Chapter 101: Defense Professor's Office
Hanton was a little puzzled why Jon's reaction suddenly became so dramatic, but in the end, not everyone has Hermione's careful observation and keen intuition, and he didn't ask anything else, but simply replied to Jon's query.
"At the beginning of Christmas break, Mr Dolohov asked some of us to clean the area in front of the school gate. You weren't assigned to it at the time, it was Ariel and me who went over there together, and that's when we saw the two Professor Carrow carrying their suitcases and looking like they were getting ready to go home together. We haven't seen them at the school since, so I guess they won't be back until the school year starts."
Defence Against the Dark Arts class professor's office is also a target of Jon's arrival at Hogwarts Castle.
It's just that he hadn't been able to find any opportunity to sneak in before, the current defence class professor, Amycus Carrow basically doesn't leave his office much, and during the day during his class time Jon needs to stay with the other mudblood students, sneaking out alone would easily let Dolohov discover the issue.
After the start of the Christmas holidays, his attention has been placed on how to kill the Basilisk and enter the Headmaster's office, which is why he has overlooked monitoring the Defense class professor's office, in fact, if he had been more careful, he would have found out that the Defense class professor's office had been empty for a while, and the brother and sister of the Carrow family had left Hogwarts Castle at the start of the Christmas holidays this year.
After all, they are professors with a family, unlike Snape who lost his parents while he was young, and Barty Jr. who killed his own father, both have no home to return to for the holidays every year.
But now that Jon had been reminded of this by Hanton, it wasn't too late to find out. There is still close to a week left in the holidays, and there are enough days for him to get in and out of that defence class office a few dozen times.
"Thank you, Hanton, this pumpkin juice of mine is all yours."
Jon shoved a serving of pumpkin juice he hadn't touched into Hanton's hand, which brought a bewildered look to the young boy's face, not knowing exactly what he had helped him with.
***
The snow that fell on Christmas Day still hasn't melted to this day.
The night at Hogwarts Castle is very cold, Jon put on all the clothes, then put on the invisibility cloak, took the opened Marauder's Map and left the underground dormitory.
The office of the Defense class professor was located on the second floor of the castle, and Barty Jr.'s Charms class office was just one room away. This seemed to be the place where Jon had to pay more attention tonight, to avoid making too much noise, so as not to disturb the "dutiful son" of the magical world.
Aberforth did not ask Jon to return the telescopic eye he had lent him, which gave him more room for investigation before entering the door.
After checking that no magical portraits or living creatures remained in the Defense Class office, Jon opened the door using the unlocking charm and carefully stepped inside.
With the moonlight shining through the window, he could clearly see the layout of the office.
There is a lot of space here, basically just a little smaller than Voldemort's Headmaster office, the surrounding walls are furnished with several rows of bookshelves, but the books on them are few and far between, all of them filled up with some strange and bizarre things.
Grindylow hatchlings soaked in an unknown liquid, placed vertically on the shelves, dried up human hands of unknown origin, necklaces stained with dried blood and green human skulls, etc.
Rather than saying that this is an office of a Defense Against Dark Arts professor, Jon is more willing to believe that this is a secret base of a dark wizard.
But when combined with the character of Professor Carrow, it made sense that his office would be like this, but Jon was a little curious as to how he usually taught his students in his defence class.
While thinking about these messy things, Jon walked carefully past the bookshelves, not touching anything on the shelves, and then made his way forward to the inner room of the office that is normally used for lounging.
The furnishings here are much more normal compared to the outside, except that household item are discarded haphazardly, and you can tell that Amycus Carrow is not some kind of person who likes to be clean and tidy.
Jon did not waste much time, Slughorn before stealing Philosopher's Stone gave him all the notes and materials left by the creator of the Ring he wore, Mr Adrian Fawkes, and in those notes, he had long learned the location where Adrian had hidden his research when he was a Defense class professor at Hogwarts.
He went all the way around Carrow's bed and found a piece of flooring at the end of the bed that didn't look any different from the rest of the floor, then he drew his wand and tapped it against the piece of flooring and recited the incantation according to what he had read in his notes.
"Reverse up and down."
The floor suddenly moved, it turned over on the ground, and the side originally exposed to the surface turned to the ground, while the side originally hidden in the ground was revealed on the surface.
At the same time it turned over, a long, narrow, and the same length and width as the moved floor wooden box was brought out.
The wooden box has a lock, but not locked, Jon did not hesitate to open the box directly, which was full of rolled-up parchment.
He opened the cloth bag which had been enchanted with the Undetectable Extension Charm and put all these materials into the bag.
In the process of storing up the materials he showed considerable attention, but until he finished taking up all the contents of the box, he did not see any shadows related to the stone of the ring.
This made Jon could not help but frown, but he did not continue to stay in this office much longer, after making sure that nothing was missing, he restored the wooden floor to its original state, put on the cloak of invisibility and left the place.
There were no surprises on the way, and he returned safely to his dormitory. When he returned, he spread out the Marauder's Map on the side of his bed, lit the candle, and began to take out the materials he had brought back, one by one.
It is true that Adrien's notes only recorded that he had hidden part of the relevant materials in his office, but did not say that the gems were also in the same place.
But since Slughorn clearly told Jon that there is a gem in Hogwarts castle, then this matter should not be a mistake, only that Adrien did not put his research and the gem together.
Jon was not overly discouraged, and by the faint light of the candle, he began to go through the hidden magical materials little by little, hoping to find some clues from them.
Just when he saw what these magic notes were actually about, his entire attention was drawn to the contents on it.
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