Halloween was coming, but Harry was in a bad mood. He felt that he had been too rash in agreeing to Nick's invitation. He, Ron, and Hermione were going to attend the ghost's death anniversary party. He saw that the other students in the school were happily attending the Halloween party. The auditorium was decorated beautifully. Fire bats decorated the entire hall, and Hagrid's giant pumpkins were carved into lanterns. They were so big that three people could sit inside. There were also rumors that Dumbledore had booked a skeleton dance troupe to liven things up. All of this made him regret. His intuition told him that this was more interesting than the death anniversary party, and it was indeed so.
"A promise is a promise," Hermione reminded Harry. "You said you were going to the death anniversary party."
Except for Slythrin, the other three academies valued honesty as a virtue, so although Harry was reluctant, he still kept his promise.
Then they saw hundreds of milky white, translucent ghosts floating in the classroom, waltzing to the ear-piercing sound of thirty musical saws. Thousands of candles were lit on a chandelier, emitting a terrifying blue light.
They decided to go somewhere else to take a look. They almost bumped into Myrtle, who was crying. Fortunately, Hermione reminded them in time, so they came to the other end of the underground classroom. Ron exclaimed excitedly. He saw a long dining table covered with black velvet, but when they approached it, they both covered their noses in unison.
Ghosts' food couldn't be expected to be normal things because they couldn't eat at all. It seemed that they could only put their mouths through the food they needed and then pretend that they had eaten it. So Harry and Ron could see a lot of rotten meat, dark, charred cakes, and a lot of maggot-infested lamb tripe. They guessed that the food had been there for a long time and had been reused many times.
After that, Naughty Ghost came to make trouble and made Myrtle cry. After that, they talked with Nick for a while. They couldn't stand the atmosphere here because they felt that it was too cold. Harry was hungry, and Ron's teeth couldn't help but chatter.
"I feel like something's wrong. I keep feeling like someone is spying on me. I thought it was a ghost just now, but now it's definitely not. There's not a single ghost here." Harry looked around a few times, trying to find something, but found nothing.
"Don't think about it, Harry." Ron said, "It's just an illusion because you're too hungry. Let's go back to the party."
"The pudding's probably not finished yet," Ron said hopefully, leading the way to the steps leading to the hall.
Then Harry heard it.
"Tear you apart … Tear you apart … Kill you …"
It was the voice again, the cold, murderous voice he had heard in Lockhart's office.
Lockhart always asked him to go to the office to reply to the letters of his admirers. There were a few times when he heard such cold words, and it made him feel very uncomfortable. His intuition told him that the person who spoke this way was not the same person who was staring at him earlier.
He staggered to a halt, grasped the stone wall, and listened with rapt attention, looking about him, squinting up and down the dimly lit passage.
"Harry, what are you doing —"
He followed the voice, following it. Suddenly he heard it grow darker and darker. Even though he had only heard a few words, Harry could feel the thirst for blood in its owner.
"He's going to kill me!" Harry felt a sudden mixture of fear and excitement. He raced around the third floor, Ron and Hermione following breathlessly. The three of them did not stop until they turned a corner and came to the last empty passage.
Something glittered on the wall in front of them. They approached slowly, squinting in the darkness to identify it. Between two windows, a foot above the floor, words were daubed on the wall, glinting in the light of the burning torches.
The Chamber is Opened.
Enemies of the Heir, Beware.
"What is that — hanging down there?" Ron said, his voice trembling.
They approached cautiously, and Harry almost slipped: there was a large puddle of water on the floor. Ron and Hermione grabbed hold of him, and they inched closer to the sign, their eyes fixed on a dark mass below. All three of them saw what it was at the same time, and jumped back in a spray of water.
Then they saw the petrified Madam Loris. It was the gatekeeper's cat. Her tail was hanging from the bracket of the torch. Her body was as stiff as a board. Her eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead. The three of them stood motionless for several seconds, and then Ron said, "Let's get out of here." "Shouldn't we try to save —" Harry said, not very well. "Listen," Ron said, "we don't want to be seen here."
But it was too late. A low noise, like distant thunder, told them that the party was just over. From both ends of the passage they were in came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, joyous chatter of people after tea and dinner. Then students were pushing and shoving into the passage from both ends.
When the people in front of them saw the upside-down cat, the noise and chatter suddenly died away. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood alone in the middle of the passage, and the students fell silent and crowded forward to see the terrible scene.
Harry's lips were dry. He looked at the still and stiff cat and didn't know what to say to explain. There were only three of them at the scene, and it seemed that any superfluous words would be so pale and powerless. He also saw Filch walking towards them with quick steps.
"Three suspects eliminated." Malfoy, who was under the effect of the Phantom Curse, could only comfort himself. He stood aside and watched everything coldly. Previously, he had also experienced a carnival of ghosts with them. He originally wanted to reach the scene before the three of them, but he overestimated his speed. He had to spend more energy to maintain the spell, and perhaps avoid being discovered by Naughty Ghost.
"Time to go." With that in mind, he retraced his steps back to the place where the ghosts had gathered. He was not confident that he could maintain the spell in front of so many people without being discovered. Dumbledore was no ordinary student.
"There are so many students. The elimination method is really not a good choice." He could not help but have a headache. Voldemort's soul fragment was attached to the item, and this was a magical item created by the most powerful Dark Wizard in history. He had to put in 120% of his effort to deal with it. From Jenny's behavior, it could be seen that the diary had a strong bewitching effect on those who had some mental problems. Voldemort could be said to be able to see through people's hearts when he was a student, and he could easily gain the trust of almost everyone. He only needed to gently guide them a little, and it was enough to make them open their hearts and let him do whatever he wanted.
He remembered that the first victim was Madam Loris, which was why he chose to follow the trio on Halloween, hoping to find some clues. However, due to his carelessness and miscalculation of the spell's difficulty, he missed the first chance to find a clue.
"But it's good that they've all been eliminated."
Since the butterfly effect had begun to play its role, he would not let go of any suspicious person. Speaking of mental problems, the Iron Triangle was actually not small.
Harry, whose parents died when he was young, was placed in his uncle's house. It could be said that he was abused since he was young. Under such treatment and after he was accepted into Hogwarts, he became the "savior" in the eyes of the wizards. However, he knew that he was just a very ordinary boy. His talent in magic was average, or perhaps slightly above average? He carried a lot of pressure on his shoulders, and he even hated the way they called him.
Some children would feel disgust towards the praise of their parents and elders. To them, these words were incomparably harsh because they felt that they were not worthy of these praises, which made them feel ashamed.
Under this shame, Harry wanted to prove himself. Not only in Quidditch, he also hoped that he could live up to the title of "savior" in other aspects.
Think about it, if Liddell taught him a lot of tricks in magic in the diary, which made his studies progress by leaps and bounds, perhaps he would be bewitched and become the main character. Of course, it was also possible that his inner sense of justice would suppress these desires. Who could say for sure?
Ron, well, as the youngest brother, couldn't help but be compared to his older brothers. Just like Jenny, he also had to use the leftover second-hand goods. Poverty was one of the factors that could easily destroy a person. Even Harry, who seemed to be poor at the beginning, was actually a hidden rich man. He had a large inheritance, and could buy all the snacks he needed in the car without a care. Perhaps for a moment, Ron would be jealous of Harry. Like other boys of his age, he also wanted to be noticed. The Eris Magic Mirror had shown it very clearly, but he did not have the ability to match it. This was enough to make him feel pain.
Just imagine, the diary only needed to evoke some jealousy and fear, and it was enough for him to succeed.
Humans were sometimes very weak, and sometimes very tenacious. Most people knew how to adjust their emotions, so Harry and Ron were still brave and strong most of the time.
As for Hermione, a Muggle wizard, when she first entered the world of magic, she should have been full of fear and surprise. In the beginning, the former should have been more than the latter, but when she found out that she was more powerful than many children from wizard families, the former was not as much as the latter. However, she was still distressed because she found that she could not handle the relationship between her friends well. Her friends and the school rules were always full of contradictions, and her occasional unintentional actions always made people feel proud. These always hindered the friendship between them, intentionally or unintentionally.
Of course, now that someone had made an unintentional mistake, perhaps there was also the usual trouble of a girl in adolescence.
Thinking of this, Malfoy let out a long sigh. Sometimes he wondered if it would be better for him to go step by step as a pure-blooded worshiper, and then follow the original path to oppose Harry and the others, and then call Hermione a mudblood. That way, the path of history would not deviate, and he would probably suffer a tragedy for two years in sixth or seventh grade. Then, after Voldemort was defeated, he would be able to live a life of luxury.
Of course, this was just a thought. Malfoy laughed at himself for a while, and his thoughts began to drift as he began to think.