Hogwarts Archaeologist Toby

"I didn't lie to you. Professor Highmore and Professor Snape are in the corridor. This is obviously a trap for Malfoy. He won't go to the prize room!"

"Stop kidding, do you think we will believe it? They fought last time. If they were really together, the corridor would be so quiet?"

Hermione finally met Harry and Ron who were going to duel. She lowered her voice and yelled at them, but the two men couldn't listen at all.

As a result, when the three of them all walked out of the common room, they found that the fat lady had gone somewhere, and Hermione couldn't go back.

"How can this be done?" She asked loudly.

In the end, she had to keep up with Harry and Ron, so that even if she was discovered, these two people could testify against her.

Not long after walking, they came across Neville sleeping on the floor again. His arm had healed, but he had forgotten the password, so he fell asleep on the floor.

The original two turned into four, and Ron was furious, and Harry hurriedly stopped him from continuing to lose his temper.

They walked along the corridor, and the moonlight poured in from the high windows, streaking across the floor.Every time he turned a corner, Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but fortunately, they were lucky.They hurried up the stairs to the fourth floor and tiptoed towards the trophy room.

But their luck finally ended here.

Even without Ron's reminder, Harry could hear two sets of hurried footsteps, and the scariest thing was that they also heard Snape's voice.

"Run!"

Harry said in a low voice.

On the other hand, after Filch finished saying that sentence, Snape ignored Toby, and he and Filch hurried away.Toby wasn't curious at all. He continued to seize the time to check the portraits on the other walls on the fourth floor, gently opened each portrait, and then looked back with his head.

This kind of thing couldn't be done during the day, it would be too conspicuous, and could only be done at night while the portraits were asleep.

After a while, Toby suddenly heard the sound of armor falling. The sound was clear and spread throughout the corridor.

"Well...it's so noisy, what are you doing?" The portrait was woken up.

Toby's movements suddenly froze, but in the next second, he naturally turned out a rag and wiped it on the frame: "Your portrait is dirty, these house elves are really unreliable - —”

He criticized the house elf for a while, and the portrait finally fell asleep again.

Immediately afterwards, Toby, with a livid face, met four people who were desperately fleeing in the corridor—they had just entered the forbidden room and found Lu Wei, the three-headed dog. Now they were busy running for their lives, but they didn't run far Then I ran into Professor Haimo who was blocking the middle of the corridor like a god of death.

"what--"

Ron screamed and fell directly on his back, tripping Harry, Neville, and Hermione behind him one after another, and his body was pinned at the bottom. Under the double blessing of panic and breathlessness, Ron almost fainted. ?

"This time, you are also tired from sleeping, so you come out for a run in the middle of the night?"

No one dared to speak out, even Neville and even Hermione who had just contacted were startled by Professor Highmore's tone.

"You four, follow me."

The four got up quickly, and Ron clutched his chest in pain. He regretted it very much now, but he didn't expect that what Hermione said was true - both Snape and Professor Highmore were in the corridor of the castle.

Harry was more regretful than Ron. He had long felt that something was wrong, but he refused to listen to Hermione's words for no reason, purely out of anger.

Neville's tears were streaming down his face, while Hermione had a look of despair on her face. She didn't even know how she got to the Ancient Magic Office.

Toby didn't turn on all the lights, leaving only a dim layer of light. Whether it was a coffin or a skeleton without a head, it looked even more weird and terrifying.

The four people stood across the desk in fear. They only felt that countless pairs of eyes were staring at them secretly. In terms of horror, Professor Heimer's office is more terrifying than Lu Wei's room, perhaps only the unknown Forbidden Forest can compare.

Toby sat on the sofa behind his desk with a gloomy face. He didn't even complete one-tenth of his plans tonight, and he didn't know when he would have the chance to look at those portraits again.

"Tell me about it."

Toby said coldly, acting as if he didn't know Hermione and Neville at all, even more harshly than he had in class.

"You only have one chance to explain."

Harry and Ron were both frightened, and Neville was still crying. He even thought of the crystal ball that healed his parents. What if Professor Hemmer took the crystal ball away because of him?

Neville couldn't help but burst into tears, but Toby was too indifferent and didn't say a word of comfort. His gloomy eyes were even scarier than Snape, which brought them endless pressure.

But at this moment, it seemed like a miracle happened.

"Professor, it's...it's me."

Hermione stammered, two lines of tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

She actually cried too, and she cried even more sadly than Neville.

"I can't stand it anymore. I have no friends and no one likes me..." She cried and said, releasing all her grievances in an instant: "So I thought about going out to relax, even to the library. Well, the three of them decided to accompany me..."

Hermione really couldn't stand it anymore. She didn't have any friends in school, so it was difficult for her to continue to persevere. As a result, she was caught sneaking out in the middle of the night by Professor Heimer himself.

It would be fine if it was other professors, but it was only Professor Highmore who had placed great hopes in her. She knew how disappointed he was with her by the expression on the professor's face. This broke Hermione's last life. The string of reason, the string of persistence was completely broken.

She couldn't stay at Hogwarts any longer. Even if she wanted to, she probably wouldn't be able to stay. The school's punishment for students who made serious mistakes would definitely be extremely severe, and they would definitely be expelled.

As for testimony and the like, it was just Hermione's angry words, otherwise she would have reported Harry and Ron in advance, and she would have waited alone in the common room until midnight.

Ron and Harry were both stunned. They watched Hermione lie to the professor. In an instant, both of them felt extremely guilty and regretful at the same time.

"No... not that Professor." Harry mustered up the courage to say.

"Shut up, Mr. Potter."

Toby interrupted with a gloomy face: "One chance to explain has passed. Each of you will have to bear the price of points deducted for this, as well as confinement. The specific follow-up punishment depends on your performance in confinement." .If you displease me—”

"You will regret dissatisfying me."

Then the four people were kicked out of the office. After they all left, Toby's expression slowly changed, and he sighed deeply.

"It's so stupid. Everyone is so stupid."

There was undisguised disappointment in his tone.

After a while, the door of the office opened again, and it was Snape who walked in who found nothing.

He glanced at Toby, who was sighing with his head down, and inexplicably put away his thoughts of accountability. Instead, he carefully looked at the collection in the office, and finally stood in front of the ice that would never melt.

"What's in here?" he asked.

Toby said quietly: "Maybe it's a wizard from ancient Greece, or maybe it's a dementor. Maybe it's a separated memory. You can only see it with your own eyes when the ice melts."

"Want a drink?"

Snape didn't answer, but he had already taken the chair opposite Toby.

A bottle of gin flew up from the drawer and was slowly poured into two glasses.

Rarely, the two stopped talking, quarreling and accusing each other.

Toby picked up the wine glass and shook it lightly in his hand.

"Tell me, why are they so stupid? Why were we so stupid in the first place? Even Lily, such a kind-hearted Lily, was angry with us. James had been annoying her for so long but he really chased her. "

"To be honest, I originally thought you were the most promising one. I occasionally thought about being the godfather of your future children. What a pity, Severus. What a pity."

Snape involuntarily clutched his glass tightly, wondering if he heard Toby's last words.

"Unfortunately, magic cannot bring people back from the dead."