Chapter 556 RAB

No. 55B

There seems to be an invisible rope pulling the boat towards the green light in the middle of the lake. The boat is driving automatically, the solid wood bow cuts through the dark water, and cuts deep ripples in the glass-smooth lake. Like grooves on a black mirror.

The boat was getting farther and farther away from the coast, and the rock wall behind and the waiting figures were hidden in the darkness. Harry and Sirius were crowded in the boat, feeling an unknown depression in their hearts, and the cold seemed to penetrate their bodies along the boat.

The light of the staff reflected on the dark water, and the pale marble-like corpse was hidden under the water, looming and hazy, with hair and robes like water plants floating under the water like smoke.

"Sirius, did you see the body that jumped out of the water just now?" Harry looked down at the depths of the lake, his eyes chasing the passing Inferi, and a feeling of vomiting welled up in his throat. Feel.

Sirius's expression was calm, and every word and deed showed the demeanor of a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor: "Don't panic, Harry, we have learned this lesson. The Inferi are like many creatures living in cold and darkness, they are afraid of the light. And warmth, the fire spell is very effective on them."

"..."

A few minutes later, the boat bumped gently against the rocks. Harry and Sirius carefully stepped out of the boat, trying hard to avoid touching the cold lake water. They turned around and met the direct gazes of several people and the house elf.

"!!"

Harry's eyes suddenly widened, "How did you get here?!"

The group's eyes all turned to the person standing on the far right.

Loren looked calm and said calmly: "Kreacher brought us here."

"But...but!" Harry stumbled and couldn't speak clearly.

Ginny glanced at his surprised expression, remained silent for a moment, and explained in a low voice: "This is the same as Hogwarts, except that wizards' apparation is prohibited, but the magic of elves is different from the magic of wizards."

"..."

Sirius fell silent.

The memory of a few minutes ago kept replaying in his mind. He stupidly found the boat, showed off his sense of smell, and made a carefree plan to cross the lake. Every move showed off his talents as a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

I want to transform into an Animagus and dig a tunnel from here to escape...

"Professor Black, what are we going to do next?" Fred glanced at Sirius quietly, out of some curiosity, he also wanted to see Professor Black being stupid.

"..."

Sirius gradually came to his senses and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Who would have thought that Voldemort, who has always been cruel in his methods, would go to such great lengths to lay out this cave to hide the Horcruxes, but there would be such a big omission. House elves could come and go freely in such a dangerous place. No wonder Kreacher could Escaped successfully.

He silently turned to look at the innocent-looking house elf: "Kreacher, tell me about the situation here. What traps has Voldemort set here?"

Kreacher's huge eyes filled with tears of grief, and he said in a hoarse voice: "The cursed potion. If you want to get the things hidden inside, you can only drink up the cursed potion..."

Everyone turned to look at the center of the island in the middle of the lake, where the green light flickered.

The small island in the middle of the lake is narrow in area, about the same size as the principal's office. It is a large flat black stone slab, empty except for a stone basin in the center, which is filled with constantly flickering green phosphorescence.

A group of people walked into the stone basin, formed a circle, and looked at it with narrowed eyes.

It was a stone basin similar to a pensieve. The thick base was firmly fixed in the center of the island. It was filled with a basin full of emerald green liquid, emitting sparkling phosphorescence. The faces of eight people and a house elf Reflection on smooth green liquid surface.

Kreacher's muffled voice came from the side, and the house elf's voice was full of determination and sorrow: "Only by drinking it can the things under the stone basin be revealed. Let-"

"Don't be smart. You are already very old. You may not be able to resist this time..." Sirius said calmly with a cold expression. At the same time, he took out an exquisite goblet from his arms, bearing the emblem of the Black family. Reach into the stone basin and scoop out the potion.

"Don't be impulsive! Sirius, what if... what if it poisons you to death?" Harry grabbed his wrist, worry written on his face.

"No, Kreacher once drank this potion, and he survived intact, didn't he?" Sirius broke away from him and dipped the goblet into the emerald green potion. This time, he did not suffer any damage. Block, "It will probably paralyze me, make me feel extreme pain, lose my mind, and be unable to concentrate..."

Looking at the pale and thin face illuminated by the cold green light, Loren's eyes slightly lowered, and he had some new understanding of Professor Black, who was not very smart.

"Can you tell what kind of potion it is?" Hermione looked at Loren next to her and asked in a low voice.

"I can not confirm……"

Loren stretched out his hand to touch the liquid, but an invisible resistance prevented him from touching the liquid. No matter how hard he pressed down, his fingers encountered an extremely hard wall of transparent air, and light and dexterous magic flowed along his fingers. Spreading out, it was also blocked by invisible forces.

"You can't touch it with your hands, you can't touch it with magic, and you can't use spells to change the potion."

He bent down slightly, put his nose close to the stone basin, and placed his palms at a distance above the green liquid. He gently fanned it in his direction, sniffed the oncoming smell, and calmed down to identify it carefully.

"The technique is rough, mainly a combination of multiple snake venoms... Cobra venom can make people feel muscle weakness, staggering gait, and unclear speech and pronunciation... Bungara venom can make people's pupils dilated, blurred vision, facial muscles relax, Difficulty opening the mouth and swallowing, and then this muscle relaxation develops throughout the body, causing respiratory muscle paralysis, making it difficult to breathe, weak hands and feet, and the whole body is paralyzed..."

Ginny subconsciously took a step back, holding onto Harry's arm with one hand. Sirius' eyelids twitched a few times, trying to resist the urge to retreat.

"The venom of the iron-head snake makes people dizzy and unable to concentrate and think. It can cause fever, nausea, thirst, hazy consciousness and even coma... and bat bile... nettle extract makes people unbearably hot, and the internal organs seem to be burning. So people will throw themselves into the lake...the venom of the curled-winged demon...the poison-horned beast...the moon-crazy beast..."

Loren turned his head and stared at Sirius, whose arms were trembling slightly. A faint voice echoed over the cave: "Your judgment is correct. It will not kill you, but you will feel pain that you have never experienced in your life. This pain even goes beyond death...

"If you can stay rational, you will desperately hope that someone can end your life, and in the process, you will be extremely afraid of this pot of potion. The instinct of survival will overcome your reason, and you will forget the purpose of coming here. You You will resist continuing to drink the medicine, so someone needs to pour the medicine into your closed mouth, do you understand? "

"..."

Just say that the potion is not fatal, and there is no need to describe the symptoms so realistically.

Sirius's Adam's apple swayed up and down, and he tried hard to hold the goblet with his trembling hands, slowly calming his panicked breathing, and said calmly, "As long as you don't die, listen Harry, if I can't drink anymore , just pour it into my mouth!”

Harry's eyes turned red: "Sirius!"

Sirius did not say a word, but stepped forward to scoop out a cup of potion that was glowing green. When he gritted his teeth and was about to pour it into his mouth, George stretched out his hand to stop him.

"If the potion needs to be drunk and there is no limit on who drinks it, we have other ideas..."

Fred reached out and took out a wooden cage from the storage scales, and whispered, "During this period, in order to develop quick-acting skipping candy, we raised a lot of foxes, some to extract venom, and some to do experiments. Let these How about a drink, little one?"

"Oh, how cruel!"

Sirius reprimanded with joy on his face, and then he couldn't wait to take out a vixen from the wooden cage, pinch open its squeaking mouth, and pour poison into its mouth.

As a common pest in wizards' homes, vixenids have shiny wings like beetles and two rows of sharp fangs. The whole body is covered with thick black hair, and it has two extra arms and two legs. It is vaguely similar to a fairy, and also somewhat similar to a human being. The way it screams and screams makes people feel numb.

The small and ferocious face was twitching, its eyes were closed together, and it seemed to be sleeping, suffering from a terrible nightmare. Its muscles began to relax, and it no longer had the strength to close its mouth, and could only be forced to pour more poison.

Fortunately, Hu Meizi can lay up to 500 eggs at a time and bury them in the ground. There are basically no natural predators and it usually takes two to three weeks to hatch, so no animal protection will condemn them for abusing Hu Meizi.

"squeak……"

Hu Meizi gasped and moaned, and the shrill voice crossed the silent black lake and echoed inside the empty cave, shocking people's hearts. It was probably very thirsty, and swallowed the liquid near its mouth in large gulps, but as soon as it finished drinking, it screamed again, as if every organ in its body was burning.

Ron stared at the struggling Hu Meizi and shuddered: "This thing is much better than mom's insecticide."

Several other people thought of those days of general cleaning and nodded in agreement.

When the goblet scooped out the twelfth cup of poison, a total of four foxes were lying on the ground wailing and groaning. They finally saw the object lying in the stone basin——

A small golden locket, simple in shape and not refined enough. It does not have Slytherin's unique snake-shaped symbol, nor does it have mysterious and complicated magic words. It cannot bewitch people's hearts. The brass shell is not indestructible, and there is no trace of magic on it. , anyone can see that this is just an ordinary locket, belonging to Regulus.

The second son of the Black family who followed the Dark Lord after graduation, after noticing the wrong behavior of the Death Eaters, he stood against Voldemort without hesitation. He was born in the eternally pure Black family and was born in Slytherin College. , but always with compassion for the weak and the courage to die resolutely...

"This is it, this is it..." Kreacher stumbled forward and fell on the edge of the stone basin, and picked up the locket from the bottom, feeling extremely sad.

Sirius couldn't wait to step forward and turn the locket over, and gently opened the locket with trembling fingers. There was no magic trap, no poison, just a piece of folded parchment.

Unfolding the parchment, he read softly by the dim light in the cave:

"To the Dark Lord: I will be dead before you read this. But I want you to know that I discovered your secret. I stole the real Horcrux and intended to destroy it as quickly as possible. I risked If you die, I hope you will be killed when you meet your opponent..."

"RAB...Regulus Arcturus...Black..."

Sirius' lips trembled slightly, and the familiar yet strange face seemed to appear in front of him. He had the same black hair and dark skin as himself. He always looked arrogant in front of outsiders, but his thin stature made him look intimidating.

"Master Regulus!"

Kreacher lay on the stone basin, crying so hard that he couldn't breathe, trembling all over, and his nose was full of green mucus.

Just when everyone was immersed in grief, a tooth-grinding crunching sound came from the lake behind them. Looking back, the four collapsed foxes had crawled to the edge of the lake at some point, and several corpses had floated to the surface of the water. The pale and swollen hands clenched the unconscious foxes and sent the four weak ones into the dark mouth.

"Crunch..."

The bright red blood mixed with the white liquid splashed on the mouth of the corpse, and was immediately licked clean by the bloodless tongue.

The lake surface was no longer as smooth as a mirror, but was violently churning. A large number of corpses emerged from the dark lake water. Looking around, white heads and hands emerged from the dark water everywhere. There were men and women, old and young, with different clothes and different body shapes. The corpses opened their sunken eyes without vision, as if a school of fish that had been hungry for a long time suddenly discovered something and floated towards the rock in unison.

"【Petrified】"

"【Retreat three feet from the enemy】"

"【Obstacles everywhere】"

"【Quickly bind】"

A series of magic spells were fired, and a wave of corpses fell back into the water. Several Inferi stumbled and fell, one or two of them were tied up with ropes, but the Inferi that climbed up the rocks behind them simply stepped over them or stepped on their fallen bodies and walked over again. More Inferi had already climbed up the rocks, their withered hands grasping the slippery rocks, staring at them with empty, misty eyes, their tattered clothes soaked by water dragging behind them, and their sunken faces were filled with contempt.

"【Split into pieces】"

Ginny couldn't help it, and a spell blew the Inferi in the front into several pieces, instantly creating a clear gap in the group of Inferi.

The limbs and torso were separated, and the robes were torn into pieces, but not a drop of blood flowed out. They continued to approach step by step without knowing it, and stretched out a pair of dry hands.