Sherlock Holmes at Hogwarts.

Chapter 249 Stop, Tom
Sherlock easily deciphered Hermione's eye contact and lip movements.

That was one word—fast.

Hermione now understands why the young Voldemort isn't nervous at all—because he can afford to wait.

In fact, even without Hermione's reminder, Sherlock had already noticed that Riddle's originally blurry outline was becoming clearer and more stable over time.

Hermione's meaning was clear: the longer Riddle stood there, the less life Lockhart had left.

After some time, Lockhart's entire life force may be transferred to Riddle.

So they don't have much time left.

However, Sherlock was not worried either.

From the moment he officially met this Tom Riddle from fifty years ago, the other party's defeat was already destined.
Whether it's himself, Hermione, Harry, or Lockhart who seems to be on his deathbed, they will all be fine.

Sherlock's grey eyes swept over Riddle's translucent figure, his tone as calm as still water in the Hogwarts cellars, yet with a sharp edge hidden in the last syllable.

"Voldemort—well, I'll just call you Riddle. You don't actually think you have the victory in the bag, do you?"

“Otherwise?” Riddle looked at Sherlock with a questioning gaze. “You don’t actually think you still have a chance, do you?”

Why not?

"Okay, I admit it. In your past, and in my future, I encountered your good friend—not only did I fail to kill him, but I also suffered a defeat... But!"

Riddle suddenly straightened up and said confidently:

This time, everything is different!
I recreated the attack from fifty years ago using only a memory, outsmarted the entire school and the Ministry of Magic, and expelled Dumbledore, whom you worshipped, from the school...

Sherlock, I advise you to tell me as soon as possible how Harry escaped death—the longer you talk, the longer you and your girlfriend will live.”

Hermione: ヾ(o)ヾ
Sherlock sighed. "To be honest, Riddle, I think you're pathetic."

coming!

Upon hearing this familiar opening, both Harry and Hermione perked up.

As Sherlock's two friends who knew him best, they were well aware of this—once Sherlock started this, it meant he was about to demonstrate his true skills.

Sure enough, Sherlock only needed one sentence to break Riddle's composure:
"Do I need to remind you? What you've done is utterly ridiculous—a mud-blooded tyrant smearing pure blood paint on himself in front of a mirror!"

"What did you say?"

"You despise Muggle blood?"
Rather, you're hating this Muggle body, because it reminds you every single second:
That Muggle father who abandoned you has etched a mark of shame into your veins using the most primal biological laws.

"shut up!"

"What a brilliant paradox! A descendant of Salazar Slytherin?"

No, you're nothing but mold growing in the damp corner of an orphanage, using the names of your predecessors to sew a fig leaf for yourself.

"Shut up! I told you to shut up!"

"Admit it, Tom Riddle, your so-called pure-blood holy war is nothing but a grand act of self-gratification."

When you cast the Cruciatus Curse on a half-blood wizard, what you hear is not their screams, but your own venting of your own mixed-race identity as one of theirs.

Every spell you cast is like a whip lashing your own back, isn't it?

"what--!!!"

As Sherlock had said before, because Lockhart didn't know what happened when Sherlock faced the old Voldemort, the young Voldemort knew too little about Sherlock.

Unaware of the dangers of the world, he never imagined that a 13-year-old boy could utter such vicious words.

Sherlock's words were like a knife, stabbing again and again into the deepest, most hidden wounds in his heart that he least wanted others to see, shattering his carefully constructed self-esteem and pride.

"You... die! Die!"

Riddle turned his head sharply, staring at the face of the Slytherin stone statue high in the darkness, and uttered a strange sentence.

Sherlock and Hermione heard a hissing sound, but Harry heard it very clearly:
"Speak to me, Slytherin—the greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"

Harry immediately turned around and looked up at the statue.

Salazar Slytherin's enormous stone face began to move, its mouth opening wider and wider until it formed a huge black hole.

Harry felt something moving inside the statue's mouth and slid up from deep within the statue.

He immediately realized what it was.

"He released the basilisk! Close your eyes!"

Harry, no longer caring that he was invisible, shouted at the top of his lungs.

After that shout, Hermione and Riddle were both stunned.

None of them expected that there were other people with Sherlock.

However, Hermione immediately realized what was happening and tightly closed her eyes.

"Ha! Harry Potter!"

Riddle reacted quickly, immediately realizing that the speaker was Harry, who had revealed his Parsleyan speech at the Duel Club.

"Sherlock, I didn't expect you to have a trick up your sleeve. It's the Invisibility Cloak, isn't it?"

Riddle was not like Quirrell from last year; with his greater experience, he immediately saw through Harry's disguise.

After a brief moment of surprise, he burst into laughter again:
"You've come at the perfect time! Let's test our strength!"
On one side is Voldemort, the Dark Lord and Salazar Slytherin's successor;

On the other side are Harry Potter, the savior of the magical world, and his friends.

Just a heads-up, Harry, don't try to command it with Parsley, because it only listens to me, so...

"Kill them!" The last sentence was spoken to the basilisk in a crawling language.

Harry stumbled backward, his back slamming heavily against the cold, rough wall of the Chamber of Secrets.

Just then, a muffled, loud bang shook the entire secret chamber, as if a mountain had collapsed.

Despite his squinting eyes, Harry could still clearly feel an enormous body crashing heavily onto the hard stone ground.

The rustling sound of the basilisk's scales scraping against the ground grew closer, each beat like a drumbeat striking Harry's taut nerves.

Harry realized that the basilisk was rapidly approaching their direction, and the air seemed to be filled with its cold, putrid stench.

Harry kept his eyes closed and began to move sideways away from the basilisk, his hands frantically groping in the darkness.

Then he touched a hand.

Although the hand was cold, it exuded a steady strength, and the palm was strong and powerful.

“Sherlock?” Harry’s voice trembled slightly as he spoke to himself.

"it's me."

Sherlock's familiar and calm voice came from beside him, like a ray of dawn in the darkness.

At this moment, he was holding Harry tightly with one hand, while Hermione was holding his other hand tightly.

Hermione's hands were slightly sweaty from nervousness, but she gripped them with unusual force, as if she had grasped at the last straw.

"Sherlock!"

Riddle, standing on the high ground, shouted.

Despite Harry's earlier warning, Sherlock did not close his eyes, but merely lowered his head slightly.

Hearing Riddle's call, he didn't turn his gaze in that direction either.

"Sherlock, it would be a shame to destroy your force, so I can give you one more chance:"
"If you swear allegiance to me now, I can give you and your friends better positions than those Death Eaters who once followed me."

Riddle's voice echoed in the secret room, carrying a bewitching magic.

Sherlock was genuinely surprised to hear that Riddle was still recruiting him at this point.

"Tom, seeing you like this, I can understand why you've been able to rule the wizarding world for so long."

It's hard to believe you're the same idiot as last year.

"What did you say?"

"Unfortunately, your nature remains unchanged—when you feel you have the situation under control, you are calm and composed, and your demeanor is elegant, but when you fall into adversity, that nature is immediately exposed."

Now that you know who I am, why do you think I came here without any preparation?

"Really? I'd really like to know what preparations you've made."

Do you know how the Muggle world deals with outdated business plans?

As Sherlock spoke, he took a black, square box-shaped object from his pocket.

"They will use a paper shredder."

Tom Riddle was a wizard raised in the Muggle world, so he recognized what Sherlock was holding at a glance.

It only took him three seconds to realize what Sherlock was trying to do and immediately tried to stop him.

Unfortunately, three seconds is already a considerable amount of time for Sherlock to think things through.

The instant Sherlock took out the tape recorder, he had already pressed the play button.

“Oooooohh ...

The rooster's loud crow seemed to pierce the dome of the secret room in an instant.

"Do not--!"

Riddle never expected Sherlock to be so despicable!

He said he would come to the Chamber of Secrets alone, but he not only brought Harry in an invisibility cloak, but also a tape recorder that recorded the crowing of a rooster.

The basilisk is twenty feet long and has the terrifying ability to kill anyone it glares at.

But at that moment, it immediately stopped its head-raising attack.

At the sound of Chicken Brother's loud cries, the basilisk began to convulse, its thick body twisting on the ground, its scales rubbing against each other with a piercing sound, and it no longer had the domineering aura it had just displayed.

"don't want--!"

A complex expression of pain mixed with anger crossed Riddle's face. He raised Lockhart's wand and shouted loudly in the direction of Sherlock and his companions:

"Avada... Ah—"

With his distorted scream, only half of the green light emanating from the tip of the wand illuminated.

A blinding red light suddenly tore through the darkness, like the first ray of sunlight at dawn.

Riddle's body flew backward like a puppet with its strings cut. The wand that originally belonged to Lockhart slipped from his hand, drawing a silver arc in the air before landing steadily in someone's hand.

As the hand holding the wand suddenly appeared, its owner—an elderly man wearing glasses—also came into everyone's view.

Amidst the rooster's spirited and invigorating crowing, Dumbledore spoke in a gentle voice:

"Stop it, Tom."

　Thank you for the generous donation of 1500 Qidian coins! Your support is my motivation to update! ヾ(o)ヾ
　　
　
(End of this chapter)