Chapter 361 359 Go Blow up the Castle

Chapter 361 359. Go blow up the castle

Hermione never closed the Marauder's Map.

Even when she was copying the runes on the ground, she spread the map beside her and checked the names on the map every two seconds.

Voldemort's name was also on it, but the name was "Tom Riddle".

When she got the Marauder's Map, Dumbledore had already told her about Voldemort's real name and helped her do the test to make sure that even Voldemort himself could not avoid and detect the magic on this map.

He warned Hermione that as long as Voldemort's name appeared in the range of the Marauder's Map, no matter what she was doing, she must leave the castle at the first time without any hesitation.

Hermione listened to Dumbledore's warning. She knew very well that if she sneaked into the castle and did something that was exposed, the consequences would not only be as simple as her personal safety, but also bring great trouble to the current wizarding horizon, the Hogwarts carriage, Dumbledore, and John himself.

So when she saw the name "Tom Riddle" appear on the Astronomy Tower, she planned to let Fawkes take her out of Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets.

But perhaps because of the runes on the ground, this Chamber of Secrets was engraved with anti-Apparition magic that was completely different from that in the castle.

There was no difference in strength between the two, but the structure of the magic was very different, and Fawkes needed to re-decrypt it. They did not expect such a thing after entering the Chamber of Secrets.

Therefore, when Voldemort had solved the dragon disaster and Hermione saw him flying towards the Room of Requirement with a clear goal through the Marauder's Map, she decisively interrupted Fawkes' preparations for Apparition.

There was definitely not enough time.

Hermione needed to climb by manpower, so it would take at least half an hour to walk from the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets into the Chamber of Secrets, but this was not a problem for Voldemort at all. He mastered extremely profound magic, and even in the castle, he could not Apparition. He could cross this distance in the form of black fog, and it only took less than three minutes.

In a hurry, Hermione could only choose to hide with Fawkes.

There was almost no place to hide in this secret room, and even if she was wearing an invisibility cloak, it did not mean certain safety for wizards with keen senses and intuition.

And Hermione herself didn't know whether it was due to fear of Voldemort or other factors, she could feel that even with the invisibility cloak, she could not hide from the eyes of the dark devil.

Fortunately, the portrait of the creator of this secret room was hanging on the wall of Dumbledore's office.

After confirming that Hermione was chosen to carry out this task, Salazar gave Hermione all the layout of the secret room he created and some activation codes.

So Hermione hid in the mouth of the Slytherin statue, which was the place where the basilisk killed by John in the headmaster's office was hiding.

Voldemort must have known this place, otherwise he would not have been able to find the basilisk hiding here and let it guard the headmaster's office. Therefore, Hermione was actually making a bet. Now she could only bet that Voldemort would not check so carefully, because now was the time when the game was about to end. He finally returned to the castle and had to spare some energy to deal with Dumbledore.

The fact was indeed as she thought. Voldemort did not check the Chamber of Secrets in detail. After crushing the illusory dwarf, he immediately left here and went to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

So, Hermione watched his movements on the Marauder's Map and crawled out of the statue's mouth again. While Fox continued to prepare for the Apparition, she took this time to copy down as many of the runes on the ground as possible.

Hermione also read some books about magic runes outside of class. Those knowledge were relatively superficial. She didn't recognize any of the runes on the ground, let alone understand their functions. She could only record them and bring them back to Dumbledore for research.

But before she had copied one-tenth of the runes on the ground, she suddenly saw the name "Tom Riddle" on the map and returned to Hogwarts Castle!

She immediately put away everything on her body, and Fox standing on her shoulder was still shining with a golden red light, and this light was getting stronger.

"Hurry! We must be quick, Fox! He may come back at any time!"

As if to fulfill Hermione's bad premonition, the name representing Voldemort on the Marauder's Map suddenly moved from the lobby to the eighth floor at a very fast speed!

Hermione hurriedly put on the invisibility cloak for herself and Fox, she read the snake language code again to the Slytherin statue, and then quickly crawled in!

She knew that no place would be a safe place, and it was obvious that Voldemort was much more aggressive this time than the last time. He must have discovered something, otherwise he would not rush to the room of the Room of Requirement with such a clear goal for the second time.

The mouth of the Slytherin statue closed again, and in the dark and claustrophobic environment, only Fawkes' body was flashing with golden red light.

Hermione was much more mature and calm than her normal peers, but at this time her body was still shaking involuntarily. She held Fawkes, who was getting hot, in her arms, and her eyes were fixed on the name that was moving rapidly.

"Come on, Fox, you can do it. We can't let Jon and the professor down."

Her voice was trembling, but she couldn't help Fox at this time. She could only watch the name representing darkness and death getting closer and closer to her.

So close that he had walked out of the passage of the Chamber of Secrets, flew over the winding road, and came to the two stone doors carved with venomous snakes!

Hermione's body was cold, even though Fox in her arms brought her full warmth, she still couldn't suppress the coldness.

"Hiss (open)."

Just as the stone door slowly slid to both sides, Fox suddenly pecked the back of Hermione's hand with his sharp beak, and then the light on his body completely enveloped Hermione!

The dazzling light penetrated Slytherin's closed mouth, and then suddenly disappeared, and Voldemort, who walked in the next second, did not see this scene.

He returned to this quiet, claustrophobic, and magic rune-filled chamber again.

It was still the same as when he left twenty minutes ago. The runes with a faint glow were happily welcoming their owners, but the shackles that had lost their control and fell to the ground were suspended again at some point, vaguely controlling some illusory existence.

Voldemort's eyes were full of coldness. He did not stop this time and walked directly to the statue of Slytherin.

"Speak to me, Slytherin - the greatest of the four giants of Hogwarts."

The mouth of the statue opened, revealing a circular passage.

Looking from the outside in, it was pitch black inside, and it didn't look like there was any sign of hiding people, but Voldemort did not stop at all. He continued to turn into a black mist and flew into the passage.

This passage was very deep. It connected to the sewer pipes of the entire Hogwarts Castle, so that the basilisk could find mice and other small animals in it for thousands of years to survive.

Voldemort used a very fast speed to search the entire range along this pipeline.

However, he found nothing.

Back in the secret room of Slytherin, he stared at the statue representing his ancestor and frowned.

"Why do you want to help them? No matter what my purpose is, the glory of pure blood has been carried forward in my hands. Isn't this the ideal when you established this school? So, why don't you agree with me?"

His voice echoed in this closed room, but no one could answer him.

Voldemort raised his head and looked at the old monkey-like face. The coldness in his eyes was as if he was looking at an enemy.

"It doesn't matter if you don't want to give it to me. It's the same if I come to take it myself!"

Dumbledore and John returned to the principal's office on the carriage. He immediately went to ask someone if Hermione had returned. After getting a negative answer, the look on his face became extremely solemn.

"Hermione and I have agreed that as long as Riddle's name appears on the Marauder's Map, no matter what she is doing, Fawkes must bring her back immediately."

Jon also frowned.

"Hermione is not such a careless person. As long as she promises something, she will definitely do it. Now that she hasn't come back, it must be trouble."

He looked at Dumbledore with a serious look.

"We have to help her!"

"Of course we have to help her." Dumbledore did not hesitate at all to Jon's request. He had already grasped the wand. "No student can be left behind. This is the promise I emphasized to everyone when you entered school, even now."

Jon was not surprised at all by Dumbledore's response. He knew very well that this old man was actually an idealist, but sometimes reality would force him to face reality.

"But we must also predict the reaction of the Dark Lord in advance, and if he has caught Hermione now, what should we do?"

Dumbledore's face was calm, and he put on his robe again.

"He values ​​this castle very much. Actually, I value it too."

Jon was a little unresponsive for a moment.

"What?"

"The dragons don't have the ability to destroy this castle. I, an old man, am still more useful than those dragons, right?" Dumbledore actually laughed at this time, "Riddle doesn't care about his subordinates or his students, but he definitely cares about this castle. Although I haven't found out why he cares so much about it, it doesn't prevent us from using it as a handle."

Jon looked at Dumbledore in a daze.

"But, don't you care about this castle, Professor?"

"Of course I care about it, Jon." Dumbledore said softly, "I have lived here for more than 50 years and taught for more than 50 years. People used to call me the greatest Hogwarts principal. Even though this title has become a joke now, I still love this place. It is not just a school, but also the history of the entire British wizarding world."

"But Hogwarts is Hogwarts not just because of a castle. The castle itself was built for teaching and educating people. But if it can no longer carry this mission and even becomes a tool to oppress students, then even if it is destroyed, I think the four great wizards who created it will not say anything, right? Salazar."

The portrait of Slytherin on the wall spread his hands.

"I don't know about the others, but I don't care. A thousand years ago, we decided to build a school to protect wizards, not to protect wizards in order to build a school."

Jon stared at this scene in a daze, and Dumbledore actually said to him as if jokingly.

"Did you hear me? I have already obtained the approval of the original owner of this castle."

After saying that, he had already buttoned up his robe and walked to the front with Jon.

"Let's go, let's go pick up Hermione."

Jon rubbed his nose to relieve the inexplicable sour feeling. He followed behind Dumbledore and suddenly laughed.

"That's right, how can that castle be called Hogwarts? Hogwarts is obviously our carriage!"

"Ha, I like this sentence."

Just as they were about to walk out of the principal's office, a golden-red light suddenly lit up behind them!

Jon and Dumbledore both stopped at the same time. They looked back and saw that the light had outlined the outline of a phoenix and a little girl.

Seeing this, Jon's already tense nerves finally relaxed completely. He breathed a sigh of relief, and Dumbledore still had such a gentle smile on his face, but Jon could also see the joy in his eyes. No matter what, as long as Hermione is safe, it is more important than anything else.

He said to Jon jokingly.

"We made so many psychological preparations in vain."

Jon patted his face.

"I've actually been thinking about how I'm going to curse the Dark Lord when you blow up the castle."

"It doesn't matter, you can keep the words you've thought of, you'll definitely need them later."

"Shouldn't you teach me not to swear?"

"How can I teach students something I can't do myself?"

As they were talking, Hermione had already appeared in the principal's office. She looked at Dumbledore and John, who were getting ready to go out, with a look of surprise.

"What are you going to do?"

Jon and Dumbledore looked at each other and then shrugged.

"To blow up Hogwarts Castle, if you had shown up a few seconds later."