Seeing the liquid slowly rolling in the cauldron, impatience appeared on the face that belonged to Ron Weasley.
This was supposed to be an abandoned bathroom, so why was someone still coming here?
He hesitated for a moment, then walked over to inspect the potion in the cauldron.
Rotten Lacewing flies churned in the sickly green liquid. Judging by the color, it had already been brewing for at least ten days.
"Someone's brewing Polyjuice Potion here?" Voldemort's expression turned strange.
Polyjuice Potion was a recipe recorded in Moste Potente Potions, a potion book kept in the Restricted Section. Normally, students were not supposed to have access to it.
Which meant that any student who did have access was definitely not someone simple.
"But luckily, it's Polyjuice Potion." Voldemort relaxed slightly.
Polyjuice Potion took a very long time to brew. The first step alone required twenty-one days, so as long as the fire under the cauldron stayed lit, no one needed to watch it constantly.
In other words, the person brewing it might not be here.
"Leave this place as quickly as possible."
Voldemort ignored the cauldron and prepared to open the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
In any case, this was not the route he planned to use to escape, so he did not have to worry about running into anyone.
He made his way expertly to the cylindrical sink and found the faucet carved with a serpent.
This was not a magical mechanism set up by Salazar Slytherin himself, but by one of Slytherin's descendants, a Hogwarts student from the Gaunt family.
It was through that ancestor's diary that Voldemort had learned of the Chamber of Secrets, found it, and inherited Salazar Slytherin's legacy.
"Open," he hissed in Parseltongue.
A sickening rasp, like fingernails scraping across glass, echoed through the bathroom.
As the command fell, the cylindrical sink slowly split apart. Heavy stone slabs slid away to the sides, revealing a deep black hole beneath.
Voldemort was just about to jump down when a voice sounded from outside the bathroom.
"Huh? Do you hear that?"
Someone was coming?
A vicious look crossed Voldemort's face.
No. There was still a fair distance from here to the Chamber itself. If he was discovered here and they alerted Dumbledore, he still would not get away.
He had to silence them.
...
Two minutes earlier, outside the corridor leading to the abandoned bathroom.
Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, on their way there, stopped in their tracks.
"...Why on earth did you decide to brew potion in there?" Harry Potter swallowed. "I think I just heard a girl scream."
"That was Myrtle." Hermione looked uncertain. "That's weird. She usually just cries really loudly. She's never screamed like that before. That was actually scary."
"Her crying is scary too, you know," Harry said, feeling Hermione was focusing on the wrong thing.
"You don't get it. If Myrtle is crying, that means everything's normal, because she likes crying. But if she's making a different kind of noise, that means something's happened."
Clever Hermione immediately realized something was wrong. "Oh no, my potion!"
If Myrtle was acting strangely, that meant someone must have disturbed her. And if someone was in there, then wasn't the cauldron she had left in the bathroom in danger?
She had been brewing potion there precisely to avoid attracting attention. This was terrible.
Panicked, Hermione grabbed Harry and ran toward the bathroom. Before they had gone far, they heard a heavy sound.
"Huh? Do you hear that?" Harry frowned. It sounded like something heavy was dragging across stone.
"We'll know if we go in and look," Hermione said, still worried about her potion.
Hermione rushed in anxiously and at a glance saw Ron Weasley holding a jack-o'-lantern.
"Weasley?" Surprise showed on Hermione's face. "What are you doing here?"
Voldemort said nothing. He simply looked toward the door, waiting for the second person to come in.
"Hermione, wait for me." Harry followed right behind and appeared in front of Voldemort.
This person...
Ron Weasley was extremely familiar with Harry Potter, and the surge of emotions and memories from that familiarity startled even Voldemort.
"Harry... Potter. The Savior who killed the Dark Lord as a baby... Isn't the Dark Lord me?" Voldemort was stunned. He stared at Harry Potter as if looking at some kind of rare animal.
What kind of joke was this? This little brat in front of him had killed his true body when he was only a baby?
He did not want to believe it, but Ron Weasley's memories were exactly like that. And these were not mere fragments. They were memories that included conversations with other people.
Which meant the idea of "the Savior who killed the Dark Lord" was widely known.
But how?
Voldemort trembled with rage, and his original plan to simply silence them was instantly thrown aside.
He was going to subject this so-called Savior to brutal torture and force him to reveal what kind of trick or conspiracy he had used to kill the original Voldemort, so he could avoid being caught by the same thing again.
No, wait. How could a newborn baby possibly have had any trick or conspiracy?
Voldemort was so furious his thoughts were almost turning to mush, but his actions remained ruthless.
He raised one hand. The shadow beneath him boiled like liquid, and one after another, serpent-like shadows shot out of it.
The sudden change left Hermione and Harry both stunned, staring helplessly at the snake-like shadows.
The shadows shot forward and lunged at the two of them. Harry instinctively pulled Hermione behind him. Faced with that rain-like barrage of shadows, he had no time to react and could only watch them strike.
"That's more like it. This is the level a little wizard should be at." Voldemort chuckled darkly, but then the memory of that young wizard who had casually dispelled his attack in a few moves returned to him, and a shadow fell over his mood.
From that boy's every gesture, it was obvious he had not even used his full strength. He was a threat that absolutely could not be ignored.
But it did not matter. Once he seized the Savior, killed that useless girl, and hid in the Chamber of Secrets, no one would know where he had gone. Then, after forcing out the answers and information he wanted, he would feed this so-called Savior to the Basilisk and finish the matter once and for all.
Perhaps the bathroom would even gain one more silly, shrieking girl ghost.
Voldemort had already laid out the whole plan in his mind, waiting only for his magic to kill Hermione and capture Harry.
What happened next, however, overturned everything he thought he knew.
The vicious snake-shadows bit into Harry, but in the blink of an eye they were flung back at even greater speed and shot straight toward Voldemort.
What?
Since when did it bounce back?
...
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