Hogwarts: Oh no, I've become Voldemort!

"Principal, what are you doing here..." Ginny became nervous. Being caught by the principal for sneaking around at night was no joke.

However, Dumbledore clearly misunderstood the reason for Ginny's nervousness. At this moment, he looked directly into Ginny's eyes, as if trying to see through her heart. However, his expression remained kind.

“This is the question I should be asking you, Miss Weasley,” he said. “After such a terrible attack, and so late at night, you should be in your Gryffindor room, not wandering outside the castle, don’t you think?”

Ginny quickly lowered her head, avoiding Dumbledore's gaze.

This is not okay.

Dumbledore immediately added, “Of course, I won’t punish you for this. I’m here because someone is trying to create panic by claiming that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened again! Coincidentally, fifty years ago, a student here reported another student and got a monster expelled from the school—I must admit, it was a dangerous monster.”

His words forced Ginny to look up in surprise once again.

Upon hearing about Riddle's exploits, she immediately wanted to share them with Dumbledore, but she quickly remembered that it was a secret between her and Mr. Riddle, so she swallowed her words.

Dumbledore noticed her hesitation and knew that Ginny probably had some secret in her heart.

"Alright, you should go back to sleep now."

“Yes, sir.” Ginny nodded and passed by Dumbledore. When she reached the top half of the stairs, she heard Dumbledore’s voice coming from behind her again.

"and many more--"

"What's wrong?" Ginny turned her head and met Dumbledore's gaze.

“Before you leave, I’d like to confirm something, Miss Weasley. Is there anything else you wish to say to me?” Those blue eyes seemed somewhat aggressive.

A series of thoughts flashed through Ginny's mind, and after a moment, she slowly began to speak:

"No, sir."

Upon hearing this, Dumbledore nodded, seemingly pondering, and then said softly, "Well then, good night, Miss Weasley. On such a day, it's best not to wander around at night."

Off work, off work! I sneak away from work every day to write some words, hehehe.

Chapter 19 Dumbledore, led astray by Ginny

"So, you've run into Dumbledore?"

In the memory space, Cyrus's expression wasn't good. He only learned about it the following evening. Ginny had fallen asleep immediately after returning to her dorm last night.

“Yes! Headmaster Dumbledore mentioned you. Although he didn’t say your name, I know it’s you,” Ginny said excitedly. But Cyrus’s next words were like a bucket of cold water poured on her.

"I might have been exposed." Cyrus let out a heavy breath, trying to calm himself down. He hadn't expected that after waiting for so long, this would be the final result.

Ultimately, he and Riddle were not the same person, and their attitudes toward Ginny were different. A little coincidence was enough to make the outcome of things very different.

but--

'Perhaps there is still hope,' he thought.

If Dumbledore believed that everything was under his control, he wouldn't have been in such a hurry to act.

Just like Quirrell last year, it would be perfectly appropriate to use him as a practice tool for his savior.

There's still room for maneuver!

Cyrus forced himself to calm down. In truth, he wasn't sure what Dumbledore was planning, but nearly twenty hours had passed since Ginny met him the night before, and he was still safe and sound in Ginny's hands, which meant things weren't hopeless yet.

"You've been exposed? But I've never told anyone about you, Mr. Riddle!" Ginny exclaimed in surprise, almost dropping her pen.

“It’s not your fault, but magic is always unpredictable. Dumbledore is a master of Legilimency; when he looks into your eyes, he can roughly know what you’re thinking.” After calming down, Cyrus was in the mood to comfort Ginny.

“Generally speaking, wizards always say that Legilimency is not mind reading, but for an unguarded mind, it is actually more terrifying than mind reading.”

"Then, what should I do?" Ginny was almost in tears.

She didn't want Mr. Riddle to "die" because of her, nor did she want to lose such a close friend.

“Don’t worry, if someone really asks you to hand me over, just hide me. I’ll alter your memories and hide you with the real ones, so no one can find me,” Cyrus comforted him.

This is the last resort.

Once it gets to this point, who knows when he'll be able to wait for someone else to open the diary again. And if the diary isn't destroyed, will Voldemort die?

While Cyrus and Ginny were deep in thought, Dumbledore sat in his office, racking his brains over the small details of his meeting with Ginny Weasley the previous night. It might be somewhat shameful to admit, but he had indeed used Legilimency on a first-year wizard.

He desperately wanted to know why the other person had appeared in that place by such a coincidence.

However, the information he received was quite unexpected.

He stirred his memories in the Pensieve, and the scenes from last night immediately surfaced.

He saw himself aggressively and shamelessly using his powerful magic to forcefully enter Ginny's mind and read her thoughts at that moment.

To that end, he deliberately asked a question to guide her thinking: "Before you leave, I'd like to confirm, Miss Weasley, is there anything else you'd like to say to me?"

Ginny Weasley is clearly hiding something.

At that moment, her voice echoed in her mind: "Draco Malfoy is the heir to Slytherin!"

Draco Malfoy?

Even he found it a bit absurd.

If Salazar Slytherin really chose Draco Malfoy as his successor, he was truly blind.

It's not that Dumbledore looked down on Draco Malfoy; quite the opposite, in fact, he considered Draco a promising talent. However, the Malfoy family wasn't exactly qualified as Slytherin, let alone as heirs to the Slytherin tradition.

Ambition and honor?

Yes, but not much.

And—he doesn't speak Parsley!

This is a very important point. At least Dumbledore believed that if Slytherin really did leave behind a secret chamber, perhaps only Parseltongue could open its door.

However, he couldn't be certain whether a locked room actually existed. Dumbledore knew very well that Hagrid wasn't the murderer in the case fifty years ago. At that time, he didn't suspect Tom Riddle, but the truth of many things becomes clearer with the passage of time.

Tom was most likely the murderer from fifty years ago. However, Dumbledore couldn't be sure what methods the killer used.

Was it a deliberate act of elimination to create Horcruxes? Or was it really as rumored, that the Chamber of Secrets in Slytherin was opened to eliminate those so-called "unworthy of learning magic"?

“Draco Malfoy, it’s not impossible. Arthur seemed to be ransacking Malfoy’s house during the summer holidays. Perhaps Lucius had him bring some Voldemort-era stuff into the school,” Dumbledore speculated.

In fact, he was already pretty much right. It was just that Ginny's thought had slightly misled him. And Draco, who should have returned to the dungeon with the group, appearing on the third floor at that time was actually more coincidental than Harry and his friends being there.

As for why Ginny Weasley was in the classroom where Hagrid hid the eight-eyed spider, perhaps someone had told her the location of "this is not a secret room."

Fifty years ago, it might have been his grandfather or grandmother.

"What exactly is this old thing from Voldemort's era? A key to the Chamber of Secrets? Or perhaps—"

He snapped out of his memories, looked at Fox who was on the verge of rebirth, and said cheerfully.

"Get ready to be reborn, old friend, I might need your help."

If the old object was as he suspected, then something he'd been working on for decades would finally be progressing. Of course, given Tom Riddle's madness, he might have made several such things, but in any case, it would be great to destroy one now.

Fox lowered his head and plucked out one of his tail feathers, ignoring Dumbledore's words.

“It seems I need to find some time to visit my old friend Horace Slughorn. I haven’t seen him in a long time since he retired.” Dumbledore paced to the window, watching the moonlight stream in.

"But let's wait and see. If it really is Draco, I believe Lucius Malfoy will make a move."

Ah—working is so tiring.

Chapter 20 The Forbidden Book Zone and the Jewish Book of Abraham

Ginny has been very uneasy ever since Cyrus told Ginny that Dumbledore might have found out about her.

Percy or Ron probably misunderstood, thinking she was worried that Ron and Harry might get expelled. Ron, on the other hand, thought she was worried about the cat.

“But you don’t really know Mrs. Lorris. To be honest, we’re much more comfortable without her. This kind of thing doesn’t happen often at Hogwarts,” Ron reassured her. “They’ll catch that madman soon and kick him out of here. I just hope he petrifies Filch before he gets expelled.”

But as soon as the murderer was mentioned, Ginny thought of what happened that night, her face turned pale, and she ran away with her head down.

“I was just joking—” Ron was at a loss for words.

However, regardless of the circumstances, with the professors failing to catch the culprit and Filch's cat remaining petrified, the prank theory gradually lost its credibility. More and more people began to believe that Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets had been opened, and that the attacker was none other than Harry Potter.

Ginny relayed these rumors to Cyrus.

“Hogwarts students are always jumping to conclusions. Even if the Chamber of Secrets really was opened, I doubt it would be Harry Potter,” Cyrus reassured her.

“I know, I’m not worried about Harry, I’m just a little worried about… you.”

Since Halloween, there have been no more attacks, and older students have almost stopped discussing it, but younger students still enjoy it immensely.

After that night, as Dumbledore seemed to take no action, Ginny's anxiety gradually subsided.

However, she had originally intended to investigate Malfoy, but now she had completely lost the will to do so. On the contrary, Harry, Malfoy, and their two companions seemed convinced that Malfoy was the true heir, and they gathered together all day long without any apparent reason, plotting something.

Ginny vaguely heard words like "potion," "Lohart," and "a month."

On the contrary, Cyrus was fully aware of their every move.

Hermione managed to get an autograph from the dim-witted Lockhart and retrieved "Potions of Power" from the forbidden section, intending to brew Polyjuice Potion. Because of this, the three of them occupied Myrtle's bathroom, making his actions much more difficult.

Fortunately, Cyrus rarely went to the Chamber of Secrets. He spent more time practicing spells in the Room of Requirement or taking time to strangle Hagrid's rooster.

Because of Dumbledore, Cyrus often felt a sense of urgency, unwilling to waste a single second, and desperately wanted to increase his strength to ensure that he would be able to escape even in the worst-case scenario—face to face with Dumbledore.

The basilisk was his ally, but the basilisk alone could not stop Dumbledore.