In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 408: Lestrange (2 in 1)

Because he didn't know beforehand that the third task would take place in the castle, Jon didn't bring the Marauder's map with him.

Otherwise, in fact, he would have already figured out the full extent of Diane's exit by now.

But then again, even if he had known in advance, it would have been a matter of effort to bring the Marauder's map with him by avoiding the screening before the tournament started.

Having searched the entire first floor, Jon stopped in one of the charms classrooms and began to calmly rethink the riddle left on that candle with the Sorting Hat.

"If this nature is a proxy for a classroom, it's just too extensive, it's already three o'clock, and we've only just finished the first floor, it would take at least a day and a night to search the whole castle, and if a champion and a champion met in the middle of it once and something happened, it would continue to drag the time back even further, and with the tournament taking so long, the Castle Students have to stay outside all the time, and they can't guarantee that the classroom is where the trophy will eventually be hidden, so when the tournament will finally be over is simply out of reach."

Jon continued after a serious flurry of analysis.

"So, I don't think the answer to the riddle should be a classroom, but a specific place."

The Sorting Hat mused.

"[The nature of the school is what makes it a school], what is the nature of this school other than teaching and educating people?"

Jon pondered for a moment, and then he said.

"There may not be anything wrong with nature, but teaching is mainly used to pass on knowledge, and a classroom is normally a place used to pass on knowledge, but now that there are no more professors or students in this school, then the classroom would just be an empty room. Thinking about it differently, there is actually another way to get knowledge in the school other than from professors -"

"The library."

Jon stood up from the chair.

"Compared to the idea of a classroom, the library is much more specific, and there isn't a second library in the whole of Hogwarts."

To which the Sorting Hat agreed more than anything else.

"Maybe you're right in your feelings, we should take a look there."

Jon then didn't continue to look around from classroom to classroom but instead went straight down from the second floor to where the Hogwarts library was located.

Here the doors were closed, while on each side of the doors were two armours guarding each side.

After seeing the two suits of armour, Jon couldn't help but feel his spirits rise.

"I don't think I remember these two armours being present in the library before."

The Sorting Hat simply said cautiously at this.

"I was able to determine that there was no armour here before I lost consciousness, whether it was added on after that is unclear."

"I came here once two years ago and the armour wasn't there then, as to whether they were specially placed there by the judges, we'll actually know if we test them a little."

As Jon said that, his eyes were fixed on the two armours as they neared the door of the library, and just when he was less than a metre away from the door, the armours that were originally motionless suddenly raised their knight swords in their hands together and stopped in front of Jon.

Instead of being deterred by such a sudden movement, Jon raised his wand with a smile on his face.

"I remember when that Mr Graves read out the rules, he said that there are no restrictions on this castle as long as you can get in, which means these two things are actually a test, if you can beat them you will prove that a library is a non-restricted place for you; if you can't, then this is a restricted area."

The wand in his hand waved after the words had fallen, while the sound of an incantation rang out from his mouth.

"Confringo!"

Meanwhile, on the seventh floor of the castle, Emil walked out of the Headmaster's office with a grim look on his face along with the wizard who had sneaked up on Diane to get her out.

"Why can't we get any key information about the location of the Triwizard Cup?" Emil couldn't resist asking.

The male wizard shook his head and said.

"Graves is also on guard against people within the Confederation, and when it came to setting up the location of the trophy, he was the only one person responsible for it personally and didn't tell anyone else about it. Besides, even if we don't know where the Triwizard Cup is it doesn't matter, as long as we can find Jon Green and finish him off, then the Triwizard Cup will be in our hands sooner or later."

Emil then asked.

"So how do we find Jon Green? The castle is so big, it's not such an easy thing to find someone, not to mention the question of exactly what kind of clues he has found and how many steps he is ahead of us, maybe he will have secured that trophy and finished the tournament before we can find him?"

Just as the male wizard was lost in thought over this question of Emil's, a sudden explosion caught both of their attention instantly!

"You've lived in the castle for almost a year now, do you know where this sound is coming from?" The male wizard's voice was slightly excited.

Emil also had a look of joy on his face.

"Should be in the direction of the library!"

It didn't take much effort on Jon's part to tackle the two armours.

They didn't look like they would fight the contestant to the death either, Jon just used a normal blasting curse to test the armour's sturdiness first, and they automatically gave up their duty of guarding the library, the swords that had been blocking the door retracted, and they returned to their rigid, dull appearance.

This time there was no hindrance to Jon in opening the door to the library, he easily pushed it open and entered.

Just as he entered, the door closed of its own accord and a candle was lit, illuminating a room as wide as the Great Hall.

The bookshelves were neatly arranged and the chairs and benches were neatly tidied up, so it looked as if the various venues had been cleaned before the students and faculty were taken away from the castle.

Jon didn't stop at the outer shelves, he walked down the long corridor after entering the door and went deeper into the library, eventually approaching a red line.

Further along was the Forbidden Books section, however, there was not a single forbidden book left in the Hogwarts library now, most had been entered into Jon's ring and a small amount had been transferred to the British Ministry of Magic by Voldemort.

Crossing straight over the red line, Jon continued on, and before he could get to the end, a creature with the body of a lion and the head of a woman blocked his path.

It was a sphinx.

A magical creature from Egypt, it has been used by wizards to guard their precious objects and secret dwellings, a very clever creature that loves riddles and anagrams, it usually only becomes dangerous when what the thing it is guarding is at risk, and anyone who tries to walk past it is forced to guess a riddle or suffer its attack and be eaten outright.

In the original Triwizard Tournament, one such magical creature appeared in the final task, and one surprisingly was scheduled to come in for the Triwizard Tournament in this world too.

But before this Sphinx could say anything, Jon had already raised the wand in his hand and aimed it at it.

Without reciting the incantation, the tip of the wand already started to light up with a miserable green glow.

The sphinx clearly felt the deadly stillness in the green light, and its mouth, which was just about to open, subconsciously closed again.

Jon was not in much of a riddling mood with it here, and if he could solve the problem most simply and brutally, then naturally there was no need to use his brain.

"Get out of the way or die."

To be honest, this part of the library was very unfavourable to the Sphinx, it certainly wasn't small in size, and trying to deftly dodge a spell in this cramped space could be considered a nightmare.

If it were a normal spell such as a stunning spell or a full body-bind curse, it would not have had to fear Jon's threat, as all high-level magical creatures usually had thick hides that provided great protection against magic.

But for a killing curse, unless the hide is as thick as a dragon, no magical creature can take a hard shot from a spell like that.

The Sphinx had a good head on its shoulders, or it wouldn't have loved riddles, and as soon as it saw the green light at the tip of Jon's wand, it dodged to one side and kept a close eye on Jon without making a sound.

Jon didn't let his guard down in response, he kept his wand aimed at the Sphinx at all times while slowly passing it by, and just as Jon was about to pass it completely, a loud boom came through the door of the library!

It was clearly a blasting curse as well, and a much more powerful one than the one that Jon had previously cast to restrain the guardian!

Even the door of the library was shaken by the violent shockwave, and a lot of dust fell from the ceiling.

Taking advantage of this, the sphinx jumped back steeply and leapt from the narrow forbidden book area into the wide library study area, where the stern woman's face was glaring at Jon intently.

The doors to the library were also opened at this time, and two figures of roughly the same height came in through a puff of smoke.

Jon tightened his grip on his wand and looked at the two figures, unable to help but narrow his eyes.

Eventually, the smoke cleared and the men who had walked into the library revealed their original faces, one of whom was naturally Emil Lestrange.

The other man standing beside him, however, brought a sneer to the corner of Jon's mouth.

"So this is your last resort, blatant cheating like this?"

Emil's father, the man who had become the new Lord of Lestrange after Jon had killed Rabastan, Rodolphus and Bella, Brandon Lestrange, stood straight in front of Jon in quite a brazen manner.

Faced with Jon's question, Brandon looked unimpressed, his wand not lowered in his hand as he aimed it at Jon alongside his own son.

"Cheating has never been shameful at the Triwizard Tournament, it's rather a tradition."

Jon watched the father and son with cold eyes, neither of them made the first move, it wasn't that Jon was afraid of anything, he always felt that things weren't that simple.

It could be said that the original Lestrange family had been killed off by Jon alone, and it was because of this that Brandon now had the opportunity to rise to the top with his son.

This father and son should know better than anyone else what kind of threat he possesses, so how can they be sure that someone like him, who is only an obscure person among the Death Eaters along with a seventh-year student, is better than Bella and Rodolphus, two long-established dark wizards in the magical world?

Brandon, of course, had his own backing, and he kept a close eye on Jon, thinking of the time before the Triwizard Tournament had officially begun when Voldemort himself had paid a visit to the Lestrange house and, in addition to attending Rodolphus and Bella's funeral, had personally explained to him the ultimate goal of their father and son in this tournament.

To kill Jon Green and get the Triwizard Cup.

As a champion competing in the tournament, Emil of course could not kill someone with a killing spell, so the only person who could do it was Brandon.

As for how to get Brandon to intervene in this final task when the time came, Voldemort certainly had his own arrangements.

Now that this arrangement had worked, and Brandon had already reached the critical moment of facing Jon directly, at this time, he did not hesitate or could hesitate, and the next second he waved the wand in his hand.

"Avada Kedavra!"

A miserable green glow instantly lit up the entire library as the killing curse came straight towards the spot where Jon was standing!

And as Brandon fired the curse, Emil completed a perfect match with his father, raising his wand together and instead of chanting the spell, he released a silent stunning spell directly above Jon.

They had both studied the magic Jon had been relying on and knew that he could fly, so their spell was mainly to block off the space above him!

Jon didn't have the dead brain to necessarily use a levitation charm at the first sign of trouble.

The forbidden books were all gone from the forbidden area, but the surrounding shelves were all still honestly in place, and he ducked behind them in a flash to avoid the combined attacks of both Lestrange father and son.

Animagus hadn't managed to turn him into some magical creature but had strengthened his physique and reaction time as a human being.

It was also in this way that Jon's movements were actually going to become more dexterous compared to before.

After successfully dodging the killing curse and the stunning spell, he didn't immediately counterattack, but turned his head to look at the end of the forbidden book area where the Sphinx had originally blocked, there was no trophy there, just a very ordinary-looking wooden door.

It was only after realising that the tournament would not be over any time soon that Jon gave his full attention to the Lestrange father and son.

He hid behind a bookshelf while aiming his wand at Brandon through a gap in one of the many bookshelves.

"Sectumsempra!"

The invisible blade cut through one of the desks blocking Brandon in a flash, while stirring up a pale blue shield of light twenty centimetres in front of him and making countless cracks on it.

After the shield charm had narrowly deflected Jon's spell, Brandon did not hold back any longer and immediately pulled out a ring with a black gem.

In the next second, a never-ending black mist erupted from that ring!

----

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