Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 386 The Missing Horcrux

Outside the door were the brothers George and Fred. They were both wearing tattered school robes, and their faces, as well as the flesh that showed through the holes in the robes, were all bruised and purple, as if they had just come back from the boxing ring.

"Mike, we can't take it!"

"That's right, I can't stand it anymore!"

Before McFarlane could say anything, George and Fred started talking to each other.

Mike glanced at the two of them, and after pulling them back to the Masonic Secret Realm through the Masonic Gold Coin, he quickly asked:
"How is this going?"

"It's Umbridge! All of Hogwarts belongs to her now!"

"So she set up a punishment room again, hired a lot of Slytherins, and gave them the power to supervise the students to rule Hogwarts!"

"The key is!"

"She's still not going to fire us!"

"Yes, she wanted to keep us in Hogwarts and torture us! That's how we got the injuries!"

"If we continue like this, she will kill us sooner or later!"

Listening to the Weasley brothers telling the whole story, Mike's face showed a hint of anger.

The Weasley brothers are both members of the Freemasons. When they made the Unbreakable Oath, they vowed to share the joys and sorrows together!

The reason why the Weasley brothers were allowed to be retaliated by Umbridge was actually more of a punishment given by Mike for their unauthorized actions, but this kind of revenge has its limits. Now Umbridge's behavior has undoubtedly touched Mike's bottom line.

"You guys," Mike said after a while, suppressing his anger, "what are you going to do?"

"We are going to escape from Hogwarts."

"Exactly! Just like Dumbledore did!"

"Then we will go to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade Village and rent a store to fulfill our dream!"

"Open a magic joke house!"

George and Fred spoke alternately, and the anger on their faces at the beginning turned into longing for the future.

But this longing did not last long and disappeared, turning into a kind of gnashing of teeth filled with hatred.

"But before we leave, Umbridge must be taught a lesson!"

"That's right! A lesson we will never forget! Otherwise, all the hard work we have endured during this period would have been in vain!"

After saying that, the two of them looked at Mike with a nervous expression again.

They have learned lessons from previous events, and now they know very well that if they are really ready to take action, it would be best to ask Mike.

If Mike doesn't agree, then it's all over!
"Umbridge really went too far, so..." Mike looked at the two pairs of expectant eyes and said slowly, "I support you!"

"awesome!"

"Mike! God forever!"

The two Weasley brothers screamed and went to hug Mike. In the past, Mike would have pushed the two men away resolutely, but now, looking at the scars on their faces, Mike just stood there motionless, allowing George and Weasley to wipe all the dirt on their hands and faces onto his clean robe.

"Alright! That's about it!" After a while, Mike, who felt he had reached his limit of endurance, broke free from the two men's embrace, patted his robe and said in disgust, "Tell me, what are you going to do?"

"you still need to ask?"

George had a malicious look on his face, and Fred beside him took out a colorful barrel of fireworks from his arms and said:
"With our Bang Bang Whoosh fireworks, of course!"

"There are lots of other magical fireworks! All of them together are enough to blow that old witch Umbridge up to the sky!"

Looking at the familiar fireworks, Mike shook his head and said:
"Have you never considered a problem? What if Umbridge has already prepared for this kind of fireworks and it doesn't have the effect you want?"

After these words were spoken, the Weasley brothers finally reacted. They looked at each other, all speechless.

Until finally, the two of them looked at Mike.

"As your president, it's time for me to give you some help." Mike's mouth curled up, "Go find Benjamin and Victor, and tell them that I asked you to go. They will fully cooperate with you!"

"Mike! God forever!"*2
The Weasley brothers cheered again and rushed towards Mike.

But this time Mike did not indulge the two of them, but simply stepped aside.

"Go away! You're so dirty!"

The Weasley brothers, who had come up empty-handed, had regretful looks on their faces, which made Mike more certain of his previous thoughts - these two guys did it on purpose!
After playing around with the Weasley brothers for a while, Mike said:
"Okay, everyone, I think it's time for us to separate. You guys go find Benjamin and Victor. I have my own things to do."

As he spoke, Mike took out the Masonic gold coin and prepared to teleport, but George on the side suddenly said:
"What are you going to do?"

Mike paused, thought for a moment and decided to tell the truth.

"Harry and Hermione are practicing Occlumency at my place, and I'm going to let them go after school. Then, I'm going to go to the Slytherin common room."

"Slytherin!"

"What are you doing there?"

The Weasley brothers' eyes suddenly lit up.

"Phew, I made an appointment with Chris to go to his place to buy something. It's just a small thing, you guys..."

"Take us with you! We can be your bodyguards!"

"Right! We are worried about you! Those Slytherins might attack you!"

Mike was interrupted, but he wasn't angry.

Looking at the excited Weasley brothers, how could Mike not know what they were thinking? But considering that they had been upset a lot in the past two days and it was time to vent, Mike nodded and agreed.

……

Half an hour later, after freeing Harry and Hermione, Mike brought the Weasley brothers to the entrance of the Slytherin common room.

The entrance to the Slytherin Common Room is in a basement of Hogwarts Castle. Since the basement is not a good place and Slytherin is extremely exclusive, this basement is usually only visited by Slytherin students. This is Mike's first time to the Slytherin Common Room, so he looked around very carefully, and he found something strange - the walls of this basement are wet!

Although this is a basement, it is normal to have water marks on the walls and floors during the rainy season, but it is winter now!
Mike silently kept this abnormal phenomenon in his mind, and at this moment a pleasant voice suddenly rang out.

"Hello, Mr. Townley."

Mike turned around and saw a tall girl with blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a Slytherin uniform looking at him with a smile.

"Hello."

Mike responded expressionlessly, but the girl on the other side seemed to not feel Mike's indifference at all and said enthusiastically:
"I'm Astoria Greengrass, it's an honor to meet you! Chris asked me to open the door for you, now, please come in! Glory!"

As Astoria read out the command loudly, a wall in front of Mike and the others suddenly moved away, revealing the Slytherin common room inside.

Mike looked at the girl named Astoria for a few seconds, and only walked in slowly when he could hardly hold back his smile.

The Weasley brothers behind him followed him when they saw this, but they all snorted in dissatisfaction when they passed Astoria.

Astoria had just completely ignored them, which made them very dissatisfied.

Mike, who was walking in front, did not notice the little movements of the Weasley brothers, because at this moment his attention was completely attracted by the Slytherin lounge.

Compared with the lounges of the other three colleges, the Slytherin lounge can be said to be the most luxurious and the most magical!

Its four walls are made entirely of black Gothic marble, and there is a fireplace with an exquisitely carved mantelpiece that emits warm flames.

However, all this is nothing. The most eye-catching thing in the entire lounge is the ceiling.

It was a huge transparent semicircle carved entirely from a single piece of crystal, and looking out from the transparent ceiling, one could see several giant octopus tentacles and sparkling water!

Mike was stunned when he saw this scene, and then he quickly looked at other windows in the lounge.

Sure enough, through those windows, what Mike saw was still the dark lake water and unknown strange creatures swimming past the window from time to time!

Mike understood instantly!

The Slytherin common room is actually located at the bottom of the Black Lake!
Mike nodded in amazement. Legend has it that Hogwarts Castle was actually the private residence of the Slytherin family, one of the Big Four. Mike couldn't believe it at first, but now he believes it.

Because the common room Slytherin reserved for its students was simply amazing!
If it weren't for the fact that the entire castle belonged to him, Mike believed that at least Gryffindor would definitely duel with Slytherin for this common room!

After all, it's really cool!
"Mr. Mike, please come this way."

Just as Mike was soaking up the bizarre sight of the Slytherin common room, Astoria's voice rang out again.

Hearing this, Mike immediately withdrew his gaze and continued to walk in the direction he pointed with an expressionless look.

There were several students sitting on the carved chairs near the fireplace in the Slytherin lounge at this moment. The arrival of Mike and the Weasley brothers instantly attracted their attention.

Obviously they had already been notified of Mike's arrival, so they didn't make any move, but just stared at Mike and his companions with malicious eyes.

The faint green light from the crystal chandelier on the ceiling shone on their faces, making them look like vampires.

Mike ignored them and led Weasley and others straight to a big door under the guidance of Astoria.

At this time, Astoria, who had been following Mike, suddenly accelerated and came in front of Mike, and knocked on the door instead of Mike who wanted to push the door open directly.

The door opened quickly, and Mike looked at the other person deeply before entering the room alone.

As for the Weasley brothers, they were blocked outside the door.

Mike wasn't surprised at all. Rather, he was surprised that the two of them could go this far with him.

You have to know that this is the Slytherin base, and Mike didn't say hello in advance before he came and said he would bring anyone with him.

It was no surprise that either of them were stopped at the entrance to the lounge.

What appeared in front of Mike was a reception room. Compared with the reception room Mike had seen in the Masonic secret realm, this one was more quaint. The tables, chairs, decorations, etc. inside all had a sense of heaviness accumulated over time, and looked very pleasing to the eye.

At this moment, a young man stood up on the sofa in the reception room.

"Mike, you're finally here, haha!"

"Hello, Chris."

"How have you been lately?"

"It's hard for me to describe this," Mike's eyes fell on the silver armband on Chris's arm, "but it looks like you're doing well."

"Hahaha! It's not bad." Chris noticed Mike's gaze and said, "This is Umbridge's trust in me. She said that it can give me the same power as the president of the Student Union. But I don't think it will be of much use."

……

The two of them exchanged some false courtesy before sitting down on the sofa facing each other. After sitting down, Mike asked directly without any nonsense:
"Where's the stuff?"

"Here it is."

Chris smiled and placed a locket with the Slytherin serpent symbol engraved on it on the coffee table between them.

Mike immediately picked up the pendant box and examined it, while Chris crossed his legs and said:
"To be honest, this thing is of little use to me. I found it boring after playing with it for a few days, so it's not a problem to give it to you. But I noticed that you actually started issuing a bounty for this thing a few months ago. This makes me confused. Why do you want to get this locket so much? It's just an antique with some value. If you say that those pure-bloods are chasing it for illusory honor, I can understand, but you are a... Muggle-born wizard. Why do you have to have this thing?"

Mike ignored Chris and focused on the locket in front of him.

Before coming here, Penelope had already taught Mike all the methods of identifying the authenticity of the pendant box.

Although Mike wrote down everything, he felt that it was unnecessary because he knew very well that Slytherin's locket must be a Horcrux, so as long as Voldemort's soul was not detected inside, the locket must be a fake.

Now, Mike is facing this situation—there is no soul of Voldemort in the pendant box at all, not even a trace of Voldemort's breath!

This locket is fake!

This was Mike's first reaction.

But after calming down a little and testing the pendant box according to the method given by Penelope, the conclusion is that this pendant box is real!
Now Mike was completely confused!

(End of this chapter)