Hogwarts Advanced Guide

Chapter 346 Entering the Cave—Horcrux, here we come!

Hera shivered, and the cold sea was blowing on his bare skin, making him shiver unconsciously. He was still complaining to Dumbledore, but Dumbledore was already standing in the middle of the cave, with his wand held high in his hand, and he slowly turned around on the spot, carefully examining the rock wall and the cave roof.

"Hera, I think we're in the right place," said Dumbledore.

Hera shrugged, standing behind Dumbledore, not as excited as Dumbledore. "We'd better be more prepared. We don't even have the most basic anti-black magic items—to be honest, I didn't expect you to find them so quickly."

"Magic," said Dumbledore curtly, ignoring Hera's complaints.

"What do you mean?" Hera asked, he had already used his wand to dry the robes on his body, but he couldn't help shaking. "We have already confirmed that the Horcrux is here, so I don't think we need to rush in, after all, none of us know what trap the Dark Lord has set up."

Dumbledore turned back, took a deep look at Hera, his eyes dimmed a little, he turned back again, and concentrated on studying something that Hera couldn't see.

"This is just the vestibule, the entrance hall," said Dumbledore after a moment. "We need to go inside. Now it is the traps of Voldemort's subordinates that block us, not the obstacles set by nature."

"You don't plan to go in today, do you?" Hera walked to Dumbledore and said softly, "We all know this. Voldemort will definitely set up many traps, and we can't rush in without preparation. Dumbledore, you can't have any accidents."

Dumbledore froze for a moment, and then said in a humorous tone that he usually used to tell jokes: "Everyone will die, don't regard death as such a terrible thing."

"But if you have an accident, then no one can stop the Dark Lord's footsteps. If you can say that the Dark Lord's rule is indifferent, I may leave now." Hera's voice was very soft, but it was not difficult for Dumbledore to hear it clearly in the cave, even though the sound of waves hitting the rocks was still echoing in his ears.

Dumbledore pursed his lips, his whole face tightened, which made him look more like Professor McGonagall.

Hera looked at Dumbledore without showing any weakness. He really didn't understand why Dumbledore was so anxious. Could it be that he couldn't wait to destroy Voldemort's Horcrux for a moment?

"Hera, I'm afraid we have to do this, we don't have enough time." Dumbledore was silent for a long time before he spoke.

Hera raised his eyebrows and sighed softly, "I know I can't convince you, but if we encounter danger, we must evacuate as soon as possible. We can't compromise here. Hogwarts still needs you."

"Of course, I assure you, Hera." Dumbledore said with firm eyes. In Hera's impression, he had never been so serious, which made Hera feel a little relieved.

"Then can I continue?" Dumbledore looked at Hera playfully, he had already walked in front of him at some point, blocking the mechanism in front of him.

Hera nodded and walked behind Dumbledore with a big stride. "I'm just here to make sure I can give them back a principal intact."

"You and I both know this." Dumbledore's tall and thin body looked a little rickety under the bright light, and he looked more like a centenarian at the moment. "We'll get out safely, even if we can't get the Horcruxes today."

"It's better like this." Hera pursed her lips tightly, and he held his wand and looked around vigilantly—maybe Voldemort also hid a basilisk here.

Speaking of which, Hera has a snake herself, but Hera just couldn't find it after groping around for a long time. I'm afraid Tom ran away first when he heard about the battle between him and the Aurors in the morning.

Dumbledore approached the cave wall, stroked it with his blackened fingertips, and whispered something in a strange language that Hera couldn't understand.Dumbledore walked twice around the cave from the right, touching the rough walls as best he could, pausing occasionally to run his fingers up and down in certain places.

At last he stopped and pressed his leather-gloved palms against the cave wall.

"Is it here?" Hera asked softly. "It's really hidden."

"That's right, it's here." Dumbledore smiled wryly. He didn't even have time to explain it, and Hera guessed it, which made him somewhat bored—he thought Hera would be very surprised.

Khrazson shouldered, "Don't look at me like that. After all, I have done some gray business before. Dark wizards always like to hide dangerous magic items in ordinary-looking places."

"That's right, I almost forgot." Dumbledore said with a smile, "Take a few steps back, I'm going to open it."

Hera nodded, and took a few steps back and forth from the cave wall, cautiously looking at the direction they came from, for fear of any dangerous magical creatures popping out from the other end.

Dumbledore pointed his wand at the rock, and suddenly, the outline of an arch appeared, emitting a dazzling white light. It seemed that there was a strong light behind the crack, and the entire cave was illuminated, and it was unobstructed.

"Successful?" Hera said, because the outline disappeared almost instantly, and the rock was still as hard and thick as before, with nothing on it.

Dumbledore turned his head to look, and it focused all its attention on the solid cave wall, completely ignoring Hera's words.He didn't try any other magic either, just stood there, staring at the cave wall intently, as if something extremely interesting was written on it.

Hera sighed, came over and tugged Dumbledore's sleeve to interrupt his train of thought, "Perhaps, we'd better be more cautious."

Then, after a full 2 ​​minutes, just when Hera was about to slap Dumbledore on the head, Dumbledore spoke softly, "I think I figured it out."

"what do you mean?"

"This mechanism is too low-level, I think," Dumbledore pointed to the rock wall, and said with his left hand reaching into his robes, he took out a short silver knife, which is the kind usually used by people to cut potion ingredients, "I think we have to pay a price to pass."

"The price?" Hera said, "is it the life of the one who came, or something rare?"

"I'm afraid so, but not as much as you say," said Dumbledore. "Blood, if I'm not mistaken."

"I'm afraid we need to go back to the cabin and think about it now. This is a very rare magic, and it is usually only used to hide those extremely precious things." Hera frowned. He didn't want to stab himself at the entrance, even if it was Dumbledore's request.

"That's why I said this is too low-level. Voldemort can only think of this method." Dumbledore said, his tone was contemptuous, even disappointed, as if Voldemort had failed to meet his expected standards, "I think you must understand that the reason is to let the opponent weaken himself before he can enter. Once again, Voldemort failed to understand that there are many things that are much more terrifying than physical injuries."

"Obviously so, Hera, do you have the blood of a magical creature?" Dumbledore turned around, and he looked at Hera. It seemed that in his understanding, Hera always had all kinds of things here.

Hera pouted, and he tightly covered his small pocket, "I'm afraid you guessed wrong, I don't have any blood here."

"Let me guess, it's a Thestral or a Pegasus, isn't it a snail?" Dumbledore laughed out loud. They all knew that snails had no blood—they only had a highly corrosive yellow liquid in their bodies. If they could be called blood, Hera would start to wonder what the purpose of Voldemort's mechanism was.

"Seeing how you care so much, I'm afraid it's very precious?" Dumbledore asked with a smile.

Hera sighed and said in a low voice, "Norwegian Spinosaurus cub blood."

"Oh?" Dumbledore's eyes lit up, "Is this the blood of the dragon that Quirinus gave Hagrid?"

"Yes." Hera nodded emphatically.

"Sometimes it's unavoidable, Hera." Dumbledore put the silver dagger into his robes and pointed towards the rock wall. The meaning couldn't be more clear.

"Professor!" Hera yelled, and then resignedly took out a small test tube from it, which was less than [-] milliliters. "I only have this little. If it's not enough, we'd better go back and make a plan."

"I promised you." Dumbledore nodded.Make way to the side.

Hera smiled wryly, and poured all the blood in the test tube on the surface of the rock wall. There was only a small test tube of dragon's blood, but it was evenly spread on the surface of the rock, and shiny, dark red blood droplets flowed down drop by drop.

"I think this is probably enough?" Hera looked at Dumbledore without confidence, he didn't want to take out another tube of dragon's blood - the price of a tube of dragon's blood was at least 150 Galleons.

Hera simply felt that this thing held its value, and she was not that short of money, so she kept it in her hand.

Well, in fact, after trading Norber with Leni, Hera has rarely been short of money, and he can even be called a small rich man now-although only few people know this.

"I think it is tested by the magic power in the blood." Dumbledore said, "The magic power in the dragon's blood seems to be too full. I think only half of the amount is enough."

"You should have told me earlier." Hera gave Dumbledore a blank look, squatted down and used a test tube to carefully pick up the drops of blood that had slipped from the rock wall. Each drop was worth several Galleons!
"Ah, it looks really effective, doesn't it?" Dumbledore turned his head to look at the rock wall, pretending not to hear Hera's words.

The outline of the dazzling white arch reappeared on the cave wall again, and this time it did not disappear.The dragon's blood-sprayed rock in the arch suddenly disappeared, revealing a doorway that seemed to be filled with endless darkness.

"It's disgusting." Hera kicked the rock wall fiercely. Before he had time to catch much dragon's blood, the test tube barely covered the bottom.

"Come with me," said Dumbledore through the doorway, and Hera walked in after him, hastily pocketing the test tube and hastily lighting her wand.

Before their eyes was a very strange scene. They were standing on the bank of a large black lake.The cave they were in was so high that they couldn't see the top of the cave when they looked up.Far away, as if in the middle of the lake, there was a dim, green light shining, reflected in the dead lake below.

Except for the green light and the bright light from the two magic wands, the surrounding area was completely thick with darkness, and the penetrating power of these bright lights was not as strong as Hera expected. The darkness here seemed denser and thicker than ordinary darkness.

"Shall we go forward?" Dumbledore asked softly, "This looks much simpler than I thought."

"Really?" Hera looked at the lake cautiously, "I haven't seen any abnormality in this lake yet, maybe this is the biggest anomaly."

"Obviously Voldemort won't let us get his Horcrux so easily, but as long as we don't step into the water, I don't think it's a big deal." Dumbledore said softly. "By the way, don't try to Apparate. I think there must be a counter-curse here. Just follow me."

"I know." Hera nodded. "Although I don't have much exploration experience, I still have a few explorer friends. They often tell me these things."

He followed Dumbledore, and they walked around the shore, their feet clattering and echoing on the narrow rocks beside the lake.They kept going forward, but the surrounding scene didn't change at all: on one side was the rough cave wall, on the other side was the boundless, mirror-like black surface of the lake, and the mysterious green light shone in the center of the lake.

Green is definitely not a good omen in the wizarding world. After all, the most frightening thing about Avada Kedavra is the dazzling green light-it always symbolizes death.

This made Hera feel depressed and uneasy, so he could only stare at the figure not far in front of him, and said to himself: "It's okay, Dumbledore is here."

"I don't think there should be anything unusual about the lake, as long as we don't try to grab the Horcrux." Dumbledore stopped and stared deeply at the lake.

"Then we'd better find a way to figure out what we're going to face. I don't want a horse-shaped water monster to suddenly emerge from it." Hera said in a low tone. The horse-shaped water monster is a creature that looks like a horse and lives underwater. It is very strong, difficult to tame, and likes to bite people.

But fortunately, they are not common in the magic world, so there is no need for Dumbledore and Hera to worry too much, Dumbledore has the right to regard this as a joke.

"Maybe we should do something about it."

　After correcting the typos in the previous chapter, I found out that the symbols were quite wrong. Because I was on the train yesterday, the macbook codewords I used had exactly the same symbols as the "and" in Bear, so I couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)