While Filch and most of the students in the restaurant were attracted by Justin who suddenly said he was feeling unwell, Jon gently opened the door and left the restaurant.
There was no one on the corridor, and it was as quiet as a path in a haunted house.
The sound of Jon's shoes hitting the floor was very clear. He did not deliberately conceal the sound of his footsteps, but walked quickly towards a door.
He pushed open the door with the storage room number on it and entered the empty room that divided other rooms.
It was also quiet here, and the shaking caused by the carriage's speed caused the lights to flicker on and off to barely illuminate the space.
After arriving here, Jon's pace slowed down significantly. He quietly took out his wand and stared at the door that Ron had punished for opening it in the first week of school. There was no mark on it.
door.
Taking a deep breath, Jon pushed the door open.
There was a boy standing in the room that was always empty.
The boy has the same black hair as Jon, the same height, the same build, and the same... face!
Except for the different clothes they were wearing, other boys who were exactly the same as Jon also heard the movement in front of the door, turned around and looked at Jon.
On the ground next to the other "Jon", there is an entrance that is opened like a cellar.
Jon looked at "Jon", no one spoke first, and the room was quiet.
After a long time, Jon stood in front of the door, holding the wand in his hand tightly, and asked in a voice that could not help but tremble with sadness.
"Why? Teacher."
"Jon" standing opposite him said nothing, just looked at him with a smile.
There was a "rustling" sound from the cellar entrance at his feet, and then Beech suddenly jumped out of it!
It held a bright red stone in its two little paws and jumped onto "Jon's" shoulder, and then sent the stone to his hand as if taking credit for it.
"I originally wanted to leave a good impression on you at the end, Jon."
An old voice that was all too familiar to Jon rang out.
"If you hadn't called out my identity, I would have used your face to take away the Philosopher's Stone. By then, Horace Slughorn would have died in the battle taking place outside, and
The infiltrator who concealed his identity will also completely disappear from the carriage."
"Jon's" body and face are being reshaped like kneaded plasticine. He has grown from thin to tall and fat, from young to old.
The gray robe draped around him and the worn leather boots under his feet had obviously been enchanted in advance, becoming looser and more suitable as he changed.
Slughorn, who took the initiative to remove the effects of Polyjuice Potion, still had a smile on his face. He held the magic stone in one hand and the wand in the other, as if he was proud of the victory of his plan.
"This matter has nothing to do with you from beginning to end, Jon. Even if someone discovers me pretending to be you, there won't be any suspicion on you. Everyone knows that this is just a disguise.
Mask, no matter how talented you are, a first-grade child cannot do this."
Looking at that smiling face, Jon's hand holding the wand was too hard and his knuckles turned white.
He asked the question again, but this time the sad voice had become calmer.
"Can you tell me why? Why did you betray Hogwarts? Teacher."
Slughorn didn't seem to be in a hurry and immediately left the carriage after completing the task. He looked at Jon and said with interest.
"How about we make an exchange? You tell me how you discovered me, and I will tell you what you want to know."
Jon knew exactly what he needed to do now.
He is absolutely no match for Slughorn. As long as the Fat Walrus wants to leave, no one on this carriage can stop him.
He needs to stall for time, the longer the better. As long as he can stall until Dumbledore and the others come back, Slughorn will not be able to leave!
As for his own safety... Jon knew very well that even if Slughorn was an undercover agent, he would most likely not hurt him.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have put so much effort into teaching him about the magic on the ring in the first place, and he wouldn't have waited until now to do it.
"I never thought about you in the beginning, teacher."
Jon spoke slowly, his eyes locked with Slughorn's. Up to now, he actually still couldn't believe that all his guesses were true. The one who brought three attacks and finally stole away
The person who holds the Philosopher's Stone will be the old man in front of me!
"On Christmas night, I saw you walking down the corridor. At that time, I really thought that the thief hiding in the carriage might be a goblin or a house elf. Until after Christmas, by chance,
I learned from Filch that on the night he was attacked for the first time in the second week of school, he was locked in his office by someone unknown and waited until very late before you took him out and returned to the restaurant."
"He guessed that you were the one who locked the door with magic, but he just thought that you were deliberately scaring him to embarrass him because of his status as a squib. But I remember clearly that you were out of the restaurant for a long time that night.
Regardless of whether you locked Filch up or not, where did you go and what did you do when you left the restaurant before you let him out?"
The expression on Slughorn's face remained unchanged, and he said with a smile.
"Is it just because of this that you suspect me?"
"I didn't doubt you because of this, teacher." Jon looked at him calmly, "You are my teacher, and I trust you very much. Even if your behavior that night was very suspicious, it still can't shake my trust in you.
Trust. But when I went to your office to tell you that I had made significant progress in the levitation spell, I saw the magic potion you refined."
"You put a piece of dried snake skin in, and later told me that the ingredients in the potion include rune snake skin as an auxiliary ingredient, but I know that snake skin. It is not a rune snake at all, but an African tree snake skin!
"
When he said this, Jon couldn't help but raise his voice.
"I have read many books in the library, especially after Professor McGonagall gave me the permission to borrow forbidden books. In a forbidden potion book called "Powerful Potion", I read about African tree snake skin.
Introduction to its uses! It has only one medicinal use that has been discovered so far, and that is to make polyjuice potion! A magic potion for human body transformation!"
"I found out that you lied to me, teacher. If you had told me directly that you were making polyjuice potion, I would not have doubted your purpose of making this potion, but you told me that it was a pot of tonic!"