Inside the Defense Against the Dark Arts office, candlelight flickered softly.
Lockhart casually tossed a pair of glittering golden glasses onto the desk before picking up the peacock-feather quill and rapidly writing inside the old diary.
Ink spread across the yellowed pages as he detailed Dumbledore's announcement regarding the Basilisk, the professors organizing a search throughout the castle, and the distribution of glasses specifically designed to block the Basilisk's gaze…
Soon, Tom's reply appeared within the diary.
"The glasses are irrelevant. After all, our original plan was only to petrify those students. Now that the glasses exist as an obstacle, they have actually saved us some trouble indirectly, haven't they? At the very least, we no longer need to specifically search for puddles, mirrors, and similar reflective surfaces…"
"There is also no need to pay special attention to that student named Lucien. He will not affect our plans…"
Inside the diary.
The young Tom Riddle was casually playing with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses identical to the real ones outside.
He examined them briefly, his cold black eyes utterly emotionless.
"Thestral tail hair…"
Tom casually tossed the glasses upward before catching them again.
"First he provided the Mandrakes, accelerating the recovery of the petrified victims and disrupting the spread of panic. And now he's produced something like this…"
Tom's voice remained completely indifferent.
"This Lucien is proving to be somewhat troublesome."
However, that slight irritation was quickly suppressed.
To Tom, the most important priority right now was still accumulating enough life force to complete his resurrection.
As long as he could reconstruct a physical body, everything else would become easy to deal with.
The primary objective was naturally to use the Basilisk to kill Harry Potter first.
And dealing with Lucien, who had repeatedly interfered with his plans, would merely be a matter of convenience afterward.
As for these so-called protective glasses?
Tom's fingers suddenly clenched.
The gold-rimmed glasses instantly shattered in his grip, dissolving into drifting specks of light.
"Even if these truly can block the Basilisk's gaze and prevent instant death… so what?"
The Basilisk's enormous body could easily crush a human with brute force alone. The venom dripping from its fangs was enough to corrode bone and even consume the soul, while the hard scales covering its body possessed extremely high resistance to most spells…
"When the time comes, against a group of terrified students, the Basilisk won't even need to rely on its eyes. A casual crush or a spray of venom will be enough to create an efficient massacre."
Tom leisurely leaned back against the broad back of the Headmaster's chair.
"I only hope that meddlesome Lucien happens to be standing close enough to Harry Potter when that moment arrives…"
With that, Tom withdrew his thoughts from those minor concerns.
New words soon began appearing across the blank pages of the diary.
"Friend, the plan remains unchanged. How is your collection of the ingredients for the potion I gave you last time, the one capable of temporarily stimulating magic? It will make the magical effects even more spectacular, which is essential for your 'heroic entrance'…"
Outside the diary.
Lockhart watched the fresh writing appear and immediately picked up his quill to reply.
"Oh, don't worry! I've almost gathered everything already. Only a few insignificant ingredients are left!"
In reality, however, Lockhart had already collected all the materials and successfully brewed the potion.
He had even tested it on a toad. The potion truly did not appear harmful, and the toad had become exceptionally energetic afterward.
It seemed exactly as Tom described: merely a draft used to restore vitality and temporarily stimulate magical power.
Even though Tom had been helping him wholeheartedly all this time, Lockhart still remained extremely cautious regarding anything that would eventually enter his own body.
As for that student Lucien…
Sometimes Lockhart felt deeply uneasy under the boy's gaze, as though he were being completely seen through.
Yet most of the time, Lucien behaved perfectly normally.
Suddenly feeling an itch on the back of his neck, Lockhart casually scratched it and continued writing back to Tom.
High above him, a small spider dangled upside down from a thin thread, its tiny eyes fixed directly upon both the diary and the potion drafts beside Lockhart's hand.
An almost imperceptible black vortex appeared.
The writing instantly became perfectly clear within Lucien's vision.
Hmm. A potion that stimulates magical power?
Let's take a closer look.
...
Rain poured heavily outside amidst rolling thunder and flashes of lightning.
Lucien strolled through the corridor with a pair of silver-rimmed glasses resting upon the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, his dark green eyes quietly observed the passing students.
Under the professors' instructions and supervision, the students had all begun wearing either the Thestral glasses or the invisible contact lenses.
"Lucien, does it feel like something bad is about to happen at school again lately?"
Harry asked uneasily.
He had also switched to a pair of Thestral glasses, though the style looked almost identical to his original pair.
For some reason, Harry instinctively felt that something was wrong these past few days, much like the feeling he experienced before confronting Quirrell last year.
"Yeah. With the strict movement restrictions and the suspension of Quidditch matches, is it related to the Chamber of Secrets?"
Ron rubbed at his eyes awkwardly. Since he was not used to wearing glasses, he had chosen the invisible contact lenses instead.
Even Ron, who was usually a little slow to notice such things, could sense the obvious change in the atmosphere around Hogwarts. The entire castle felt as oppressive as the thunderstorm raging outside.
Hermione, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up.
"Lucien, do these glasses have something to do with the monster in the Chamber of Secrets? I think I read before that certain magical creatures can harm people through eye contact…"
Hearing Hermione's deduction, Lucien gave a slight nod.
The girl was exceptionally perceptive and widely read.
He remembered that in the original story, Hermione had been the first person to discover that the monster within the Chamber was a Basilisk.
"The monster inside the Chamber is…"
However, just as Lucien began to speak, Harry suddenly clutched his ears. His expression turned fearful and pained.
"That voice… It's back… that voice… I can hear it again!"
Harry forced the words out with difficulty.
Lucien said nothing further, because he could hear it too.
Not through Parseltongue, but through the animal communication ability granted by the Unicorn's blessing.
A slippery, heavy, deeply unsettling scraping sound faintly echoed from deep within the walls, as though some enormous creature was winding its way through them.
The eyes behind Lucien's lenses suddenly changed.
________
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