Archaeologists at Hogwarts

Chapter 38 What a pity
"I didn't lie to you. Professor Highmore and Professor Snape are in the corridor. This is obviously a trap for Malfoy. He won't go to the prize room!"

"Stop kidding, do you think we will believe it? They fought last time. If they were really together, the corridor would be so quiet?"

Hermione finally met Harry and Ron who were going to duel. She yelled at them in a low voice, but the two didn't listen at all.

As a result, when the three of them all walked out of the common room, they found that the fat lady had gone somewhere, and Hermione couldn't go back.

"How can this be done?" She asked loudly.

In the end, she had to keep up with Harry and Ron, so that even if she was discovered, these two people could testify against her.

Not long after walking, they ran into Neville who was lying on the floor and fell asleep. His arm was already healed, but he forgot the password, so he fell asleep on the floor.

The original two turned into four, and Ron was furious, and Harry hurriedly stopped him from continuing to lose his temper.

They walked along the corridor, and the moonlight poured in from the high windows, streaking across the floor.Every time he turned a corner, Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but fortunately, they were lucky.They hurried up the stairs to the fourth floor and tiptoed towards the trophy room.

But their luck finally came to an end.

Even without Ron's reminder, Harry could hear two sets of hurried footsteps, and the scariest thing was that they also heard Snape's voice.

"Run!"

Harry said in a low voice.

On the other hand, after Filch finished saying that sentence, Snape ignored Toby, and he and Filch hurried away.Toby wasn't curious at all. He continued to seize the time to check the portraits on the other walls on the fourth floor, gently opened each portrait, and then looked back with his head.

This sort of thing couldn't be done during the day, it would be too conspicuous, and it could only be done at night when the portraits were asleep.

After a while, Toby suddenly heard the sound of armor falling. The sound was clear and spread throughout the corridor.

"It's so noisy, what are you doing?" The portrait was woken up.

Toby's movements froze suddenly, but in the next second, he turned into a rag with a natural expression and wiped it on the frame: "Your portrait is dirty, these house elves are really unreliable in doing things— —”

He criticized the house-elf for a while, and the portrait finally fell asleep again.

Immediately afterwards, Toby, with a livid face, met four people who were desperately fleeing in the corridor—they had just entered the forbidden room and found Lu Wei, the three-headed dog. Now they were busy running for their lives, but they didn't run far Then I ran into Professor Haimo who was blocking the middle of the corridor like a god of death.

"what--"

With a scream, Ron fell directly on his back, and tripped Harry, Neville, and Hermione behind him one after another, and his body was crushed at the bottom.Under the double blessing of panic and breathlessness, Ron almost passed out.

"This time, you are also tired from sleeping, so you come out for a run in the middle of the night?"

No one dared to speak out, even Neville and even Hermione who had just contacted were startled by Professor Highmore's tone.

"You four, follow me."

The four got up quickly, and Ron clutched his chest in pain. He regretted it very much now, but he didn't expect that what Hermione said was true - both Snape and Professor Highmore were in the corridor of the castle.

Harry was more regretful than Ron. He had long felt that something was wrong, but he refused to listen to Hermione's words for no reason, purely out of anger.

Neville's tears were streaming down, and Hermione had a desperate expression on her face. She didn't know how she got to the Office of Ancient Magic.

Toby didn't turn on all the lights, leaving only a dim layer of light. Whether it was a coffin or a skeleton without a head, it looked even more weird and terrifying.

The four of them stood across the desk in fear. They only felt that there were countless pairs of eyes staring at them in the dark.In terms of horror, Professor Haimer's office is even scarier than Lu Wei's room, perhaps only the unknown Forbidden Forest can match.

Toby sat on the sofa behind his desk with a gloomy face. He didn't even complete one-tenth of his plans tonight, and he didn't know when he would have the chance to look at those portraits again.

"Tell me about it."

Toby said coldly, acting as if he didn't know Hermione and Neville at all, even more harshly than he had in class.

"You only have one chance to explain."

Both Harry and Ron were terrified, and Neville was still crying. He even thought of the crystal ball that healed his parents. What if Professor Highmore took the crystal ball away because of himself?

Neville couldn't help crying, but Toby was so indifferent, he didn't say a word of comfort, his gloomy gaze was more terrifying than Snape's, bringing them endless pressure.

But at this moment, it seemed like a miracle had happened.

"Professor, it's me."

Hermione stammered, two lines of tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

She actually cried too, more so than Neville.

"I can't take it anymore, I have no friends, and no one likes me" she said weepingly, releasing all her grievances in an instant: "So I thought about going out to relax, even if it was to go to the library, it was the three of them Personally decided to go with me.”

Hermione really couldn't take it anymore, she didn't have any friends at school, so it was hard to keep going, but Professor Highmore personally caught her and sneaked out in the middle of the night.

It would be fine if it was other professors, but it was only Professor Highmore who had placed great hopes in her. She knew how disappointed he was with her by the expression on the professor's face. This broke Hermione's last life. The string of reason, the string of persistence was completely broken.

She couldn't stay at Hogwarts any longer. Even if she wanted to, she probably wouldn't be able to stay. The school's punishment for students who made serious mistakes must be extremely severe, and they would definitely be expelled.

As for testimony and the like, it was just Hermione's angry words, otherwise she would have reported Harry and Ron in advance, and she would have waited alone in the common room until midnight.

Both Ron and Harry were stunned. They watched Hermione lie to the professor. For a moment, both of them felt extremely guilty and regretful at the same time.

"No, it's not that kind of professor." Harry said bravely.

"Shut up, Mr. Potter."

Toby interrupted with a gloomy face: "One chance to explain has passed. Each of you will have to bear the price of [-] points deducted for this, as well as confinement. The specific follow-up punishment depends on your performance in confinement." .If you displease me—”

"You will regret dissatisfying me."

Then the four people were kicked out of the office. After they all left, Toby's expression slowly changed, and he sighed deeply.

"It's so stupid. Everyone, so stupid."

There was unabashed disappointment in his tone.

After a while, the door of the office opened again, and it was Snape who walked in who found nothing.

He glanced at Toby, who was sighing with his head down, and inexplicably put away his thoughts of accountability. Instead, he carefully looked at the collection in the office, and finally stood in front of the ice that would never melt.

"What's in here?" he asked.

Toby said quietly: "Maybe it's an ancient Greek wizard, or it might be a dementor. Maybe it's a memory that has been pulled out. You can only see it with your own eyes when this piece of ice melts."

"Want a drink?"

Snape didn't answer, but he had already taken the chair opposite Toby.

A bottle of gin flew up from the drawer and was slowly poured into two glasses.

Rarely, the two stopped talking, quarreling and accusing each other.

Toby picked up the wine glass and shook it lightly in his hand.

"Tell me, why are they so stupid? Why were we so stupid back then? Even Lily, who is so kind, was pissed off by us, and James really chased her after annoying her for so long. "

"Honestly, I thought you were the most promising one, and occasionally I would think of being the godfather of your future children. What a pity, Severus, what a pity."

Snape involuntarily clutched his glass tightly, wondering if he heard Toby's last words.

"Unfortunately, magic cannot bring people back from the dead."

(End of this chapter)