days at Hogwarts

Chapter 556 R.A.B.
It seemed as if an invisible rope was pulling the boat towards the green light in the center of the lake. The boat was moving automatically, and the solid wooden bow cut through the dark water, cutting deep ripples on the glass-smooth surface of the lake, like grooves on a black mirror.

The boat was getting farther and farther away from the coast. The rock wall and the waiting figures behind were lost in the darkness. Harry and Sirius squeezed into the boat, feeling an unknown depression in their hearts. The cold seemed to seep into their bodies through the boat.

The light of the staff was reflected on the dark water. The pale, marble-like corpse was hidden under the water, looming and hazy. The water grass-like hair and robes were floating under the water like smoke.

"Sirius, did you see that corpse that just jumped out of the water?" Harry looked down into the depths of the lake, his eyes following the fleeting Inferi, and a nausea-inducing feeling welled up in his throat.

Sirius had a calm expression, and his every word and action was like that of a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts: "Don't panic, Harry. We have learned this lesson before. The Inferi are like many creatures that live in cold and darkness. They are afraid of light and warmth. The Fire Charm is very effective against them."

"..."

A few minutes later, the boat gently hit the reef. Harry and Sirius carefully got off the boat, trying to avoid touching the cold lake water. When they turned around, they met the direct gazes of several people and the house-elf.

"!!"

Harry's eyes suddenly widened, "How did you get here?!"

Everyone's eyes turned to the person standing on the far right.

Loren looked calm and said calmly, "Kreacher brought us here."

"But...but!" Harry stumbled and couldn't speak clearly.

Ginny glanced at his surprised expression, was silent for a moment, and then explained in a low voice: "This place is the same as Hogwarts, except that wizards are prohibited from Apparition. However, the magic of elves is different from that of wizards."

"..."

Sirius fell silent.

The memories of just a few minutes ago kept replaying in his mind. He foolishly found the boat, showed off his sense of smell, and carelessly made a plan to cross the lake. Every action was showing off his talents as a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

I want to transform into an Animagus and dig a tunnel to escape from here...

"Professor Black, what should we do next?" Fred glanced at Sirius secretly. Out of some curiosity, he also wanted to see Professor Black do something stupid.

"..."

Sirius gradually came back to his senses and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Who would have thought that Voldemort, who was always cruel, spent so much time and effort to set up this cave to hide the Horcruxes, but would make such a big mistake. The house-elves could come and go freely in such a dangerous place. No wonder Kreacher was able to escape back successfully.

He silently turned his head and looked at the innocent-looking house-elf: "Kreacher, tell me about the situation here. What traps has Voldemort set here?"

Tears of grief welled up in Kreacher's large eyes, and he said in a hoarse voice: "It's a cursed potion. If you want to get the things hidden inside, you can only drink up the cursed potion..."

Everyone turned to look at the place in the middle of the lake where the green light was flashing.

The island in the middle of the lake is narrow, about the same size as the principal's office. It is a large flat black stone slab, empty except for a stone basin in the middle, which is filled with flickering emerald green phosphorescence.

A group of people walked into the stone basin, formed a circle around it, and squinted their eyes at it.

It was a stone basin similar to a Pensieve, with a thick base firmly fixed in the center of the island. It was filled with a basin of emerald green liquid that emitted a glittering phosphorescent light. The faces of eight people and a house-elf were reflected on the smooth surface of the green liquid.

Kreacher's muffled voice came from the side. The house-elf's voice was resolute and sad: "Only by drinking it can the things under the stone basin be revealed, and then -"

"Don't be clever, you are already very old, you may not be able to withstand it this time..." Sirius said lightly with a cold expression, and at the same time he took out an exquisite goblet with the Black family emblem from his arms, and was about to reach into the stone basin to scoop the potion.

"Don't be impulsive! Sirius, what if... what if it poisons you to death?" Harry grabbed his wrist, his face full of worry.

"No, Kreacher drank this potion before, and he survived intact, didn't he?" Sirius broke free from his obstruction and dipped the goblet into the emerald green potion. This time there was no obstruction. "It would probably paralyze me, make me feel extreme pain, lose my mind, and be unable to concentrate..."

Looking at the pale and thin face illuminated by the cold green light, Loren lowered his eyes slightly and had some new understanding of Professor Black, who had a not-so-good brain.

"Can you tell what potion it is?" Hermione looked at Loren beside her and asked in a low voice.

"I can not confirm……"

Loren stretched out his hand to touch the liquid, but an invisible resistance prevented him from touching the liquid. No matter how hard he pressed down, his fingers touched an extremely hard transparent wall of air. The light and nimble magic power spread along his fingers, but was also blocked by the invisible force.

"You can't touch it with your hands, you can't touch it with magic, and you can't use spells to change the potion."

He bent down slightly, put his nose close to the stone basin, and placed his palm some distance above the green liquid. He gently fanned it in his direction, sniffed the oncoming smell, and calmed down to identify it carefully.

"The technique is crude, mainly a mixture of various snake venoms... Cobra venom can cause muscle weakness, staggering gait, and unclear speech... Bungarus venom can cause pupil dilation, blurred vision, facial muscle relaxation, difficulty opening the mouth and swallowing, and then this muscle relaxation spreads to the whole body, causing respiratory muscle paralysis, making it difficult for people to breathe, hands and feet weak, and the whole body paralyzed..."

Ginny subconsciously took a step back, holding Harry's arm tightly with one hand. Sirius' eyelids twitched a few times, and he tried hard to resist the urge to step back.

"The venom of the iron-headed snake makes people dizzy and unable to concentrate. It can also cause fever, nausea, thirst, and blurred consciousness until coma... There is also bat bile... nettle extract, which makes people feel hot and uncomfortable, as if their internal organs are burning, so they will throw themselves into the lake... The venom of the curled-winged demon... the poisonous horned beast... the moon-crazy beast..."

Loren turned his head and stared at Sirius, whose arms were shaking slightly. His voice echoed over the cave: "Your judgment is correct. It won't kill you, but you will experience pain that you have never experienced in your life. This pain even exceeds death...

"If you can stay rational, you will desperately hope that someone can end your life, and in the process, you will be extremely afraid of this potion. The instinct for survival will overcome reason. You will forget the purpose of coming here, and you will resist continuing to drink the potion. At this time, you need someone to pour the potion into your tightly closed mouth, do you understand?" "..."

You could have just said the potion wasn't lethal, instead of describing the symptoms so realistically.

Sirius's Adam's apple swayed up and down, and he tried to hold the goblet tightly with his shaking hands. He slowly calmed his panicked breathing and said calmly, "It's okay as long as you don't die. Listen Harry, if I can't drink it later, you can pour it into my mouth!"

Harry's eyes were red: "Sirius!"

Sirius didn't say anything, but stepped forward and scooped out a cup of potion with a glowing green light. When he gritted his teeth and was about to pour it into his mouth, George reached out to stop him.

"If the potion needs to be drunk, without restrictions on who drinks it, we have other ideas..."

Fred reached out and pulled out a wooden cage from the storage scales, whispering, "In order to develop quick-acting skipping candy, we have raised a lot of foxes. Some are used to extract venom, and some are used for experiments. How about letting these little guys drink it?"

"Oh, that's so cruel!"

Sirius condemned with a look of joy on his face, and then impatiently took out a vixen from the wooden cage, pinched open its squeaking mouth, and poured poison into its mouth.

As a common pest in wizards' homes, the fox has shiny wings like a beetle and two rows of sharp fangs. Its body is covered with thick black hair and has two arms and two legs. It vaguely resembles a fairy and a human. Its squeaking appearance is enough to make people's scalps numb.

The tiny and hideous face was twitching, its eyes closed together, as if it was sleeping and suffering from a terrible nightmare. Its muscles began to relax and it no longer had the strength to close its mouth, so it was forced to drink more poison.

Fortunately, foxes can lay 500 eggs at a time and bury them underground. They have basically no natural enemies and usually take two to three weeks to hatch, so no animal protection association will condemn them for abusing foxes.

"squeak……"

The fox was panting and groaning, and the shrill sound echoed across the silent black lake and in the empty cave, frightening the mind. It must have been extremely thirsty, swallowing the liquid near its mouth in big gulps, but as soon as it finished drinking, it screamed again, as if every organ in its body was burning.

Ron stared at the struggling foxy girl and shuddered: "This stuff is much better than mom's insecticide."

The others thought of the days of spring cleaning and nodded in agreement.

When the goblet scooped out the twelfth cup of poison, a total of four vixens lay on the ground wailing and groaning. They finally saw the object lying in the stone basin -

A small golden locket with a simple shape and not delicate enough. It does not have Slytherin's unique snake symbol, nor does it have mysterious and complex magic runes. It cannot bewitch people. The brass shell is not indestructible, and there is no trace of magic on it. Anyone can see that this is just an ordinary locket, the locket belonging to Regulus.

The second son of the Black family, who followed the Dark Lord upon graduation, stood on the opposite side of Voldemort without hesitation after realizing the wrongdoings of the Death Eaters. He was born into the ever-pure Black family and Slytherin College, but he always had compassion for the weak and the courage to face death resolutely...

"That's it, that's it..." Kreacher stumbled forward to the edge of the stone basin and fished out the locket from the bottom, feeling extremely sad.

Sirius couldn't wait to step forward and turn the locket over. With trembling fingers, he gently opened the locket. There was no magic trap, no poison, only a folded parchment.

Unfolding the parchment, he read softly in the dim light of the cave:
"To the Dark Lord: I will be dead before you read this. But I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I stole the real Horcrux and planned to destroy it as soon as possible. I risked my life in the hope that you would be killed if you met your match..."

"RAB...Regulus Arcturus...Black..."

Sirius' lips trembled slightly, and a familiar yet unfamiliar face seemed to appear in front of him. It had the same black hair and dark skin as himself. In front of outsiders, he always had a sullen face and an arrogant expression, but his thin stature made him less intimidating.

"Master Regulus!"

Kreacher was lying on the stone basin, crying so hard that he was out of breath, trembling all over, and his nose was covered with green mucus.

Just when everyone was immersed in grief, a teeth-grinding crunching sound came from the lake behind them. Turning around, they saw that the four collapsed foxes had crawled to the edge of the lake at some point. Several corpses had floated to the surface of the water. Pale, swollen hands clenched the unconscious foxes and pushed the four weak ones into their dark mouths.

"crunch..."

The bright red blood mixed with white liquid splashed on the corpse's mouth, and was immediately licked clean by the bloodless tongue the next moment.

The lake was no longer as smooth as a mirror, but was churning violently. A large number of corpses emerged from the dark water. Looking around, white heads and hands emerged from the dark water everywhere. There were men and women, old and young, in different clothes and sizes. The corpses opened their sunken eyes without vision, as if they were a school of hungry fish that suddenly discovered something and floated towards the rock in unison.

"[Tongtong Petrochemical]"

"[Retreat the enemy three feet]"

"[Many obstacles]"

"[Quick Binding]"

A volley of spells went off, and a wave of Inferi tumbled back into the water. Several stumbled and fell, one or two being tied up with ropes, but those who had climbed up the rocks behind them simply stepped over them or stepped on their fallen bodies to come back, and more Inferi had already climbed up, their withered hands grasping the slippery rocks, staring at them with empty, misty eyes, their water-soaked rags dragging behind them, and their sunken faces showing contempt.

"[Split into pieces]"

Ginny couldn't hold back any longer, and with a spell she blew the Inferi in the front into several pieces, instantly creating a clear gap among the Inferi that were gathered in a group.

The limbs were torn from the body, and the robes were torn into pieces, but not a drop of blood flowed out. They were unconscious and continued to approach step by step, stretching out pairs of dry hands.

(End of this chapter)