Dressed as a Hogwarts portrait

"Quick, quick, this way!"

"It's too late and they're all gone, Hermione, you're right, Sirius was put in by Lupine."

"I never said that!!"

"Then what did you mean before?"

"I was going to tell you that Professor Lupine is actually a... well, now is not the time to talk about that. Sirius and Professor Lupine are... Huh? Cornelius Fudge?"

"It's the Minister of Magic!"

The awakened portraits opened their eyes in displeasure from their daze, and looked at the three children who hadn't slept in the middle of the night. Some of the portraits satirized each other: "Gryffindor, why don't you just bump into Fei?" Go to Erqi!"

But the noise was far from over. The heavy stone statue of the armored knight moved away slowly, and the hoarse and hoarse voice woke up all the remaining portraits. These older wizards rubbed their eyes and complained: "Who is it, it's in the middle of the night!"

"Hey, why is there a secret passage here?"

"I've been hanging here for 300 years and haven't seen it~"

The complaining and curious gazes stopped abruptly after touching the person who came out of the secret passage.

These old wizards who enjoyed prestige and fame after death or during their lifetime opened their mouths wide open, almost looking for their eyes on the floor.

"With this map, who would be afraid of meeting Filch?"

Ron snorted and looked down at the parchment again, actually wanting to make sure that Snape's name was still in the headmaster's office.

"Fudge must have known Sirius had appeared in the—huh? Slytherin's name appeared in the hallway to our left!"

"Hermione? Are you excited?"

"You have all seen it, I haven't... Merlin!!"

The Gryffindor trio who had stumbled all the way were looking at the map while looking for the way. There were actually quite a few names they were afraid of, Filch, Snape, Sirius, and even Lupine or Filch. A cat, and not the name Salazar Slytherin.After all, it was just a painting, and after being surprised and distorted, it was still a painting.So the three of them didn't slow down and just turned the corner, so the faint light from the wands in their hands was immediately overshadowed by a brighter white light, and a man with a wand stood there.

Hermione's half-sentence turned into a scream.

"Do not--"

Ron screamed harder than she did, because he kept staring at the parchment.

In addition to the names of the three of them, there is only one person's name floating in this corridor.

Ron struggled to look up at the man who couldn't see the brilliance of the wand, then looked at the map, couldn't help swallowing, and said dryly, "Harry, the Marauder's Map is broken."

"Siss-"

The three children shuddered at the same time, a bone-chilling chill rose spontaneously, and Hermione's face was frighteningly pale.

A dark, light blue behemoth slid out of the labyrinth with dim magical coercion. Its huge head stretched forward, its eyes were closed, and it opened its terrifying mouth again. The blue snake letter was spit out and hissed. Hissing: [Harry Potter? ]

Harry, who understood it, was so stiff that he almost fell to the floor. He held on to Ron and Hermione tightly, and moved out step by step: "Basilisk!"

He reminded his friend with the smallest voice.

Ron screamed, and the three turned around and ran away almost at the same time.

[Don't move or I'll open my eyes, Potter, you can't outrun me. ]

The basilisk's huge body slid lightly, and the three people who were seven meters away from it were all swept back by its tail, slipping and falling to the ground, so frightened that they didn't even dare to lift their heads.

Ron and the others panicked because they couldn't understand Parseltongue, and Harry was terrified because he could understand it.

[Master, he pokes Aerys in the eye. ]

The basilisk curled up very effectively, and the three children were surrounded by fishy smell and cold scales. They were so frightened that they couldn't even speak. They could only shrink together, and the hand holding the wand kept shaking.

[I also stabbed a sword on my forehead, wow wow wow...it hurts...]

The basilisk is here, pretending to cry?

Harry trembled even more, but this time he was holding back a smile, but he couldn't laugh anymore: [Although it's wrong for Aerys to eat him, but——he's going to kill Aerys!Master, can you give him to play with me? ]

The light on the wand went out, and it was suddenly plunged into darkness. I couldn't see anything clearly, but I could clearly hear the footsteps gradually going away.

[Master, I was wrong, you wait for me. ]

The cold and greasy body quickly slid past them, and it was gone in a blink of an eye.

In the darkness, only the panting of shock could be heard.

It took a long time before Harry got up from the ground, raised his wand, and after a fluorescent spell, each other realized that their faces were pale to slightly blue, and Ron's hands and feet were weak, and he couldn't get up from the ground after several attempts. Pick up the wand.

"Salazar Slytherin?"

The names on the parchment were going down this corridor all the way to the cellar.

"I... I heard the basilisk... the basilisk calling his master..."

Harry was on the verge of falling. He remembered the little girl named Iris who could only speak Parseltongue in the principal's office not long ago, so he couldn't stand upright for a while.

"Harry." Ron's features twisted together, "We...have we seen ghosts?"

That's a real person, not a portrait, Merlin! !

"If you don't have a reasonable explanation, the entire Ministry of Magic will find it hard to believe that the Floo network at 12 Grimmauld Place, which has been closed for nearly ten years, is simply malfunctioning!"

Cornelius Fudge was a middle-aged man with a fat appearance. He was wearing a pinstriped cloak, and while striding around in the principal's office, he kept twirling his gray-green bowler hat.

"Connelly, I just want to remind you that it's midnight, and it's impossible for the entire Ministry of Magic to know about this."

Dumbledore held the biscuit in his hand and gnawed on it as he spoke.

Fudge was choked, and quickly said angrily:

"Hogwarts is full of students, and if Sirius breaks in again..."

"Sirius Black was disinherited when he was in school. He couldn't have entered 12 Grimmauld Place and from there into Hogwarts. I think the Ministry of Magic's Family Succession Management Office is better than me on this point. Clear, isn't it?"

Fudge was stuck again, this time his expression was distorted:

"Dumbledore, what we need to talk about is that the Floo network at 12 Grimmauld Place has been activated abnormally, which is likely to create a favorable gap for the Death Eaters..."

"Professor Dumbledore!"

The door to the headmaster's office was slammed open for the third time this evening (Harry was lucky to find that the password Professor McGonagall had given him last time was still valid).

"We saw—"

"See what, child?"

Fudge first frowned in annoyance, then suddenly saw Harry, and immediately put on a smile: "Don't be afraid, did you see it, fugitive?"

His seductive way made Snape, who was already very dissatisfied, snort coldly.

Ron and Hermione immediately lowered his head and remained silent.

"We saw..." Harry looked at the smiling Dumbledore, then at the Potions Professor, and swallowed hard. Merlin, what is he going to do to hide his meaning and let the principal express it clearly? Woolen cloth?

Fudge stared at Harry, but Dumbledore squinted slightly.

What did you see so frightened?Sirius?Or the Duke of Slytherin?It is impossible for Harry to recognize Slytherin... Then it was Sirius, he refused to say a word during the trial, but the black dog just now was clearly the Animagus of Sirius Black, who had been with Sirius Black for more than ten years. How could the headmaster not know what the four of them had done in Hogwarts before?

But since Lupin was willing to help him, it already showed that there was something else hidden about what happened back then.

Dumbledore kept smiling, and said to Snape, "It's late, Severus, I remember you still have class tomorrow morning."

When the Potions Professor passed the Gryffindor trio, he paused for a moment, and the three lion cubs shuddered and shrank even lower. Snape rolled up his black robe and left the headmaster's office all the way to the cellar.

It took him barely a few floors to understand what Dumbledore's hints about his eagerness to leave meant.

"Damn."

The portraits of wizards who were supposed to be sleeping in a corridor on the fourth floor all kept horrified expressions. All the way to the cellar, the statue on the door of Slytherin's headmaster's office——Medusa with a strange sight, covering her face with her hands and trembling constantly, It seemed that he was terribly frightened by something, and even Snape didn't find out when he came back.