parentshiftbook Chapter 173 Solid Evidence
Chapter 173 Solid Evidence
Chapter 173 Solid Evidence
In the days following the attack, the corridor on the second floor of Hogwarts Castle where the incident occurred quietly became a forbidden area that people dared not enter.
Thick, dark curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor, completely sealing off the corridor like a huge, lifeless shroud.
The air seemed to freeze before the curtain, and no sound could be heard from behind—no footsteps, no chanting, not even the faint creaking of the castle walls that was most common. There was only an absolute, intangible, deathly silence.
This unusual quiet has been particularly unsettling during this particular period of time.
The students were forced to take a longer route, and each time they passed the area near the curtain, they unconsciously quickened their pace, lowered their voices, and dared not linger their eyes on that dark fabric for too long.
It was like a silent, unknown abyss, and Nie stood in the middle of the familiar corridor.
As Ron, panting and carrying his books, ran down the sliding stairs for the third time, he couldn't help but complain to Harry and Hermione in a low voice, "What on earth is Professor Lynch up to in there? He's in there all day, acting all mysterious—"
But his eyes betrayed his curiosity and a hint of barely perceptible tension, as he couldn't help but glance warily at the motionless curtain.
Ron nudged Harry with his elbow. "Hey, Harry, your—um—'uncle'? Did he tell you anything? Like, did he find something scary in there?"
Harry was frowning at the heavy curtain, as if trying to burn it through with his gaze. Hearing Ron's words, he snapped back to reality, his face showing a mixture of annoyance and confusion at being interrupted.
He shook his head, his shoulders slumping slightly, looking somewhat helpless: "No, he didn't say anything. I haven't even seen him much these past few days." There was a hint of disappointment in his tone that he himself didn't realize, and his gaze unconsciously drifted back to that mysterious, dark barrier.
Hermione frowned, a look of academic bewilderment on her face as she tried to analyze the phenomenon before her. "This isn't an ordinary ear-blocking spell," she whispered to Harry and Ron. "Look at the air around the curtain; the light seems distorted—Professor Lynch must have layered very powerful shielding and anti-interference spells, and possibly advanced perception-distorting magic as well. He doesn't want anyone, in any way, to be able to peek into even the slightest thing inside."
Her tone was a mixture of admiration for advanced magic and curiosity about this extremely secretive method.
Harry neither understood nor cared about the advanced spells Hermione had mentioned. He was only interested in what Uncle Lynch was doing behind that curtain—he hadn't even shown up for Magic Studies class.
Behind the curtain, the corridor was no longer what it used to be.
Lynch's purpose in casting so many spells was simple: knowing that a hostile lower-grade student was hiding among the students, he needed to completely eliminate any spying and ensure absolute secrecy in his operations.
After ensuring the absolute isolation of the area, he used precise disintegration spells to silently peel away and remove the surface bricks, torch brackets, and even floor inlays of the surrounding walls until the ancient and rough inner structure of the castle, the crisscrossing wooden load-bearing beams, and the tangled and rusty metal pipe system within them were revealed.
Several cold, white orbs of magical light floated in the air, casting clear but cold rays of light, strictly confining all the light within the curtain.
Standing amidst the hastily dissected "internal organs" of the castle, Lynch's gaze was like that of a highly sophisticated scanning machine, cold and precise, scanning every exposed detail—the joints of every brick, the interfaces of every pipe, and the unusual distribution of years of accumulated dust.
Lynch's patience and meticulousness paid off.
Finally, at the junction of an unusually thick cast iron sewage pipe that ran straight between the upper and lower floors, he found what he was looking for.
Nearby, an unnatural, smooth scrubbing mark appeared on the thick dust, as if something huge, smooth, and heavy had passed through there.
He bent down, his fingertips lightly brushing over the mark, feeling a cold, almost imperceptible lingering magic.
Then, his gaze followed the pipe and caught sight of something stuck between the sharp cracks—a huge, semi-transparent piece of hard leather that had lost its elasticity and had irregular, broken edges.
The image flashed through his mind almost instantly: a basilisk that had been asleep for half a century, its body still covered in old, molted skin, moving through a narrow, cold pipe. The rough pipe walls rubbed against its massive body, and a piece of already loose molted skin was violently scraped off at a sharp turn or narrow spot, mercilessly wedged between the sharp metal crevices.
It became a piece of evidence forgotten in the darkness, yet crucial in its significance.
The conclusion, like a crucial gear, clicked softly, perfectly meshing with all the clues in his mind, fitting seamlessly together.
This monster did not lurk in the sunlit corridors and halls of the castle, but rather traversed and hid within the labyrinthine blood vessels and intestines constructed of stone and metal.
This perfectly explains why no one saw any trace of it, because it was a ghost that roamed inside the wall.
Later that day, the door to the cellar office was silently pushed open.
Lynch stepped into the space, filled with the scent of aged herbs and the damp, cold stone walls; even the frigid air seemed to make way for him. He didn't speak immediately, his gaze lingering for a moment on Snape's cauldrons, which glowed with an eerie light.
"Severus," his voice cut clearly into the pauses in the bubbling of the cauldron, his tone slightly slower than usual, "I need a potion."
Characteristics: Extremely high adhesion, capable of maintaining a very weak but unique magical imprint for a long time; colorless and odorless; liquid; requires the ability to diffuse a considerable distance through water.
Snape slowly raised his head from behind a bronze cauldron that was emitting strange smoke, his dark eyes appearing like two bottomless, icy pools in the dim light.
He listened in silence for a moment, his thin lips twisting into an almost mocking curve.
"Extremely high adhesion, long-lasting effect, unique imprint, and even the ability to diffuse through water?" He repeated slowly, his voice smooth and cold. "Lynch, what you're describing can't be called a 'potion' at all. It's more like a panacea from a bad fairy tale. Go back and tarnish your own cauldron; don't waste my time and treasured materials."
Lynch's expression remained unchanged; he simply took half a step forward.