In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 325: Diadem

"Like I told you, Madam, if you keep interacting with people with that attitude, sooner or later you're going to run into a rough patch like Jon, he's not one of those students you met when you were at Hogwarts Castle before."

Nick shrugged and smiled slightly gloatingly at Lady Grey who was frozen in place, her face obviously looking a little uncomfortable.

Hearing his words, Lady Grey then snapped back to her senses, the proud expression on her already transparent face seemed to fade a little, and instead of answering Nick's words, she simply turned around and left the place.

Nick looked at the young lady, who had been a ghost for five hundred years more than him, but still looked like a young girl, and made a comical face.

Then, he silently crossed the wall to Jon's dormitory room without a second thought.

Neville and others were travelling with the Weasleys through Toulouse, so Jon was now the only one in the dormitory.

Jon was brushing his teeth when Nick arrived.

He had been keeping the leaf of mandrake in his mouth for a month, and although the magical herb itself was partly self-cleansing, it still gave Jon quite a strange psychological feeling, and now even though the leaf had been spat out it gave his saliva a strange taste.

"Hey, I thought you'd wait until the day school started to come back, why didn't you play two more days?"

Given the relationship between Nick and him, there was certainly no need to be so formal.

Jon gargled to spit the foam out of his mouth and said casually.

"There's a tournament to prepare later on no matter what, and can I take it that you're changing the subject?"

Nick rubbed his hands together with some embarrassment.

"Just to be clear, I didn't tell her about your Patronus, she got the word from over in Britain and came to me."

Jon hadn't intended to hold him on anything regarding the Patronus, it was already known to all of Voldemort's men, and it didn't really matter at all whether it was hidden or not.

"So, she actually came on this trip mainly for me?"

Jon asked as he wiped his mouth clean and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at Nick.

Nick nodded his head.

"Yeah, I don't know what channels she got the info about you over there in Britain and then found me at the beginning of the summer. At the time I thought she was here for Mr Slytherin's portrait, but it turns out she only had a quick audience with that portrait and then came back from Dumbledore's office in a huff, and it doesn't look like she and that gentleman got along very pleasantly."

Of course, they wouldn't get along very well; knowing the life of this Lady Grey Jon could figure out how the Slytherin would treat the daughter of his former friend.

Not to mention the fact that he had fallen out with the other three founders later on and straight out left the school, even if his old friendship was still a thing, this would only make him look down on this ungrateful daughter, even more, who actually stole something from her own mother, who would give it to her if she had asked instead of stealing and running away.

"I had thought that after seeing Mr Slytherin in person she would leave, but to my surprise, she found me again and asked me about you."

Jon peeled an apple with his fruit knife, given the questions Lady Grey had just asked him, he could probably guess the reason for her presence even if he thought with his toes.

"She came to me because she guessed that there is some special link between me and Hogwarts Castle?"

"Yes, although she was hiding it at first, you know, I may not have been close to her in the castle before, but I've known her for hundreds of years anyway, I know everything about her personality, so after a few words of coaxing, I was able to ask her all about her intentions for visiting you."

Nick looked at Jon, his expression finally becoming somewhat serious.

"She wants your help in getting the relics of Rowena Ravenclaw back."

Jon took a nibble of the apple in his hand as he listened.

"The diadem?"

Nick looked at him in surprise.

"You know all about it?"

"Not only I do know, but I've already seen that thing once." The apple was crisp and Jon crunched a bite, "You should know, I had infiltrated Hogwarts castle to steal the Book of Admittance and the Quill of Acceptance before I met you at sea. To get those two items you had to get into the Headmaster's office first, and there were four items placed right on the desk in that Headmaster's office."

"The Slytherin locket, the Gryffindor sword, the golden cup of Hufflepuff, and the Ravenclaw diadem."

It was the first time Nick had heard about this from Jon, he did know about Jon had once infiltrated the castle before but had no idea about what was actually hidden in the Headmaster's office.

There was a clear tinge of shock in Nick's voice.

"The Dark Lord has gathered up the relics of all four founders?"

He obviously didn't know anything about the Horcruxes.

"Then why didn't you get them back then?"

Jon tossed the clean-eaten kernel into the bin.

"Come on, be serious Nick, if you are the Dark Lord, would you leave four valuable artefacts like that in plain sight just on your desk in the Headmaster's office for no reason? If he didn't want anyone else to find them, there are so many places in the world to hide them, but why did he have to put them in a place where his enemies were most likely to go?"

"Are you saying that there must have been a curse cast on those four relics by the dark lord?"

"I am not sure whether there was a curse or not, but they were all certainly not normal, and my main goal at the time was not to take those relics, there was no need to risk an accident by trying to take them away while I didn't get the book and quill, and left the school with muggle students."

Jon rubbed his chin as he redirected the conversation back to Lady Grey.

"Which means that this Lady Grey, knows the diadem is in Hogwarts Castle, and she wants my help to retrieve it? Then why doesn't she go and find it herself? Wouldn't a ghost be better suited to move around inside the castle, and none of the Dark Lord's men could do anything to her."

Nick spread his hands.

"Gabrielle following you around every day has given you the wrong idea, Jon. Normal ghosts have no way of touching a physical object, and she couldn't take it out at all even if she could find it in the castle."

Jon slapped his forehead, he had indeed forgotten about it.

"That's not a good attitude to have when you're asking for something, and why should I get it back for her when she's the one who foolishly gave it away."

His voice was vague on the last two words and Nick didn't hear them.

"Here's the thing about ghosts, even though you might think we've been surviving in this world since we died, our mentality and personality have actually always remained the same as it was before we died, there's no way for time to affect our souls and naturally there's no way for us to grow much more than we did before, Lady Grey is a prime example of that."

Nick asked with a wink as he looked at Jon.

"So, are you going to help her?"

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