It Ended Before It Even Began

Harry, and his two companions were completely transformed back to their original forms, and their clothes were much too big, forcing them to lift their clothes to walk.

Upon entering the Entrance Hall, the three threw Draco and the others' shoes at the door of the cabinet where they were locked, and then went to the weeping Moaning Myrtle's washroom, still wearing their socks.

"That was close, we almost got caught," Ron said, panting.

"It's all your fault." Harry glared at him reproachfully. "Why did you make such empty promises?! You're talking Weasley's stuff with Crabbe's face on your face."

If we had just rejected him, we might not be in such a passive position.

"At least we didn't come away empty-handed!"

The Basilisk, the Chamber of Secrets might be in the ____ place, and there's a list of suspects... Besides Ginny, she's definitely not the Slytherin heir.

"How do you explain what Aaron said?"

Ron dismissed it, scoffing, "Coincidence, absolutely a coincidence."

I would never have believed before that so many coincidences could happen to one person, but the facts tell us that it is possible.

Do you really think Ginny will be the Slytherin heir? My sister has lived with us brothers for over ten years, and she's never shown even a hint of Parseltongue's talent.

"Let's not talk about that now. I think we need to consider something else." Hermione patted her chest gently, trying to calm herself down. "Aaron will probably ask Draco and the others about the progress of the investigation after the Christmas holidays. He'll definitely find something amiss."

Therefore, we need to thoroughly investigate the people on that list before then, so that we have a reason to respond when he questions us, otherwise..."

Hermione didn't finish her sentence, but Harry and Ron both knew what she meant.

Last year, they conspired to trick Abei out of Aaron's hands, but they were caught red-handed that very night.

That crisis of trust left them embarrassed for a long time. Every time they saw Aaron and the Dragon Cub beside him, they would involuntarily lower their heads and not dare to look him in the eye.

Even now, when they face Aaron, they still feel guilty, like thieves seeing the police, even if the thieves have fully realized their mistakes.

The problem is that they made the same mistake again tonight, and this mistake may be even worse than the dinosaur incident last year. If they want to make amends, they can only find the culprit before he discovers the problem, or at the very least, they have to achieve something.

"This is really difficult!" Ron said with a pained expression. "To be honest, of those twenty-three names, I only remembered Ginny and the two next to her, one is Liana, and the other is Newt."

"I don't know either of these two students, I've never even heard of them."

"I only remembered two, and I'm not even sure if I read them correctly," Harry said dejectedly. He had been so focused on Aaron's explanation that he hadn't paid any attention to the names.

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance, then looked at Hermione in tacit agreement. Of the three of them, only Hermione had a better memory, so perhaps she could remember the list.

"Don't have high expectations of me. Ron's performance almost drove me crazy back then. I didn't have time to remember those things."

After that, the Polyjuice Potion's effects were about to expire, and I had no other thought but to run away.

"So that means you didn't remember any of them?" Ron's expression became even more bitter, and he said speechlessly, "If only the Polyjuice Potion could last longer."

It was supposed to last one hour, but it expired in less than forty-five minutes.

"Are you blaming me?" Hermione glared at him angrily. "This is my first time making Potions that difficult. It's good enough that I succeeded."

And the reason we're in such a predicament is because—does anyone need me to remind them?

"Don't rush to shirk responsibility. Aren't there five names?"

"To correct you, there are four," Ron said confidently. "Ginny can be completely ruled out as a suspect."

"Okay, let's say there are four!" Harry said helplessly. "We can eliminate one by one, and maybe we'll get lucky and find the real culprit among these four!"

In addition, we can check the Gryffindor room, which he can't access.

Hermione and Ron nodded silently. That was all they could do. They would just have to take it one step at a time.

However, the situation was slightly worse than they had expected, and they didn't have as much time as they thought.

The next morning, Draco woke up to find himself locked in a dark space, but luckily he still had his Wand.

Despite his fear, he still cast a simple spell.

"Lumos".

A bright light appeared at the tip of the Wand. He cautiously looked around and saw several Magic Broom. He immediately knew where he was.

Draco wasn't stupid either. Considering his current predicament and the chocolate cake he ate last night, he was furious.

A prank, a pure prank.

Potter and Weasley are truly insidious; they deceived him by taking advantage of his inability to refuse them, and even locked him in the broom shed. They are utterly lawless.

"Alohomora!"

As he opened the cabinet door, sunlight streamed through the window and shone on Draco's face, but he felt no warmth whatsoever, and his expression turned particularly grim.

There were three pairs of shoes on the ground. Draco looked at his bare feet and suddenly realized something.

He walked to another cabinet and used a lock-picking spell to open it.

Two burly figures collapsed out, and several brooms slapped their faces before Crabbe and Goyle woke up.

"Where is this?" Crabbe murmured in confusion. "How did we get here?"

"You two, get up right now!" Draco said angrily, then threw their shoes over his shoulder. "And put your shoes on while you're at it."

Crabbe and Goyle did as instructed, but were still full of doubts.

After composing themselves, the two stood silently next to Draco, for it was the first time they had ever felt Malfoy's anger.

Do you know why you're in this place?

Both of them shook their heads, but they were certain they weren't sleepwalking.

"I bet you guys don't know either." Draco rolled his eyes speechlessly, then told them his guess.

"You mean we were drugged by Potter and his gang?" Crabbe asked incredulously. "How dare they?"

"Can you think of any other possibility besides this?" Draco retorted with a sneer. "They've really gone to shameless lengths for this prank."

Under the guise of apologizing, they made us eat a cake laced with sleeping pills, and then locked us in this wretched place.

"Hmph! If my dad knew, he'd be furious."

Goyle slammed his fist on the cabinet. "This is outrageous! When have we ever suffered such a loss? I'm going to settle the score with them right now!"

"Stop right there!" Draco snapped. "Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough already?!"

You want to settle scores directly? I want to teach them a lesson even more than you do, but what are you going to do? Beat them up in public?

This kind of revenge is the most rudimentary. Even setting aside the question of whether they could win, escalating the situation would only bring shame to Slytherin.

"We can't just sit here and let this go!" Crabbe said angrily.

"How could that be? I can't swallow this insult!" Draco said viciously. "Let's settle this first."

The three men walked with grim faces into the Slytherin common room. On the way, students who saw them unconsciously gave them a wide berth, as if they were being treated like debt collectors.

They sat on the sofa in silence, exuding an aura that kept strangers at bay.

Aaron had just come out of the dormitory, intending to take Abei to the Great Hall for dinner, but seeing the three of them like this, he was also a little curious.

"What's wrong with you guys? You were fine last night."

"Don't talk to me about last night." Draco said through gritted teeth, his face hardening, but he calmed down when he saw that the person approaching was Aaron.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have treated you like that."

"It's only been one night! Even if you had a nightmare, you shouldn't be this Fire Qi."

"I hope it was just a nightmare, we had one last night..."

"Shut up, Crabbe," Draco interrupted him immediately. He didn't want his best friend to know about his embarrassing state.

The fact that the heir to the prestigious Malfoy family was drugged and locked in the broomstick room by the mere Weasley and Potter is enough to make people laugh their heads off.

"Hey, hey, hey! It can't be that serious!" Aaron's eye twitched. "I just asked you guys to help me investigate some matters. If you don't want to, you can tell me. There's no need to get so angry."

Draco was taken aback, and Crabbe and Goyle exchanged bewildered glances.

"Aaron, are you kidding me? We didn't come here last night at all."

"What?" Aaron hadn't realized the problem yet, and said in a joking tone, "Don't be silly, didn't you guys come looking for me last night?"

"It was the Prefect who brought you here!"

"But we..." Draco began, then suddenly seemed to remember something, a sinister smile spreading across his face. "So that's how it is!"

"Saint Potter and his friends really know how to have fun!"

What did you say?

Draco hesitated for a while, then looked at Aaron with a complicated expression. "I didn't want you to know, but now it seems I have to."

You'd better be mentally prepared, otherwise I'm worried you won't be able to accept it.

"Just say it!" Aaron waved his hand dismissively and calmly sat down opposite Draco. "My mental fortitude far exceeds your imagination."

"Okay! Here's the situation."

Everything was fine until the three of us ate the acrylic cake Harry Potter and Ron Weasley gave us last night, and when we woke up this morning, we found ourselves locked in the closet in the broomhouse. Draco gave Aaron a meaningful look. "Can you explain yourself like this?"

We slept in the broom's shed last night, we didn't even get up, and when we woke up we found our shoes had been taken off.