When Vaughn opened his eyes that morning, his chest felt so heavy he could barely breathe.
He pulled back the covers and saw Guoguo Tea's enormous head resting on his chest, his eyes narrowed in contentment, his fur warm and fluffy.
"Good morning, you little rascal. Sleeping under my covers again?"
"Meow!"
Guoguo Tea meowed affectionately, purring as he rubbed himself against Vaughn.
By the time Vaughn got out of bed after playing with the big cat for a while, sunlight had already spilled into the Black Lake. His dormitory was fairly high up, only about ten meters below the lake's surface.
He could see faint shafts of sunlight passing through the ice on the surface, casting hazy patches of light through the water.
Vaughn had gone to bed very late the night before. It wasn't because the excitement of fighting Voldemort had left him unable to sleep, but because he had been reviewing their brief clash to judge Socket Man's current condition.
His final conclusion was that it was worse than he had expected.
Without unicorn blood, Voldemort is probably sustaining his existence by draining Quirrell's life. That's why he couldn't wait to intervene as soon as Quirrell cried for help yesterday.
He's afraid... afraid of losing the last servant loyal to him, afraid his resurrection plan will fall apart...
Although the figure last night had been twisted and terrifying, with tremendous magic power and a heart-stopping Killing Curse, Vaughn had still recognized his underlying weakness when he looked back on it—
When Voldemort cast the Killing Curse, he hadn't even had the strength to replace Quirrell's Shield Charm, allowing Vaughn's Sectumsempra to pierce straight through it.
And at the end, when Dumbledore was about to arrive, Voldemort hadn't dared linger for even a second.
*The once-powerful Dark Lord,