Fail Demon King

He glanced at Owen coldly, and the long eyelashes revealed a fan-like shadow under the eyelids: "Is there a problem?"

"No." Owen touched his nose.Judging from Riddle's various actions, he has shown amazing talent at such an age, and he is worthy of being the future Dark Lord, "I mean——you are quite remarkable, quite remarkable."

Riddle froze for a moment, as if he didn't expect him to say that.After a while, his black eyes flickered: "...do you eat or not?"

"Eat!" Owen quickly took a big bite, and said again vaguely, "Thank you."

This roast was everything you would expect of a good meal, except that there was no salt.They both ate in silence for a while, until only a few bones remained of the supper, and Owen was still gnawing intently-for some reason, he always felt that even the Dark Lord, in the confinement of his childhood It should not be easy to get these things, so they should not be wasted at all.

Suddenly, Riddle grunted, looking a bit reconciled: "I don't think you're the same, Stubbs. And, you never said you would be either."

"Me too?" Owen was stunned for a moment, and then realized that Riddle was talking about their magic, "Oh, you mean, these—" He tried to find a more normal way of saying, "These things. "

"These things?" Riddle raised his eyebrows, and his sunken cheeks began to flush slightly, "This is not an ordinary thing! He made me—and maybe you—different from those people downstairs! "

His voice came to an abrupt end.

The charcoal fire was a little smaller, and in the low crackling of the flames, Owen could hear the laughter and clapping of a group of children downstairs from outside the window.

"What are they doing?" Owen asked with a frown.

Riddle shot him a sideways look: "Don't tell me you don't know." But he paused for a few seconds before saying dryly, "Today—well, it's New Year's Eve."

"December... the 31st?"

The black-haired boy looked at Owen with an idiotic look, which made Owen feel like he was a kind of arthropod magical creature that could be dried and made into low-level potions.Fortunately, he didn't care too much about this. He looked at the boy who was sitting some distance away from him, still guarded and alert, and heaved a sigh of relief.

Owen shrugged—who knows, there is probably a strange connection between his thesis and the events he is experiencing now, maybe he is here today just for one thing—

So he spoke, rather nonchalantly: "So you're 11 today? Happy birthday."

A moment of silence.

To be honest, that statement didn't have any unexpected effect -- and Irving never counted on it.After all, that's Tom Marvolo Riddle, the future Voldemort, and what do you expect him to do?

After a while, the dark-haired boy grunted in a dignified manner, and he spoke:

"Ten years old." Riddle raised his chin with a look of disdain, but his hands on his knees were shaking slightly, "You remember wrongly, it's ten years old."

"Oh." Owen touched his nose, he felt that the little devil looked a little older than his peers, "I'm sorry..."

"—but I forgive you."

Owen looked at him in surprise.In the fading firelight, the boy's eyes were lowered. His black hair was soft and a little curly, which did not match his personality.

It wasn't quite the Voldemort he knew - pompous, domineering, shameless as a child, with the violent and domineering Gaunt heritage.Aside from being handsome like a carbon copy of his father, there seemed to be something wrong with the material to be found in hardcover books that were thick as bricks and were only borrowed by seventh graders and otherwise required a professor's signature.

"Actually," Riddle said slowly, "I think there is something I need to explain to you."

"what?"

Riddle narrowed his black eyes, and now he is like a normal ten-year-old kid, showing a guilty but brave hesitation because of doing something wrong: "I roasted your rabbit."

"Oh!" The person who was sitting by the brazier and threw bones into it just now jumped up.

The black-haired boy suddenly became angry: "You ate it yourself—"

"Ah!" Owen jumped on the spot, stamping his feet vigorously, "Merlin's briefs! They burned me to death!"

"..."

A blister formed on Owen's instep, and after a while it deflated at a speed visible to the naked eye.He looked at Riddle shyly: "What did you just say?"

"……nothing."

"Shall we put it out?" Owen moved a little further away from the brazier, almost to Riddle's side.He stared at the brazier vigilantly, thinking that this thing might have a bad temper, "It's not safe to keep burning like this."

"it's up to you."

The voice just fell-

"Whoa!"

It's like pouring several large basins of water from the ceiling!Those water streams that came out of nowhere immediately extinguished the fire, and the iron basin was pitifully emitting the last black smoke in the water stains alone. up.

All the light in the room disappeared in an instant. If it weren't for the snow in the yard outside the window that was glowing white, this simple room used as a confinement room would be pitch black at all.

The two wet, soaked children looked at each other for a while, and burst out laughing at the same time.Almost at the same moment, there were bursts of panicked shouts from downstairs.

Riddle brushed wet locks of black hair from his forehead, his face paler from the cold, but he was smiling, and he was right: "The floor is leaking. What a pity—we ruined their New Year's Eve dinner gone."

Three minutes later, Mrs. Cole ran upstairs and grabbed the perpetrator angrily: "Billy Stubbs!" She clucked like an angry hen, "You are not in your room What? How did you get here?" Then she walked to the middle of the room, inspected the mess, and gave Riddle a hard look, "You—it's you again!"

Owen was about to speak, but saw Riddle took two steps forward and nodded.His black hair was still dripping water, his lips were blue and white from the cold, but he looked indifferent: "It's me, what's wrong?"

"Confinement! Tomorrow night!" Mrs. Cole was about to go mad with anger, "You—" she turned to Owen, "you deceitful little thing, you want to come over and argue with him while we are all going down Let’s fight? Put them in confinement together! You stay here with him! If there is any trouble again,” she panted, “be careful that I will smack your noses with a fire stick!”

She slammed the door and left.

"Looks like I have to spend the night here." After everything was quiet, Owen turned to look at Riddle, "How many blankets do you have?"

"One." The black-haired boy said slowly, "The key is that there is only one bed here."

"Well...it's nothing." Owen muttered, walked to the edge of the bed and sat down in the dark, "Actually, I'm very surprised, when you prepared our dinner, where did you pack up those wreckage?"

——Although Riddle didn't answer at the time, it didn't become a secret of the Dark Lord's childhood.

Three hours later, the two boys were awakened by a woman screaming from the third floor.

"It's nothing...don't move, I'm about to fall..." the black-haired one pushed the other back on the bed sleepily, "I think it might just be that Mrs. Cole finally found the rabbit's head in her quilt."

4 A trip on a rainy day

Owen—well, maybe he should be called Billy Stubbs by now—had never dreamed that he would start a friendship with Tom Riddle in that way.Yes friendship, let him call it that.But the idea of ​​forming an offensive and defensive alliance with the future Dark Lord just through a roast rabbit and a night of mutual confinement is undoubtedly an absurd idea, and it couldn't be more absurd.

Actually Owen—sorry, Billy—Billy has a lot of troubles of his own.

It is unimaginable that he has been in this London orphanage for more than seven months.

It was almost the most difficult time in the third month. Several times he felt that he was going crazy, and because of this, he often unintentionally lost self-control and destroyed the bars and gates of the orphanage, in exchange for confinement again and again.He didn't believe that the Ministry of Magic and his friends and family had given up on finding him, but at the same time he saw little hope of returning to the future.Occasionally, a few times, he even had an extremely frightening thought—is he missing in that world, or is he already dead?The thought made Billy's stomach twitch and he could barely control it.

He'd tried everything, including escaping on Sundays at church, causing one incident after another of the magic out of control, trying to gain a little contact with the wizarding world - but all plans had failed.

Because whenever he made a move, besides the old girls who took care of the children in the orphanage, there were also a pair of black eyes staring at him.

Tom Riddle.

——Only Merlin knows what the future Dark Lord is doing.

"Because you're suspicious." The indifferent boy who looked far more mature than his actual age raised his eyebrows and said calmly to Billy, "That's why, there's no other reason."

Billy gritted his teeth. "Really, thanks for the explanation—but I didn't actually ask you."

They were sitting in the noisy subway, and their destination was an unknown seaside.Mrs. Cole's affectionate descriptions did not add much charm to the trip, and even they were said to have visited the same spot last year, but even so she could not even give the exact name of the remote end.In fact, no one is interested in it.

The annual summer outing is already a routine, and no one can expect much relief from it-especially on such a dreary, gloomy and rainy day.

The children have been taken care of much more decently. They are all dressed in uniform gray tunics, with a fresh and pungent smell of lice powder exuding from their heads. Airy—stay away from Billy and Riddle.

And those two people who left the team didn't care at all.

"Since when have they been afraid of you?" Riddle whispered mockingly to Billy, "Do you think it's nice to be ostracized?"

"Nothing special." Billy gave him a look. "Are they afraid and repelling me? Just because we're together?"

"Us?" Riddle raised his eyebrows and said disapprovingly, "I didn't admit that you and I were on the same side. It's just that compared to them, you and I have more or less in common."

"Okay. So... since when did they start being afraid of you?"

"As far as I can remember." Riddle raised his jaw arrogantly, "There was a new big guy trying to bully me that year, and I injured him without even moving a finger, and took away his body. I got a coin as a trophy. No one dared to get on my nerves after that. Except you—" He shot Billy sideways, and turned away, "and maybe Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop. "

Billy glanced at the two children he had mentioned, who sat in the opposite row of seats, and they happened to look back with disgust and horror.Billy's eyes lingered for a few seconds on Amy's withered hair and Dennis's freckles on the bridge of his nose, then he looked away.

"Now only the two of them dare to call me a monster and a lunatic." Riddle said calmly beside him, "Benson once told the old hag that I was mentally ill and asked her when she could send me to the madhouse .”

Billy glanced at him: "They're jealous of you."

Riddle looked at him intently.

"Jealous that you're different from everyone else—not so ordinary, special." Billy shrugged.Many of his Muggle-born classmates were excluded to varying degrees in primary school, because supernatural abilities were considered weird and unsocial.It's just that this is a London orphanage in [-], and the confrontation is undoubtedly more intense. "You can pretend that you are gregarious, or you can fight back so that they fear you. There is nothing wrong with that."

silence.

After a while, Riddle said in a drawn out voice, "You're not quite a fool, Stubbs."

"Of course not." Billy scratched his eyebrows, not paying attention to his words, "It's like you don't have any mental problems at all."

Half an hour later, they arrived at the station.

Billy emerged from the subway pale, missing Floo and Apparating.They staggered for a long time on the muddy mountain road that was not very accessible, and finally smelled a little sea breeze.Riddle was next to Billy, and they were at the end of the line, all with tiny raindrops on their hair.

The destination is in a place that can barely be called a village on the mountainside, and the orphanage is rented in a few adjacent families.Every three children are assigned to live in a farmhouse. Each house is so small that it is painful to even turn around. The damp straw on the iron bed smells of salted fish, and the wooden floor has been in disrepair for many years. the crunching sound.

There really is no worse outing.

Billy was trying to clear a rotting dead rat out of the window in the corner, but accidentally lifted a large piece of moldy straw from the bed and landed right on top of Riddle, who was there making their bed.The black-haired boy frowned and coughed twice, then launched a fierce counterattack.The two of them didn't do anything directly, and the straw and dust in the room were scattered all over the sky.

Suddenly there was an aggrieved voice from outside the door, it was a boy whose voice was changing, and his voice was hoarse as hell: "I don't understand why you can't just give me an extra bed, but let me live with two little bedbugs Together—I'd rather sleep in the mud than come to this house!"

"Didn't you see that Mrs. Cole is already looking for the tavern here? She can't be bothered. Come on, Dennis, don't be mad. Miss O'Sor is going crazy with the fleas in the room," said another thinly. The voice said, "And she didn't promise you, those two little psychos dare not do anything to you, unless they want to be locked up for the longest time in history."

Billy watched Riddle through a cloud of dust and flying straw, and the dark-haired boy snorted and mouthed him disapprovingly: Dennis Bishop.

That must be Amy Benson Jr. with him, Billy thought. The two were almost inseparable.

The floor creaked, and with a low curse, the unwilling sleeper pushed the door open and walked in.For a 13-year-old boy, Dennis was quite robust, with red, swollen pimples on his cheeks and his neck, and Billy would have liked to have babble on his face if he could. Tuber pus.Amy, on the other hand, was rather delicate and timid, though her pale eyes and too sunken cheeks made her look a bit mean.

Billy gave a friendly smile. "Hey Dennis, you're welcome to live with us. Have a... er, summer vacation."

Dennis glanced at him, and muttered: "I'm not okay at all..." He wanted to look, but didn't dare to look at Riddle, his voice seemed to be stuck in his throat, "It's that unlucky rabbit, Stubbs, or you wouldn't be getting so nervous—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Amy Hansen burst into a scream of terror!Billy took a step back in fright. If his back hadn't bumped into Riddle, he would have fallen to the ground.

"—Ahhhhh!" Amy's hands were flapping back and forth in front of her face, she closed her eyes tightly, and shook her head frantically, something fell from the top of her head to the ground with a "slap", "Crazy! Crazy! Mental illness! You are all monsters!"

She yelled and stumbled out.Dennis chased after her calling her name, and the floor creaked under their hasty footsteps.

Billy and Riddle looked at each other, then looked down at the place where Amy had just stood, where lay the dead mouse that he had just planned to clean up.

Amidst Amy's sobbing and crying and Dennis's emphatic complaints, Mrs. Cole rushed over, smelling of alcohol and flushed.She stared suspiciously at the innocent Riddle and Billy: "The mouse fell from the ceiling? How is that possible?"

Yet despite the absence of any evidence of who was responsible for this vicious event, the outcome was predictable.

Clearing barn and haystacks, plus no supper—it was probably the most creative punishment Mrs. Cole could come up with.Only this time, she separated Billy and Riddle quite unexpectedly.

"You can't go on like this, little Stubbs." Before she left, she said to Billy alone with extra earnestness, "You turned out to be a good boy, don't be ruined by those aliens."

Billy touched his nose and continued to scrub the manger silently.

By the time Billy finished all his work and was ready to go back to rest, it was already dark.He didn't feel very hungry, but his steps were a little weak.

Billy took a lot of slack, because the smell of musty hay was so nauseous, and no one who was used to magic would want to clean it up.The light rain was still falling, and the sea breeze made the night even colder.He yawned and just wanted to go back as soon as possible and get a good night's sleep.However, when he was crossing the yard, he suddenly heard a rustling sound, a few oil lamps were flickering, and a shadow flashed out of the house where they lived.

The tall and thin features were too obvious, and Billy walked towards him without hesitation: "Riddle, it's so late, where are you going?"

The shadow was obviously taken aback, and Tom Riddle turned his head defensively, like a child who was about to take out a secret toy in his collection, but was suddenly discovered.This didn't match his usual indifferent and arrogant appearance, Billy almost laughed out loud when he got close to see his expression clearly.

"It's nothing." Riddle quickly returned to his usual appearance, "I just came back and wanted to go out for a walk."

"Where's Dennis?"

Riddle grinned strangely: "He's not here."

"Not here?" Mrs. Cole in the backyard next door hiccupped like a sleeping troll.Billy lowered his voice, "Where did he go?"

"I don't know." Riddle waved his hand impatiently, "It's none of your business." He paused, looking straight at Billy, his dark eyes darkened in the night.Billy blinked, meeting his gaze quietly.

"Of course, I know you won't sue." Riddle dragged his voice, "Do you want to go out with me?"

"where to?"

"I don't know either," Riddle said softly of course. "Just decide—I won't say it a second time."

5 a strange adventure

Billy didn't know how he broke out of the sleepy state just now, anyway, he and Riddle reached an agreement logically—they tiptoed out of the yard together.

The rain stopped, and the sound of the waves lapping on the cliffs was clearly heard, which well masked the sound of water as they stepped on the muddy road.

However, just as he was about to pass through a few clumps of haystacks next door by the road, Riddle, who was walking in front, suddenly turned around, grabbed Billy's shoulders and dragged him towards the low wall.Billy was caught off guard and let out a low exclamation, which was immediately drowned in Riddle's palm.The dark-haired boy's hands were pale—yet they were warm, not at all cold and dead, as Billy had always imagined—and his voice was low and wary: "There's someone out there. "

Sure enough, the next moment there were several obvious noises from the haystack, but the people there sounded even more panicked: "Who? Who is it?"

Riddle's hand was still covering Billy's mouth, and Billy put his own hand on it subconsciously. He silently looked into those black eyes, his eyes full of doubts: Dennis Bishop?

Riddle gave him a disdainful look, and Billy was surprised to find that he understood: it was the idiot without a doubt—who would be so impatient to make a sound before fully revealing himself?

Billy continued to watch him silently: Dennis would.

The black eyes narrowed slightly, becoming impatient: so I said he was a fool!

Dennis Bishop came frantically out of the haystack with a head of straw on his head, and Amy Hanson followed him in her dressing gown, her hair disheveled and pale like a ghost.Her night vision was as good as an owl's, and her pale eyes found Riddle and Billy crouching in front of the low wall in no time.

"Dennis!" she whispered, lowering her voice, "it's them!"

Dennis looked around cautiously, and then said in a rough voice: "You... your confinement is over?"

Billy rubbed his nose. "We're not locked up, Dennis—just asked to do some cleanup."

It was certainly not polite for Billy to catch these two kissing behind a haystack.He noticed that the cysts on Dennis' face had turned redder as if they had been splashed with boiled boils potion.

Riddle didn't think so at all, obviously, he just thought they were stupid and boring.

"How does it feel in the haystack?" he said slowly, raising his eyebrows. "I didn't expect you to like horseflies so much, Bishop. I hope their bites will cure your acne."

"Anyway," said Dennis stiffly, "we're going to go back to bed now. Listen, Riddle, don't tell old Cole she's never going to believe you, don't make trouble for everyone."

"Don't be stupid, Dennis," said Amy, beside him, nonchalantly. "He's afraid to tell Mrs. Cole. I guess they both slipped out too, but there's nothing to do yet." She He proudly added the last sentence, "The two of them should be the ones who are worried. As long as you and I return to the house before them, tomorrow's cleaning work will be done again."

That was unfortunate—from what Billy knew of Riddle so far, the thing he hated the most was being threatened.Dennis and Amy look like they have no choice.Sure enough, Riddle strode up in front of them. As a ten-year-old boy, he was almost as tall as 13-year-old Dennis, and even his curly black hair looked particularly domineering.

The young couple took a few steps back, but they couldn't help but stare at him.Soon, Billy found that their eyes had become a little glazed.

Riddle turned and walked towards him, the boy's exquisite features showing annoyance.But soon he was laughing again, as smug as if some wickedly weird prank was brewing.

"Come on," he said to Billy, "I just thought of a good place."

"—This is that... good place?" Billy looked at Riddle suspiciously, his dark chestnut hair was blown into a mess by the sea breeze.Dennis and Amy stood behind them with their hands in their hands, their expressions blank, and they had no objection to any situation.

The four of them had just descended from the middle of the mountain to the foot of the mountain, and then climbed up a huge black rock protruding from the front of the cliff.As far as Billy's own ability is concerned, it is not easy to climb up here, but Amy and Dennis did it without difficulty-it seems that they have been cast by some kind of spell, and they can climb up unconsciously. Do things that you can't even think of at ordinary times.Only the lighthouse in the distance shone faintly in the mist, and everything was bare, and the black sea looked terrible.

It has been raining since the morning, and it is even getting heavier.Now Billy needed to shout to hear what he was saying: "—what the hell is this place?!"

Locks of Riddle's black hair stuck to his forehead, and he pointed to the cliff wall, showing his white teeth with a smile: "Look there!"

Billy squinted his eyes with difficulty. He couldn't see clearly on a rainy night like this.

"There's a crack. There's a cave—"

"I mean what on earth are we here for? And—how did you find out about this place?"

"I said I didn't know." Riddle narrowed his eyes as a matter of course, and smiled a little maliciously. "You can believe that it was a coincidence to find this place. Besides, you came here by yourself, Stubbs, I Not forcing you like forcing them."

Billy rubbed his nose, thinking he had done it all on his own.He saw Riddle turn and slide off the rock into the water, swimming quite deftly toward the cliff.Dennis and Amy followed behind him with their eyes straight. Amy's dressing gown bulged in the water like a big white fish.He took a breath and jumped down too.

They swam straight into the narrow crevasse, turned a little left in the middle, and reached the deepest point of the cliff.The sides of this secret passage are covered with annual slime, and it can be seen that the sea water will completely fill it when the tide is high.Billy swam last, and white Amy stood out in the darkness, and when she rose, dripping wet, from the water and stopped dumbly, the four of them came to the entrance of a huge cavern.

"It's so cold here..." Billy sniffled, feeling that he had never hated the smell of salty seaweed so much.

Riddle looked back at him, but said nothing.He brushed his wet hair away from his eyes, and walked along the cave wall, as if he was looking for something.

Billy stared at his every move until a hoarse voice sounded beside him—as if waking up from a dream, Dennis blinked his little eyes in confusion, and his eyes began to find their direction: "...I I want to eat green beans and lemon grilled chicken... oh my god, have I arrived at the restaurant..."

—they're awake!

Billy spun around, trying to stop Amy—

That's too late.In the next moment, a high-pitched and persistent scream almost pierced everyone's eardrums.

"Seriously, Amy, I really admire you." Five minutes later, Billy sat down cross-legged on the rough and wet ground, and Riddle stood beside him with his hands behind his back, with an expression of extreme disgust.Billy felt that this was more exhausting than letting himself swim back and forth in the cold dark tunnel. He picked out his ears and looked at Dennis and Amy, who were shivering and embracing each other, "What a captivating voice... Have you considered advising Mrs. Cole to send you to a choir or something?"

"What is a choir?" Riddle sneered meanly. "You should have let her participate in World War I. If we had this new screaming weapon, we would be more confident in declaring war on Germany."

Billy scratched his eyebrows, determined not to reveal that he didn't quite know what World War I was.He coughed twice and turned to Riddle: "What are you looking for?"

Riddle gave a short laugh, and then he took two steps back, roughly tearing off the aquatic plants left behind by the high tide on a part of the rock wall.There appeared a gap so narrow that only one person could pass through.

He turned his head to Billy with his arms folded, and gave a provocative smile, "Would you like to go in, Stubbs? As for the two of you—" He glanced at Dennis contemptuously, and it seemed that the big man was about to pass out. Amy was more calm, "Stay here. Of course, there are other forks here, but I don't think you will know where they all lead."

He turned and slipped lightly through the crevice. Billy touched his nose, nodded to Amy, and squeezed behind Riddle.

A strange sight appeared before Billy's eyes.

They stood in front of a large lake, and there was only a narrow rock that could barely be stepped on to surround the lake.Once the seawater fills the caves outside, there is no doubt that this place will also be submerged.Thick darkness filled the surroundings, and if it weren't for the unique shimmer of the lake, it would be almost impossible to see the five fingers here.

He heard Riddle chuckle beside him: "So, what's going on now? It's a really nice place, isn't it?"

Billy looked to the side - though he couldn't see anything - and he felt that if he could touch a twig now he'd be saying Lumos to it: "...not good, but not good either. so terrible."

Riddle snorted, and he seemed to take a few more steps to the right, and Billy could hear his tread on the water.Then Riddle spoke, a weird, chilling hiss.

For a moment, Billy couldn't help but feel the hairs all over his body stand on end.Of course he knew what this meant. The future Dark Lord possessed a talent that ordinary wizards never thought of—Parseltongue.And beside such a dark, eerie lake... what is he talking to? !

Something came splashing through the water and Billy could hear it swimming...it must be something big because the noise it made was unusual—

Something cold and slippery, like a webbing, wrapped around his ankle.

Billy felt like he was going to throw up.And Riddle obviously laughed not far from his left, as if admiring his wonderful prank.

Suddenly, a puff of anger rushed up from Billy's chest - he had tried to observe Tom Marvolo Riddle from the perspective of only a researcher (probably due to the inertia of that History of Magic paper, Merlin socks!), which has made him uncannily calm in many situations, yet now he feels like he's about to turn into that raging Whomping Willow.

He took a deep breath, but it didn't help, the anger went all the way up to the top of his head.

——Suddenly, a flame appeared from nowhere!It rises and burns in mid-air.However, it only stayed for a moment, and it rose higher and higher until it reached the top of the cave, which could not be seen even when looking up, and then went out.The little snakes backed away from Billy's feet, their hissing farther and farther away, until they were lost in the sound of the water.

"Oh," Riddle drawled, "you're not afraid, but angry instead?"

In the flash of light just now, Billy could see clearly that there was a giant brown snake in front of Riddle, it bowed its head meekly and spitting out its message, and it was already frighteningly large just with its head and neck out of the water.He swallowed, and said in a blunt tone, "I think so."

Surprisingly, Riddle didn't say anything this time, he didn't even let out a tart laugh.There was a moment of silence, and he sounded calm when he finally said, "Okay, let's get out."

When Billy followed Riddle back to the cave outside, Amy greeted them with a scream again, but this time she sounded less confident, so her voice was at least an octave lower: "Snake...snake ! On his hand...wrist!" And Dennis rolled his eyes and was about to fall backwards.

"Yeah, snake." Riddle looked at Amy funny, "otherwise what do you expect?"

"We have to go." Billy pursed his lips and frowned at the hole. "The tide—"

Before he could finish, Amy, who was staring at Riddle in a trance, became sluggish again, and Dennis—because of the rolling of his eyes—turned a little slower.It was as if the dark-haired boy flipped a switch and most of the world obeyed him.

—no doubt, because that's what the History of Magic says.

Of course there are a few exceptions.

Billy was the first to jump into the water with a straight face. At least this time he wasn't an idiot follower.

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