"Practicing in the Place Where Voldemort Hid a Horcrrux?"
Hodge's expression turned strange. Sirius probably didn't know about the Horcrux. Regulus had taken the real one and made a replica locket, so the one in the cave now was just a fake. The problem was that Voldemort didn't know that, so the trip still carried a certain amount of danger.
Harry wasn't overthinking it. He knew the real Horcrux wasn't in the cave. Right now, he was racking his brains trying to figure out how to get down. He leaned over the edge and looked below. Massive waves crashed violently against the rocks, sending up huge sprays of mist, making him instantly dizzy.
"How about the Levitation Charm?" After thinking for a moment, he said.
Hodge and Sirius instantly understood Harry's idea. The so-called Levitation Charm was a spell that could make a person or object float. Clearly, Harry planned to use it to reduce their weight and then slip down through the cliff crevice.
The three of them cast the spell on themselves. Hodge turned his wand and lightly pointed it at himself. His whole body immediately felt much lighter. He leaped off the cliff.
"Ah———————" Harry jumped in fright and hurriedly leaned over to check. Sirius also stood at the cliff's edge. They watched Hodge float down like a feather, drifting gently. "Not bad courage," Sirius said, his competitive spirit sparked. He followed suit and jumped forward, falling even faster than Hodge.
Harry grimaced. He didn't dare do what Sirius and Hodge had done. A bit nervously, he cast the Levitation Charm on himself. His body immediately shot upward, scaring him into quickly grabbing the cliff edge with one hand.
Harry carefully inched his way down. He finally understood what Sirius meant by "not bad courage"———————to pull off what Hodge did, you needed exceptional mastery of the Levitation Charm.
If Harry let go now, he'd definitely float straight up into the sky.
After some effort, the three of them finally squeezed into the crevice below the cliff and stood on a clearly man-made set of steps. Why man-made? Because seawater couldn't erode such a smooth, flat surface. The steps led to a large cave. The three stood in the center of the cave. Aside from the narrow, damp path they'd come through, the rest was thick rock walls, shaped like a key, with them standing right in the keyhole position.
"There must be a hidden door."
The three began searching carefully. Sirius explained to Harry and Hodge some methods for detecting magical traps. This was no challenge for Hodge. In no time, he was standing in front of a section of rock wall.
Hodge looked left and right. He realized that if you viewed it from the entrance, this spot had the best view of the scenery.
Voldemort: ......…
Harry and Hodge stared at the eerie rock wall in front of them. They both felt a faint, chilling aura, but they were completely stumped on how to break through it. Hodge was a step ahead of Harry—he knew how to undo Voldemort's magic. The simplest way was to smear a layer of magically potent blood on the wall———————Voldemort was confident in his spells. He believed ordinary people couldn't find this place, and anyone who could find it and defeat him, the Dark Lord, wouldn't hesitate to offer a little blood.
Hodge had no such awareness, especially since the thing in the cave was a fake.
"Magical mist?" Harry and Hodge exchanged glances. He knew next to nothing about it. His only memory was from Lockhart's class, where Lockhart bragged to the students about easily breaking an ancient wizard's magical lock and killing an old vampire. Naturally, the vampire couldn't have been without minions, and Harry had unfortunately played the first young vampire to be taken out. Now he racked his brains trying to recall, but he couldn't remember how Lockhart had done it.
But Harry had his own method. He looked at Hodge.
Hodge's expression was hesitant. He could give the answer directly, but that wasn't his real skill. He only vaguely sensed something off about the wall. As for how to break it, at his current level, he was clueless—unless he just blasted it clean with a Fiendfyre curse.
Hodge looked at Sirius.
Sirius grinned. This was one of his goals: to let these two reckless kids know that besides dueling, there was a lot more they needed to learn. He swaggered over to the wall, studied it carefully for a long time, and tried a few things. Gradually, his smile faded.
Hodge glanced at him sideways. What happened to the grin? Sirius scratched his head and ears, racking his brains to recall the curse-breaking books he'd read. He looked up and caught Hodge's schadenfreude expression.
"Got an idea?" Sirius asked, his tone unfriendly.
"No," Hodge shook his head, "but I can find someone who does."
"Who?"
"When it comes to breaking curses, who's better than a Gringotts curse-breaker?" Hodge looked at Harry. Harry's eyes lit up. They both thought of the same person.
"Bill Weasley."
"Ron's oldest brother!"
Sirius hadn't met Bill. After careful questioning, he agreed it was a good fit———Bill's parents were Order of the Phoenix members, his youngest brother was Harry's best friend, they'd fought Voldemort together, and Bill himself was a Gringotts curse-breaker whose job was breaking curses in ancient tombs or other historical sites.
"I'll contact Ron!" Harry said. He exchanged a glance with Hodge, and by the way, asked Ron to bring the basilisk fang.
Hodge stayed to study the magic on the rock wall. He knew this was just Voldemort's first layer of protection for the Horcrux. There would be a second, a third inside. Ordinary wizards couldn't break even one.
An hour later.
A house-elf appeared with Harry and Ron. A third person came too—tall and thin, very handsome, with the same red hair as the rest of the Weasleys———————it was Bill Weasley.
"Hi, everyone," Bill said enthusiastically. His hair was long, tied in a ponytail at the back, and he wore an earring with a fang. He quickly scanned the surroundings and grinned: "I hear someone's digging up You-Know-Who's grave?"
Everyone's eyes widened. Harry shrugged.
"Uh, well, I'm only sure there are a lot of corpses in the cave." Calling it a grave wasn't wrong, right? So Voldemort had built a graveyard to guard the Horcrux?
Hodge pointed toward the entrance in the rock wall. Bill followed his gesture, his expression turning serious. He leaned in close to examine it, his fingers tracing the wall. Hodge leaned in beside him to observe, staying silent and just watching.
After a long while, Bill noticed Hodge.
"Any way to break it?"
Bill hesitated for two seconds. "Yes!" Then he paused. "But I need to prepare some tools." With that, he Apparated away. When he reappeared, he had a toolbox strapped to his back. The box had three layers, filled with all sorts of gadgets. Hodge could barely recognize two or three.
"This is a special probe lens, very sensitive to magic," Bill said. With a flick of his wand, a small glass orb jumped out of the box, expanding from walnut-sized to the size of a palm.
"Undetectable Extension Charm?" Hodge said in surprise.