【Zhou Jia】self-punisher.

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If there are two choices, one of which is going to be catastrophic, someone has to make that choice. ①

"Oh? So did that professor give you the answer?" After hearing Karna's report, Ozymandis touched his chin and asked with interest.

"He said he didn't know." Karna raised his wand, turning a datura flower on the table into a round bird - the latter flapped its short short wings, but couldn't fly stand up.A golden light flashed before his eyes, and Gilgamesh transformed the chirping bird into a larger bird, stroking the result's tail feathers with satisfaction.

"Is this a goose?" Karna asked calmly, not realizing that Gilgamesh's expression became subtle in an instant.

"It's a peacock." As Ozymandis burst into laughter, Gilgamesh angrily turned the trembling bird into the spider he hated the most, and ordered it to crawl to Ozymandis. Diss' arm.

What he did not tell the two friends was what happened after that--in some strange way he always thought it should be hidden as a secret.

After Shirama replied with a stiff expression, he told him to return to the dormitory immediately after checking the doors and windows.Karna had lied once in a while, and if the stern teacher had known who he was going to see, he would probably have taken fifty points from Gryffindor immediately.Relying on his keen intuition, he discovered that Chithrama did not like Arjuna very much. Although the latter performed very well from the beginning of his enrollment, the professor was not affectionate to him.

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The steps on the tower are washed with silver light, which complements the golden railings standing outside the window lattice.After the heavy rain, the raindrops hanging at the end of the round hole fell heavily, reflecting the devious figure.The Quidditch pitch had been closed for an important event since last week, and a row of damp circles had formed under the stands.The evening sun shines on the once green long grass, which has been soaked into withered golden yellow by the autumn wind.

Arjuna stood in front of the window, the soft hair on his forehead was brushed by the slowly rising steam, his pupils were empty and unfocused through the swirling gray clouds in the vault, as if he was staring at something that didn't exist here things.

The sound of twisting and winding footsteps came from behind, which was deliberately adjusted by the visitor—his original footsteps were silent, and he was once called a living ghost.These promises awaken the state of absent-mindedness.Arjuna turned his face slightly, and glanced at Gryffindor who was within a short distance from the corner of his eye. The school uniform was still dotted with inferior and unsightly scarlet.

"Senior Karna." He nodded in greeting, "I thought you would ignore my request."

"Is that so? You are not someone who would wait above the tower in the middle of the night." Karna said calmly, "You must be quite prepared for my appointment this time."

Arjuna, who was directly exposed, had a fleeting look of sullenness on his face.The damaged mask was worthless, he simply abandoned the image of a respectful junior, and walked up to Karna, his half-smile expression completely shattered the usual illusion of humility.Tikka's knuckles were clenched and then relaxed. "You guys are really disgusting."

"Arjuna." The older man didn't give him any comments about his bad acting, which was contrary to his usual words and deeds. His light-colored pupils were like a piece of transparent ice under the backlight of the night, and even his spinal cord was soaked with piercing hair when he was looked directly at by those eyes. cold. "Stop wasting time on useless provocations."

"No need to remind, I don't have the habit of talking too much nonsense." Arjuna's voice calmed down, he closed the window that let in the flowing air, turned around and leaned against the wall, and said after a while, "I advise you Do not throw names into the Goblet of Fire."

Goblet of Fire?

It took Karna a moment to remember what the other party was referring to, but he never planned to sign up for the competition, and he had no way of knowing the opportunity for Arjuna's words.But when he opened his mouth, he lost the only proper time for questioning—the stained glass exploded suddenly and splashed sparks, the ground between the two of them suddenly burst into lines, and the giant monster that jumped out of it covered the entire sky line of sight.The crude and slow-minded giant seemed to be knocked out by the falling candlestick, and after wandering around a few times, it stared at Karna in front of it.

The appearance of trolls on such occasions is not logical.

But Karna didn't have time to think, the troll had already waved a huge wooden club and beat it downwards. In the howling wind, he quickly dodged the initial blow, and then he went to touch the wand, but found that he might have forgotten it. In the dormitory, the pockets are empty.When he got up from the ground, he saw that Arjuna also had an annoyed expression on his face—obviously this cautious student also made such a low-level mistake in a weird way.In the narrow space, the troll blindly turned around and wanted to catch the two human beings who seemed to him tossing and turning like rabbits, but failed to achieve any results, which made this simple-minded guy let out a deafening roar.

Hearing being completely drowned in torment, Karna tried to make a sound for Arjuna to retrieve his wand, but suddenly fear flashed in those clumsy eyes.A cold light slid out in front of his eyes, and the black python entrenched in the dark quietly wrapped around the giant monster's waist, spitting out a scarlet snake letter from its mouth.It was covered with iron-like scales, exuding an instinctively frightening breath of death like a dementor.

"------!!!"

The giant monster struggled hoarsely, slipped and fell to the ground as if weightless in the gap between the eyes of the snake, and made a loud bang.The snake tail swung over the stone slabs unhurriedly, and quickly disappeared at the end of the tower.Followed by the sound of hurried footsteps under the stairs, it was obvious that the teachers who heard the movement were coming.

"Hide for a while." Arjuna said in a low voice.

Indeed, the presence of a Gryffindor in a Slytherin tower is too difficult to explain.Karna was thinking about how to hide his body when the door of the Slytherin bedroom behind him suddenly opened, and then Arjuna picked up his collar and threw him in - the door in front of him quickly closed again.A conversation from outside could be faintly heard through the door.

"I can't believe it... Arjuna, did you subdue this monster?"

"No, Professor." A sincere and sincere voice sounded, "When he appeared, I was frightened and fainted...I'm really sorry, I don't know what happened just now, I just wanted to come out and close the window That's all."

"This... frightened you, go back and rest, we can deal with it here. Please come to me tomorrow morning and tell the dean what you have just experienced, okay?"

"Of course, my lord."

The door opened and closed quickly again, and Ah Zhou walked in without haste.Karna rubbed the bruise on his arm and calmly pointed out, "Actually, I can walk in by myself."

"It's more efficient, isn't it." Arjuna smiled ambiguously, and stroked his ashen cheek with his index finger, "Of course, my priority was to explain that we are dating in the tower—it seems It is more convincing than the proposal I just made."

"I'm more inclined to explain that you were trembling with fright." The focus of Karna's thinking was obviously different from that of the other party, "That snake..."

"It's time to go back to sleep, Senior Karna. Although I don't mind sharing the same bed with you for the night, I'd better wait until after the preparations next time—By the way, please think carefully about the proposal just now."

Passing through the doorway of the Slytherin bedroom again, Karna inadvertently remembered the location of the giant python.Walking to the end of the corridor, you can see a gap caused by a brick that seems to have been lost for many years, but there is not enough space for such a huge creature to enter and exit freely-not to mention the fact that there is an old-skinned book in the gap. Journal.

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Ink dripped onto the yellowed pages, forming cursive script with simple lines.

Three days had passed since the diary was discovered during the troll incident.Beneath the plain dark green velvet binding was a blank page. It looked pristine, not even a speck of dust.But after accidentally writing the first line of text, the response of the unknown person appeared miraculously.

"who are you?"

After a long silence, the same dark green writing appeared on the paper.

"A Slytherin."

"I guess I shouldn't hide it from you, I belong to Gryffindor House."

"...I know everything about you, Karna."

.........

After the last period was drawn into a circle, all the ink marks disappeared as if washed away by water, and no longer responded to any questions.As soon as Karna put down his pen, he heard Gilgamesh, who was sleeping with him, shout loudly in his sleep.

"Go away, you dirty bastards in the sewers, I'm going to pull out your tongues out."

.........

Karna, who didn't care about this, of course forgave this roommate who didn't sleep well, but it took some effort to appease the frightened coal ball that threw himself into his arms and screamed non-stop.

And Ozymandis, who was also disturbed into a good dream, got up from the bed on the other side with a gloomy aura. The fluorescent flashes illuminated his face from below, and he spoke faintly.

"...Do you understand that the cry of an owl brings bad luck."

Before Karna could think about how to respond effectively, Ozymandis simply swung back.

He listened silently to the steady breathing of his roommates, sighed and touched the lines on the cover with his fingers.

"His birth will bring disaster to the world, and all living things will be destroyed. That snake, those curses engraved with the mark of black magic..."

"Aparecium!" The tip of the wand flashed silver, but the diary did not respond.Everything that happened just now seemed to be just an illusion.

"Destroy the demons before they really come."

Is this just a simple prank?

Karna thought of Arjuna who turned a blind eye to it when he was in the tower, not only Arjuna, there should be many Slytherins passing by this diary, it is clearly placed in the vacant brick position at the end of the tower.But no one can see it except yourself.

He closed the diary, and an ominous pattern was tattooed on the upside-down back—two poisonous snakes sleeping with their necks crossed.

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"impossible."

Holding a book between his hands, Rama hurried past Karna, answering the students' rambling questions concisely.He stopped at the corner, raised his hand and stroked the other person's forehead, "I suggest you go to the infirmary to take your temperature, child. You probably have a fever, which is why you have so many strange associations."

"But, sir..."

"Let's put it this way, Karna." Rama said seriously, "Even in England, there are tens of thousands of wizards. Strictly speaking, they don't have any beliefs, and they won't be influenced by illusory things. If they don't rely on brainwashing There's no way anyone can make a bigger commotion than a parade. They're under the Ministry of Magic, boy. We've got a lot of good Aurors whose job it is to prevent the damned world from dying."

The door closed behind the man with a crisp "bang".Wearily, he put the book in his hand on the table, and filled his water glass to two-thirds with a wave of his wand.In front of Karna's blue eyes, he couldn't get rid of them, making him always think of that man.He murmured in a low voice, and put heavy chains on the door.A drop of dim light sank into the Pensieve, and after the mist dispersed, he opened his eyes, and his feet had already stepped on solid ground.

In the long years after that incident, he would often rely on the Pensieve to explore the clues of the past, and touch the veins of the axis of time with illusory fragments.But it's especially painful when all you see are people from the past who no longer exist.

The same long corridor stretched out in front of my eyes, and the long-lost voice passed by my ears.The boy with the same eye color as Karna walked forward wearing Slytherin robes, and the black-haired boy beside him was also wearing the iconic dark green.One of the expressions of the two is arrogant, the other is loose, and the whole body exudes a proud and lazy aristocratic atmosphere.

"Of course, those Muggles..." The black-haired boy with the corners of his lips curled up looked disdainfully at the crowd downstairs. "The school is too tolerant of them. Apart from confusing blood, there is no reason to teach them magic."

"Your behavior went too far." The blue-eyed boy looked downstairs coldly, "The professor has already deducted more than 100 points from you. It's better to be more concealed next time."

"Come on, Surya." The black-haired boy's smile widened, and he waved his wand to set the last step of the stairs into a circular runway, and changed the expression of the statue next to him into a mischievous exaggerated clown face, "I This year, I added more than 300 points to the college, and deducted one-third. Speaking of which, do you want to try the newly discovered secret passage? It is said that no one has walked through it before. Let’s set up some obstacles for those stupid students .”

"If you're talking about the only movable brick in the tower closest to the Slytherin bedroom, it's too outdated." The boy named Surya pushed open the door of the classroom disapprovingly, and the noisy students They were much quieter after seeing them.He brushed away the stale smell from the cauldron, "I've been to that place a long time ago, if you go in now, you'll find toads all over the place singing Fur Alice."

"Hey, hold an axe." The black-haired boy rubbed his chin and raised his hand to greet the thin student who walked into the classroom solemnly. With a naturally persuasive smile, he kindly suggested, "Don't you want to go to the bar? Let's take a look, we have newly discovered a secret passage, do you want to try it?"

The picture distorted and turned into mist in front of his eyes, and then switched to the big snake he found in the cold secret passage... Although these two guys were extremely vicious, it was Indra who arrived in time to recover the monster.It was precisely because of this that they no longer targeted him, but turned the object of teasing to other students.But compared to Indra, Surya has a closer relationship with him, and the mansion they live in is only one block away from each other more than ten years later.

He had seen the young Karna, stumbling after Surya, wanting to grab the hem of his father's clothes.But the handsome man showed no expression on his face, and turned his head indifferently to call the servant.

"Hold that child away, who let him approach me?" Surya didn't even look at Karna. After the maid picked him up and apologized desperately, he left the golden red carpet without looking back. living room.

In the gap of the wind-closed door, the soft little hand of the child wearing the golden earring can be faintly seen.

"I don't want to see that child...forever."

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"Naga, let's go."

The hooded man raised his finger, and the image in the mirror dissipated like mist.The lights of Hogwarts in the distance were gradually disappearing, and the falling rain melted into the outer layer under the blessing of numerous concealment and protective spells. He let out a dull breath from his throat, and hid the twin snakes on the back of his hand.

-TBC-

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Note ①: Murphy's Law.