Katie Bell disappeared again, and Murphy, along with Lucas, headed towards the entrance of the Great Hall.
As expected, the door was gone.
Wandering through the dense fog for a while, they found themselves returning to the head table, the dining tables, or the staircases leading to the various floors, but the entrance door they had seen open upon their arrival was nowhere to be found.
Hogwarts was sealed off.
This was somewhat anticipated.
Professor Flitwick had mentioned it might be a ritualistic magic, presumably with a source.
And that source might just be the "Chamber."
Murphy, with Lucas in tow, left the Great Hall intending to find the girls' bathroom where the entrance to the Chamber was located.
However, the spatial positioning within the school had become extremely peculiar. Although he intended to go up, Murphy somehow ended up in a basement classroom where he encountered Snape.
Snape sat on an empty stool in the classroom, his gaze fixed on a slender redhead figure standing beside a potions workstation.
The girl was flipping through a book while handling materials on the workstation. After a while, she stopped, looked at the potion in the cauldron, then back at the book, seemingly puzzled by the discrepancy between her creation and the textbook.
At that moment, Snape stood up and approached the workstation, adjusting an ingredient on the table.
"Ah, that's it. I forgot to add mistletoe berries…"
The girl took the berries, added them to the cauldron, and stirred. Soon, a joyful smile appeared on her face. She then looked around, "Is someone there?"
"I'm here, Lily. I've always been here."
However, she seemed unable to hear him; receiving no response, she packed up her equipment, carefully stored the potion from the cauldron, looked around once more, and prepared to leave.
Snape opened his arms slightly, but the spectral figure simply passed through him and disappeared.
Snape stood there for a long while, unmoving.
"Professor, you haven't been here all this time, have you?" Murphy spoke up. "Do you know what's happening in the school?"
Snape slowly turned around, "Murphy, are you real?"
"Should I punch you in the face to prove it?" Murphy replied irritably. "What's happening here?"
"The fog," Snape said bewilderedly. "The fog suddenly appeared, then I saw Lily. I followed her; she disappeared and reappeared, but she ended here… I seem to be able to influence her, or the things around her, the latter more easily, but she can't see me…"
"Wait," Murphy frowned. "You said the fog just appeared, what were you doing before?"
"I was making an antidote, nothing special."
"Do you know about the three students who've disappeared in the school?" Murphy asked.
"What?" Snape was startled. "How is that possible, why didn't anyone inform me?"
Murphy's frown deepened. If there was doubt before, he now had a clearer idea.
Time and space within Hogwarts had become problematic, seemingly turning into a place connected to the past, with space becoming extremely distorted and twisted.
But how was this accomplished?
"Professor Snape, I suspect the Chamber has been opened. We should check it out. Are you coming?" Murphy asked.
"The Chamber?" Snape was astonished. "Who opened the Chamber?"
"I'd like to know that too."
Initially, Murphy thought there might be some trap set by the Holy Mother within the school, but now it appeared not to be an event solely targeting him.
Who was behind all this?
...
Due to the spatial disturbances, it took them a great effort to reach the third floor.
However, just as they stepped onto the staircase, a spell shot through the fog at them.
It was an Avada Kedavra.
The green light startled the trio, but a raven suddenly flew out from behind Murphy, then turned itself into a green lightning bolt, colliding with the curse.
With a bang, the raven exploded into a bolt of lightning but resumed its feather form in mid-air, returning to him.
After using the raven array antenna as a shield against Avada Kedavra several times, some of the lightning crows seemed to have absorbed the curse's magical energy, manifesting as green phosphorescence on their feathers and their eyes turning emerald green.
The lightning produced by these crows turned green, unlike regular lightning, possessing a certain lethality.
In their energy form, they could also be immune to the damage from Avada Kedavra, making them perfect for blocking the Killing Curse.
The explosion cleared some of the dense fog, allowing them to see the person behind it.
A young man in Slytherin robes stood there, tall and thin, his uniform looking somewhat ill-fitting.
Seeing his face, Murphy was shocked, "It's you?"
Lucas was even more astonished, "How? Without the Philosopher's Stone, who resurrected you..."
The young man also looked at Lucas, "You... who are you? Whose body are you using? No, it's not that... then, what went wrong with the resurrection?"
Standing before them was none other than Tom Riddle, an eighteen-year-old Tom.
He was tall and slender, his handsome face resembling the sixteen-year-old version Murphy had seen in the diary, but slightly more mature.
"Come here, Tom," the eighteen-year-old Voldemort said to Lucas. "Although I don't know what happened to you, you should be on my side."
Murphy stepped forward, blocking Lucas, "Sorry, she's with me now. The predecessor should just disappear, okay?"
He was also somewhat confused by what was happening, but the opponent was Voldemort, and since he was obstructing their way, there was no need for hesitation.
The next moment, Murphy lunged forward, taking advantage of the moment Voldemort's armor curse was being cast. With a flick of his wrist, a Levitation Charm lifted Voldemort's body, causing a momentary instability in his magic.
Voldemort's armor curse surprisingly wasn't broken, but Murphy seized the moment of spell fluctuation, reaching out a hand through the armor curse.
His hand moved slowly through the armor curse, not perceived as an attack, so the spell offered almost no resistance. He grabbed Voldemort's neck and squeezed tightly.
Accompanied by a horrifying sound of bones cracking and a choked squawk, Voldemort's head lolled to one side. Simultaneously, countless bolts of electricity, some tinged with green, shot from Murphy's hand.
In an instant, the body in his hand turned into a smoking corpse.
This age of Voldemort was still too naive; his combat ability was about on par with Snape's level, far from Murphy's current level, and might not even beat the current Lucas.
Murphy then searched the corpse but found no Horcrux; this Voldemort was cautious, not carrying his Horcruxes with him.
And the ease with which this one died gave Murphy a premonition that this might not be the last Voldemort he'd see today.
Indeed, after having Lucas use Parseltongue to open the entrance to the Chamber in the girls' bathroom on the third floor, Murphy once again saw a figure standing by a basin.
"Voldemort."
The magical aura on the figure was nearly identical to the previous Voldemort, leaving no room for Murphy to mistake his identity.
But when
the figure turned around, showing his face, Murphy was still taken aback.
The fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy, with unruly black hair and wearing Gryffindor robes, looked at him with a pair of red eyes behind his glasses.
"Oh, Professor Murphy," Harry Potter sneered with a mocking smile.
"Long time no see."
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