bacchusnovels Chapter 206 Three Exquisite Moves
Chapter 206 Three Exquisite Moves
Chapter 206 Three Brilliant Moves (Two Combined)
To Lockhart's surprise, Aragog hesitated for a moment before agreeing to let them leave.
The change came so suddenly that Lockhart was caught off guard for a moment.
He had prepared for the worst and was ready to face an attack from the spiders, but now Aragog seemed to have changed his mind.
When Lockhart heard the news, he first stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
He looked at Aragog, then at the spiders around him, as if trying to make sure it wasn't a trap.
However, as the surrounding spiders slowly cleared a path for the three of them, Lockhart gradually realized that Aragog was telling the truth.
He felt a surge of mixed emotions, both surprise and joy.
On the one hand, he was relieved to have escaped a potential disaster; on the other hand, he was also puzzled and curious about Aragog's decision.
He didn't know what had caused the powerful spider to change its mind, but now was clearly not the time to investigate.
Lockhart quickly pulled Harry and Ron away, following the path cleared by the spiders.
They dared not linger for even a moment, fearing that Aragog might suddenly change his mind.
Finally, after a long journey, they were far from the spider's stronghold.
Looking back, the spiders had already gathered around again, and Aragog had disappeared among them.
Lockhart wiped the sweat from his brow and let out a long sigh of relief. "We're finally out," he said, his voice tinged with relief and exhaustion.
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance and smiled in a long time.
They finally escaped.
However, escaping does not mean the end of everything.
Instead, more mysteries, like wisps of fog, shrouded their minds, preventing them from fully relaxing.
For example, if the spiders aren't the monsters in the locked room, then what are the real monsters?
If Hagrid wasn't the one who opened the secret room back then, then who was?
Why did Aragog suddenly change his mind and let them leave?
Why does Professor Lockhart speak the Slytherin Parseltongue?
This series of questions left them feeling as if they were stuck in a quagmire, unable to extricate themselves.
On the way back to Hagrid's cabin, none of the three spoke. The atmosphere was unusually oppressive and heavy. Each of them was filled with unresolved doubts and unease, as if a huge stone was pressing on their chests, making it hard for them to breathe.
Finally, Ron broke the suffocating silence. "Professor, thank you for saving us." His voice was filled with sincerity and gratitude.
Professor Lockhart smiled slightly, though his face was still somewhat pale. He didn't forget to fidget with his hair a couple of times before answering Ron, "You're welcome, Mr. Weasley. I'm your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor; it's what I should do."
Isn't that right?
"But Professor," Harry couldn't help but interject, "we still have many questions for you..."
coming.
he came.
He came with questions.
Lockhart remained silent for two reasons: first, he was too tired to talk after just escaping danger; second, he was afraid of problems between the two of them.
He had already anticipated Harry's questions, which were nothing more than the two: why he was there and why he used Parsley.
He was unable to answer either of the questions.
The former is something he cannot say, and the latter is something he doesn't know either.
Lockhart has his own sophisticated methods for dealing with questions he can't answer.
The first tactic is to change the subject.
"Harry," Lockhart interrupted Harry, asking with concern, "Are you alright? Were you hurt?"
Harry shook his head, though his heart was still filled with curiosity and doubt, he was grateful for Professor Lockhart's concern. "I'm fine, Professor. It's just..."
"It's good that you're not hurt." Lockhart breathed a sigh of relief, then turned his gaze to Ron. "Mr. Weasley, how are you feeling?"
In fact, Ron didn't look very good.
When the body's adrenaline recedes, all that's left is exhaustion.
Recalling the scene just now, his face looked even paler than Professor Lockhart's. He swallowed hard and felt his stomach churning.
So he didn't answer Lockhart's question, but simply shook his head slightly.
Ron's lack of answer gave Harry the opportunity to ask his question. He stared into Lockhart's eyes and asked, "Professor, why were you there?"
The second tactic is to play dumb.
Lockhart coughed lightly. "It's my turn for night patrol tonight..."
"Did the patrol stumble into the Forbidden Forest?" Ron muttered quietly beside him.
Harry frowned, deciding to leave that question aside for now and instead asking his second question: "Professor, why do you speak Parsley?"
The second question concerned him more than the first.
After all, he inexplicably learned the snake accent.
Perhaps Professor Lockhart's answer can resolve some of his own doubts.
But... Lockhart disappointed him again.
Lockhart hesitated for a moment, then gave a somewhat awkward smile: "Ah, well, Harry, actually..."
This is no big deal. You know, I've studied a lot of magic, including Parseltongue."
"I've read about it in some old documents and have become very interested in it. While I can't say I'm very proficient, I have indeed learned some basic pronunciation."
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance, both able to see disbelief in each other's eyes.
This explanation sounds too far-fetched and is simply unconvincing.
Seeing this, Lockhart had no choice but to use his third move.
This is a combination move.
The third tactic is to cry "stop thief!" and run away.
"Why didn't you stay in your dorms at night and instead appeared in such a dangerous place as the Forbidden Forest?" Lockhart said sternly, "Nighttime outings are a serious violation of school rules, especially during such a special time."
His gaze lingered between Harry and Ron, like two sharp swords, trying to put more pressure on them. "If Professor Phillips finds out about this, you'll definitely be expelled, and you might even face more severe punishment..."
At this point, Lockhart suddenly changed direction, striding off in a completely different direction, as if eager to escape the awkward situation. "Tonight, I'll pretend I never saw you, that this never happened. But I'm warning you, don't let this happen again. If I ever see you out at night again, I won't let you off easily."
For a moment, Harry and Ron looked at Lockhart's departing figure, exchanging speechless glances.
Harry and Ron returned to Hagrid's hut to retrieve the Invisibility Cloak.
As soon as he entered the room, he found Ya Ya curled up under the blanket in the basket, shivering.
When he came out of the cabin, he was surprised to see Ron vomiting violently in the pumpkin patch and looking extremely weak.
"Follow that spider," Ron said weakly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "I will never forgive Hagrid. We survived thanks to Professor Lockhart."
"I used to think he was just a bragging idiot," Ron added.
"Yeah, who would have thought?" Harry shook his head with a wry smile, trying to comfort Ron. "I guess he thought Aragog wouldn't harm his friends."
"The problem lies with Hagrid!" Ron pounded on the wall of the cabin, his voice trembling with emotion. "He always thought monsters weren't as evil as people described, and look at him now! Locked up in Azkaban!"
He began to tremble uncontrollably. "What's the point of us going there? I'd like to know, what have we actually figured out?"
"At least we've figured out that Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets," Harry said, draping the Invisibility Cloak over Ron and nudging his arm to signal him to continue. "He's innocent."
Ron snorted, clearly thinking that Hagrid's decision to hatch Aragog in the cupboard was a huge mistake.
As the castle's outline became clearer, Harry nervously tugged at the Invisibility Cloak to make sure all four of their feet were completely covered.
Then, he carefully pushed open the front door, leaving it a crack. They silently crossed the foyer and ascended the marble steps.
Holding my breath, I walked through the patrolled corridor.
Finally, they returned safely to the Gryffindor common room, where the fire had died down, leaving only embers flickering. They removed their invisibility cloaks, climbed the spiral staircase, and returned to their dormitory.
Ron didn't even bother to take off his clothes and collapsed onto the bed. But Harry wasn't sleepy. He sat by the four-poster bed, trying to recall every word Aragog had said.
The creature lurking somewhere in the castle sounded somewhat like Voldemort—even other monsters were reluctant to mention its name. However, what exactly that creature was, and how it turned its victims to stone, remained a mystery to him and Ron.
Even Hagrid never knew what was locked in the secret room.
Harry climbed into bed, leaned against the pillows, and watched the moonlight shimmering through the castle windows.
They seemed to have run out of options and were in a predicament.
Harry lay down, Aragog's words still echoing in his mind.
Just as he was drifting off to sleep, a thought suddenly struck him, jolting him awake. This seemed to be their only hope.
"Ron," he called softly in the darkness.
Ron let out a babbling sound, looked around blankly, and then saw Harry.
“Ron—the dead girl. Aragog said she was found in the bathroom,” Harry said, ignoring Neville’s loud snoring in the corner, “What if she hadn’t left the bathroom? What if she was still there?”
Ron rubbed his eyes and frowned in the moonlight. Then he understood what Harry meant.
"Do you think it's that weeping Myrtle?" he asked.
Harry nodded without saying anything.
"But what's the use of knowing this?" Ron yawned sleepily and sighed, "That Myrtle can't communicate normally at all. All she does when you talk to her is cry."
"Instead of doing that, I think we should ask Professor Lockhart. I had a strange feeling about him today... like he knew something..."
When Sean returned to Hogwarts, it was already past midnight.
Through the marking device he left behind, he discovered Harry and Ron's nighttime outing... but he never expected that Lockhart would also have a role in it.
Things seem to be getting interesting.
If he wasn't mistaken, Harry and Ron had gotten information about Myrtle from the spiders.
If Lockhart followed Harry and Ron into the bathroom, guess what he would find?
It seems like it's time to make some preparations in advance.
He needs to place some alchemical props at the entrance of the washroom so that he can get there in time if anything happens.
Of course, the most important thing right now is the pure-blood family meeting in a few days, which will determine whether the potion can be mass-produced.
At the dinner table, Lucius had already agreed to contact the heads of the various pure-blood families in the next few days. At that time, Riddle and he would be needed to control the situation.
For some reason, Sean's smile grew even brighter.
"We were in that bathroom, just three toilets apart, and we didn't get a chance to ask her," Ron complained to Harry with a gloomy expression at breakfast the next day. "Now—"
The search for the spider had been driving them crazy for a while.
Trying to sneak into the girls' restroom without the teacher's gaze for an extended period of time was virtually impossible.
They have already seen several cases of students being caught sneaking out without an exit pass.
(The alchemical device is similar to a camera; it is cloaked in invisibility so that it cannot be scanned, detected, or warned.)
Even George and Fred have been much more well-behaved lately, always tinkering with something in their dorm room, and they're rarely seen in the common room anymore.
However, during the first Transfiguration class in the morning, something happened that made them put the matter of the locked room out of their minds for the first time in weeks.
Professor McGonagall entered the classroom just ten minutes before announcing that the exam would be held on June 1st, only a week away.
"An exam?" Seamus Finigan exclaimed. "We have to take an exam?"
A loud crash came from behind Harry as Neville Longbottom's wand slipped and fell, causing one leg of the desk to disappear instantly.
Professor McGonagall quickly waved her wand, restoring the table legs to their original position. Then she turned around and looked at Seamus with a furrowed brow.
"The school is still open under these special circumstances so that you can receive an education," she said sternly. "Therefore, the exams will proceed as scheduled, and I believe you will all study diligently."
Study hard?
Harry never imagined that an exam would be held when the castle was already in such chaos.
The students in the class started talking amongst themselves, and the classroom became noisy, which made Professor McGonagall frown even more and her face even more gloomy.
Headmaster Phillips said that this exam is crucial, and we must let the outside world know that even if something happens at Hogwarts,
"But as a school, it still plays its biggest role," she said. "This also means that we need to examine how much you have actually learned this year."
Harry looked down at the pair of little white rabbits; he should have turned them into slippers.
But so far this year, what has he actually learned?
He simply couldn't think of any knowledge he had that he could use to pass the exam.
Ron looked as if someone had just told him he had to live in the Forbidden Forest.
"Can you imagine me taking an exam with this piece of junk?" he asked Harry, holding up his wand which had just emitted a piercing whistling sound.
With only three days left until their first exam, Professor McGonagall announced some new information at breakfast.
"I have some good news to tell you all," she said.
However, the auditorium did not become quiet; instead, it became even noisier.
"The exam is being cancelled!" several people shouted excitedly.
"We've caught the heir to Slytherin!" a girl at the Ravenclaw table shrieked.
"Quidditch is back!" Wood exclaimed excitedly.
After the noise subsided, Professor McGonagall continued, "Professor Sprout told me that the mandrake is finally ready to be harvested. Tomorrow, we can bring those who have been petrified back to life."
"I don't need to point it out to you; one of them might tell us who or what attacked them. I sincerely hope that this terrible year will end with us catching the killer."
A burst of cheers erupted from the crowd.
Harry looked toward the Slytherin table and didn't see Draco Malfoy, which didn't surprise him at all.
However, Ron smiled for the first time in days.
“Then it doesn’t matter whether we ask Myrtle or not!” he said to Harry. “Once they wake Hermione up, she might be able to answer all the questions! But don’t forget, she’ll go crazy if she finds out there are only three days left until the exams. She hasn’t had time to study yet! Maybe it would be kinder to leave her as she is and wait until after the exams.”
Harry knew that even without the help of others, the whole secret would be revealed to the world the next day.
However, he would never want to miss the opportunity to speak with Mockingjay—and to his delight, the opportunity arrived in the blink of an eye.
After the two morning classes, they were escorted by Gilderoy Lockhart to the History of Magic classroom.
Although Lockhart had repeatedly assured them that the danger had been averted, he was soon proven wrong.
At this moment, he was even more convinced that there was no need to escort students safely across the corridor.
His hair was no longer as smooth as usual; he had clearly been sleep-deprived these past few days and had been busy with something.
As he led them around a corner, he said, "To be honest, I'm quite surprised that Professor McGonagall thinks it's necessary to take so many security measures."
"I agree, sir," Harry replied.
"Thank you, Harry," Lockhart said kindly. They stepped aside to wait for the long line of Hufflepuff students to pass. "I mean, we teachers already have a huge responsibility, escorting students to class and guarding them all night—"
“That’s right,” Ron immediately understood. “You might as well leave us here, sir. We only have one more corridor to go.”
"Alright, Weasley, that's enough for now," Lockhart said. "I really should get ready for the next class."
After saying that, he hurriedly left, then walked to the corner and quietly watched Harry and Ron's every move.
In fact, ever since he awoke, a subtle voice seemed to echo deep within him, suggesting a secret connection between him and the Chamber of Secrets in Slytherin.
This thought was like an undercurrent surging deep within his consciousness, making him both uneasy and subtly stimulating his curiosity.
At first, he was skeptical, thinking it was just his oversensitivity and a misconception.
But what happened? In a moment of desperation that night, he actually used the snake language.
This sudden turn of events was like a bolt from the blue, completely shocking him.
He felt that during this semester, he must have experienced or discovered something, a subtle yet profound change, like an undercurrent, silently altering the trajectory of his life.
For some time now, his thoughts have been drawn by invisible ropes, wandering in a labyrinthine fog, searching for clues about the secret room, the Parseltongue, and the traces he had unintentionally left behind.
However, no matter how hard he tried or how deeply he investigated, he seemed to have gained nothing. All the clues seemed to have been deliberately erased, leaving only a blank space and endless confusion.
These unsolved mysteries, like a group of stubborn ghosts, haunted him, preventing him from finding peace.
When the night was still and quiet, these questions swirled in his mind, driving him to distraction and making even the simplest act of sleep a luxury. On sleepless nights, he tossed and turned in bed, each thought like a sharp knife cutting into his peace.
Under such torment, his gaze involuntarily turned to Harry.
In his mind, Harry became a key figure, someone who might hold the key to unlocking all the mysteries.
He began to think that Harry must know something, perhaps he had witnessed something by accident, or he possessed the missing piece of information.
This intuition was like a mysterious attraction, driving him to pay closer attention to Harry's every move.
Harry and Ron's outrageous behavior today happened to catch his attention.
Harry and Ron let the other Gryffindor students go first, then sneaked into a side passage and hurried toward the weeping Myrtle's bathroom.
However, just as they were about to celebrate this seamless plan, "Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?"
It was Professor McGonagall, her lips pressed into a thin line.
"We—we—" Ron stammered, "we want to go—to see—"
"Hermione," Harry interjected. Ron and Professor McGonagall both looked at him.
"We haven't seen her in ages, Professor," Harry said, stepping on Ron's foot. "We were thinking of sneaking into the hospital to tell her the mandrake is almost done growing and to reassure her."
Professor McGonagall was still staring at him, and for a moment Harry thought she was about to explode in anger. However, when she spoke, her voice trembled slightly.
“Of course,” she said, and Harry was surprised to find tears glistening in her sharp eyes. “Of course, I know that this pain is indeed unbearable for the friends of all the unfortunate victims, and I understand perfectly. Yes, Potter, you are certainly free to visit Hermione. I will tell Professor Binns where you are going. Tell Madam Pomfrey that I have given your permission to go.”
As Harry and Ron left, they could hardly believe they had escaped solitary confinement. As they turned the corner, they could clearly hear Professor McGonagall's nasal voice.
"That's fantastic!" Ron said excitedly. "That's the best lie you've ever told."