Wormtail opened with the Killing Curse. Fortunately, Jerry relied on pure animal instinct and narrowly escaped death. Two consecutive Killing Curses missed, and Jerry managed to dart out of the Chamber.
The passages within the Chamber were a tangled maze. Jerry randomly chose a tunnel and fled. Wormtail chased for a while but eventually lost him, forcing him to return to the Chamber—only to be greeted by Voldemort's furious tirade.
"You useless fool! You can't even deal with a kneazle!"
"M-My lord…" Wormtail lowered his head in fear.
"I have a task for you. This pathetic rat body won't last much longer. I need the Philosopher's Stone to restore my body. Find Nicolas Flamel's student—Hoff Stark—and obtain the Stone," Voldemort ordered.
Wormtail didn't know much about Flamel or the Stone, so he humbly asked for clarification. Voldemort impatiently summarized everything.
"Hoff likely carries another Philosopher's Stone. No matter what, you must find him before Haerpo does."
"As you command, my lord." Wormtail hesitated before asking cautiously, "Should I gather more followers to help with the search?"
To Wormtail, finding a wizard deliberately hiding without clues was like searching for a needle in the ocean. With more Death Eaters working from different angles, they might get results faster.
"Barty Crouch Jr. and Lucius Malfoy. Find them," Voldemort said, then added, "Remember—find Barty first, then go to Lucius together."
He knew Lucius well—self-serving and duplicitous. In his current weakened state, possessing a rat, the Dark Mark on the Death Eaters' arms wouldn't respond.
If Wormtail went alone, Lucius might not even let him through the door. But with a fanatically loyal and powerful accomplice like Barty, Lucius would have no choice but to cooperate.
Wormtail accepted the task and left the Chamber. Transforming back into a fat gray rat, he followed the route Voldemort had given him and returned to the surface.
Meanwhile, Sean had searched the Room of Requirement thoroughly but still found no trace of Jerry. Back in his dorm, he stared at the Marauder's Map.
There had to be more hidden locations than just the Room of Requirement and the Chamber of Secrets. At the very least, he knew of Merlin's secret chamber—but that one was accessible only to him.
"That leaves only Slytherin's Chamber… could he really be there?" Sean muttered, troubled.
Suddenly, a name appeared on the map—Peter Pettigrew.
Sean shot to his feet. "Wormtail's back!"
But Jerry still hadn't appeared.
Wormtail's name moved quickly across the map, heading from the first-floor corridor of the academic building toward the castle grounds.
"He's going to the Whomping Willow," Sean predicted—and sure enough, Wormtail reached it.
Then his name disappeared at the edge of the map's range.
As one of the creators of the Marauder's Map, Wormtail naturally knew all its secret passages. He used the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow to reach the Shrieking Shack at the edge of Hogsmeade.
There, he transformed back into human form and Apparated away.
Back in the Chamber, Voldemort stared at the massive stone face carved into the wall. Behind it slumbered the basilisk—a true thousand-year-old monster.
With Parseltongue, he could awaken it and unleash chaos upon Hogwarts—student deaths, school closure, panic.
But he chose not to.
The safest place was often the most dangerous-looking one. Hogwarts, orderly and protected, was the perfect hiding place. And with the Golden Scepter hidden there, it was better guarded than anywhere else. If Hogwarts fell, Haerpo would seize it by force.
"This rat body is too weak. I need a new host soon," Voldemort thought.
Before meeting Quirrell, he had survived in Albania's forests by possessing small animals, constantly switching hosts as their bodies failed under the strain of his soul.
Quirrell had been his first human host, but even then, rejection persisted. Despite Quirrell's willingness, Voldemort's soul remained unstable within him.
"How did Haerpo manage it?" Voldemort pondered. He couldn't understand how Haerpo could coexist with Salazar for a thousand years while he himself struggled to last months in a human body.
The answer was simple—greed.
Haerpo had split his soul into only three parts. Voldemort had split his into eight. The more fragmented the soul, the weaker each fragment became.
With such a fragile soul, Voldemort's best option remained weak animals.
Leaving the Chamber, he returned to the surface through hidden passages, then slipped out of the castle and into the Forbidden Forest.
Sean, meanwhile, had stared at the Marauder's Map all night. Jerry still hadn't appeared.
Only when the pale morning light crept across the map did Sean realize dawn was near. He washed up hastily and collapsed into bed.
At nine in the morning, while students were already in class, Sean had just woken up.
The first thing he did was check the map.
The moment he did, he snapped fully awake.
Jerry's name had appeared.
It was stationary—at a location Sean knew all too well: the girls' bathroom on the third floor.
"Why there…" Sean muttered, his expression turning grim.
That bathroom was the entrance to Merlin's chamber. Sean had already made a name for himself there once—he couldn't just casually show up again.
He quickly got dressed and headed for the academic building.
"At this time, Cassius and the others should be in Charms with Hufflepuff…"
As he made his way to the fourth-floor Charms classroom, he noticed missing cat posters plastered everywhere—clearly the work of the Weasley twins.
Class had already started about ten minutes earlier. Standing at the back door, Sean glanced inside.
Professor Flitwick spotted him and assumed he had finally come to attend class again.
"Sean! A rare sight in Charms—come in, come in!"
Sean smiled politely. "Professor, I'm not here for class."
"Then what brings you here?" Flitwick asked.
"Sean, what are you doing here?" Cassius called from the back.
Cedric stared at him with interest. Someone who hadn't attended class for three years suddenly showing up was certainly unusual.
"I'm here to find Chris," Sean explained, looking toward her. "Professor Snape needs to see her."
He had originally planned to say he was looking for his cat—but figured Flitwick would react just like Snape. So he made up an excuse.
Flitwick didn't question it. "If Professor Snape needs you, then go ahead," he told Chris.
Outside the story:
My laptop broke. I bought a card reader to try to recover my drafts. I'll order a new laptop tonight on JD—it should arrive tomorrow afternoon.
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