Katie Bell had disappeared again, and Murphy led Lucas toward the entrance of the Great Hall.
Sure enough, the doors were gone.
After walking through the thick fog for a while, he would soon find himself back at the dais or beside the dining tables, or at the stairs leading to the various floors. Yet the doors that had clearly been open when they entered had vanished without a trace, impossible to find no matter how hard they looked.
Hogwarts had been sealed off.
That was within expectations.
Professor Filius Flitwick had said earlier that this might be a ritual spell, and there should be a source behind it.
And that source might well be the Chamber of Secrets.
Murphy led Lucas out of the Great Hall, intending to find the girls' bathroom where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was located.
But the spatial layout of the school had become extremely strange. He had clearly meant to go upstairs, yet somehow ended up in an underground classroom, where he encountered Severus Snape.
Snape sat on an empty stool in the classroom, his gaze fixed on a slender red-haired figure standing beside a potion station.
The girl flipped through a book while handling the ingredients on the workbench. After a while, she stopped, looked at the potion in the cauldron, then looked at the book again, seemingly puzzled as to why what she had made differed from the textbook.
Just then, Snape stood up. He walked over to the potion workbench, reached out, and nudged one of the ingredients on the table.
"Ah, so that was it. I forgot to add mistletoe berries..."
The girl picked up the berry and tossed it into the cauldron, giving it a stir. Before long, a delighted smile appeared on her face. Then