Chapter 746: Golden Cup and Reliquary (Edited)

"Oh my God... It's Voldemort!"

Ron's tongue got tangled in surprise when he saw that the person standing in front of the door was actually Riddle.

The expression on his face was a mixture of surprise, fear, confusion, and... absurdity.

Hermione and Harry had similar expressions as they remembered what Fish had just said...

"I suppose he must be waiting for his boyfriend."

Of course, they also knew that such a thing was most likely impossible.

Upon reflection, it wasn't strange for Voldemort to be here. After all, it was a memory that Dumbledore had collected while searching for the Horcruxes, and it made sense for him to be here.

But they couldn't help feeling a hint of mockery at the thought that Voldemort had been taken in by an old, fat, and ugly woman.

"What a surprise..." Harry said with a suppressed laugh. "Voldemort has such a rich love life."

"True love knows no age." Even Hermione joked with seriousness.

Only Fish seemed perplexed, wondering why these three appeared so peculiar.

(?ω?)

But Fish didn't have time to ask them because by then Voldemort had followed Hokey back to the living room where it all began, skillfully making his way through the crowded room as if he had been here many times before.

This made Harry and the others look even stranger.

"Good morning, Mrs. Smith." Voldemort greeted the old lady with elegance, bending down and lightly brushing his lips against her chubby hand.

"I've told you many times," said the lady, feigning annoyance with a voice as sweet as Umbridge's, "You can simply call me Hepzibah."

Voldemort smiled stiffly, turned his wrist, and conjured a bouquet of roses. "I brought you flowers," he whispered.

"Naughty boy, you shouldn't have done that!" the old Hepzibah exclaimed.

But the next moment, she was placing the bouquet of roses in an empty vase she had prepared on a nearby table, obviously not the first time Voldemort had done this.

"You spoil this old woman, Tom... sit, sit... Where's Hokey?" Hepzibah said as she finished arranging the flowers and quickly called for the house-elf.

Hokey rushed in with a plate of pastries and placed it at her mistress's elbow.

"Help yourself, Tom," Hepzibah said. "I know how much you love my pastries. How are you? You look a bit pale. The store has been using you too much, I've told you a hundred times..."

Hepzibah giggled, and Voldemort mechanically smiled.

By then, the expressions on Harry, Ron, and Hermione's faces were slightly tense. They didn't expect to witness such a dark story of Voldemort today.

But while they found amusement, they also looked more serious because Voldemort must be planning something if he was enduring such humiliation.

Fish didn't think much about it as he gently nibbled on his index finger, his eyes fixed on the plate of pastries brought by Hokey.

(Φ﹃Φ)

"Hey, what's the excuse for coming to see me this time?" Hepzibah asked without the slightest hint of self-awareness, batting her eyelashes at Voldemort like a little girl.

Upon seeing his pose, Ron covered his mouth with one hand and his stomach with the other, and his entire face contorted in a way that seemed like a mix of laughter and tears.

Suddenly, he thought of his girlfriend, Lavender, who often resembled that expression when he was with her. Ron had thought she was cute, but now...

Ron pushed down the churning in his stomach and shook off the two overlapping figures in his mind.

"The goblin armor, Mr. Burke wants to offer a higher price, five hundred galleons, seems fair to you..." Voldemort maintained his composure and declared his intentions.

"Mr. Burke!" Harry immediately grasped the essence of his words. "The owner who acquired Slytherin's locket!"

And Hepzibah, after flirting with Voldemort for a while, offered to reveal that she was hiding a treasure that not even Mr. Burke knew about.

"...If he knew that I've shown it to you, he'd never let me live in peace. I won't sell this, not to Burke or anyone! But you, Tom, will appreciate its history, not just how many galleons you can make..." she said excitedly, oblivious to the red gleam of greed in Voldemort's eyes upon hearing this.

"I will be delighted to see anything the Miss Hepzibah shows me." Voldemort lowered his gaze, a more intimate tone in his whisper.

Despite Hepzibah emphasizing it earlier, he had only addressed her as "madam."

Finally, Hepzibah giggled like a little girl and, in a good mood, immediately asked her house-elf, Hokey, to bring two leather boxes.

The first box was opened and it didn't contain Slytherin's locket, as Harry had guessed, but rather a small golden cup with two delicate ear handles.

Voldemort took the cup, a red gleam in his eyes, once again showing his greed. However, Hepzibah was too busy gazing at Voldemort's handsome face to notice.

"Do you know what this is, Tom?" she asked in a low voice.

"Hufflepuff." Voldemort identified the engraving on the cup and murmured, "It's..."

"From Helga Hufflepuff, you're quick, clever boy!" Hepzibah said, leaning in and pinching his sunken cheek, her corset creaking loudly, before proudly identifying herself as a descendant of Hufflepuff.

She took the cup from Voldemort's elongated index finger, and she was so absorbed in placing it back in its place that she didn't notice the murderous intent that crossed Voldemort's face as he picked up the cup.

"This cup, I believe Dumbledore found it?" Harry confirmed with Hermione.

"Yes, the four symbols of the founders, Gryffindor's sword under Professor Dumbledore's protection, Slytherin's locket still unfound, and Hufflepuff's golden cup and Ravenclaw's diadem, both found and destroyed by the professor." Hermione sighed and added with relief, "Most likely, the remaining box is Slytherin's locket."

As they had suspected, after securing Hufflepuff's golden cup, Hepzibah opened the second leather box, which contained Slytherin's locket that had once hung around Voldemort's mother's neck.

"Of course, Burke knew I had it, I bought it from him. I bet he'll want it back when I'm dead..." Hepzibah said as she turned the box toward Voldemort.

Voldemort reached out his hand this time without waiting for an invitation and took the small locket, bringing it closer to the light to examine it.

Clearly enchanted to see Voldemort closely examining her golden box, Hepzibah prattled on about how she and Bok had each acquired a locket.

"Burke bought it from a shady woman, who probably stole it, unaware of its true value..."

Voldemort's eyes glowed red as she spoke, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the chain of the gold locket.

However, when Hepzibah reached for the locket, Voldemort didn't hesitate to release her hand.

Yet, Voldemort couldn't suppress his emotions when faced with the locket that was "rightfully his," and the red gleam in his eyes was finally noticed by Hepzibah, leaving the old woman bewildered.

Unfortunately, Hepzibah was so fond of Voldemort that she quickly convinced herself it was just a trick of the light.

After allowing Hokey to put the two leather boxes back in their place, everything around them started to become illusory, everyone and everything except for Fish and the others vanished like smoke, eventually fading into swirling darkness...

"Don't be alarmed, it's a memory charm," Harry whispered to Ron, who had never seen anything like it.

A few moments later, the scene changed to a place familiar to both Fish and Harry: the courtroom of the Wizengamot, on the tenth floor of the Ministry of Magic, where an old, thin Hokey stood in the dock, covering her face and wailing against the lectern in front of her.

The wizards on the bench and the jury did nothing to stop her, but rather looked on coldly.

The jury's president, a strange middle-aged wizard, stood up and, without any expression, sentenced Hokey for accidentally poisoning her mistress's cup of cocoa tea in the afternoon.

"This can't be!" Hermione shouted furiously.

Harry and Ron also questioned, "This is clearly Voldemort's plot, just like Morfin's!"

But their righteousness couldn't change the Ministry's verdict, let alone the past, and Hokey, the house-elf, became Voldemort's scapegoat.

As the Ministry guards dragged Hokey away, darkness descended once again, and Fish and the others returned to the headmaster's office in a familiar whirlwind.