HP Bella's Lie

17 - The Melancholy of Tom Riddle

Riddle came to Bella's bedroom door, stuck to the door and listened carefully to the movement in the room.

It was quiet.

He wasn't sure if Bella had used the Silencing Charm, but the silence was eerie, especially when the whole house was silent.

"Araho Cave is open."

he whispered.

This is one of the few wandless spells that Riddle has mastered.

The door lock clicked slightly, and then opened.

Riddle waited for a few seconds, but there was no response from the room.He pushed the door and entered, scanning for a week.

Sure enough, Bella wasn't in the room.

Riddle immediately ran to the fireplace in the living room and checked the box of Floo powder. The powder there was exactly the same as the last time he saw it.

Now there are only three possibilities left: Apparition, Portkey, or some other advanced magic item.

Although he only discovered Bella's abnormal whereabouts until today, the abnormal signs have been going on for a long time. Apparition not only consumes mana, but also requires careful calculation. Suitable for long-term regular movement, which is also the origin of Portkey and Floo Network.So the latter two are most likely.

Riddle went back to Bella's room and carefully rummaged through it.

If it was some kind of advanced magic item, then he should be able to find it—

His experience in the old house told him that this kind of thing usually gave him a dangerous sense of strangeness.He had always trusted his keen instincts.

While rummaging carefully, he carefully restored the traces of his rummaging, so as to prevent Bella from coming back at any time.

Based on usual experience, this unusually quiet time at home usually lasts for more than an hour every night.It is roughly estimated that he still has more than half an hour to find the magic item that moves in space.

Twenty or ten minutes passed, and Riddle groped under the bed, knocking at intervals, carefully distinguishing the nuances of the sound——

This is a method he has learned from Muggle criminal investigation works to detect hidden spaces.

When it hit a certain place, the sound became crisp. Riddle's eyes lit up, and he tapped intensively nearby to determine the size of the dark cabinet. Then he groped along its outline and found a narrow gap.

Finding a knife, Riddle pried open the stone slab and took out the things in the dark cabinet.

A glass ball.

Riddle smiled as expected.

The light from the desk lamp surrounded the glass ball, and there was mist inside, making it impossible to see anything.

After studying for a while, Riddle still couldn't figure it out, so he had to put it back in its original place, and exited the room before Bella came back.

Back in the bedroom, after staring at the chemical calculation formula on the calculation paper for a long time, Riddle found that his mind was full of abnormal guesses about Bella, and he couldn't learn it at all.

He simply turned off the light and lay down on the bed to concentrate on thinking.

The broken glass product that night has been found, that is, the glass ball full of fog. It is an unexpected harvest, but the purpose is not known yet; the remaining two guesses need further verification.

His reasoning has temporarily stalled and needs more exploration.

While wandering in the sky, the door was pushed open.

Bella, who came to deliver water with a cup, was taken aback by the darkness in the room, pushed the door halfway, and stood at the door and asked softly, "Are you asleep?"

For some reason, Riddle was silent for a while, long enough that Bella thought there would be no answer, before she answered, "Not yet."

Bella came in, put the water on the table, sat on the side of the bed and asked concerned: "What's the matter, dear, what's wrong?"

In the darkness, Riddle watched her quietly, the moonlight pouring down on that pale face, he found that she looked younger than when he first saw her.

Bella couldn't wait for his answer, so she couldn't help being a little worried: "Is it a cold? Do you want some medicine?"

This time Riddle shook his head: "I'm fine. I can't learn much today, I want to go to bed early."

Bella softened the corners of her lips and tucked the quilt for him: "Then go to sleep. Good night."

"Good night," Riddle said as she leaned over to kiss her forehead.

During class the next day, Riddle seemed to be completely distracted from the content of the class.

"Hey, buddy. Although what Mike said is a bit simple, you are the one who persuaded me to put on a show anyway? Why did you start drawing pictures in the book instead?" Bored at the front desk, he turned his head and saw the text in his textbook. Portrait painting, "Which actress is this? I didn't expect you to follow stars."

Riddle covered Bella's head, and said impatiently: "I'm not a star. I don't have the mood to pretend right now."

Hearing the words, the front desk looked at him like a monster: "Are you really Tom Riddle? You won't be replaced by any alien, right?"

Riddle rubbed his brows irritably: "I suddenly realized something last night, which was related to my most important person. This incident has been going on for a long time, but I didn't notice the abnormality until now. It is obvious that she is Intentionally concealed. I'm not sure whether to continue the investigation. If she doesn't want me to know, should I respect her opinion?"

The expression on the front table became serious: "It sounds very complicated... What's going on, tell me about it. What kind of anomalous method?"

Riddle raised his eyes and glanced at him, curled his lips: "You? Come on, it's good if you don't add trouble."

The front desk was furious: "What are you talking about! When did I make trouble!"

"Who spilled water on my calculus before? It caused me to do a week of useless work. And who is the lazy guy who asked me to borrow homework every time? As for burning out in the laboratory, I don't know how many circuits I don’t need to talk about the people on the board? Although I burn out the circuit from time to time, but when it comes to quantity, I’m far inferior to you.”

"..." The table at the front was short of words.

Riddle lazily turned a page of the book and said without looking up: "Listen to the class. Mike has been staring at us for a while."

The front desk immediately turned back with a guilty conscience and pounced on the book, only to find that Mike was concentrating on tinkering with a demonstration model on the podium and didn't pay attention to them at all.The front desk suddenly felt being tricked, and turned around to cast an angry and condemning gaze on someone.However, he found that the latter's attention instantly returned to the hand-painted portrait, and he seemed to be really troubled.

"... Riddle?"

Riddle was stunned for the whole class.Staring at the head portrait that he had unconsciously drawn, his mind was full of Bella.

Bella has never concealed anything from him, and has always regarded him as an equal.

Bella said they were husband and wife, sharing responsibilities, sharing wealth and creating happiness together.

Bella isn't just talking.

She never used an orderly tone to him, nor did she underestimate his thoughts because of her rich experience; she shared the secrets of the old house with him and let him participate in the management of the old house; she even knew everything about the mysterious future... …she could tell him all she knew if he wanted to.Even if there is a special reason not to tell him, he will tell him directly to get his understanding-such as his own future.

Bella had always respected him so much, as a wife who loved him deeply.

He... should also respect her as a husband who regards her as the most important person.

Riddle's emotions told him he should.

However, a certain corner in the depths of my heart kept clamoring, uneasily——

Go figure it out!Otherwise you will regret it for the rest of your life!

Come to think of it, she never hid it from you!This matter is so important, or so special that she has to go to great lengths to hide it from you!You have to figure it out!

The two thoughts and emotions are like two incompatible forces, constantly competing with each other, and the soil affecting emotions and minds is messy everywhere, which makes him suffer.

"Hey! Dude, you're back!"

The textbook in front of him was suddenly closed, and Riddle came back to his senses, and saw that the front table was turned to sit on him, smiling brightly.

He glanced at the classroom, people had almost left, and it was time for lunch break.Ignoring the front table, he cleaned up the table and planned to eat.

"I thought about what you said." Instead of paying attention to it, the front desk stood up to help him tidy up the books. "If this matter is really important, you can do it according to your own ideas!"

Riddle paused and looked up at him: "Very important? My own thoughts? Do you know that I am so troubled because I don't know these two things?"

Forced by his aura, the front table replied blankly: "This, what is there not to know... You care so much about her concealment, isn't it obvious enough..."

A word to awaken the dreamer.

Riddle suddenly understood something.

Seeing that he was silent at the front desk, he became more confident: "Aren't you reconciled if you don't figure it out? Then figure it out is your true thought. As for the importance, it's not enough to explain the problem if you have such a strong struggle." Is it? My father always told me, don’t think that scientific research is such a complicated and profound knowledge. In fact, scientific experiments are very simple and straightforward things. You always make things too complicated, and you will easily get dizzy when you encounter key problems After finishing speaking, the front desk was a little proud, grabbed his hand and pulled it out, "Let's go, don't worry about other things now, the big thing is nothing compared to eating, and you will have the strength to do other things when you have a full stomach. Let's go." Let's go!"

Riddle let the front table pull.Seeing him jumping up and down complacently, Riddle overturned his previous thoughts.

——He must have lost his mind before he realized that what this brat said made sense.

In the afternoon class, Riddle finally regained his good patience and answered her questions brilliantly under the loving eyes of the math teacher.

"Very good, very good answer! Please sit down." The teacher followed Riddle with dripping gentle eyes until he sat down, and then changed to a worried and fraternal gaze to scan the class, "Students, our class has An excellent classmate like Del shows that you can also be far better than you are now—as long as you think about it. I suggest that everyone can do more arithmetic problems during the holidays..."

The long speech unique to the math teacher kicked off in the inner monologue of "I knew it" among the students.

The front desk immediately relaxed his body, turned sideways and patted Riddle on the shoulder, and whispered, "Good job, brother. You bought us another 10 minutes of rest time."

Riddle exchanged a knowing smile with him.

He had already made up his mind.