewhat brittle.
The Tom Riddle hidden inside was still playing dead.
It withdrew all of its soul fluctuations deep inside, not daring to reveal even the slightest trace of magic.
Arthur leaned back against the chair.
He felt his collar was a bit tight.
The irritation from the Great Hall earlier had not completely faded.
He raised his hand and unbuttoned the topmost button of his shirt.
He didn't bother to open the diary.
Those bewitching word tricks were too boring for him.
The sixteen-year-old Lord Voldemort was being clever by half, thinking he could extract information with a few hypocritical pleasantries.
Arthur had no intention of giving him a chance to speak.
He struck directly.
Arthur raised his right hand.
His fingertips tapped gently on the desktop.
"Boom."
A ball of pure black flames burst directly from his fingertips.
This wasn't the restrained spark from before.
The Fiendfyre, like a living creature, spread rapidly along the desk, tightly engulfing the entire diary inside.
The temperature in the room instantly soared.
The varnish on the surface of the desk was baked until a series of tiny bubbles emerged.
Making a soft crackling sound.
Then turning into a charred mess.
The black fire burned on the leather.
That destructive law targeting the soul, like countless barbed knives, stabbed fiercely deep into the pages.
The diary shook violently.
Like a drowning person struggling frantically on a cutting board.
"Sizzling—"
The leather gave off a sickening burnt smell.
The pages were forcibly flipped open by an invisible force, rustling wildly.
A large amount of black ink spewed out from the paper surface.
This time it wasn't used for writing.
It was the blood flowing out after the soul was burned through.
The ink splashed onto the burning desk.
Emitting the stench of dead mice that had been stored for over a decade.
Sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle could finally no longer keep up the act.
The excruciating pain acting directly on his conscious body made him wish he were dead.
He let out a silent scream inside the diary.
His mental power turned into a substantive screech, crashing against the soundproofing barrier Arthur had set up in the room.
It didn't even splash a single ripple.
Arthur leaned back in the chair, watching the old book struggling in the sea of fire.
His right hand cupped his chin.
With no intention of stopping at all.
Instead, the fire grew a bit fiercer.
The ink swam frantically in the firelight.
Tom tried to use his last bit of magic to piece together words on the desk.
The handwriting was crooked.
Even several letters were blurred together.
"Stop... Stop!"
"Who... exactly are you..."
The ink dragged long trails on the desk, revealing an undisguised panic.
Tom's proud identity as the Heir of Slytherin was crushed to pieces in front of this unreasonable violence.
He discovered that the other party didn't care about his secrets at all.
Nor did they care who he was.
The other party purely wanted to burn him to ashes.
Arthur looked at those ink handwritings.
He sneered.
"Quite tough, aren't you."
His fingertips moved slightly, and the temperature of the Fiendfyre climbed upward again.
A corner of the table had already begun to carbonize.
The cover of the diary peeled off on a large scale, revealing the yellowish pages inside.
Every single piece of paper curled up in agony in the fire.
Tom truly collapsed.
He felt that his memories were being torn apart and evaporated piece by piece by this black fire.
If it kept burning, he would truly cease to exist.
Along with any hope of the main soul's resurrection being completely cut off.
The ink gushed outward like crazy.
This time it was no longer questioning.
The handwriting became scribbled and hurried.
"I concede! I beg you... stop!"
"Spare me... I know many secrets!"
"Slytherin... the Chamber of Secrets!"
Seeing the words Chamber of Secrets.
The cold light in the depths of Arthur's eyes flickered slightly.
But he didn't put away the flames immediately.
Instead, he kept the fire at a critical point that made the other party wish they were dead, yet wouldn't instantly scatter their soul.
"Write."
Arthur spat out only a single word.
His voice in the sweltering room was colder than an ice cave outside.
How dared Tom hesitate for even a fraction of a second.
Right now, he was like a snake whose vital spot was stepped on, forced to spit out everything in his stomach.
The ink crawled rapidly across the desktop.
Even because of soul spasms, he didn't have time to fix some misspelled words.
"Second floor... girls' lavatory..."
"That broken sink... has a snake carving on it..."
The ink handwriting flickered, exuding a weakness as if it were about to dissipate.
"That is the entrance..."
"Use Parseltongue... speak to the carving... open..."
Tom materialized the pronunciation of Parseltongue into a complex syllable using magic.
Directly imprinting it in the ink.
As long as Arthur saw it, he could simulate that hissing pronunciation frequency.
Arthur glanced at that syllable.
With his current mastery of magic, this low-level biological language lock could be deciphered with just a glance.
"What is inside."
Arthur's voice remained calm.
He even changed his sitting posture, crossing his left leg over his right leg.
The diary on the desk shook so much it was about to fall apart.
Several binding threads were burned through.
"Basilisk..."
"A Basilisk that has lived for a thousand years..."
"It is Salazar Slytherin's pet... only a pure Heir of Slytherincan control it..."
Tom added a reminder in the ink.
He tried to use the danger of the Basilisk to prove that he still had value in staying alive.
"Don't look into its eyes... you will die... as long as you spare me, I can help you control it..."
Arthur looked at that mess of ink on the desk.
Finding it quite amusing.
Just a long worm living in a ditch, how could it be worthy of being called dangerous.
"Control rights."
Arthur didn't pick up on his cue at all.
The flames of the Fiendfyre drilled half an inch further into the core of the diary.
"Ah——!"
A despairing mental screech came from the diary once again.
Tom was completely desperate.
This person didn't play by the rules at all, not even giving a chance for negotiation.
The ink spun frantically on the desk.
Finally condensing into a long string of ancient Slytherinbloodline incantations.
That was the underlying permission to control the Basilisk.
Tom handed it over.
Equivalent to offering his greatest trump card in the Chamber of Secrets with both hands to this demon who tortured him.
"It's all here..."
The color of the ink became very faint, almost invisible.
"I beg you... withdraw the fire... I'm about to disappear..."
Tom Riddle.
Once the most outstanding student of Hogwarts.
The future second Dark Lord.
Now, in order to survive ignobly, he was as humble as a dog begging for pity inside the diary.
All his dignity and ambition, under the calcination of the Fiendfyre, became a pile of useless waste slag.
Arthur finished reading that control incantation.
Memorizing it all in his mind.
He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers crisply in mid-air.
"Snap."
The Fiendfyre enveloping the diary instantly collapsed inward.
In less than half a second.
All the black flames extinguished completely, without leaving even a trace of lingering warmth.
The foul-smelling pool of ink on the desk also lost its magical support.
Drying into ugly black stains.
Deeply imprinted in the wood grain.
The diary was now a horrible sight.
The cover was almost half burned away, exposing the scorched yellow and black pages inside.
The spine was broken.
Tom Riddle inside fell into a deep coma.
Most of his soul was burned away, and there was no way he would wake up again for several years.
This was precisely the result Arthur wanted.
A vessel that couldn't speak, had lost the ability to resist, and retained only a pure essence.
When the time was ripe, it could be used to conduct some other experiments.
Arthur casually swept the tattered diary into the desk drawer.
Shutting it with a bang.
The temperature in the room dropped.
The eerie green cold fire in the fireplace reignited.
Arthur stood up.
He picked up the black robe draped over the back of the chair and casually draped it over his shoulders.
He glanced at the wall clock.
One-thirty in the middle of the night.
Aside from the patrolling Professor and that disgusting cat, probably no one else was awake in the entire Hogwarts.
He walked out of the bedroom.
The corridor outside was very quiet.
Only the torches on the stone walls swayed in the wind.
The sound of leather boots stepping on stone bricks echoed in the empty corridor.
Arthur didn't use any invisibility magic.
He walked up the stairs.
Passed through the first-floor hall, bypassing several sleeping portraits.
All the way to the second floor.
At the end of the corridor, there was an ajar wooden door.
The paint on the door panel was severely peeled off.
Hanging on it was a crooked sign that read "Out of Order, Do Not Use".
This was the abandoned girls' lavatory because someone had died there.
The air was permeated with a moldy smell that never saw sunlight year-round, and the fishy odor of water rising from the sewer.
Arthur pushed open the door.
The lights inside weren't on.
Several white tiled walls were covered with green spots due to moisture.
The mirror on the sink was covered with dust and water stains.
It was dead silent.
Even the weeping Myrtle wasn't around; who knew which toilet she had crawled into to sleep.
Arthur walked over to the largest copper faucet right in the middle.
And stopped.
His gaze fell on the side of the faucet.
There was a tiny snake carved there.
This was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets that Slytherin had hidden for a thousand years.
Chapter 40: Chamber of Secrets? That's My Backyard
A thick layer of green rust grew on the surface of the copper faucet.
Arthur stood in front of it.
His gaze swept across the side of the faucet.
The engraved small snake was only the size of a thumb, and the lines on its edges were filled with limescale.
The smell in the girls' bathroom was very unpleasant.
Deprived of sunlight all year round, the air fermented a putrid stench of sewers.
Arthur moved half a step to the side.
The sole of his foot stepped on a patch of blackish moss pooled with water.
His leather boots slipped.
His body swayed slightly, but he quickly steadied his center of gravity.
This made him somewhat annoyed.
He frowned and lowered his head to glance at the edge of his boots stained with green mud.
He cursed filth mentally.
The sound of splashing water came from behind.
Splash.
From the innermost toilet, a translucent, pearly-white ghost floated out.
Myrtle adjusted her thick-rimmed glasses, sobbing as she floated over from mid-air.
She had been crying in the sewer for a long time just now.
"Who... who is there?"
Myrtle's voice carried a heavy nasal tone, sounding very harsh.
"Boys are not allowed... not allowed to enter the girls' bathroom!"
She originally wanted to protest loudly, or throw something to hit people.
But halfway through her words, her voice stuck right in her throat.
She felt the cold.
Ghosts originally had no temperature perception, but now she felt as if her spirit body was about to be frozen to pieces.
That was a coercion directed straight at the soul.
Through her thick lenses, Myrtle saw clearly the blonde boy standing by the sink.
Arthur did not look back.
Only the trace of gray mist in his right eye rotated half a circle.
A wisp of the aura of Soul Law leaked out.
Pressing toward that noisy ghost.
Myrtle's transparent body began to tremble violently.
She looked like a duck whose neck was being choked.
"I... I didn't mean to..."
She stuttered so much that she couldn't even piece together a complete sentence.
The light on the surface of her spirit body flickered, and her lips trembled.
"Don't... don't eat me..."
She didn't wait for Arthur to speak at all.
She directly did a somersault in mid-air, her hands tightly clutching her head.
With a "bang".
She plunged headfirst into the U-bend of the toilet, splashing a huge patch of murky water.
She never dared to show her head again.
The bathroom returned to a dead silence.
Only a few tiny water bubbles were still rising in the toilet.
Arthur retracted that wisp of magic.
He felt that staying an extra second with such a low-level ghost was a waste of time.
His gaze fell back on the engraved snake.
Parseltongue.
That was an innate talent unique to the Slytherinbloodline.
Arthur did not have this lineage.
But he now possessed Lord Voldemort's Soul Lawfragments.
He closed his eyes.
In his mind replayed the syllables materialized with ink on the diary.
The gray mist in his right eye began to rotate at high speed.
Under the forcible intervention of magic, his vocal cords underwent minor physical deformation.
His bones and throat muscles were pulled, sending a wave of dry friction.
He swallowed his saliva, suppressing the slight nausea brought by the physiological modification.
He opened his mouth.
A trace of cold, hoarse sound, completely unlike what a human could produce, drifted out of his mouth.
"Open."
This sound sounded like a venomous snake flicking its tongue against rough stone.
Hissing.
Carrying the sticky feeling unique to cold-blooded animals.
As soon as the words fell.
The small snake at the top of the faucet suddenly lit up with a eerie green light.
A dull sound of mechanical gears meshing came from beneath the stone.
Click.
The sound was very loud, shaking the tiles underfoot to tremble along.
The entire sink in front of him began to move.
The washstand split from the middle and slowly retreated to both sides.
Revealing an incomparably thick water pipe.
The caliber of the pipe was large enough to easily stuff an adult into it.
A very strong putrid stench rushed out from the depths of the pipe.
Like a tomb sealed for a thousand years being excavated.
Mixed with the smell of mud, dead rats, and damp, cold stones.
It fumigated Arthur into frowning once more.
He took out a silk handkerchief from his robe pocket and casually covered his mouth and nose.
In the original work, those people all slid down this pipe covered in green mucus.
Arthur would never do such a stupid thing of dirtying his clothes.
He walked to the edge of the pipe.
He glanced down.
Pitch black, nothing could be seen, like a big mouth waiting to feed.
Arthur stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket.
He directly strode out with his long legs.
His leather boots stepped into empty air, and his whole person walked into that bottomless darkness.
There was no heavy fall.
The magic of the Dark Arts was like a pair of invisible giant hands, steadily supporting the soles of his feet.
Arthur descended slowly in the pipe.
There was not a shred of light around.
The wind scraped upward against his ears.
Bringing the gloom and dampness from the depths.
The walls of the pipe were covered in a thick layer of green silt emitting a faint reflection.
Arthur disgustedly controlled his magic to keep himself a bit further from the pipe wall.
Descending for probably several tens of meters.
The slope of the pipe began to flatten, eventually turning into a horizontal tunnel.
Arthur's feet stepped back onto the hard ground.
The soles of his shoes made a crisp snapping sound.
Crack.
He lowered his head.
Taking advantage of a dim cold light lit at his fingertips, he saw clearly the things under his feet.
The ground was covered with bones everywhere.
Rat skeletons, bat skulls, paved in a thick layer.
Stepping on them made a crisp sound.
Arthur's soles were stained with a bit of white bone ash powder.
He flicked his foot.
The bone ash powder stuck to the damp mud prints on the edge of his leather boots and didn't shake off.
He couldn't be bothered to care about it anymore.
This was the place where Salazar Slytherin raised pets, dirtying like a garbage dump.
This tunnel was very wide.
Arthur walked forward along the tunnel.
It was excessively quiet here.
Only the sound of his leather boots crushing small animal bones echoed among the stone walls.
Occasionally, a few drops of cold water dripped down from the top of the tunnel.
Smashing into the stagnant puddle beside, making a dripping echo.
The chill seeped in through his robes.
The road ahead was blocked off.
A solid stone wall stood at the end of the tunnel.
Two giant snakes entwined with each other were carved on the stone wall.
The snakes' eyes were inlaid with huge emeralds.
Under the illumination of the cold light at Arthur's fingertips.
Those two emeralds shimmered with a dim light.
Looking like they were alive, staring fixedly at the living person walking over.
Arthur stopped in front of the stone door.
He felt the ancient magic attached to the stone door.
This lock had gone through a thousand years and was still very firm.
If smashed hard, it would definitely cause violent vibrations in Hogwarts Castle above.
He didn't want to stir up unnecessary trouble.
Arthur mobilized the magic in his throat once more.
His vocal cords rubbed, emitting those slick, hoarse syllables.
"Open."
Parseltongue echoed in the empty tunnel.
The two giant snakes on the stone door seemed to come alive.
They slowly slithered on the stone slab, untwining their intertwined bodies.
Retreating to both sides.
The heavy stone door split a crack from the middle.
The friction of the stone produced a rumbling muffled sound.
Dust fell down in rustling clumps.
The crack of the door became larger and larger.
An aura even older and colder than in the pipe rushed head-on.
Arthur stood in place, waiting for the dust to dissipate a bit.
Leather boots stepped across the threshold.
Arthur stepped into the tall, gloomy underground temple standing with the huge statue of Salazar Slytherin.
Chapter 41: I Want All of Salazar's Legacy!
Arthur stood in the center of the huge underground temple.
The space was so vast that it was hard to tell where the boundaries were.
Several thick stone pillars towered up into the darkness of the ceiling.
The pillars were carved with coiling giant snakes, and the stone surfaces were covered with a layer of green slime.
A layer of stagnant water pooled on the temple floor.
The water wasn't deep, just enough to cover his ankles.
Arthur took a step forward.
His leather boots stepped into the water, making a mushy, muffled sound.
The water was very cold.
The chill seeped through the soles of his boots into the bottoms of his feet.
A few pieces of rotting green algae floated on the surface of the water, exuding a stale, dead-fish stench that had been trapped for a long time.
Arthur lowered his head.
The calm, blackened puddles reflected his indifferent face.
He felt a little annoyed.
Not seeing clearly just now, he had stepped into a slightly deeper pit.
The sewage splashed onto the hem of his pitch-black robes.
Leaving a small, ugly dark water stain.
He flicked the edge of his robe, but the stench still clung to the fabric.
Arthur raised his head.
Directly ahead stood a terrifyingly tall, huge stone sculpture.
That was the statue of Salazar Slytherin himself.
The statue's face looked like a shriveled old monkey.
A sparse, long beard hung all the way down to the hem of the stone's robes.
Two grayish-white big stone feet were soaked in the deep pool of water in front.
The atmosphere in the temple was very eerie.
If it were any other Wizard standing in front of this thousand-year-old monster's statue, their legs would probably be trembling.
But Arthur only felt that this statue was ugly and an eyesore.
That idiot Tom Riddle.
When boasting about the Chamber of Secrets in his diary, his mind was full of only that thousand-year-old Basilisk.
Did he really think Salazar Slytherin went to all the trouble to build a Chamber of Secrets just to keep a pet?
A pure-blood tycoon who founded Hogwarts.
The true legacy could never be a brainless, cold-blooded beast.
Arthur closed his left eye.
A hint of grey mist slowly swirled in his right eye.
His vision penetrated the darkness and the cold stagnant water.
The flow of magic in the temple turned into a grayish-white net before his eyes.
The statue was huge.
But the stone itself was just a dead object.
Arthur's gaze swept down along the statue.
Beneath the stone slab between the two big stone feet, he saw a magic node.
It wasn't the kind of Parseltongue mechanism used to open the Chamber of Secrets.
It was an ancient Dark Arts energy buried deep underground.
Highly concealed.
If it weren't for the field of vision endowed by the Soul Law, he wouldn't have been able to detect the magic fault line here at all.
Arthur took long strides.
Treading through the stagnant water, he walked directly beneath the statue.
Water droplets smashed down from the statue's beard, landing on the water surface beside his shoulder.
Making a hollow ticking sound.
He didn't go looking for any hidden buttons.
Nor did he intend to waste effort guessing the decryption password from a thousand years ago.
Arthur raised his right hand.
His five fingers spread open, palms facing down.
Aiming at the huge stone slab beneath his feet carved with snake-scale patterns.
Black magic pressed down along his arm.
No incantation was chanted.
Pure, savage magic collision.
"Boom."
A muffled explosion echoed in the underground temple.
Just like a bomb detonated deep underground.
The stagnant water under his feet was directly blown away by the violent magic.
Transforming into a sky full of water mist exploding in all directions.
That thick and hard millennium-old stone slab.
Didn't even last a second.
Its surface crawled with spiderweb-like cracks, and then shattered with a crash.
Pieces of rubble tumbled down in a clatter.
Revealing a square, large black hole.
As soon as the stone slab shattered.
A thick green poisonous fog immediately spewed out from the hole.
That was the defensive magic set by Salazar on the periphery of the storeroom.
The toxic fog carried a pungent sourness, making a sizzling corrosive sound upon contact with the air.
Arthur stood on the edge of the hole.
Without moving at all.
A drop of pure black spark flicked from his fingertips.
The Fiendfyre grew against the wind.
Turning into a fire net that directly enveloped the gushing green fog.
The flames scorched the poisonous gas.
Making a teeth-gritting hissing sound.
In less than three seconds.
The vicious curse from a thousand years ago was swallowed clean by the Fiendfyre.
Not even a trace of residue was left.
Arthur waved his hand to extinguish the flames.
Below the hole was a dry stone staircase.
No stagnant water, no algae.
He walked down the steps.
The space of the underground storeroom wasn't large.
It was only as spacious as half a Potion Class classroom.
The air was filled with a very dry dust smell and a stale parchment smell.
Several rows of black wooden shelves were placed against the walls around.
There weren't many things on the shelves, but every piece exuded a heavy sense of time.
This was the foundation left by Salazar Slytherin to his true heir.
Rather than that guard dog outside used to clean up Mudbloods.
Arthur walked to the first shelf.
Dozens of rolls of parchment were piled on it.
The edges of the paper were already brittle, and some had even turned dark brown.
He casually picked up a roll.
Dust fell rustling onto the back of his hand.
He brushed it off with a bit of disgust.
Unfolding the parchment.
It was full of ancient Runes, recording long-lost bloodline curses and soul-splitting experiments.
This was the true Dark Arts.
Much more profound and bloody than the few Unforgivable Curses currently classified as forbidden spells by the Ministry of Magic.
Lord Voldemort certainly hadn't found this place back then.
Otherwise, that defective product wouldn't have split his soul so hideously.
Arthur didn't look closely.
He directly took out a leather bag cast with an Undetectable Extension Charm from the inside of his robes.
The bag's mouth opened.
The parchment scrolls on the shelf, along with the dust, were swept into the bag by him remotely using magic.
Not a single roll was left behind.
Crystal bottles were placed on the second shelf.
The surfaces of the bottles were covered with thick dust, and the liquid inside had long solidified.
Some were dark red dried blood clots.
Some were silver powder.
Arthur recognized something bottled in a black glass jar.
That was an extremely high-purity extract of the millennium Basilisk's venom glands.
A top-grade material used for brewing corrosive Dark Potions.
In Knockturn Alley, this small bottle could buy half a street.
He didn't even open the lid.
With a wave of his hand.
Dozens of crystal bottles clinked together and flew into the leather bag.
Several alchemical items were placed on the third shelf.
A black iron dagger without a crossguard.
A small bronze mirror with a skull carved on the back.
And a bone whistle full of holes.
The dagger was entwined with deep resentment.
Arthur picked up the dagger and weighed it.
Although the blade was rusted, it exuded a blood-sucking chill.
This was a torture instrument that would forcibly drain the enemy's magic as long as it pierced the skin.
Good stuff.
Arthur threw the dagger into the bag.
The remaining mirror and whistle were also taken away together.
In less than five minutes.
Salazar Slytherin's private storeroom hidden for a thousand years.
Was looted clean by Arthur.
He didn't even spare a stone spacer on the shelf carved with a defensive array.
Leaving absolutely nothing behind.
Arthur tied up the leather bag.
And stuffed it back into the inner pocket of his robes.
This trip to Hogwarts was not in vain.
These lost classics were enough for him to push those old fools' Soul Law up another level.
He turned around and walked up the stone steps.
His leather boots trod on the stone steps.
A muffled sound of footsteps echoed in the basement.
As soon as he walked out of the secret compartment and returned to the ankle-deep flooded temple.
The air in the temple suddenly changed.
Ripples of fine concentric circles stirred across the originally dead-silent water surface.
The ripples spread outward from the direction of the statue.
Colliding against Arthur's leather boots.
The mud underwater was stirred up, and the stench was ten times heavier than before.
Arthur raised his head.
The monkey-faced statue ahead, which was so tall its top couldn't be seen.
Began to change.
A heavy friction sound came from deep within the stone.
Rumbling.
Like the unsettling muffled sound before a landslide.
The statue's shriveled, old-monkey-like mouth.
Was slowly opening.
Opening wider and wider.
Stone debris from its mouth fell along the statue's beard, smashing onto the water surface and splashing water.
Inside the statue's open mouth was a pitch-black, huge opening.
Immediately after.
A spine-chilling hissing sound came from deep within the opening.
The sound was slick and slimy.
Accompanied by the rustling sound of rough scales scraping violently against the stone.
The sound was deafeningly loud, making the stone pillars of the temple tremble slightly.
A thick behemoth.
Protruded half of its head from the statue's pitch-black mouth.
And was slowly sliding down along the stone wall.
Chapter 42: The Basilisk Bows Down and Calls Me Big Brother
A heavy scraping sound echoed through the shrine.
The huge stone mouth opened completely.
A suffocatingly thick, foul stench billowed directly out of the opening.
It was a mixture of dead mice, mud, and reptile excrement that hadn't been cleaned up for a thousand years.
A thick green body slid down the stone wall.
It was too massive.
It was a full fifty feet long.
The surface of its body, as thick as a water bucket, was covered with a thick layer of dark green scales.
The scales were covered in a slick, slimy coating.
It gleamed with a sickening oily sheen in the dim light.
"Boom."
The Basilisk's heavy body crashed into the accumulated water of the shrine.
Massive splashes surged into the air.
Like a torrential downpour.
A few drops of dirty water mixed with mud splashed onto Arthur's leather boots.
Trickling down the black leather.
Arthur looked down.
The mud spots on his boots disgusted him immensely.
He frowned, and his mood instantly soured.
Salazar Slytherin's taste was truly appalling.
To actually raise such a dirty and stinky cold-blooded creature in his own Chamber of Secrets.
The Basilisk writhed its body in the water.
Its rough scales scraped against the stone pillars of the shrine, scraping off layers of green stone moss.
It hadn't smelled the scent of a living person in a long time.
A thousand years of hunger had completely filled its brain with appetite.
It raised its massive head.
Pulling its neck back, it struck an attacking posture ready for hunting.
Water droplets dripped down its huge chin.
The Basilisk abruptly opened its eyes.
Those were two yellow eyeballs as large as lanterns.
The surface of the eyeballs bulged.
This was its most lethal weapon.
As long as gaze met gaze, it could instantly tear apart the prey's soul and turn a living person into a cold corpse.
It waited for the frail human before it to fall.
Then it could tear that corpse apart with its venomous fangs and fill its shriveled stomach.
Arthur did not close his eyes.
He didn't even make a dodging movement.
He just raised his head slightly.
Meeting that pair of huge yellow reptilian eyes, he looked directly over.
Their gazes collided in mid-air.
The Basilisk's death magic followed the line of sight, fiercely piercing into the depths of Arthur's eyes.
Then, this magic slammed into an impassable high wall.
The gray mist in Arthur's right eye slowly turned half a circle.
That Soul Law fragment was triggered.
The Basilisk's proud lethal gaze was like a weak draft in front of the Soul Law.
It was swallowed completely clean by the gray mist.
Without even splashing a single drop.
Immediately following that.
The trace of blackness deep within Arthur's left eye moved.
The aura of Fiendfyre savagely counterattacked into the Basilisk's brain along the connection of their gazes.
The Basilisk's murky yellow eyeballs suddenly stiffened.
Its simple reptilian nerves suddenly sensed a terrifying high temperature capable of burning through the world.
This high temperature didn't act on its scales.
Instead, it burned directly into the depths of its consciousness.
Pressing over at the same time was the Magical Creature Affinity within Arthur's body.
This max-level talent plundered from Hagrid was completely twisted by Arthur.
This wasn't used to make friends with animals.
This was the absolute bloodline suppression of lower-tier creatures by a pure, high-dimensional life form.
Telling it who the true dark lord at the top of this food chain was.
The scene before the Basilisk's eyes changed.
It could no longer see the underground shrine, nor could it see those stone pillars.
It saw a boundless sea of black fire.
Innumerable black giant dragons crawled out of the sea of fire, opening their mouths to roar at it.
"Hiss——!"
The Basilisk let out a heart-wrenching, miserable cry.
The sound was so loud it shook loose several pieces of rubble from the ceiling.
It abruptly closed that pair of lethal yellow eyes.
Its eyelids squeezed tightly together, and excessive force caused a few drops of black blood to seep from the corners of its eyes.
It didn't dare to take another glance at Arthur at all.
Its massive body thrashed wildly in the pool.
Its tail swept against a stone pillar, smashing off a large chunk of stone.
Waves of water slammed against the wall one after another.
It rolled around the ground in pain.
Its scales rubbed against each other, making a harsh clacking sound.
The scales all over its body stood on end like the fur of a startled cat.
Arthur stood quietly in place.
The surging waves rolled to his feet, blocked away by an invisible magical barrier.
He watched this large writhing serpent rolling on the ground.
There was only indifference in the depths of his eyes.
The Basilisk finally couldn't hold on any longer.
The fear of soul burning crushed its ferocity.
It tightly curled its fifty-foot-long body into a ball.
Like a huge coil of green rope.
Its thick body trembled incessantly, shaking dense ripples across the surface of the water.
It lowered its massive head.
Pressing it completely into the cold muddy water.
Its chin smashed down less than half a meter in front of Arthur's leather boots.
Muddy water splashed up, and it didn't even dare to dodge.
It merely kept its eyes tightly closed, letting out a flattering whimper in its throat like a beaten dog.
A legendary magical creature that had lived for a thousand years.
Was now as obedient as a tamed pet snake.
Arthur lowered his eyelids.
Looking at the shivering large head beneath his feet.
"Raise your head a bit higher."
Arthur opened his mouth, emitting a hissing Parseltongue.
His voice was icy cold, carrying an unchallengeable command.
The Basilisk trembled.
Not daring to open its eyes, it could only rely on intuition to raise its head, which had been pressed against the muddy water, upward by half a meter.
Its chin laid flat against the ground, and the top of its head just reached the position of Arthur's knees.
As well-behaved as a stepping stone.
Arthur strode forward.
His leather boots stepped directly onto the space between the two eyes on top of the Basilisk's head.
The scales were very slippery, still stained with cold water.
The tactile sensation was very uncomfortable.
Arthur condensed a layer of insulation pad on the soles of his boots using magic.
"Take me out."
The Parseltongue sounded once more.
The Basilisk felt as if it had been granted a grand amnesty.
It inched its massive body bit by bit, terrified that too large of a movement would shake the jinx above its head down.
Its fifty-foot-long body slithered through the tunnel.
Crushing the bones of bats and mice all over the ground.
The snapping and cracking sounds echoed through the dark passage.
The Basilisk slithered beneath that thick vertical water pipe.
It raised its upper body, its muscles exerting force.
Following the green slime on the pipe wall, it slowly crawled upward.
The speed was very steady.
Arthur, with his hands in his robe pockets, stood steadily atop the serpent's head, rising all the way up along the pipe.
At this moment.
The abandoned girls' bathroom on the second floor of Hogwarts.
The lighting inside was extremely dim.
There was only a slight torchlight halo leaking in from the corridor.
The sink had already split down the middle.
Revealing that pitch-black large hole, emitting an unpleasant sewage odor.
Outside the bathroom door.
A very faint sound of footsteps came over.
The soles stepped on the floor tiles, intentionally slowing down the force.
A trace of black robe hem appeared at the doorway.
Snape walked into the bathroom.
He was on night patrol duty tonight.
Passing by the second-floor corridor, he keenly sensed a trace of Dark Arts fluctuations remaining in the air.
That familiar aura that made even his soul ache faintly.
Snape's breathing was somewhat rapid.
He stopped three meters away from the sink.
His face was pale.
His greasy black hair clung to his forehead.
He saw that split massive basin.
The edges of the basin were overgrown with moss.
Cold wind was blowing out from inside.
Such an ancient mechanism, despite teaching at Hogwartsfor so many years, he had never discovered it.
Snape swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
His Adam's apple rolled up and down with difficulty.
His right hand had already healed, but the fingers holding his wand were growing stiff at this moment.
A faint Lumos lit up at the tip of his wand.
He inched forward by half a step.
His leather shoes stepped on the accumulated water made by Myrtle.
The soles of his feet slipped slightly.
He quickly steadied his body, his shoe sole scraping a harsh friction sound against the tiles.
He was nervous.
One could even say it was fear.
Because he knew that the only person in the entire school capable of leaving behind that level of Dark Artsfluctuations was one.
That blond dark lord of Slytherin.
Snape clenched his back teeth.
Raising his wand to his chest, the tip steadily pointed at the pitch-black pipe exit.
He held his breath.
His ears desperately caught the commotion coming from deep within the pipe.
A muffled, massive sound of scale scraping.
Was coming along the pipe wall.
Getting closer and closer.
Chapter 43: Snape's Worldview Completely Shattered
The scraping sounds from deep within the pipes grew increasingly dense.
It sounded like countless rusted iron files scraping hard against the rough stone walls.
The sound was amplified along the hollow pipe walls, causing the bathroom tiles to vibrate in resonance.
Snape held his breath.
The air in his chest grew stale and heavy.
His right arm holding his wand was tensed rigidly, the muscles in his forearm aching from overexertion.
The Lumos at the tip of his wand could only illuminate a small circle around the edge of the sink.
The thick layer of green moss along the rim of the pipe opening had been brushed away by something.
Chunks of foul-smelling mud dropped onto the floor tiles of the sink.
Making a pattering, sticky sound.
A pungent odor of dead rats and stinking sludge rushed straight into the bathroom.
Snape's stomach churned violently.
He couldn't help dry-heaving, a sour taste rising in his throat.
A colossal green snake head poked out from the pitch-black pipe.
Its body, as thick as a water barrel, slowly wriggled forward.
Its dark green scales were covered in sticky waterweeds and bone fragments from unknown creatures.
Water droplets dripped down from its massive chin.
Snape's heart suddenly missed a beat.
He was a Potion Master who had read countless ancient texts on creatures of the Dark Arts.
He recognized what monster it was at a single glance.
The millennium-old fierce beast left in the Chamber of Secrets by Salazar Slytherin.
Direct eye contact meant instant death.
Snape broke out in a cold sweat.
In a panic, he tried to look away or close his eyes.
His soles slipped in the puddles Myrtle had made.
He staggered back a large step.
His back slammed heavily against the broken toilet tank nearby.
The bones at his waist ached sharply from the impact.
He let out a muffled grunt, nearly losing his balance and crashing to the floor.
But he quickly realized something was amiss.
This legendary, terrifying beast wasn't using its gaze to kill at all.
Its two massive eyelids were clamped tightly shut.
Blackish blood was even seeping out from the cracks.
The Basilisk's massive body was trembling on the tiles.
Its tail thrashed uneasily inside the pipe, scraping off large flakes of stone.
Right now, it looked like a docile pet dog terrified of a beating.
What had scared it into this state was the person standing atop its head.
Snape looked up along the snake's head.
And saw a pair of spotless black leather boots.
An invisible layer of magic beneath the boots insulated them from the filthy water and mucus on the snake's scales.
Arthur Grindelwald stood there.
His hands were casually shoved into his robe pockets.
He looked down condescendingly at the terrified Potion Class Professor.
His black robes, patterned with dark silver, swayed gently in the chilling wind.
Not a single speck of dust clung to his clothes.
Snape felt his entire worldview completely shatter in that single second.
Shattered beyond repair.
The common sense of magic he had firmly believed in all his life was trampled into mud.
This was a Basilisk that had lived for a thousand years!
Even the Dark Lord-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had to tread carefully and pander to it when he opened the Chamber of Secrets back in the day.
Borrowing its power to purge Mudbloods.
But what was this now?
This behemoth capable of slaughtering the entire Castlewas being used like a cheap mode of transport,
trampled under the feet of a second-year student,
while trembling incessantly.
Arthur opened his mouth.
He let out a string of slick, hissing sounds.
Pure Parseltongue reverberated back and forth between the white tiled walls of the bathroom.
Making one's scalp tingle and sending chills seeping out from the cracks of one's bones.
Hearing this sound,
the Basilisk's massive body hurriedly cowered downward,
pressing its giant head flat against the puddle-filled tiles.
It was completely a humble posture of appeasing its master,
terrified that any excessive movement would enrage the bane of existence above its head.
Arthur strode forward on his long legs,
walking down from the snake's head and standing steadily on the dry floor.
The Basilisk acted as if granted a reprieve.
Not daring to even raise its head, its massive body rapidly retreated backwards,
its scales scraping against the pipe,
and slithering back into the depths of the underground through the thick, dark opening.
Click.
The heavy stone mechanism clicked back into place.
The sink closed from both sides, returning to its original dilapidated state,
sealing off that pungent sewer stench below.
The bathroom was left with only the sound of a dripping faucet.
Drip. Drip.
Snape was still holding his wand.
The wooden wand tip pointed in Arthur's direction.
But his entire right arm was aching and weakening uncontrollably.
Arthur turned his head aside.
Those heterochromatic eyes, interwoven with pale and pitch-black hues, looked over.
He did not unleash Fiendfyre,
nor did he employ Soul Law to suppress him.
It was merely a completely nonchalant glance.
Yet Snape felt as though he had been stripped naked and thrown into a freezing wasteland.
His proud Occlumency was practically a joke in the face of that look.
All his pride and his dignity as a Dean were crushed into powder.
"You..."
Snape opened his mouth, his voice extremely hoarse.
"You shouldn't... be here in the middle of the night..."
He had originally wanted to put on a Professor's airs and scold him a bit,
but halfway through, his tongue stubbornly tied itself in a knot.
His tone was faint, sounding more like a guilty inquiry.
Even he himself thought that sentence sounded utterly foolish.
Arthur did not deign to answer such worthless nonsense.
He strode forward in his leather boots,
stepping across the floor tiles
and walking toward the dilapidated wooden door of the bathroom.
The distance between the two grew closer and closer.
Snape genuinely felt that pure, destructive sense of oppression.
The air grew thin.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to slip his wand back into his robe pocket,
but his hand was shaking far too violently.
Instead of going into the pocket, the tip poked directly into his own thigh,
sending a sharp pain through his thigh muscles.
The wand slipped from his grip, nearly dropping to the floor.
He made a panicked grab in mid-air, barely managing to catch it,
and shoved it haphazardly into his robes.
This embarrassing little mishap made his face flush a deep red,
burning hot.
Arthur walked up right in front of him,
without even breaking his stride for a fraction of a second.
"You're blocking the way."
His voice was very soft, carrying a hint of undisguised impatience.
Snape subconsciously stepped aside.
His shoulders pressed tightly against the white tiled wall mottled with green spots.
The freezing wall pierced through his clothes against his back,
the chilling cold seeping straight into his lungs.
His gaze locked onto Arthur's pair of black leather boots, which hadn't a single drop of dirty water on them,
as they slowly passed right before his eyes.
The hem of the black robes even brushed past Snape's knees.
Snape held his breath.
His heart beat wildly in his chest.
Until that retreating figure vanished into the corridor outside the door,
did the massive mountain crushing down upon him finally lift.
He let out a long, stale breath,
his windpipe burning with pain.
He realized that he had genuinely forgotten to breathe just moments before.
Leaning against the wall, cold sweat streamed down his greasy sideburns and dripped onto his collar.
Hogwarts in the early hours of the morning was exceptionally quiet.
Outside the Castle, pitch darkness still prevailed,
with only the howling autumn wind lashing against the glass windows
and the occasional shrill screech of a barn owl piercing the air.
Arthur walked up the stone stairs,
passing through several empty corridors.
The medieval knight portraits on the walls were all snoring away.
No one noticed the person who had just ransacked the Chamber of Secrets.
He did not return to the Slytherin dungeons,
heading straight for the third-floor library instead.
Madam Pince had long since locked the door and gone to bed.
Arthur raised his hand, his fingertips tapping gently against the large brass keyhole on the door.
The internal mechanism of the lock emitted a crisp clicking sound.
Click.
The heavy wooden door was pushed open a crack.
The library was unlit,
with only the moonlight streaming in through the windows, casting long, ghostly bars of light across the floor.
The air was thick with the scent of paper dust and ink from fermented old books.
Arthur walked over to a long table at the very back.
His leather boots made a soft sound as they trod upon the wooden floor.
A kerosene lamp with a dim, flickering light sat on the table.
Its wick had been trimmed very short.
Hermione Granger was sitting behind the table.
Hearing the footsteps, she jerked her head up.
Her hand was still clutching a quill stained heavily with black ink.
The tip of the quill was practically crushed in her grip.
Her hair was messier than usual, looking like a literal bird's nest.
A few stray curls were plastered to her forehead by sweat.
Two prominent, dark circles hung heavily beneath her eyes.
Her eyes were webbed with alarming bloodshot veins.
Piled on the desk before her was a towering stack of parchment covered in writing.
These were all ancient magical texts she had stayed up late translating and organizing.
Seeing Arthur walk over,
a morbid, feverish excitement instantly bloomed across Hermione's exhausted face.
Chapter 44 Hermione's Exclusive Potion Storeroom
The dim light of a kerosene lamp flickered on the wooden desk.
The light was very dim.
Hermione Granger stood up abruptly.
Because she got up too quickly, her thigh bumped against the edge of the heavy solid wood desk.
It produced a dull thud.
She frowned in pain.
But she didn't bother to rub it at all.
With both hands, she grabbed the thick stack of parchment on the desk and handed it forward.
Her knuckles turned white from the force.
The spaces between her fingernails and the back of her hand were covered with accidentally smeared black ink spots.
"The translation is finished."
Hermione's voice was extremely hoarse, as if her throat contained a mouthful of dry sand.
She swallowed a mouthful of saliva, trying to moisten her smoking-dry throat.
"There are too many grammatical faults in Ancient Runes. I compared two tenth-century dictionaries and reconstructed those core formulas for magic decay."
She panted, her chest heaving violently.
Arthur did not speak.
He reached out and took the stack of parchment smelling of fresh ink.
The paper was slightly damp and felt soft to the touch.
It was densely covered with fly-head-sized handwriting.
Although the handwriting was a bit erratic due to fatigue, the layout was extremely rigorous.
Arthur lowered his eyelids, his gaze sweeping across the parchment.
This was part of the manuscripts he brought out from Salazar Slytherin's storage room.
It involved the most obscure bloodline-stripping theory.
A second-year Witch could chew through such thousand-year-old hard bones in a single night.
This brain was indeed very useful.
"The efficiency is acceptable."
Arthur casually threw the parchment onto the desk.
The friction of the paper made a rustling sound.
This condescending evaluation sounded like a great favor falling into Hermione's ears.
A burst of morbid brilliance erupted in her bloodshot eyes.
Arthur leaned back in his chair.
He looked at the girl opposite him who was tottering from staying up late.
It was time to accelerate the process of taking over this school and the entire magic world.
Relying solely on himself to handle all those messy chores was a waste of time.
He needed a Potion consumable manufacturing machine that could completely keep up with his train of thought.
The garbage theories taught at Hogwarts simply couldn't brew what he needed.
Arthur pulled up the system panel in his mind.
The dim blue light curtain flickered on his retina.
A large sum of the massive Fear points he had accumulated previously was ruthlessly deducted by him.
"Extract high-level Dark Potion theory matrix."
A mechanical voice sounded in his mind.
Arthur raised his right hand.
His slender index finger crossed the table.
The fingertips pressed right in the center of Hermione's sweat-covered forehead.
Hermione was stunned.
She hadn't reacted yet to what this was about.
An ice-cold, piercing magic directly smashed open her skull.
It pierced brutally along the neurons deep into her brain.
"Mmph!"
Hermione let out a short, muffled groan.
Her body leaned back sharply, as if struck by a sledgehammer.
Her back slammed heavily against the back of the chair, its two front legs leaving the ground and almost tipping over.
She grabbed the edge of the table tightly with both hands.
Her right elbow accidentally knocked over the uncapped bottle of black ink.
The glass bottle fell on the desk, and the ink gushed out with a splash.
It dripped down the edge of the table onto her leather shoes.
She didn't notice it at all.
Her brain felt like it had been thrown into scalding boiling water.
A massive stream of information was crammed in violently.
Poison formulas lost for a thousand years.
The brewing heat control for the Soul Erosion Potion.
The lethal toxin reaction produced by reverse slicing of Mandrake roots.
These things tore the scientific cognition she had built over more than a decade to pieces.
The Potion common sense taught by Snape in class.
In front of this knowledge, it was as crude as a primitive man's trick of making fire by drilling wood.
Cold sweat rolled down Hermione's forehead.
Flowing into her eyes, stinging painfully.
She panted heavily, clutching her messy hair with both hands.
A few minutes later.
The excruciating pain in her brain slowly turned into a transparent numbness.
Hermione let go of her hands.
Drenched in sweat, she slumped limply in the chair.
She slowly raised her head.
Looking at the blond boy sitting opposite her.
The shock and fear in her eyes had been replaced by a complete fanaticism and submission.
Instilling knowledge.
Directly rewriting a person's academic cognitive foundation.
This was simply not something a human could do.
This was a miracle.
Hermione no longer had the slightest thought of rebellion against Arthur.
She only wanted to follow this Dark Lord who could bestow truth at will.
Even if there was a bottomless abyss ahead, she would jump down without hesitation.
"The things in your head are enough for you to digest for a while."
Arthur withdrew his fingers.
He took out a black crystal vial from his robe pocket.
And tossed it casually onto the desk.
The crystal vial rolled twice on the wooden board and stopped at the edge of the flowing ink pool.
Inside it was half a bottle of viscous silver liquid.
"Thousand-year-old Basilisk venom gland extract."
Arthur's voice had no fluctuations whatsoever in the quiet library.
"Use the new formula in your head."
"Within three days, I want to see ten bottles of Soul Erosion Potion. The purity cannot be lower than ninety percent."
Hermione swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva.
Basilisk venom.
This deadly poison, which only existed in legends, was now thrown in front of her like ordinary materials.
She reached out with trembling hands.
Her ink-stained fingers grasped tightly onto the cold crystal vial.
"Yes."
Hermione's voice was hoarse and out of tune.
"I will finish it. Hogwarts's abandoned Potion classroom... I can turn it into an exclusive laboratory."
She had completely immersed herself in her new identity.
What school rules, what Gryffindor honor.
They were all thrown into the trash can by her.
She was now just Arthur Grindelwald's chief Potionresearcher.
Arthur stood up.
Without giving another single word of instruction.
He turned and walked out of the library.
Leaving Hermione, who was immersed in fanaticism, in the dark corner.
Time moved forward silently like the undercurrent at the bottom of the Black Lake.
Not long after the new semester started.
The atmosphere at Hogwarts became increasingly bizarre.
Students from Slytherin House walked sideways in the corridors.
But they were not proud because of their pure-blood identity.
They were simply borrowing Arthur's prestige to act presumptuously.
Throughout the school, not a single Professor dared to manage Slytherin's affairs.
During class, Professor McGonagall didn't even dare to look at the seats on Slytherin's side.
Ever since Lockhart was hung on the wall and peed his pants at the opening banquet.
He directly requested a long leave and hid in his office pretending to be sick.
He didn't even dare to step out the door.
This near-suffocating absolute rule.
Like a thick black cloth, it tightly covered the sky above Hogwarts.
It was raining outside.
The autumn rain hit the glass windows of the Gryffindortower, making a dense pattering sound.
The fireplace in the common room burned very brightly.
The firewood made the cracking sound of wood breaking.
But the few people sitting in front of the hearth felt a chill emanating from the gaps in their bones.
Ron curled up in the soft chair.
He had bitten his fingernails down to the quick, and some places had even been bitten until they bled.
He stared fixedly at the portrait door leading to the corridor.
As long as there was the slightest disturbance outside, he would shiver neurotically.
Harry sat beside him with a pale face.
The scar on his forehead had hardly stopped throbbing dull aches this semester.
Percy Weasley paced back and forth in front of the fireplace.
His steps were fast, appearing very anxious.
The prefect badge on his chest was dim and dull, lacking the polished pride of before.
He tightly clutched a crumpled letter in his hand.
The envelope was stained with a few owl feathers.
This was just mailed from home this morning.
"What does Dad say in the letter?"
Harry finally couldn't stand this oppressive silence and asked a question.
His voice was somewhat dry.
Percy stopped in his tracks.
He turned his head, his eyes covered in bloodshot veins.
"Something happened at the Ministry of Magic."
He swallowed hard, his throat making a dry sound.
"Those pure-blood families... Malfoy, Nott, and Crabbe and them."
"Suddenly mass-transferring funds from Gringotts these past two days."
"They even started jointly putting pressure on Dad's department in the Wizengamot."
Percy's hands shook violently.
The parchment letter made a rustling sound in his hand.
"Dad said that undercurrents are surging at the Ministry of Magic right now. Many officials have been bribed or intimidated."
"The pure-blood families are forming alliances. Behind them is a shadow that no one dares to mention."
Hearing this, Ron directly recalled the pair of heterochromatic pupils in the train corridor.
His stomach churned.
Almost vomiting.
The Weasley family were notoriously well-known pure-blood traitors in the magic world.
They were close to Muggles.
In the pure-blood-supremacist camp, they were the first batch of targets to be purged.
Now that Dark Lord already ruled the roost at Hogwarts.
And the pure-blood families were stirring outside again.
This despair of being caught in a pincer attack pressed down so heavily on these Gryffindor boys that they couldn't breathe.
"We can't wait any longer."
Percy gritted his teeth and crushed the letter in his hand into a hard paper ball.
"If this goes on sooner or later the Weasley family will be eaten alive by those Death Eater remnants."
He walked quickly up to Harry.
And grabbed Harry by the arm.
With great force, gripping Harry painfully.
"Let's go see Dumbledore."
Percy's voice revealed a panic of being driven to a dead end.
"The Principal definitely has a way. We must beg him to provide protection for our family."
"Throughout the magic world, only he can stop that monster now."
Ron crawled up from the chair.
His legs were still weak.
But he knew that staying here meant only waiting for death.
The rain outside became heavier and heavier.
Thunder rolled across the mountains in the distance.
The three boys pushed open the Fat Lady's portrait.
And walked into the dark, cold corridor.
Hugging the base of the wall, they hurried in a panic toward the direction of the eighth-floor Principal's office.
Chapter 45: The Panic of the Pure-Blood Traitor
London.
Level Two of the Ministry of Magic.
Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office.
The space here was extremely cramped.
There were not even any windows.
The air was perpetually mixed with the unpleasant stench of old rubber, rusted iron pieces, and engine oil.
Arthur Weasley slumped in that peeling office chair.
He was clutching a letter in his hand.
The letter paper was crumpled.
The edges were stained with wet mud.
That was what Ron had desperately sent out via a school owl in the middle of the night.
Mr. Weasley read it word by word.
His breathing grew heavier and heavier.
His chest heaved violently, like a broken bellows leaking wind.
The handwriting in the letter was very messy.
In several places, the ink was completely blurred by dripping tears, smudging into a patch of dark spots.
Between the lines was the purest despair of a second-year boy.
There was no exaggerated rhetoric.
It merely described dryly the black fire that had devoured the Troll.
And the fear that Harry felt in the corridor, unable to even draw his wand.
Mr. Weasley's fingers began to tremble.
His fingernails unconsciously clawed a few small holes into the parchment.
The letter paper made a harsh tearing sound.
He felt as though he could hardly breathe.
That boy named Arthur Grindelwald was simply unbridled at Hogwarts.
Even Dumbledore could not stop him.
That was not an ordinary bad student.
That was a monster truly wearing human skin.
"Arthur, are you alright?"
Old Perkins, sitting opposite him, held a teacup and asked with some concern.
Mr. Weasley abruptly stood up.
Rising too hastily, his knees slammed hard against the iron drawer under the desk.
Producing a muffled impact sound.
He could not care about the piercing dull pain in his legs.
"No... I cannot wait any longer."
He clenched his back teeth and stuffed several sheets of parchment on the desk blindly into his briefcase.
The movement was very rough, and the edges of the parchment were torn apart.
"He is already out of control at Hogwarts! The Wizengamot must intervene to investigate that Grindelwald's background."
Mr. Weasley grabbed the old overcoat hanging on the coat rack.
He knew he was weak and isolated.
But he had already contacted several old friends from the Order of the Phoenix a few days ago.
Preparing to use an educational decree from the Ministry of Magic to forcibly dispatch an investigative team into Hogwarts.
At least, to isolate that dangerous element from the students.
Even if it cost him this job.
Hogwarts.
The single dormitory in the Slytherin dungeon.
The eerie green cold fire in the fireplace burned quietly.
Arthur leaned against the black leather sofa.
Holding a glass of red wine in his hand, without drinking it.
The water of the Black Lake outside the window was very dark, and several tiny water snakes slithered past against the glass.
On the mahogany desk lay a newly opened letter.
The letter paper carried a faint scent of incense.
That was what Lucius Malfoy had just sent via an expedited owl.
The letter detailed the foolish actions of Arthur Weasleyrunning around the Ministry of Magic and attempting to launch an investigation.
Arthur glanced over the contents of the letter.
Finding it extremely absurd.
A rat hiding in the sewer actually delusional enough to try to prosecute a dragon with a few pieces of tattered parchment.
The Ministry of Magic's laws?
That was nothing more than a foot-rag piled up by pure-blood families and Galleons.
He did not even have the thought of getting angry.
Personally dealing with such a bottom-layer minor character would simply dirty his own hands.
That bunch of remnants of the Order of the Phoenixfundamentally did not understand what kind of machine they were facing.
Arthur picked up a quill.
Casually scrawled a line of words on another blank piece of parchment.
The nib rubbed against the paper surface making a rustling sound.
"Make him shut up. I want to make him lose even the qualification to stand and speak."
Finishing writing, he rolled up the paper.
And threw it to the black horned owl waiting on the windowsill.
The horned owl held the letter in its beak.
Flapped its wings and drilled into the ventilation duct.
A few hours later.
The Ministry of Magic.
The corridor outside the Wizengamot courtroom.
The temperature here was very low.
The magical torches on the wall shone with a dim yellow light.
Arthur Weasley gripped several compiled indictment materials.
He was waiting for his allies.
The elevator at the end of the corridor made a crisp "ding".
The iron lattice gate slid open.
But what walked out were not members of the Order of the Phoenix.
But two Aurors wearing black uniforms.
Behind them followed the senior assistant to Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge.
A man with a full face of freckles and a cold gaze.
"Arthur Weasley."
The assistant's voice sounded like a dry piece of wood.
Devoid of any emotion.
Mr. Weasley was stunned.
He took half a step forward.
"Why don't you go capture that dangerous element abusing the Dark Arts in school, and come here instead?"
A sudden ominous premonition surged in his heart.
The two Aurors walked directly over.
One on the left and one on the right, roughly seizing his arms.
Their strength was shockingly great.
Mr. Weasley struggled a bit, and the parchment in his hand dropped all over the floor directly.
"You are suspended."
The assistant read a red-headed document in his hand expressionlessly.
"According to the overnight review by the special committee."
"Your office is suspected of illegally modifying Mugglehazardous items for a long time, and there are serious issues of misappropriation of funds."
Mr. Weasley's head went buzzing with a hum.
As if struck in the back of the head by a large sledgehammer.
His eardrums buzzed.
"This... this is a frame-up! I have never..."
He stammered, his voice appearing incomparably pale in the empty corridor.
He wanted to explain.
But the Auror's hands tightly gripped his bones, causing him to break out in cold sweat from the pain.
From the shadows at the other end of the corridor came a steady sound of footsteps.
Leather shoes treading on the marble floor.
Accompanied by the crisp sound of a metal cane striking the ground.
Lucius Malfoy slowly walked out.
He was still wearing that exquisite black robe.
His chin slightly raised.
His face bore an undisguised mockery.
He walked up to Mr. Weasley.
Looking down at those materials accusing Grindelwaldscattered on the ground.
Lucius casually poked those paper pieces into the muddy water with the tip of his cane.
And ground them a few times.
"Arthur."
Lucius's voice was very soft, yet carried lethal venom.
"Did you think that with your pitiful salary and so-called sense of justice, you could stir up any waves in the Ministry of Magic?"
Lucius leaned closer.
Lowering his voice so only the two of them could hear.
"You fundamentally do not know what kind of entity you have provoked."
He adjusted his cuffs.
"In the past three hours."
"Malfoy, Nott, Goyle... and thirteen other pure-blood families."
"Donated a full five hundred thousand Galleons into Minister Fudge's private vault."
Lucius watched Mr. Weasley's face gradually lose all color.
Finding it extremely gratifying.
"Those old friends of yours who wanted to speak for you are all undergoing internal investigations now."
"No one dares to help you."
"You, and your cowardly family, have been completely isolated."
Mr. Weasley felt his legs grow weak.
A wave of sour water surged up in his stomach.
He finally realized that the Ministry of Magic had rotted to the core long ago.
That eleven-year-old boy far away at Hogwarts had not even shown his face.
Yet with the means of money and power.
In a single day, he tore the Order of the Phoenix's defense line in the Ministry of Magic to pieces.
This was a dimensional strike.
All the pure-blood families defected, willingly acting as running dogs for that Dark Lord.
All laws and rules, in front of absolute wealth and fear, were not even as good as waste paper.
Mr. Weasley leaned against the cold, hard wall.
Immense panic engulfed him like a tide.
He seemed to see the dark era of Death Eater rampancy descend once more.
And even more despairing than the last time.
Because this time's Dark Lord did not even deign to do it himself.
Returning to Hogwarts.
Slytherin common room.
The night was already very deep.
The students in the common room had long since returned to their respective dormitories.
Even the fire in the fireplace was about to go out, leaving only a few dark red sparks.
The air carried the damp chill unique to the basement.
In Arthur's single dormitory.
The lighting was very dim.
He sat before the desk, perusing a roll of parchment brought out from Salazar's Chamber of Secrets.
It recorded a lost Dark Art of purifying magic through blood replacement.
The edges of the paper were somewhat brittle due to age.
Making a subtle rustling sound when turned.
Just at this moment.
A slight commotion came from outside the door.
Not footsteps.
But the rustling sound of clothing fabric rubbing against the stone wall.
Then, there were two very faint knocks on the door.
Knock. Knock.
The sound was as light as a mouse scratching a wooden board.
The person knocking seemed to be desperately suppressing the fear in her heart, even her fingers trembling.
Arthur did not raise his head.
His gaze still lingered on the ancient runes.
"Come in."
He spat out a word, his voice calm.
The heavy oak door made a muffled sound as it was slowly pushed open.
The cold wind outside the corridor drilled in through the crack of the door.
Causing the flame on the desk to flicker.
Two girls stood at the doorway.
Walking in front was Daphne Greengrass.
Slytherin's famous ice-queen beauty.
But she now completely lacked her usual arrogance.
She wore a thin nightrobe.
Her complexion was pale, her lips biting out a row of clear teeth marks.
Her hands tightly clutched the corner of her robe, her knuckles turning white.
Barefoot on the icy floor tiles.
Hiding behind her was a slightly smaller girl.
It was her sister, Astoria.
Astoria looked extremely weak.
Her breathing was short.
Her skin was nearly transparently white.
One could even see in the blood vessels of her neck an abnormal black qi faintly emanating.
That was the precursor to the blood curse flare-up.
A vicious, incurable curse engraved in the bloodline of the Greengrass family.
Coiled in her bone marrow like a venomous snake.
Daphne held her sister's hand.
Stepping into the room cautiously.
Not even daring to close the door tightly.
They stood trembling three meters away from the desk.
Shivering all over.
Like two pitiful lambs that had mistakenly strayed into a lion's territory.