In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 75: Responsiveness

The lively Hogwarts Castle during the day is silent after nightfall.

Jon went up the stairs and made his way to the seventh floor, treading on steps that were not as vibrant as they were during the day.

This particular floor is not only off-limits to mudblood students, but also to other half-bloods as well as purebloods.

Because, the current owner of Hogwarts Castle, Voldemort's Headmaster's office is located here, although he will basically only come to Hogwarts Castle once a year on the opening day of the academic year, his own authority in the school is not half diminished.

Plus, Deputy Headmaster Snape and Castle Caretaker Dolohov explicitly prohibited entry, so no students have ever thought of going near the Headmaster's office.

After Jon arrived at the seventh floor, he did not directly go to the Headmaster's office, even though the objective of his infiltration is most likely to be in this office.

He went to the blank wall opposite the tapestry of "Trolls Beating Barnabas (Troll Tapestry)" and wandered back and forth three times wearing the cloak of invisibility.

'I need a room that only Jon Green can open to make potions.'

He repeated these words silently in his mind, and without realizing it, a normal-looking door emerged on that blank wall.

Jon focused on the door, and did not try to open it, but stood still and took a deep breath while reaching his left hand into his sleeve and feeling the Fawkes feather that had been hidden under his sleeve.

Opening the Room of Requirement is a gamble for him.

In the original story, this room was not discovered by Harry Potter until much later, in fact, Voldemort had already discovered this room when he was a student, and later he even hid the Ravenclaw diadem that was made into a Horcrux.

Jon has no idea whether or not Voldemort has Horcruxes, and if so, will he continue to store them in the Room of Requirement? - However, what is certain is that Voldemort is aware of the existence of this hidden room.

Since he knows about it, there is a possibility that he might have placed some arrangements here; so, for Jon, opening this room is a very risky move.

But he had to take this risk because there is no other place in Hogwarts Castle for him to make a polyjuice potion, which requires nearly a month of time to make a successful potion without being discovered.

The place where Hermione made the potion in the original story was in the girls' lavatory where Myrtle lives, due to Myrtle being there that lavatory was rarely used, but now, there is no ghost to be found in the whole castle, so Myrtle is naturally gone, and the girls' lavatory is certainly not deserted.

If he couldn't even able to make a polyjuice potion, then the following infiltration would be a joke.

Jon adjusted his state to the best, then stretched out his right hand which is still hidden under the cloak of invisibility and placed it on the door handle of that door, he slightly increased the force, and then the door was easily opened by him from the outside.

Behind the door was an empty room with a single cauldron in the middle of the room, a brand-new set of table and a chair placed beside the cauldron, a stack of blank parchment, a quill and ink, and a wooden shelf on the wall for storing materials and the finished potions.

This seemed to be a room that belonged exclusively to Jon, and unless someone in the castle knew the name "Jon Green", there would be no way for anyone to find it.

Even after entering the room, he did not take off the cloak of invisibility and stayed in it for a full ten minutes before Jon decided that Voldemort did not seem to have made any arrangements in this room.

When you think about it, if he really can monitor a certain place all the time, he should have made such a surveillance as early as when the Horcruxes were stored in it, and Harry wouldn't have gotten the diadem so easily in the original story.

After making sure it is really safe, Jon quickly emptied out all the potion materials in the cloth bag, and after heating up the cauldron, he dropped all the Lacewing flies into it.

The most time-consuming part of the recipe is the lacewing flies, which need to be stewed for 21 days in order to reach the right concentration, and it can't be preserved to be used at any time after stewing it, it must be used on the day after 21 days, otherwise, it will become a pile of waste.

But the good thing is that the process of stewing flies does not require Jon to keep looking at it, he just needs to look at it every once in a while to make sure there are no problems.

The boiling cauldron gurgled and bubbled, after placing all the potion materials here, Jon exited the room of requirement.

Since this room has not been tampered with by Voldemort, then he can also determine some other things.

He continued to walk back and forth in front of the wall, mentally requesting a space reserved for hiding things.

Then a room door exactly like the one before appeared in front of him, Jon pushed the door open and walked into a space big enough for a small plaza.

There were all kinds of discarded miscellaneous things piled up here, there were crippled desks and chairs, there were broken flying brooms, broken statues and portraits with broken frames.

Jon carefully looked through the various piles of miscellaneous items, and he searched for about 20 to 30 minutes according to his memory before finding the wooden cabinet with a blistered surface, and there was a statue of a wizard covered with pockmarks on top of the cabinet, with a certain wig on his head.

But there is only that, Jon did not find any suspicious circular objects around, let alone a diadem.

Voldemort must have taken the Horcrux.

Although this trip did not bring Jon any actual harvest, but it confirmed a suspicion in his mind.

The reason why Voldemort has now changed, there is a great possibility that it is related to his Horcruxes; since his repeated soul splitting made him more and more crazy and irrational; then what if he retrieved his split souls, he would inevitably change back to the once "Tom Riddle".

Jon did not continue to stay in the room, he exited the room, and then watched the door in front of his eyes slowly disappeared into the wall.

There is still a long time left to the night, and he actually has quite a few things he wants to do, such as visiting the library in the castle or making a trip to the Defense Against the Dark Arts class professor's office, or to at least take a look at the Headmaster's office entrance that is not that far from him.

The cloaked Jon stared at the entrance to the Headmaster's office, and after a half minute of hesitation, he took a step forward.

He would not do something as reckless as going straight in, but sooner or later he had to find out exactly what the situation inside the office is, so why not check the way in and entrance tonight?

----

Thanks for all your love and support.

Read advance chapters on P@treon. If you have some extra pocket money, Support me at P@treon: /Crazy_Cat.

Happy Reading!!!