Hogwarts 1991

Chapter 388 Theseus

Finally, Dumbledore and the others stopped,

The professors are just a bookshelf away from the McGuffins.

The magic lamp even floated directly not far from the heads of several people.

McGuffin clenched his teeth, exhaled little by little, inhaled little by little, and if possible, he even wanted to pause his heart, lest the beating sound would reveal his existence...

"Professor?" Snape asked softly, the eyes of the old bat monster were fixed on the vacant position of the magic book in the bookshelf, and his thin and white fingers slowly protruded out in the darkness, reaching for that position...

The McGuffin was so tense that his intestines were almost tangled.

See what's coming?

— Dulu.

A strange voice sounded in the darkness.

Even if he couldn't see it, McGuffin could feel the fear and blame piercing through the invisibility cloak of the three people next to him.

Under the fear and tension, Mai Erfei's intestines began to wriggle and make noises.

- Luh, luh!

Although the sound was low and soft, the sound was like a sledgehammer, hitting his forehead with a hammer, which made McGuffin dizzy and black.

Finished!

"Who?" Snape and Fudge said almost at the same time, they took a step forward, and the dim light illuminated several people's nightgowns and livid faces.

——Meow!
Crookshanks wagged his tail and slowly walked out of the dark corner.

McGuffin's gratitude to the cat owner is beyond words.

"Which student's cat is this?"

Fudge breathed a sigh of relief, and then hurriedly urged Dumbledore, "Albus, hurry up! I have to listen to the investigation report on the dementors from the Department of Mysteries and the Auror Office early tomorrow morning. The disappearance of these monsters for so many days makes many people uneasy..."

Snape looked up, looking straight through the McGuffins.

Looking at the situation, he was still a little eager to try, wanting to move forward to see what was there.

Dumbledore reached out his hand to stop Snape at this time, the half-moon glasses emitted the light of the magic lamp in the darkness, and some couldn't see his expression and eyes clearly.

But McGuffin always felt as if the old bee had spotted them.

"Okay, professor, don't waste time, let's get started!"

Dumbledore took the two of them back a step, bent over and waved his wand to tap the ground.

McGuffin looked down, and under the orange-red light, he realized that for some reason, there was a Möbius ring painted on the ground, slightly raised, which looked like bronze.

(The Möbius ring, or the Möbius strip, is a paper strip made by twisting a strip of paper by 180° and bonding the two ends together. That is to say, its curved surface is reduced from two to only one)
He was a little strange, why didn't he find out just now?
"Infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom!"

Dumbledore moved slowly, and the iron ring that symbolized infinity began to glow, squirmed, and separated from the ground, floating up, hanging in the mid-air between McGuffin and Dumbledore.

"Albus? This is?" Fudge asked.

"You know what happened to Quilinus Quirrell the year before last?"

"Is that [headless golden statue]? Well, I remember that the auctioned funds for that statue...um, no...has it been divided equally with the Hogwarts board of directors?"

Looking at this strange scene, Fudge went bald for a moment, subconsciously slipping out the truth.

There was some silence, but fortunately neither Dumbledore nor Snape cared about this person.

Dumbledore continued to speak calmly, "Connelly, at that time Voldemort possessed Quilinus in a strange posture, sucking his vitality, trying to seize the Sorcerer's Stone..."

"Come on, Dumbledore!" Fudge said angrily, "The Dark Lord is staying in the Black Forest of Albania, he has not been resurrected, he has not come out...the best and most cautious Aurors of the Ministry of Magic are watching out for his dark magic power, if you are showing off those sensational rumors again, then I will turn around and leave here..."

"Connelly, believe it or not, what is in front of you now is undeniable evidence. Even if you think Voldemort didn't come to Hogwarts in person, the fact that he colluded with Quilinus Quirrell exists there."

"What?" Fudge asked angrily.

Dumbledore didn't answer Fudge's question, but asked Snape on the other side, "Severus, do you still remember when you were spying on Quirrell, where he went most often..."

"The trapdoor underpass and the library here! I lost him here more than once?" said Snape. "you mean?"

"Voldemort is worthy of being the most outstanding student in the history of Hogwarts. He knew the [Secret Library] left by Raven Klaw when he was a student, and took it as his own."

"It was only last year that I accidentally learned about something, or else I always thought it was some kind of absurd legend like Hufflepuff's [Cultivation Garden]?"

(Listening to Dumbledore's words, McGuffin remembered that around Christmas in the first grade, he had frantically searched for relevant information and materials in the restricted area because of the [Blood Curse], but accidentally ran into Quirrell. At that time, he couldn't figure out how that guy disappeared. It seems that this is the reason. And the thing that Dumbledore said last year should be the notebook [Horcrux] without accident. He should have learned this information from Voldemort's soul fragments.)
"Thanks to the clues provided by Mrs. Pince, I was able to confirm the existence of this room tonight." Dumbledore continued.

Fudge wanted to ask something more.

Dumbledore waved his hand, signaling to go in first, and he raised his wand to hit the middle of the ring space.

A series of silver ripples lit up, and the Moss Ubi ring formed a strange plane, with silvery waves.

It kept hovering above the spot, slowly disturbing and trembling.

After that, an old man's face similar to Dumbledore's face protruded from the silver mirror.

hoarse voice,

Like chewing a mouthful of sawdust, rubbing and making a sound,
"Theseus will slowly exchange his memory and thoughts to another person starting on the third day of April every year, in order to live forever. When all souls and memories are exchanged..."

"Ask—is it possible for him to live forever at last?"

"The Curse of Theseus!"

"how is this possible?"

Snape and Fudge exclaimed together, their faces even uglier under the dim light.

McGuffin also remembered that this was the most famous philosophical question in ancient Greece - the question of the Ship of Theseus.

It now appears that this is not simply a matter of Muggle philosophy.

"Albus, I know that thing. The Department of Mysteries of every country has recorded it—this can be said to be the most serious magical accident in history." Fudge hurriedly said to the huge human face formed by magic after a sigh of relief, "——Theseus, who tried to live forever, was finally made into a potion by his friend the astrologer Pudrick with the hair of Medusa, and he was permanently petrified into a statue."

"He is now kept in the French Ministry of Magic's underground collection treasury, and it can be said that he is completely dead."

"wrong answer!"

"Two more chances this week."

"Minister, Theseus is still alive!" Snape said, "He is now in a dormant state. The curse he invented is mixed with Medusa's curse, and he is in a state of immortality. The latest research shows that the petrified statue still has the magic power of life entwined on it. As long as the right method is found, that thing can still be revived."

So Snape turned around and said to the mirror, "Theseus is in a state of immortality."

"Wrong answer, one more time left."

A smile appeared on Dumbledore's face, and he murmured unhurriedly, "Tom's little trick."

Then he said, "Although people cross the same river, the water flowing around them is different. When thoughts and memory souls are exchanged every time, he can't perfectly control the mixing of other people's thoughts and memories. In the end, Theseus is no longer Theseus."

"correct answer!"

After Dumbledore finished answering, the old man's face closed his eyes and slowly sank into disappearance. The entire mirror trembled slightly, disintegrating piece by piece until finally disappearing.

The ring of Moubis began to rotate continuously, turning itself into a sphere,
where the whole space becomes a translucent color,
Like a bubble that is about to pop.

"Okay, let's go in!"

Dumbledore lifted the magic lamp again with one hand and walked into it first, followed by Fudge and Snape.

Like putting on an invisibility cloak, their bodies gradually became translucent, until finally their figures disappeared.

For a moment, all the lights in the library disappeared, and it was empty and silent, only the orange light in the corridor was exposed through the crack of the oak door.

McGuffin didn't know if Hermione and the others had left, and he didn't dare to make a sound, and he didn't dare to walk directly through that place, for fear that he would meet the professor and the others coming out.

On the other hand, he was really curious about Ravenclaw's secret library and the [Curse of Theseus].

Moreover, the [Soul-shifting Phantom] spell he collected again is still short of the last fragment to complete.

Now, McGuffin had a strong intuition in his mind that the last piece of the puzzle lay ahead.

It's a pity that he can't do anything now, or come back at another time?
Explore and see what Dumbledore said about [Secret Library]?
Anyway, he still has the Marauder's Map in his hand, so he should be able to avoid these professors.

Just when McGuffin was hesitating and didn't know whether to go or not,
Crookshanks meowed and walked slowly down the aisle of bookshelves.

It seemed that he was able to leave.

McGuffin and Ron Hermione spent a long time groping for each other before they ran out of the library without making a sound.

Stumbling and bumping into each other several times on the way, they returned to the common room.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Ron tore off the invisibility cloak, and McGuffin lifted the invisibility spell.

"Did you see it? That secret room? How many secret passages does Hogwarts have?" Ron said, his face excited and pointed.

Needless to say, this guy still didn't give up going to the secret passage of Hogsmeade.

Hermione obviously didn't care about this, her eyes glowed, and she said dreamily, "Ravencarlaw's [Secret Library]...it's really...I really want to see it!"

The tone was full of longing.

As Hermione came to her senses, she stared suspiciously at McGuffin, "McGuffin, do you know about this?"

"Accident, what an accident, you also saw that I just went to read those banned books..."

When McGuffin said this, everyone immediately remembered the book they had been holding in their hands.

Several people turned their heads to look at Harry's hand,

The cover of the magic ancient book, which looked like a combination of tanned human bones and crocodile skin, was still tightly held in his hand.

"Unlucky! Harry, why didn't you put this thing back easily." McGuffin complained.

"What if Mrs. Pince counts the books?" Hermione asked. "Go back now? Go back?
"So many books? Impossible to count!" said Ron.

"Use magic! You're not a wizard anymore." Hermione said angrily.

In the end, Hermione summoned Dobby and asked her to put the book back in the library.

……

The [Secret Library] incident made Hermione unable to calm down, just like pulling out a mouse that saw cheese and throwing it aside.

She couldn't stand the throbbing in her heart at all.

the next day,
In the common room, Hermione was very rarely in a daze, and froze in place, not organizing her House-Elf Rights Promotion Association, or reviewing materials related to the exam over and over again.

Even Ron could see that something was wrong with her.

"Hermione, don't think about that secret library, you'll go crazy. You've heard what Professor Dumbledore said, that thing was left by the Dark Lord and Quirrell, who knows what curse is in it."

"No, that's Ravenclaw's [Chamber of Secrets]. Think about the Slytherin [Chamber of Secrets] that was piped underground last year, and the [Ancient Classroom] with a strong Gryffindor style...I'm sure the Big Four must have left a secret room for each."

"The Chamber of Secrets in Ravenclaw must be full of knowledge, wisdom... all kinds of ancient books and spells..."

(Ron rolled his eyes watching Hermione daydreaming like a demon)
"There must be a lot of precious books there! Thinking of this, I can't calm down and read... I can't concentrate at all..."

Hermione flushed with excitement and kept talking.

Ron turned to McGuffin and Harry and said, "I wonder why she wasn't assigned to Ravenclaw in the first place?"

"McGuffin, come and have a look there with me tonight! Don't refuse, I know you will go to see it secretly." Hermione grabbed McGuffin by the collar and shook it vigorously.

McGuffin had no choice but to nod his head with great difficulty.

He really wants to look at this [Secret Library].

Especially MacGuffin he has a strong feeling,
The last fragment of my unfinished magic [Moving Soul Phantom] will definitely be put together here.

Ron was dumbfounded to hear Hermione propose to McGuffin.

Harry said, "Now you understand why Hermione is in Gryffindor!"

(End of this chapter)