Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 195 The Amnesiac Riddle and the Language of the Parseltongue

Rice stood on the floor of the secret room again.

He glanced at Ginny lying on the floor and found that she was still unconscious, but her complexion had improved a lot, no longer as deathly pale as before. A tattered booklet lay quietly on the floor beside her, as if it had slipped out of her sleeve.

Rice picked up the booklet and sensed a well-hidden evil emanating from it.

Clearly, it is the vessel for Riddle's soul fragment.

"Using a notebook that can be found anywhere in a Muggle store as a Horcrux, not bad, very creative," Rhys praised Riddle.

Choosing and hiding Horcruxes is almost a mandatory course for dark wizards who aspire to immortality but lack the power to do so.

They can hide Horcruxes in remote wilderness areas or choose inconspicuous carriers—after all, Horcruxes are imbued with sophisticated protective magic, impervious to ordinary wind, sun, water, and fire, as long as you don't find them unsightly. The central idea is simple: prevent the enemy from finding your Horcrux.

The diary Riddle used was so inconspicuous that if you just tossed it into a secondhand bookstore, it would probably remain undiscovered for decades or even centuries as long as he didn't cause any trouble.

Rice opened his diary, picked up a pen, and wrote a line on it: I am Adrian Greengrass.

The ink lingered on the paper for a second before being absorbed and disappearing without a trace.

Soon, the diary responded, a line of faint ink and messy handwriting suddenly appearing on the paper: Hello, Adrian, I am...

The writing stopped here, followed by a bunch of meaningless gibberish, as if the writer had suddenly gone insane.

After a while, the garbled text disappeared, replaced by another sentence: Sorry, I've forgotten who I am. I need your help.

Rice smiled with satisfaction: the diary's reaction indicated that Riddle's soul had been severely damaged, and even his memories were gone.

This is exactly the state he is satisfied with.

Ignoring Riddle's distress signal in the diary, Rice put the diary in his pocket, then cast a levitation spell on Ginny, who was lying on the ground, so that she floated behind him and left the secret room with him.

Emerging from the secret chamber, Rice glanced at Ginny floating behind him, feeling rather troubled. He wasn't worried about being discovered wandering the castle with a young girl in the middle of the night. What bothered him was that the exit of the secret chamber was quite far from the Gryffindor common room; including the return journey, it was practically a round trip from the bottom of the castle to the top, and Rice was too lazy to go that far.

"Why don't we just leave her somewhere clean and warm?"

Rice thought it was a good idea. If she were discovered by the professor on night patrol, he could make her suffer and give her a chance to reflect on herself.

But I still need to work hard and find her a suitable position—wait a minute.

Rice caught a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of his eye, immediately stopped, and shouted, "Petty!"

A small sprite wearing a bright orange party hat emerged from behind a suit of armor. He was clearly displeased that the young wizard dared to call him by his first name, and he muttered under his breath, fiddling with the helmet of his armor: "Which brat dares to call me by my name—"

His voice trailed off as he saw Rice's face clearly.

Peeves could see clearly at the death anniversary party that this little wizard was always hanging out with Barrow the Bloodman, and their relationship was obviously very close. There was no point in arguing with someone like that.

Pipi decided to pretend he hadn't seen anything and was about to make a run for it, but Rice clearly wasn't going to let him go.

Seeing that Pipi was trying to run away, Rice called his name again, this time with a stronger emphasis.

This time, Pippi couldn't take it anymore. He turned around, about to lash out, but Rice quickly moved Ginny to her side.

"Take this girl to the Gryffindor common room. If you refuse, Barrow will be the next one to come looking for you."

Pipi Ghost had a thousand words stuck in his throat. He stared at Rice for a couple of seconds, then without saying a word, he took Ginny and ran upstairs.

I have no choice but to endure it!

It's all because of Blood Man Barrow, kid!

After leaving Ginny to Peeves, Rice nodded contentedly and turned to head towards the first-floor restroom—he was going to retrieve his wand and lunchbox.

……

I can't sleep, I just can't sleep! Harry rolled over in bed, and then his stomach started growling.

Although he often went hungry at the Dursleys’ house, the unlimited food provided in the Hogwarts dining hall greatly reduced his ability to withstand hunger, which caused him to suffer from insomnia due to hunger after suddenly missing a dinner.

He got out of bed and rummaged through his suitcase under the bed for a while before finally pulling out two boxes of chocolate frogs.

Just as he was about to eat the two chocolate frogs, Harry suddenly felt as if someone was watching him from the shadows. He looked up and was startled: a pair of bright eyes were staring straight at the chocolate frogs in his hand.

Harry immediately realized it was Ron. Like him, Ron had missed dinner because he attended Nick Fury's death anniversary party and was now too hungry to sleep.

Following the principle of sharing equally, he gave Ron a chocolate frog.

After eating a chocolate frog, the two of them were even hungrier...

"Do you still have any food?"

"There's also a small bag of spotted mouse feed."

"..."

"So why don't you two go to the kitchen?" Simon's voice came from behind the curtains of his bed.

Harry and Ron: ?

"Do you know where the kitchen is?"

"Fred told me," Seamus said, quite surprised by their reaction. "Don't you know where the kitchen is? Ron, you're Fred and George's brother!"

Ron: ...

"Those two only interact with me when they're teasing me—so why would he tell you this?"

Seamus coughed twice, indicating that he had helped Fred with a favor earlier. In return, they shared this little secret with him. As for the details of their help, he refused to reveal them.

"So...where's the kitchen?" Ron didn't bother to find out what Seamus had done for Fred; he just wanted to hurry to the kitchen and have a good meal.

"I've also sacrificed a lot..." Simo said, looking troubled.

"This year's History of Magic notes—written by Hermione from Ravenclaw—are of absolutely guaranteed quality."

"Plus this week's Potions class paper."

"I'm going to bed."

"Fine, fine, I'll trade you the notebook." Seamus gave in and wrote down the location of the kitchen and how to get in on a piece of paper, then handed it to Harry.

Harry and Ron quickly dressed and left the common room wearing invisibility cloaks.

But halfway there, Harry suddenly heard a muffled but cold and malicious whisper:

[...eat...kill, kill—]

[...calling for...sacrificial offerings...]

Harry: ?

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The second update is here.

(=｀ω=) The next update will be at midnight tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)