Chapter 40: Rule Out Suspicion

As Halloween approaches, Harry is feeling a bit down. He regrets agreeing to attend Nick's birthday party for ghosts with Ron and Hermione.

He sees his classmates happily participating in the Halloween banquet and wishes he was there instead.

The auditorium is beautifully decorated with fire bats and a large pumpkin lantern carved by Hagrid.

It's rumored that Dumbledore has even hired a skeleton dance troupe to cheer everyone up.

Despite his reservations, Harry keeps his promise to attend the Ghost Party because honesty and trustworthiness are valued virtues at the three other Houses, apart from Slytherin.

Later, they see hundreds of translucent ghosts floating in the classroom, accompanied by the sound of music saws playing a waltz. The chandelier lights up the room with thousands of candles.

Harry and Ron decided to go somewhere else. They almost ran into the crying Myrtle, but Hermione reminded them in time, so they ended up at the other end of the underground classroom.

Ron was excited when he saw a long dining table covered in black velvet, but when they got closer, they involuntarily covered their noses.

The food on the table was not normal - it was ghost food. As ghosts can't eat, they seemed to have to put their mouths through the food they wanted and then pretend to have eaten it.

There was a lot of rotten meat, dark, burnt cakes, and maggot-filled lamb on the table. It looked like the food had been there for a while and had been used multiple times.

After Pippi caused more trouble and made Myrtle cry, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spoke with Nick for a few minutes.

They couldn't stand the atmosphere in the room because it was too cold and Harry was hungry. Ron's teeth were still chattering.

"I feel like something's not right. I keep feeling like someone's watching me. At first, I thought it was a ghost, but now I'm sure it's not. There are no other ghosts than here," Harry said as he looked around, trying to find something.

"Stop thinking about it, Harry," Ron said.

"It's just your hunger making you imagine things. Let's go back to the party."

"The pudding probably hasn't finished yet," Ron said hopefully, leading the way back towards the hallway.

At that moment, Harry heard a voice say, "Kill you... I .... kil you... I will kill you..."

It was the same cold, murderous voice he had heard in Lockhart's office.

Lockhart always asked Harry to go to his office to reply to his admirers, and a few times ,Harry had heard this cold voice.

It made him feel very uncomfortable, and he had a strong intuition that the person watching him was not alone.

He stumbled and stopped, grabbing the stone wall as he listened carefully, scanning the dimly lit aisle with squinted eyes.

"Harry, what are you doing--"

He continued following the sound, and suddenly it became louder and more ominous.

Even after hearing only a few words, Harry felt that the speaker had a bloodthirsty desire.

"He's going to kill someone!" Harry felt a sense of fear and terror in his heart.

He ran around the third floor, with Ron and Hermione following behind him, gasping for air.

They kept running until they finally turned a corner and ended up in the last empty aisle.

In front of them, something was shining on the wall. They approached slowly, squinting and trying to make out what it was in the dark.

Between the two windows, one foot off the ground on the wall, there was some handwriting painted in a glowing emblem.

~~The Chamber of Secrets has opened again.Beware MudBloods.Slytherin monster will finally rid of our world you.~~

"What's that thing hanging below?" Ron said, his voice trembling.

They approached carefully, and Harry almost slipped on a large pool of water on the ground.

Ron and Hermione grabbed him, and they stepped closer to the slogan, staring at the dark shadow below.

All at once, the three of them saw what it was and jumped back in fright, splashing water everywhere.

They saw the petrified Mrs. Norris, the janitor's cat, with her tail hanging from the torch stand and her body stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring straight ahead.

The three of them stood motionless for a few seconds before Ron said, "Let's get out of here quickly."

"Should we try to rescue--" Harry said, not very fluently.

"Listen to me," said Ron.

"We don't want to be found here."

However, it was too late. A low rumbling noise, like thunder in the distance, told them that the banquet had just ended.

From both ends of the corridor where they were, hundreds of feet could be heard ascending the stairs, and people were happily chatting and laughing after a long meal.

Then, the students pushed into the aisle from both ends.

As the students in front of Harry saw the upside-down cat, the lively chatter suddenly stopped.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood alone in the middle of the hallway, and all the students were silent as they rushed forward to see the terrible scene.

Harry's lips were dry as he looked at the still-stiff cat, not knowing what to say to explain.

There were only three of them at the scene, and it seemed that any extra words would be pale and weak. Draco, who was following them, approached quickly.

"Three suspects have been ruled out," Draco thought to himself, trying to comfort himself. He stood by and watched everything coldly.

Before following them, he had also experienced a carnival of ghosts.

He had originally tried to reach the scene before the three of them, but he had overestimated his speed and had to expend more energy to maintain the spell, and he may have had to avoid being discovered by Pippi the Ghost.

"It's time to go," he thought, returning to where the ghosts were gathered. He was not confident that he could maintain the spell in front of so many people without being discovered.Dumbledore was not an ordinary person.

"So many students, the elimination method is really not a good choice," he thought, feeling some headaches.

The soul fragment of Voldemort attached to the object was a magic item created by the most powerful dark wizard ever, so he had to deal with it using Multitude of energy.

It was clear from Ginny's original performance that the diary had a strong temptation for those with some problems in their hearts.

Voldemort during his school days could be said to be insightful and able to gain the trust of almost everyone easily.

He only needed to guide a few times, which was enough to make people open up and let him do whatever he wanted.

The first victim was Mrs. Norris, he remembered, so he chose to follow the trio on Halloween, hoping to find some clues.

However, because of his negligence and the wrong estimate of the difficulty of the spell, he missed the first opportunity to get clues.

"But okay, it's a good thing that they are all ruled out."

Now that the butterfly effect has begun to play its role, he will not let any suspicious person pass.

To really talk about the problem, in fact, the Golden Iron Triangle the influence is not small.

Harry's parents died 11 years ago, and he was fostered in his uncle's house, where he was abused and raised.

Under such treatment, he was reversed after being admitted to Hogwarts and became the "savior" of the wizards, but he knew he was just a very ordinary boy.

He had a little more magical talent than others, maybe? He was under tremendous pressure and even hated his own name.

Some children dislike their parents' and elders' compliments. When they hear these harsh words, they feel that they cannot afford these praises, which makes them feel ashamed.

And under this shame, Harry wanted to prove himself, not just in Quidditch, but also in other areas to be worthy of the title of "savior."

Imagine if Riddle in his diary taught him a lot of magic tricks that he had summed up, so that his coursework would advance by leaps and bounds.

Maybe the bewitched Harry would become the protagonist, of course, it may be that his inner sense of justice could overcome these desires. Who is right?

Ron, as the youngest brother, had to be compared to his brothers.

Like Ginny, he also had to use second-hand goods. Poverty can easily destroy a person, and one of the elements is that even Harry, who appeared to be poor and white at first, is actually a hidden rich man.

He has a large legacy and can buy all the snacks he wants in the car without care. Maybe at some point, Ron would be jealous of Harry.

Like other boys his age, he wanted to be noticed by those around him. The Mirror of Erised had shown him this clearly, but he lacks the ability to match it, causing him to feel pain. Imagine that the diary only needs to evoke some jealousy and fear in him to be effective.

Sometimes people are fragile and sometimes tenacious. Most people know how to regulate their emotions, so Harry and Ron still act bravely and strong most of the time.

As for Hermione, a wizard of Muggle origin, when she first entered the magical world, she should have been full of fear and surprise.

At first, the former should have been more than the latter, but when she found that she was more powerful than the wizarding children, the former was not so much.

However, she was still distressed because she found that she couldn't handle the relationship with her friends.

The friends and the school rules were always full of contradictions before, and she occasionally lifted unintentionally, which always made people feel proud.

These things would always hinder their friendship intentionally or unintentionally.

Of course, now with someone's unintentional loss, maybe there are more girls' adolescent habits.

Draco took a breath here, sometimes wondering if he would be better off as a pure-blood loyalist, gradually going against Harry in the same way as before, and cursing Hermione with mud-bloods.

In this way, the historical trajectory would not be shifted. He might be in tragedy for the sixth and seventh grades for two years, and then after Lord Voldemort's defeat, he could live a noble life.

Of course, this was just thinking. He laughed at himself, amused by the thoughts in his head.

His thoughts began to drift away again, and he began to think.