Volume 1 Chapter 52 Teachers and Students
While Filch and most of the students in the restaurant were focused on Justin, who suddenly said he was feeling unwell, Jon gently opened the door and left the restaurant.
The corridor was empty and as quiet as a path in a haunted house.
The sound of Jon's shoes hitting the floor was clear. He did not try to hide the sound of his footsteps, but walked quickly towards a door.
He pushed open the door with the storage room sign on it and entered the empty room that served as a partition between the other rooms.
It was also quiet here. The shaking caused by the high-speed movement of the carriage made the lights flicker and barely illuminate the space.
After arriving here, Jon's pace slowed down significantly. He quietly drew out his wand and stared at the unmarked door that Ron had opened during the first week of school as a punishment.
Taking a deep breath, Jon pushed the door open with force.
There stood a boy in the room that remained empty.
The boy had the same black hair as Jon, the same height, the same body type, and the same... face!
The other boys, who looked exactly like Jon except for the different clothes they were wearing, also heard the noise at the door and turned around to look at Jon.
On the ground next to the other "Jon", there was an opened entrance that looked like a cellar.
Jon looked at "Jon", no one spoke first, and the room was silent.
After a long time, Jon, who was standing in front of the door, held the wand tightly in his hand and asked in a voice that could not help but tremble with sadness.
"Why? Teacher."
"Jon", who was standing opposite him, said nothing, but just looked at him with a smile.
There was a rustling sound at the cellar entrance at his feet, and then Beech suddenly jumped out!
It jumped onto "Jon's" shoulder with a bright red stone in its two little paws, and then handed the stone to him as if asking for credit.
"I wanted to leave you with a good impression at the end, Jon."
An old, all too familiar voice rang out to Jon.
"If you hadn't revealed my identity, I would have used your face to take the Philosopher's Stone away. By then, Horace Slughorn would have died in the battle outside, and the intruder who concealed his identity would have completely disappeared from the carriage."
"Jon"'s body and face are being reshaped like kneaded clay. He has grown from thin to tall and fat, and from young to old.
The grey robe he was wearing and the worn leather boots on his feet were obviously cast with magic in advance, becoming loose and fitting as he changed.
Slughorn, who had taken the initiative to remove the effects of the Polyjuice Potion, still had a smile on his face. He held the Philosopher's Stone in one hand and the wand in the other, as if he was proud of the success of his plan.
"This matter has nothing to do with you from the beginning to the end, Jon. Even if someone finds me pretending to be you, no suspicion will fall on you. Everyone knows that this is just a mask for disguise. No matter how talented you are, a first-grade child can't do this."
Looking at that smiling face, Jon's knuckles turned slightly white because he was holding the wand too tightly.
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 to leave the carriage immediately after completing the task. He looked at Jon and spoke with interest.
"How about we make an exchange? You tell me how you found me, and I will tell you what you want to know."
Jon knew exactly what he needed to do now.
There was no way he could be a match for Slughorn. As long as the Fat Walrus wanted to leave, no one on the carriage could stop him.
He needed to delay time, the longer the better. As long as he could delay until Dumbledore and the others came back, Slughorn would 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 spent so much effort teaching him about the magic on the ring in the first place, and wouldn't have waited until now to take action.
"I never thought of you at first, teacher."
Jon spoke slowly, his eyes meeting Slughorn's. Until now he still couldn't believe that all his guesses were actually true. The person who had caused the three attacks and finally stole the Philosopher's Stone was the old man in front of him!
"On Christmas night, I saw you walking along the corridor. At that time, I really thought that the thief hiding in the carriage might be a goblin or a house-elf. It was not until after Christmas that I learned from Filch by chance that he was locked in his office by someone on the night of the first attack in the second week of school. It was not until very late at night you brought him back to the dining room."
"He guessed that you were the one who locked the door with magic, but he just thought that you were deliberately trying to scare him and embarrass him because he was a Squib. But I remember very clearly that you were out of the restaurant for a long time that night. Whether you locked Filch up or not, where were you going and what did you do during the time you were away from the restaurant before letting him out?"
Slughorn's expression remained unchanged as he smiled.
"Is that why you suspect me?"
"I didn't doubt you because of this, teacher." Jon looked at him calmly, "You are my teacher, and I trust . Even if your behavior that night was suspicious, it couldn't shake my trust in you. But when I went to your office to tell you that I had made great progress in the levitation spell, I saw the potion you made."
"You put a dried snake skin in it, and then told me that the potion contained runeskin as an auxiliary ingredient. But I recognize that snake skin. It's not a runeskin at all, but the skin of an African boomslang!"
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 banned books. In a banned potion book called 'Powerful Potion', I saw an introduction to the uses of African tree snake skin! So far, it has only been discovered to be used for medicinal purposes, and that is to make Polyjuice Potion! A potion used for human body transformation!"
"I found out you lied to me, teacher. If you had told me directly that you were making Polyjuice Potion, I would not have doubted your purpose for making this potion, but you told me it was a pot of tonic!"
