In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 356: Hermione's Move (2 in 1)

The Hungarian Horntail, the Hebridean Black Dragon and the Ukrainian Ironbelly, all of them are extremely powerful dragon species that have been brought here.

Just as the Professors on the Astronomy Tower were using their magic to defend themselves against the Ukrainian Ironbelly Dragons, a Hungarian Horntail as well as two Hebridean Black Dragons slammed into the edge of the tower!

The castle shook violently!

This is the highest part of the entire school and is equivalent to a slender unit extending out from the main body of the castle, so the defences are not as solid as they could be.

The shaking surface caused most of the Professors who were maintaining the general counter-spell to lose their footing, two or three fell to the ground and a few stumbled, unable to maintain the spell they were casting.

With such a gaping deficit, the frenzied dragon's breath finally broke through the blue barrier!

The golden-red flames instantly swept through the entire Astronomy Tower, and the blazing heat caused the Professors, who were the first to receive such a blast, to scream.

Alecto's robe was set alight, she screamed and tried to flee the tower like a rolling ball of flesh in the flames.

Yet before she could even make it to the entrance, a bright red curse struck her!

"Crucio!"

The ones who were panicking in the Astronomy Tower were instantly silenced by that curse, and every Professor present looked incredulously at Barty Jr. who was holding his wand up to cast a curse on his fellow professor.

Barty Junior's face was as grim and cold as it had never been before.

Alecto let out a frantic shrill under his torment, but he unceremoniously stomped on her fat face and then looked up at everyone in the place.

"I warn you, don't forget who you are! You are the servants of the lord, and you are expected to do whatever it takes to guard his property! This castle is our lord's most prized possession, and if it is destroyed at the hands of these beasts, then I will kill you all without him doing it first! And then kill myself to thank him! Even if this castle is to be destroyed, we will die before it collapses!!!"

Barty Jr. roared out like a madman.

Everyone in the crowd knew he wasn't joking, this male wizard worshipped Voldemort to the point of sickness, how else would a normal person manage to kill his own parents for an outsider?

And being one of the hidden inner circle members of the inner circle, Barty Jr. knew more than anyone else how important this Hogwarts castle is for Voldemort, and his words were not a threat, if it came to that, then he would certainly do what he said he would do and let everyone in the castle die before this school collapsed!

His ruthlessness deterred all those present, and looking at Alecto, who was still lying on the ground moaning, everyone temporarily dismissed the idea of escaping from the Astronomy Tower, even the Professors whose bodies had already been set alight by the dragon's breath, fumbled to put out the flames first, and then turned to aim their wands at the dragons in the sky, who were building up their strength for the next wave of attacks.

***

Inside the castle, it was chaos throughout Hogwarts.

The pureblood students were fine, they had a dedicated common room caretaker and even three house elves dedicated to them.

So at the first sign of a dragon's attack on the castle, the pureblood students were all quickly led to the most secured great hall, where they would not be in any danger unless the whole castle collapsed.

The half-bloods were not so lucky, as their Head, Greengrass, was still up in the Astronomy Tower and there was no caretaker to take charge of their safety.

They were left to scurry around the castle like headless flies, before finally making their way back to the common room in panic and fear, led by their Prefects.

But it wasn't exactly safe there, the half-blood students' common room was in a separate tower, and it was likely to be the target of some dragons' attacks as well, those creatures were looking around for a way to break into the castle, so they could be able to get in and out of the castle.

Only the great hall was the safest, because if anything bad happened, the students could escape from the castle in the shortest possible time, and if something did happen, the half-blood students hiding in the common room would only die.

As for the "mudbloods" who had been locked in the underground basement as soon as dinner was over, no one cared about them at all. But they were safe, and no dragon tried to dig a tunnel and break into the castle through it.

Apart from the students, the Professors in the castle were also in a state of confusion.

Amycus followed the orders of Barty and rallied the remaining Professors to fight back against the dragons that were attacking the castle, and also ordered the Aurors who were stationed in the school to go to the Astronomy Tower to reinforce them.

The attack of the dragons was not well-coordinated, and the pressure was most heavy on Barty and the others at the Astronomy Tower.

But even if they had organised all the forces in the castle, the professors, plus the Aurors who were left to guard the castle, only had about thirty people in total, and there was no way they could confront these dragons without two people taking on one!

The dragons have never been easy to deal with, and even the most professional dragon trainers or American dragon slayers need at least five people to work together to fight them off one by one, to control their numbers or subdue them easily.

At this point in time, the men in Hogwarts Castle were at a natural disadvantage in terms of numbers, not to mention their expertise in dealing with dragons.

So the battle to defend Hogwarts Castle was a difficult one for them.

At the same moment that the dragons were attacking the castle, on the fourth floor of the castle, in a secret passage, Hermione was watching everyone's movements in the school carefully using the Marauder's Map.

She had seen the vast majority of the Professor in the Astronomy Tower and the Aurors guard force heading there, the names of those Professors crowding the tower were changing their positions constantly, and it looked like a very chaotic situation.

The students had all taken cover in the right places too, and Hogwarts Castle now looked emptier than at any other time!

Hermione didn't know exactly what was going on, but the occasional dragon roar from outside, and the castle that was already shaking, made her guess almost instantly that something must have gone wrong with the first tournament task held in the Forbidden Forest, and that there was a very good chance that such an accident had something to do with Jon.

It wasn't as if she knew anything about it, but she had absolute faith and trust in Jon.

What was going on outside and who was benefitting from the situation Hermione didn't know, but what she did know was that this was the perfect opportunity for her to make a move in the castle!

No one would even notice what was going on inside the castle at this time, as the Professors were already understaffed and there was no way they could send another person to patrol the castle.

And all that commotion created by the dragons was so loud that it would completely cover up some of the preparations Hermione would have to make next, giving Hermione, who had been waiting for the perfect opportunity in this secret passage for a long time, a chance to finally walk out.

"Fawkes, no more sleep, we're getting ready to go out."

The young girl whispered to the phoenix on her shoulder.

Fawkes also opened those pale golden eyes this time and opened his pointed beak as if to yawn.

After making sure that everything was safe outside, Hermione didn't hesitate, she shifted the small pouch she was carrying to a right angle and made her way to the corridor with her wand in one hand and the Marauder's Map in the other, cloaked in the cloak of invisibility.

The corridor was empty, but not quiet, the walls and floor around her shuddered every now and then, and the sound of dragons roaring outside shook one's eardrums.

Hermione's pace was fast.

She had no idea how long it would take for the Professors and the Aurors to deal with the dragons outside, and she had to assume the worst and give herself twenty minutes.

She had to hurry and eliminate all the wrong options within those twenty minutes, even if she still couldn't get anything out of the day today, she had to verify all the few targets that Mr Slytherin and Professor Dumbledore had suspected at the start.

Making her way down the stairs without slowing her pace, she darted down the stairs to the ground floor.

As she made her way down the stairs, her hands and feet began to slow down as the pureblood students were all gathered inside the great hall, where a caretaker as well as many house elves stood guard, and Hermione had to be careful of them noticing her movements.

But after walking down the corridor to her left and watching herself get further and further away from the great hall and making sure there was no one else around, she returned to her stride and even jogged all the way around.

The shoes she wore under her feet had been specially enchanted by Dumbledore to greatly eliminate the sound produced by the soles of her shoes making contact with the ground, and no one would notice unless they were standing very close next to her.

Fawkes stood firmly on her shoulders and even spread his wings a little to help her hold up the invisibility cloak she was wearing to avoid any accidental slippage of the cloak, which looked like it was made of liquid, off her body.

Soon Hermione was in the same area that Slytherin had given her an account of, and the girls' lavatory where she had last found the snake-marked tap was also in this area.

Only this time Hermione didn't choose to go straight into the lavatory, but instead wandered along the corridor near that area, making a slightly raspy and unpleasant hissing sound under her breath.

The sound she made was not small, but it was all muffled by the commotion outside the castle, and there was no one else around to hear a little girl imitating a snake's sound.

After three or four minutes of such attempts, nothing unusual happened in response to Hermione.

Without being disappointed, Hermione made a split-second decision to leave the area and run back up the stairs, climbing up to the upper floors until she reached the seventh-floor corridor.

It was undoubtedly even emptier, not to mention this floor, no one was anywhere nearby three floors down.

Cloaked in the cloak of invisibility, Hermione quickly crossed the forbidden zone that was an absolute limit for everyone else in the castle and finally stood in front of the door of an office.

This place was not new to her, it was here that she had caught Jon just after he killed the Basilisk over a year ago, and it was here that she had really met the boy who called himself "Professor under Dumbledore".

And now he did become a Professor, only it happened to be Durmstrang's.

The revisit didn't make Hermione think much about it, she knew exactly how important her task would be.

Arriving at the door to this Headmaster's office, when Hermione was about to push it open and walk in, she hesitated.

Although this place had been breached once by Jon, and something taken from inside that represented the very foundation of this school, it was certain that Voldemort would have reinforced its defences afterwards as well.

She simply touched Fawkes' smooth feathers, and then the phoenix's entire body turned into a golden light.

The light lasted for a long time, and Fawkes didn't just disappear like the previous Apparition; the Anti-Apparition Charm had been delicately strengthened, making it difficult for Fawkes to directly apparate and move so easily.

But two or three minutes later, the golden-red light disappeared on Hermione's shoulder, and then Hermione was standing in front of the headmaster's office door with that "hissing" sound coming out of her mouth again.

There was a sound of movement in the Headmaster's office, but it soon died down again.

Hermione didn't look impatient, she just waited.

The wait didn't last long, and soon the golden light of Fawkes was back on around her.

When Fawkes returned, he had become a little messier than before he had gone in, his feathers were a little ruffled, but his pale gold eyes were still bright.

Upon his return, he shook his head at Hermione, which couldn't help but deflate Hermione's spirit a bit.

This had been the last place that they could suspect, and they had still ended up with nothing, and while Professor Dumbledore certainly wouldn't blame her, Hermione had a sense of frustration on her own.

Just as she was about to turn away from the place and head back into the secret passageway, a sudden flash of something Jon had once told her about while chatting to her on the Hogwarts ship suddenly crossed her mind.

She suddenly became a little excited, but quickly took a deep breath to calm down, and then, without hesitation, walked straight towards the seventh-floor corridor, and it didn't take her long to find the place as she recalled it.

There was a tapestry depicting a comical image of trolls hitting a ballet teacher with a wooden club.

On the opposite side of this tapestry was a blank wall.

Hermione took a deep breath as she did what Jon had once said he did and stood in front of that wall, walking back and forth as she kept thinking to herself.

'I need a room that leads to the Slytherin Chamber of Secrets!'

----

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