In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 360: To Blow Up the Castle (2 in 1)

Hermione never closed the Marauder's Map.

Even as she was scribbling down the Ancient Runes on the floor, she kept the map spread out beside her, checking the names on it every two seconds.

Voldemort's name was on it, albeit under the name "Tom Riddle".

Dumbledore had informed her of Voldemort's real name when he had given her the Marauder's Map and had tested it to make sure that even Voldemort himself would not be able to avoid and detect the magic on the map.

He cautioned Hermione that as soon as Voldemort's name appeared within the confines of Marauder's Map, then whatever she was doing, she must leave the castle at the first opportunity and not hesitate in the slightest.

Hermione listened to Dumbledore's warning, she knew that if she infiltrated the castle and did something, and it got exposed red-handed, the consequences would not only be for her personal safety, but also bring big trouble to the current Witching Horizon, Hogwarts Wagon, Dumbledore, and Jon himself.

As soon as she saw the name "Tom Riddle" appear on the Astronomy Tower, she had planned to have Fawkes take her out of the Slytherin Chamber.

But this chamber, perhaps because of the Ancient Runes on the floor, was enchanted with a different kind of Anti-Apparition Charm than the one in the castle.

There was no difference in strength between the two, but the structure of the magic was vastly different, requiring Fawkes to redo the re-decryption, something neither of them had anticipated after entering the chamber.

Therefore, as Voldemort had settled the dragon scourge and Hermione watched through the Marauder's Map as he flew towards the Room of Requirement with a clear objective, she decisively interrupted Fawkes' preparations for Apparition.

There was definitely not enough time.

Hermione would need to climb down on her own, so it had taken at least half an hour to get from the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets and enter this chamber, but this was no problem for Voldemort, who mastered extremely profound magic that allowed him to cross this distance in just under three minutes, even if he had no way of Apparating inside the castle, he was able to cross this distance in the form of a black mist.

In desperation, Hermione could only take Fawkes and choose to hide.

There was almost no place to hide in this chamber, and even though she carried a cloak of invisibility, against a wizard with keen senses and intuition, a cloak of invisibility did not necessarily mean that she would be safe.

And Hermione herself didn't know whether it was her fear of Voldemort or something else, but she felt that even with the cloak she couldn't hide from the Dark Lord's eyes.

Luckily, the portrait of the Chamber of Secrets' creator hung on the wall of Dumbledore's Headmaster's office.

After he confirmed that Hermione had been chosen for this task, Salazar gave Hermione all the layouts of this secret chamber he had created, as well as some secret words to activate it, without fail.

So Hermione hid in the mouth of that Slytherin statue, which was previously where the Basilisk that Jon had killed in the Headmaster's office had been hiding.

Voldemort must have known about this place too, otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to find the Basilisk hiding here and ask it to guard the Headmaster's office, so Hermione was actually making a gamble, and now she could only bet that Voldemort wouldn't check so carefully, because it was the time when the tournament was going to end, and he had to spare his energy to deal with Dumbledore after his good trip back to the castle.

As she thought, Voldemort did not examine the chamber in detail and immediately left for the edge of the Forbidden Forest after stamping out the illusory dwarf.

Hermione then watched his movements on the Marauder's Map and crawled back out of the statue's mouth, while Fawkes continued his preparations for the Apparition, she used the time to scribe down as many Ancient Runes on the ground as she possibly could.

Hermione had read some books on Ancient Runes after class, but her knowledge of them was rather superficial; she didn't know any of them, let alone understand what they meant, so she had to write them down and bring them back to Dumbledore to study.

But before she had even finished writing down a tenth of the runes on the ground, she suddenly saw the name "Tom Riddle" on the map, returning back to Hogwarts Castle!

At once, she gathered up all her belongings, and Fawkes, standing on her shoulder, glowed with a golden-red light that kept intensifying.

"Hurry up! We have to be quick, Fawkes! He could come back any minute!"

As if fulfilling Hermione's bad feelings, the name that stood for Voldemort on the Marauder's Map began to move abruptly and at great speed from its position in the entrance hall towards the seventh floor!

In a panic, Hermione cloaked herself and Fawkes in the invisibility cloak as she recited Parseltongue secret words to the Slytherin statue once more and then moved swiftly to climb in!

She knew that no place would necessarily be safe for her to stay, and it was obvious that Voldemort was much more aggressive this time compared to the last, he must have found out something, otherwise, he wouldn't have come towards the room in the Room of Requirement for the second time with such a clear objective.

The Slytherin statue's mouth closed again, and only Fawkes' body glowed gold and red within the dark, claustrophobic environment.

Hermione was far more mature and calm than her normal peers, but her body still trembled involuntarily at this time, her arms cradling a glowing Fawkes, her eyes locked on the name that was moving quickly.

"Come on Fawkes, you can do it, come on, we can't let Jon and the Professor down"

Her voice was trembling too, but there was nothing she could do to help Fawkes at this time, only to watch as the name that represented darkness and death came closer and closer to her.

So close that he had stepped through the passage of the chamber and flown over the winding, twisting path to the two stone doors carved with serpents!

Hermione's body rapidly turned cold from the chill that could not be suppressed even with the perfect warmth that Fawkes in her arms was giving her.

"Hiss (open)."

As the stone door slid slowly to the sides, Fawkes suddenly pecked the back of Hermione's hand with his pointed beak, and then the light from his body wrapped around Hermione!

The blinding light penetrated the Slytherin's closed mouth and then disappeared abruptly, a sight that Voldemort, who walked in the next second, did not see.

He had re-entered the quiet, claustrophobic, Ancient Runes-filled chamber.

Everything was as it had been when he had left it twenty minutes ago, the shimmering Ancient Runes greeting their lord with joy, except that the shackles, which had lost their purpose and fallen to the floor, had at some point levitated back into existence, vaguely holding some illusory being in their grip.

Voldemort's eyes were filled with coldness as he didn't stop this time and walked right up to the statue of the Slytherin.

"Hiss hiss hiss (Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four)"

The mouth of the statue opened up to reveal a circular passage.

Looking in from the outside towards the inside, it was dark and did not look like there was any sign of a hidden person, but Voldemort did not stop halfway as he continued to fly into the passage as a black mist.

The passage was deep, and it connected to the sewer pipes throughout Hogwarts castle, thus allowing the Basilisk to survive inside for thousands of years by hunting for rats as well as other small creatures.

With great speed, Voldemort searched the whole area for mice following the pipe.

However, he found nothing.

Then he returned to the Slytherin chamber and stared at the statue that represented his ancestors and frowned.

"Why are you bothering to help them, regardless of my goals, the glory of the purebloods is being carried forward in my hands, isn't that what you aspired to do when you founded this school in the first place? So, why not agree with me?"

His voice echoed through the closed chamber, but there was no one to answer him.

Voldemort tilted his head as he looked at the pale, monkey-like face, and the coldness that flowed from his gaze was as if he was looking at an enemy.

"It doesn't matter if you guys don't want to give it to me, I'll take it myself!"

***

Dumbledore and Jon returned to the Headmaster's office on the wagon, and Jon immediately went to find someone to ask if Hermione had returned, the look on his face became unbearably grave when he received a negative answer.

"Hermione and I made a promise that as soon as Riddle's name came up within range of the Marauder's Map, then whatever she was doing, Fawkes would have to bring her back immediately."

Jon frowned back.

"Hermione won't be that careless, if she promised something she'd do it, and now she's not back it can only be because she's in trouble."

He looked at Dumbledore, his eyes were serious.

"We have to help her!"

"Of course, we have to help her." Dumbledore didn't half hesitate to respond to Jon's demand, he had gripped his wand, "No student should be left behind, that was a promise I emphasized to all of you when you were enrolled, and it remains the same even now."

Jon wasn't half surprised by Dumbledore's response, he knew full well that the old man was in fact an idealist, there were just times when reality would force him to accept it.

"But we also have to anticipate the Dark Lord's reaction ahead of time and if he has captured Hermione by now, then what are we going to do?"

Dumbledore's face was calm as he re-draped his robes.

"He takes this castle seriously, in fact, I actually used to hold it in high regard too."

Jon didn't respond for a moment.

"So?"

"The dragons are not capable of destroying that castle, but even as a dull old man I'm still a little more versatile than those dragons aren't I?" Dumbledore actually smiled at this point, "Riddle wouldn't care about his subordinates, wouldn't care about his students, but he certainly cares about this castle, and while I haven't found out why he cares so much about it, it doesn't stop us from using that as leverage."

Jon looked at Dumbledore in bewilderment.

"But, do you no longer care about that castle? Professor."

"I certainly do care about it, Jon." Dumbledore said softly, "I've lived and taught here for over fifty years, people used to call me the greatest Hogwarts Headmaster ever, and even though that name has become a joke now, I still love that place, it's not just a school, it's the history of the entire British wizarding community. "

"But what makes Hogwarts a Hogwarts isn't just based on a castle, the castle itself was built to teach and educate people, but if it no longer has the means to carry that mission and has even become a tool to oppress students, then even if it were to be destroyed, I don't think the four great wizards who created it would say anything about it, would they? Salazar."

On the wall, the portrait of Slytherin spread his hands.

"I don't know about the others, but it certainly doesn't matter to me, we decided to build the school a thousand years ago to help safeguard the wizards, rather than establish the school to hurt the wizards."

Jon froze at the comment, and Dumbledore said to him as if he was joking.

"You hear that, I have received the approval of the original owner of this castle."

With that, he buttoned up his robes and led Jon to the door of the office.

"Come on, let's go and get Hermione back."

Jon rubbed his nose to ease the somewhat inexplicable soreness as he followed Dumbledore's lead and smiled suddenly.

"Yes, that castle can be called anything but Hogwarts, Hogwarts is clearly this wagon of ours!"

"Ha, I like the sound of that."

Just as they were about to walk out of the Headmaster's office, a golden-red glow suddenly lit up behind them!

Both Jon and Dumbledore's steps stopped at the same time, and they turned around to see that the burst of light had outlined the lines of a phoenix and a small girl.

At the sight of this, Jon's already tense nerves finally relaxed, and he heaved a long sigh of relief, while Dumbledore still had that gentle smile on his face, but Jon could also see the relief in his eyes; no matter what, as long as Hermione was safe that mattered more than anything else.

He said to Jon jokingly.

"We've done all the mental preparation for nothing."

Jon lightly slapped both sides of his face.

"I'm actually already thinking about how I'm going to let the dark lord slip his tongue when you blow the castle down, Professor."

"It's okay, you can save the words you think of for now, you'll definitely be able to use them later."

"Shouldn't you be lecturing me about not swearing?"

"How can I teach my students what I can't do myself."

Just as they were talking, Hermione appeared in the Headmaster's office, and she looked at Dumbledore and Jon, who looked like they were getting ready to leave the office, with a surprised look on her face.

"Where are you both going."

Jon and Dumbledore looked at each other and then he shrugged.

"Going to blow up Hogwarts castle, if you show up a few seconds later."

----

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