Chapter 424 "Emerge"

Hearing Mrs. Pince's answer, Sean couldn't help but frown.

Was his guess wrong? Or that person has ways to hide his figure, such as an invisibility cloak or a spell. Although Mrs. Pince has full control of the library, she is not too deep in magic.

However, according to his own judgment, the lurker's strength should not be very strong. The invisibility cloak is a high-end product.

Thinking of this, Sean asked again, "I want to know if there are any other secret places in the library."

The Hogwarts Library is always open around the clock. At least Sean has never seen the door closed, but no one will tend to you in the middle of the night. However, Filch would take Mrs. Norris to inspect the entire castle every night, and the first thing Mrs. Pince did every day was to check the library.

If the lurker has no means of invisibility, there is no way for them to slip out under Mrs. Pince's nose after casting the Imperius Curse on a student as she was near the door.

Mrs. Pince frowned and said, "There is no secret room. Although the Hogwarts library occupies a large area, all the passages here are connected. The bookshelves are just there, and no place to hide people in the library. I have to make rounds every half hour, and the day Miss Isabel came to borrow books happened to be the day I was cleaning. After that, no one else came all day. I can be sure of that."

As she spoke, she suddenly added, "Speaking of which, the only place where people can hide is the breakroom."

"The breakroom?"

Sean looked in the direction of Mrs. Pince's finger, and there was a wooden door on the corner wall of the library, which was being locked at the moment.

"I'm not used to staying in the faculty lounge. I prefer to stay with these books, so the principal granted me a small room in the library."

Sean nodded and asked, "Excuse me, ma'am, maybe that room can hide people?"

Mrs. Pince seemed to have been greatly insulted; she hit Sean, and the feather duster moved twice in mid-air, "Impossible; only I can use that room, and only I know the password to enter. That door uses magic and can only be opened with a password."

She said that bluntly, "Mr. Wallop, do you think I'm the culprit, or does the Imperius Curse also control me?"

Sean took a step back politely and said with an apologetic smile, "Of course not. I didn't mean that. It's just that the situation in the castle has been tense recently, and I hope to get more information. Please allow me to apologize for my rudeness."

Mrs. Pince's angry expression eased, "I can understand, but I hope you can pay attention to your words."

"Of course, please allow me to express my apologies again," Sean stroked his chest in greeting, "Then I'll go first, ma'am."

Walking out of the library, Sean's apologetic face immediately returned to its original appearance, and there was even some chill in his eyes.

"The Imperius Curse, huh? There is a high probability that it is him."

Sean walked up to a stone wall and tapped lightly. The stone wall rippled like the surface of the water. This is a contact method that only he and Stephanie can use, and only the two of them can use it directly. Both of them have partial authority to use the Room of Requirement.

Stephanie came a little faster than Sean had imagined. A wooden door soon appeared on the stone wall, and Sean pushed the door and walked in.

"What's wrong?" She looked at him quietly.

"I need you to do me a favor."

Sean briefly described the events related to the lurker, which is not something that needs to be kept secret.

Stephanie pondered for a while, nodded lightly, and said, "I see. But why do you think that the lurker is Professor Lockhart just because Mrs. Pince is obsessed with him? But if she's lying to you, you should be able to find it. Did you just say that Mrs. Pince looks like she's lying?"

Sean smiled mysteriously and pointed to his head, "Just my intuition."

The image of Lockhart as an idiot professor has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Everyone thinks he can only boast about something and that his strength is nothing, but Sean may be the only one who knows about it.

Lockhart is good at what he can do, but memory charms are very good, and he cannot steal other people's achievements and write them into bestselling books. Coincidentally, the memory spell played a very critical role in this incident, or Parvati and Lavender would not have been able to carry out their operation secretly.

In addition, Mrs. Pince did not seem to be lying, and Dave's senses could not detect anything wrong with her, but that just showed that Lockhart may have been fooling her for a long time.

It's normal for Mrs. Pince to be defenseless against her admired person. Lockhart can easily find opportunities to modify her memory; thus, Dave can't smell anything wrong.

Lockhart could easily find out Mrs. Pince's password in the library and use a spell to change her memory, so Mrs. Pince naturally thought that she hadn't revealed it.

This is all speculation; evidence is needed even if it is a speculation with a probability higher than 99%. Sean can be responsible for finding evidence, but he also needs to prevent Lockhart from taking certain actions after sensing this.

A master of memory spells like Lockhart will set a memory switch. Given Sean's question just now, Lockhart may already know that he has been suspected or even discovered.

Sean needs someone to notify the professors to take more precautions and to monitor Lockhart. Stephanie can contact him the fastest and is also the most suitable person for monitoring.

Of course, he can't explain all these to Stephanie, but what surprised Sean was that Stephanie didn't question his "intuition".

She nodded, "I understand. If there is something to tell, I will go there right away."

She didn't hesitate at all and left immediately.

"It's really to have a partner to cooperate on something." Sean spread his hands and muttered.

He did not leave the wall but walked in another direction. In Mrs. Pince's breakroom, Sean can enter without a password.

Pushing open the door, Sean was holding his wand, inspected it first, and after confirming that there were no traps in this small room, he looked around the room.

This room that belongs exclusively to Mrs. Pince is neither spacious nor gorgeous. It just looks like an ordinary room. However, there are few traces here, and it seems that Mrs. Pince does not use it frequently.

Sean turned around casually, and it seemed that Mrs. Pince was the only one who came in here, but the chairs, wine glasses, and other daily necessities were only for one person.

"Naja, go." Sean shook the sleeve of his robe; Naja jumped to the ground and quickly swam into the smallest gaps in the room.

A magical animal like an Occamy that can shrink its body at will is really great in terms of detection. It just so happens that Sean can communicate with Naja and will get all the information that may be vaguely expressed. It's nice to have an Occamy that understands your heart.

Soon, Naja swam back; she enlarged her body a little, wrapped around Sean's body, and whispered in his ear.

"I see... well done, Naja." Sean smiled, and her head walked to the wooden table.

Moving the table away, Sean pointed his wand directly at the ground below. A red light flashed, and the stone brick cracked. Sean saw what was inside. There was a box in a small space with a large stack of letters inside and a few empty bottles for storing memories beside it.

Sean picked up one, and sure enough, the font on it was the cursive font that Lockhart often used.

"To my dear mother:"

"Your son has encountered some troubles recently. The situation is tense; Hogwarts is blocked, and owls are no longer allowed to deliver letters. This makes me a little troubled."

"I can't reply to my admirers, and I can't send my messages back to you, but I still have to write this letter and send it to you. Of course, your son, a renowned wizard, is secretly working on solving the latest big problem, but please forgive me for not being able to tell you in detail."

"I almost forgot. I will find a way to contact the officials of the Ministry of Magic so that they can open an owl channel for me to communicate privately. I still have some friends with the new ministry."

---

"To my dear mother:"

"My life in school is very good. The students still admire me so much, and the professors also admire me. At the last dinner, Mr. Dumbledore even made a special toast to me."

---

"Oh, the kids lately have been a bit rebellious and not very polite to the professors—not including me, of course."

---

"Because of the increased tasks, the school has recruited a new batch of teaching assistants. I don't need them, but... your son's class is so popular that too many students would ask questions after class. We have to give young people some chances, don't we?"

…

"To my dear mother:"

"I seem to be in big trouble. I don't even know how to explain this to you."

Sean glanced roughly and found that almost all of the letters in it were intended to be sent to his mother by Lockhart, but there was bragging and self-centeredness between the lines, and he didn't know whether it was to show off to his mother or something else.

By the time of the last letter, Lockhart's handwriting was scribbled and looked extremely disturbed. Dawson may have found him at that time.

"Huh?" Sean realized that he had missed a note, but the handwriting on it was not Lockhart's.

This is the information given to Lockhart by the people behind him. Sean narrowed his eyes, and after thinking for a while, he put the note away.

Time to confront Lockhart.

The sun is getting lower and lower, and the mountains are gradually closing in a layer of shadow. A gloomy manor stands quietly in the jungle at the foot of an unknown mountain. The last rays of the setting sun coated the manor with a layer of warm gold.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor of the basement in the manor, and the dark green torch printed were lighting the room. Strangely, there was only one footstep in the corridor.

The wizard guarding in front of a dungeon saw someone coming; he bowed silently and opened the door under the gesture.

The floating man in black turned around with a hoarse and gloomy voice, "I don't even know how to describe him. His loyalty to you is unquestionable, and his fanaticism is eye-catching, but..."

The man in black laughed, "Mr. Riddle, his fanaticism was used on that kid who pretended to be you."

The man behind raised his head, revealing a round face and holding a swaddle in his arms containing a strange creature shaped like a baby.

It has no hair, and it seems to have scales on its body. Its skin is dark and red, like wounded flesh. Its arms and legs were thin and limp, and its face was like a snake with sparkling red eyes.

A hoarse voice filled with chills, "Let me tell you something. Don't call me Riddle. I only have one name now, and that is Voldemort."

"Oh, I'm so sorry—" There was no apology in the man in black's voice, "Mr. Voldemort, can you bring your loyal servant back?"

Voldemort snorted. He didn't show anger because of the rudeness of the man in black, just like a weak person who lives under the fence and swallows his anger.

"He will understand." Voldemort said coldly.

He was carried into the dungeon. At the end of the dungeon, a young man was bound to a wooden chair. He looked haggard.

He licked his lips as quickly as a snake and laughed nervously, "Idiots, here we go again. You should never think that I will betray my master!"

The man in black replied coldly, "Here comes your master, Barty Crouch Jr."