Hogwarts 1991

131 Chapter 133 Let's do it!Let's do it!
"Harry, say a few words, say a few words in Parseltongue." Ron suggested, "Whether it's a MacGuffin or not, something will always come out of this guy's mouth?"

"But—" Harry thought so too.

But it was really strange, as long as he faced a snake the first two times, he would naturally be able to communicate with the snake in Parseltongue.

——It seems that the magic is not working now.

"Hello!... Are you a MacGuffin?" Some awkward dialogue.

He looked up at Ron, who shook his head.

"No way!...Harry, do you really speak Parseltongue?" He was a little skeptical.

Harry turned his head away again, wondering now too,

And he carefully looked at the snake in the glass box, staring at its golden vertical pupils, and for some reason suddenly had a feeling in his mind.

——It didn't turn into a MacGuffin, nor was it the snake that I met in the Forbidden Forest back then.

Looking at the snake, he couldn't feel the flash of human emotion and wisdom.

——Its eyes are completely full of bloodthirsty killing, it is a ferocious beast.

"I don't know what's going on? Ron, this snake, something is wrong, something is wrong..."

For some reason, Harry panicked.But still he tried again, "Can you talk?"

"Hungry... so hungry... eat it... eat it... tear you apart... devour you..."

A voice, a cold, vicious, suffocating word suddenly came out of the snake's mouth, like two iron sheets rubbing against each other, hoarse, sharp and piercing, hissing.

This made Harry take two steps back and bump into Ron who was beside him.

At this moment, the snake stood up abruptly, rolled up the tail of the dead mouse in the corner of the glass box, pulled it near its mouth, and swallowed it in one gulp.

— Gollum!
Along with the sound, Ron also took a big mouthful of saliva, and then he reacted and moved his head away from the glass stiffly.

His face was very ugly, terribly pale.

"It's not a MacGuffin, and it's not the snake you saw in the Forbidden Forest...the sound is different," said Harry.

"You don't need to say... Harry?" Ron's expression was very stiff, but instead he joked with a 'tough guy' face, "If the McGuffin is really this snake...then...then...I will definitely break up with him, maybe one day he will swallow Scabbers and Neville's toad Raffle..."

As he spoke, he looked at the bulging oval shape near the snake's abdomen——slowly moving down the middle of the snake's body.

"vomit--"

Still can't hold on.

Ron retched, pulled Harry and wanted to leave quickly.

Harry took a sharp breath, and he saw it in the glass reflection.

— Quirrell walked in with the big purple scarf.

He still looked the same cringe, only looking paler and thinner. .

—almost like a skeleton, feeling like a gust of wind could blow him down
And he kept wiping the sweat all over his body, and the smell of garlic in the air became more intense.

"Good-afternoon!" he stammered, as usual, "Po-po-Potter, good to see you! Ron, too! You're here - looking for-me-me-me, for what?"

Ron and Harry lowered their heads, staring blankly at the shoes on their feet... They didn't know how to face this problem, or how to face this 'coward' professor who might be the culprit in kidnapping MacGuffin after being coerced by Snape.

"We just... wanted to..." Harry didn't really know what he wanted to say.

It was Ron who reacted, and he added, "We just learned from Professor McGonagall that Professor Quirrell asked you to leave McGuffin for some important things... We are a little worried about him and want to ask when he can finish those things?"

"Mr. Albert...has-important-important things to do, you'd better not disturb him-him!" Professor Quirrell said vaguely, looking very nervous, "you can see him-him tomorrow morning..."

Then Quirrell seemed to change the subject on purpose, and laughed nervously, "I-I-I just saw you observe my new pet...how is it?...do you two like it? It's cute, right?"

As he spoke, he came to the glass box, knocked on the glass, and the muscles on the left side of his face kept twitching.

——I can't feel it normally, but now it makes the two of them feel utterly horrified, and their hearts feel cold.

"Okay... It looks really good, very cute... Now that we know about the MacGuffin, we won't bother you, Professor..." Ron pulled Harry back and said goodbye to Quirrell, then walked away quickly.

— This is not a place to stay forever.

The two returned to the Gryffindor common room and met Hermione.

In an unnoticed corner, Harry and Ron first talked about the scene they saw in Quirrell's office.

Ron said seriously: "It's definitely not a McGuffin. Even if Albert is crazy, he won't be able to swallow a dead mouse, and he still has fur..."

"Whoa!—I feel disgusted when I think of that scene!... But Quirrell is very suspicious. Hermione, you haven't seen the decorations in his office, those vampire pictures... The whole atmosphere is gloomy and terrifying, and he looks like an old dark wizard! Maybe he's just pretending, he was Voldemort's minion just like Snape..."

Harry was a little dazed. He was trying to recall whether it was the snake he saw in the Forbidden Forest. The more he recalled, the two snakes seemed almost identical in appearance,...but the sound of the two, or the feeling they gave Harry were completely different!
Afterwards, Hermione told them about her own encounter in front of Snape's office.

Hermione didn't know how to get into Snape's office at first, and then she herself ran into Malfoy there.

"I feel like Malfoy knows something, the look at me is not the usual disgust and mockery, it's very weird... and he asked me what's the matter, and finally he even seemed to be very 'kind' and told me how to enter Snape's office..."

"It doesn't look like Malfoy at all... it feels like he's up to some tricks!"

Hermione described Malfoy's strangeness with puzzlement and a little worry.

"Don't worry, he definitely wants you to go to Snape, and let Snape punish you! - As we all know, Snape is not very friendly to all Gryffindor students. He probably was glad that you were stupid! ...Going to find Professor Snape to get scolded... That's why he 'kindly' showed you the way." Ron comforted Hermione.

Then Hermione told Harry and them——she racked her brains and managed to find a few plausible questions. When she asked Snape, she probably saw the furnishings in Snape's office.

"No sign of a MacGuffin," she said firmly.

Ron was a little disbelieving, "Did you really see clearly? Are there some small animals that you haven't noticed... If you miss any clues, it will be a big disaster!"

"Yeah, if you're looking for small dead animals... Snape's walls are full of small animal specimens soaked in solution, potion ingredients." Hermione said a little unhappy, "If McGuffin is one of them, it's really a big deal!"

"Okay? Looks like there's only one way left..." Harry came to his senses at this moment and didn't worry about the snake anymore.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to them, he whispered, "When no one is around tonight..."

……

After dinner, several people waited anxiously for the public room to quiet down, and they also had to avoid others, try not to contact people, so as not to let them find out the clues.

It's not easy... Although others didn't have much to say to Harry because of Harry's points deductions, but because Neville was also isolated, these days, he has been closely following a few people, otherwise no one would have talked to him.

What's more, Hermione also helped him with his homework these days.

Studying for the final exams, especially the Potions exam, Neville's grades were a mess. ——even for Harry, Snape's number one thorn in the side, compared to Neville... he felt that his chances of passing the potions exam were better than him.

It was only a few days before the exam, and Neville strictly followed the exam review plan that Hermione helped him revise, although Ron didn't quite believe it.

But tonight, they really couldn't settle down to read the content of the book and review it.

In this case, Hermione didn't pay much attention to Neville's tutoring, even Neville felt it, and he even found out a few careless mistakes of Hermione frequently.

"Are you a little weird today?" Neville stared at the nervous and anxious faces of the three of them.

"What-is...strange?" Several stammered voices sounded chaotically, and the three faces were full of guilt.

—Did Neville see something?

"Aha! By the way, Hermione, why didn't you review today... I feel like something is missing?" Neville suddenly clenched his fists and said loudly.

The hearts of several people were almost frightened.

"I'm so nervous... the exam is coming soon! I really can't study anymore..." Hermione quickly distinguished.

"Hermione, will you do the same? ^ I thought it was just me? I will give you a method...my grandma told me, it works very well..."

……

"Then I'll go to rest first..." Neville finally said with a hutch.

Amid the trepidation of several people, Harry accompanied Neville Longbottom back to the dormitory.

Harry, he went back to the dark dormitory, took out the invisibility cloak covered with red velvet from the box, and brought it with him—the flute that Hagrid gave him for Christmas. Although Hermione said that she could conjure music with a wand, Harry still took this flute with him, although it looked like some kind of strange cold weapon rather than a musical instrument...

He quickly returned to the common room, and after repeatedly confirming with Ron and Hermione that there was no one in the lounge, several of them breathed a sigh of relief, tore off the red velvet cloth, shook off the invisibility cloak, and put it on the three of them together.

"Who?" After the portrait channel was opened and closed, the fat lady felt like a ghost, and she rubbed her eyes vigorously.

"Is it the little wizard who learned the [Phantom Spell] night tour? Or is it Peeves who is invisible and then jokes with me--I'm going to be angry!... Hurry up and show your appearance!" She frantically shook the small pink paper fan in her hand, covering half of her face, and scanned the dark corridor in front of her with her two eyes.

"What a hell! First, a big black snake came out of nowhere in the morning... At night, the portrait passage opened out of nowhere, if it wasn't the little wizard or Peeves..." The fat lady shuddered, stood up from the chair, moved her body, walked along the portraits, and came to the portraits of a magnificent medieval house - there were more than a dozen figures dressed as ladies gathered for afternoon tea.

But at this time, Harry and the others had gone far away, and they hadn't heard the last words of the fat lady.

Soon, they escaped Mrs. Norris' inspection, avoided Filch who was running after Peeves with an oil lamp, and came to the outside of the restricted area in the corridor on the fourth floor.

they see

—the door has been pulled open a crack.

"It seems that Snape has already passed Lu Wei." Harry whispered, "We must find a way to stop him, and then ask him what happened to the McGuffin..."

Just as Harry was about to go in, Hermione held them back.

Harry Ron looked puzzled at this.

Hermione explained, "In case we fail, someone has to know what's going on here... Just like the note McGuffin left us, we have to remind other people or the professor..."

As she said that, she picked up the wand and turned the oak door into a blood-red line, with a big pale white word "Danger" left on it, all of which were very eye-catching and weird under the dim light not far away.

"Okay, let's go in together now." Hermione pushed the door open.

——Following the creaking sound of the door opening, several people entered together.

But what they didn't expect was that in a dark corner that they didn't pay attention to, a black figure emerged from it.

"I've caught you...Harry! You guys are finished now..." The black shadow gradually receded, and a human silhouette appeared.

Can you tell who this person is at a glance?
Even under the dimly flickering magic candle lamp, there was no one else except Draco Malfoy with the shiny golden head.

He was staring at the somewhat harsh red oak door, slowly fumbling and turning a black gemstone ring on his finger.

——This black gem was cut into a diamond-shaped section with 32 sides, and the overall shape was in the shape of a water drop. It was inlaid on a platinum ring. From time to time, the black gem glowed with a bloody magical light under the light.

It is usually worn on the middle finger of the left hand. After turning it three times to the left, it can cover the holder with a layer of shadow for a long time, and the outline of the face cannot be seen at all. It also has the effect of invisibility and blurring in the dark.

(However, the spell attached to this ring has the same negative effect as ancient black witchcraft. If it takes too long, the skin of the bearer will turn black and pitch black. ——It lasts for about a week, and it is very difficult to remove)
So Malfoy had to stop and reveal himself for a few seconds.

——This is actually the loot captured by their ancestors after a certain wizard thief visited Malfoy Manor in the last century and was caught.

Although the black gemstone ring looks very graceful and gorgeous under the light, with bright pearls, it is actually an item once owned by a thief, and it cannot conceal the tasteless magic effect of the black gemstone ring.

After learning that his son Malfoy can actually be caught at night (Hogwarts students can be caught at night, unless it is those idiot Hufflepuffs, this is a joke secretly circulated in Slytherin), which made Lucius Malfoy furious. At the same time, he mailed this useless ring to Malfoy, and told him that if he was caught at night again, the Malfoy family would expel him.

"Father, I won't shame the name of the Malfoy family this time. I want Harry the idiot, Hermione the Mudblood, Ron the Poor, and the Crazy MacGuffin to be kicked out of school. This time, I will catch them with my own hands, and I won't miss the opportunity again..."

Malfoy muttered to himself, he remembered that after Professor McGonagall let him go at noon today, he hid in a corner on the way back, and overheard Harry and the others wanting to go to the restricted area on the fourth floor tonight.

It's a pity that most of the words... These people were too quiet, so that Malfoy couldn't hear him, and it was daytime at that time, the magic effect of this ring was useless at all, and he couldn't get close.

In the end, I just learned that they will come to the restricted area on the fourth floor to steal something tonight, and it is also related to Quirrell, Dumbledore, and Professor Snape...

In any case, these guys' sneaky appearance must be hiding the professor's knowledge, and it's not doing anything good, or even this is another illegal activity of their criminal organization.

——This time he won't be hesitating, he missed the opportunity.

Be sure to catch them all.

Malfoy turned the ring three times to the left again, his figure gradually blurred.

Afterwards——among the dark shadows and the flickering dim light of the magic candle, a translucent and fuzzy black figure appeared from time to time, constantly moving rapidly towards the red gate of the restricted area on the fourth floor.

Eventually Malfoy edged his way through the crack.

(End of this chapter)