Snape, who had already transformed into Slughorn, waited in an empty classroom for Lily's arrival.
Naturally, he didn't enter the Gryffindor Common Room; instead, he asked a portrait in the Castle to help call Lily out of the girls' dormitory.
Not long after, a soft sound of a door being pushed open rang out, and Lily, wearing a robe over her pyjamas, poked her head in and walked inside.
"Professor Slughorn? You're looking for me this late? And why aren't we in your office?"
From her tone, it was clear that Lily was indeed very familiar with Slughorn.
Snape tried his best to keep a smile on his face, working hard to display the kind of gentle smile Slughorn usually wore.
"I have some matters to discuss with you, Lily. Come, come and sit down over here."
Even though Snape did his best, Lily still looked at him with a strange expression.
"Professor, are you in a bad mood? It feels like you're forcing a smile."
Snape said with difficulty,
"Some accidents have happened, but none of that is important. I have something to give you."
He didn't say anything extra; the more they chatted, the easier it would be to slip up. So, getting straight to the point, he pulled the experimental notebook Sherlock had given him out of his pocket.
"Take this and keep it safe. Try your best to learn the contents before you graduate! It will help you one day in the future."
Lily took the experimental notebook from his hand with a face full of confusion. She flipped through it briefly but couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"Why are you giving me this? Magic regarding the soul is usually very advanced; I don't think I can learn it for the time being."
"Even if you can't learn it, you must try. I can't tell you the specific reason, but this is very important for you!"
Lily felt somewhat puzzled, but she didn't ask any more questions and put the notebook into her pocket.
Snape continued to urge her with a serious expression.
"You must keep this safe. Don't let anyone find it, no matter who they are. Don't mention it to anyone afterwards, including me!"
Hearing him emphasise this so strongly, the expression on Lily's face became even more bewildered.
However, out of trust for Slughorn, she still nodded hesitantly.
"Alright, I understand."
The scene fell silent. At this point, Snape's mission for this trip should have been considered successfully completed, and he should have left. But his face struggled, as he was reluctant to leave directly.
A stiff smile appeared on his face, and in his heart, he desperately longed to speak with Lily for a while longer, as if this were his only chance.
"How... how has your life at school been lately?"
...
Sherlock stared at Eddie.
"There are many of them, and you're not like me. Going over there would be very dangerous."
At this moment, Eddie's face didn't show any sign of tension; instead, he laughed light-heartedly.
"Do you still remember the three sentences I told you that night?"
Sherlock nodded silently.
"I am an Auror of the Wizarding World. My responsibility is to fight these people, so I cannot back down at this time and hide behind you," Eddie said in a calm yet powerful voice. "No matter the reason, I should be standing at the front with you!"
Recalling the time they had spent together since meeting Eddie, Sherlock had also seen his character clearly. He knew that persuading him to back down now would be equivalent to an insult.
So, he finally nodded.
"But don't try to be a hero. When you should give up, honestly cherish your life and think more about Amy."
Eddie's smile was somewhat bitter.
"I haven't forgotten my identity as a father, even though I haven't been a competent one from the start."
"It's for the best that you're aware of that."
They didn't say anything more. The two of them left the brightly lit hall together and walked back into the pitch-black maze.
Under Bella's leadership, the Death Eaters' movement speed was not much slower than Sherlock's.
The memories of Madam Selwyn that Barty Jr. had brought back were very comprehensive, containing not only the locations of each door but also the complete route through the maze.
Just as they were reaching the end and were about to exit this maze, in the darkness ahead that was still pitch-black, hundreds of bright lights suddenly flashed!
It wasn't until those lights flared up that Sherlock's delayed incantation finally drifted over.
"Reducto!"
The partition walls in the maze were very sturdy. He had experimented many times before and hadn't been able to blow them open with the Explosion Charm.
So, with the walls in between, Sherlock could recklessly use Control Magic to position his wands in front of the wall on the Death Eaters' side and use the Explosion Charm without worrying about affecting himself or Eddie.
The darkness here could absorb light sources, and even though it slightly suppressed his Control Magic, even with the suppression, his Control Magic could extend to a distance of about eight metres.
Within a radius of eight metres, the darkness was as if it didn't exist for him, and he could directly observe the positions of those Death Eaters.
Hundreds of Explosion Charms burst in the silence like fireworks blooming in the night sky, exploding along the straight path where Bella was leading the Death Eaters!
The light was swallowed again by the strange darkness the moment it lit up, but the accompanying massive roar, which seemed like it would pierce one's eardrums, suddenly rang out!
"BOOM!!!"
The whole world seemed to be trembling. Even Eddie and Sherlock had to hold onto the walls beside them to prevent themselves from being shaken to the ground by the earth-shattering vibration.
And the Death Eaters facing this scene felt it even more directly!
The moment the light flared up, Bella's face changed drastically, and an uncontrollable sense of panic rose in her heart!
In just a single second, she made an incredibly correct decision, throwing herself backwards and falling under the Death Eater who was only half a shoulder's width behind her.
The moment she hit the ground, the other Death Eaters had just reacted.
But at this point, it was too late for everything!
The shockwave, powerful enough to tear everything apart, accompanied by a scorching heatwave, ravaged the entire corridor!
The partition wall closest to the centre of the explosion actually couldn't withstand that near-apocalyptic power; the surface of the wall suddenly shattered, and countless stone-like fragments were blown everywhere.
The Death Eaters were still some distance away from the most powerful part of the explosion, but when the shockwave reached their position, orange light shields suddenly lit up on the Death Eaters at the very front.
These Shield Charms took effect immediately, but against power that even the partition walls couldn't stop, the Death Eaters' Shield Charms couldn't hold for even two seconds before they shattered with a bang!
The iron masks on the faces of the three Death Eaters at the very front and the black robes on their bodies were blown to pieces. Their bodies were also nearly unrecognisable, their faces and fronts all a bloody mess; they lost their lives on the spot and fell backwards onto the ground.
The corridor was very narrow, and there were many Death Eaters, so the line was stretched very long.
This resulted in only the three Death Eaters at the very front actually receiving fatal injuries; the further back the aftershock went, the more its power was weakened.
Shield Charms shattered one after another, but the people in the back only suffered minor injuries.
Bella should have been certain to die.
However, she reacted very quickly, using her companions' bodies as meat shields.
The three Death Eaters who were blown to death fell on top of her. Not only did they help her block the impact of the explosion, but they also blocked many small stones blown off the wall, leaving her with only a shattered Shield Charm and hair that had become even more frizzy from the high-temperature baking.
Under the observation of Control Magic, Sherlock couldn't see all the Death Eaters, but he could "see" the few people who were most severely affected at the front clearly.
The power of nearly two hundred Explosion Charms was beyond a normal person's imagination, yet it was far below Sherlock's expectations.
Taking advantage of the surrounding dark environment, he had chosen an explosion location very close to the Death Eaters. It should have yielded greater results, but in the end, only three people died.
There was something strange about the darkness in this room!
Not only could it devour light, but it could also affect the power of spells.
Additionally, the number of spells he had used consecutively today was already quite high. Besides the daily routine of one hundred General Counter-Spells on the locket containing the Time-Turner, there were fifty Petrificus Totalus spells and two hundred Transformation Charms in the Time Room.
That made three hundred and fifty spells. Counting the two hundred Explosion Charms he had just used, a total of five hundred and fifty spells had already left his body exhausted.
Eddie obviously noticed this problem as well, and he stared at Sherlock's pale face.
"Your physical strength is being consumed too rapidly. You can't force yourself to cast spells continuously like this."
"I know. This time was only because there was a good opportunity for a sneak attack that I wasted so many," Sherlock said regretfully. "But the effect was mediocre; only three on the other side died."
Sherlock's condition was very poor, but the people on the Death Eaters' side didn't know that.
"Retreat! Everyone retreat for now!"
Bella, her face covered in dust and grime, stood up from the ground and screamed shrilly.
Even without her reminder, these people didn't dare to move forward any further and kept retreating until they reached a corner behind them.
Among the three who died was Bella's brother-in-law, Rodolphus's younger brother, Rabastan.
But Bella didn't even spare a glance at the already unrecognisable corpse and retreated back among the Death Eaters.
Although obtaining the item Lord Voldemort demanded was very important, the casualties among the Death Eaters here also couldn't be too massive, or Bella wouldn't be able to explain it.
"That was at least fifty Aurors releasing Explosion Charms together! Where did they get so many people!"
The Death Eater asking the question had a young voice. Bella stared at him and said with a frown,
"The Ministry of Magic couldn't possibly have this many Aurors! That person in the Time Room just now was not right; he can use many spells by himself!"
She glanced again at the large hole blown in the corridor partition wall by the Explosion Charms and quickly came up with a countermeasure.
"Lucius, you take fifteen people and continue to stall him here. I'll take the others and go around from that side!"