A dozen minutes later, in the southeast area of the Forbidden Forest.

"Damn it, it seems like we’re back where we started!" Harry looked at the grass on the side, frustrated, "That branch, I put it there five minutes ago!"

"Hey, Hermione," Ron looked at the brown-haired girl, complaining, "You’re leading the way, you should find the right direction."

"Why don’t you lead the way, you tell me how to find the direction?" Hermione glanced at him, retorting.

Ron immediately shut up and fell silent.

If he really knew how to find directions, he wouldn’t have let Hermione be the leader. He would have volunteered to stand in front long ago.

"If you ask me, this is all your fault," Hermione took a deep breath and said, "If you hadn’t suspected the professor, things wouldn’t have developed to this point!"

"What’s wrong with suspecting the professor?" Ron raised his head and retorted, "Remember Quirrell? He was also a professor! Who would have thought that that cowardly guy was actually Voldemort’s dog?"

"Quirrell was just an exception!" Hermione’s goodwill towards Gerald had almost reached its maximum, and she defended him without hesitation, "That doesn’t mean all professors are like Quirrell. Besides, Professor Zickrein doesn’t need to be Quirrell!"

"Of course, he doesn’t need to. With his ability and ambition, how could Quirrell compare to him! His goal is the heir of Slytherin, the fourth Dark Lord in the history of the magical world!"

"Ron, you really shouldn’t say that." Even Harry Potter shook his head when he heard Ron’s firm tone. "We only have preliminary suspicions now, and we haven’t found any evidence."

"Okay, yes," Ron took a step back and nodded. "We will find the evidence and let everyone see the truth clearly."

"Before that, we have to find our way back!" Hermione reminded.

"Hey, over there!" Ron pointed to the flattened grass on the side with his right hand, "Look, that place obviously has traces of someone walking! It’s Professor Zickrein, he’s nearby!"

"It seems so, Ron, your eyes are really good." Harry also looked happy.

To the naked eye, it did look like someone had passed by there, and a small path had been forced out of the lush grass. However, that place was blocked by several bare trees, so they hadn’t noticed it before.

"Are you going to continue?" Hermione hesitated a bit. "Maybe, that’s not the trace left by Professor Zickrein?"

On the one hand, she was also curious why Gerald came to the Forbidden Forest. On the other hand, she felt that this dangerous place was really not suitable for them, small wizards, to stay long.

"What, are you scared?" Ron raised his eyebrows at her and said, "I thought all Gryffindors had a spirit of adventure, but it seems I was wrong."

"Who’s scared? I just think your rash actions will lead to disaster!" Hermione retorted angrily.

"Hermione, we probably can’t find our way back now anyway," Harry tugged on Hermione’s sleeve and whispered, "Why don’t we just follow that trace and see what happens? With the protection of the Invisibility Cloak, even if it’s not Professor Zickrein, it shouldn’t be a big problem."

"Okay, but don’t mess around," Hermione reminded.

Reaching an agreement again, the trio, wearing the Invisibility Cloak, moved forward along the trace in the grass. Half an hour later, a huge black cave appeared in front of them.

"Professor Zickrein, is he in there?" Ron frowned and looked at his friends.

"Maybe not, I have a very bad feeling," Hermione took a breath and said, "We should leave here quickly, we really should leave here."

"Look at that, are those scales snake scales?" Harry pointed to the patterned scales next to the cave and said, "Could it be that Professor Zickrein is raising the Basilisk here?"

"Definitely, we’ve discovered the truth!" Ron was very excited and said loudly, "Professor Zickrein is indeed the heir, this guy is not..."

Roar!

Before he could finish his words, a earth-shattering roar suddenly resounded in the cave.

Rumble, rumble. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Just like an armored vehicle starting up, the ground trembled. A huge, terrifying beast with a body and a ferocious appearance suddenly jumped out of the cave.

Its appearance was extremely similar to a lizard, but its size was at least hundreds of times larger than an ordinary lizard. The sides of its cheeks were covered with sharp bone spurs, and its body was covered with strange black and red scales.

Obviously, the scales that Harry had seen before belonged to this big lizard, not some so-called Basilisk.

"Oh, my God." Seeing this lizard, Ron let out a gasp of disbelief. "What is this, what is this?"

"Fire Lizard!" Hermione also stared blankly at the fierce beast in front of her, took a breath and said, "Run, run quickly!"

"Run?" Harry was stunned and said, "We, we’re wearing the Invisibility Cloak..."

Before he could finish speaking, a tongue of fire suddenly brushed past him. The terrifying temperature instantly ignited a large area of trees behind them, and flames soared into the sky.

Without any hesitation, Harry, Ron, and Hermione immediately took off the Invisibility Cloak, and ran towards the depths of the forest.

"Why, how does that big guy know where we are?" Hiding behind a huge rock, Harry asked, panting.

Hermione looked back at the back and explained in a low voice, "Fire lizards have very poor eyesight, very poor! They can’t even see things beyond two meters, but at the same time their sense of smell is extremely sensitive. They can accurately find prey even if it’s buried dozens of meters deep! The Invisibility Cloak only blocks sight, but it can’t block the smell on our bodies!"

"You really deserve to be Hermione, you know so much." Harry praised.

"I also saw its introduction in the book on magic array materials. Its heart is an extremely valuable material for constructing magic arrays," Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and said, "But at the same time, it is a magical creature as dangerous as dragons and basilisks. To defeat it head-on, at least more than ten Aurors are needed!"

"Oh, damn it!" Harry grabbed his hair and complained, "This is really bad, we’ve been targeted by such a monster."

"Fortunately, we’re safe for now," Hermione shook her head and suddenly realized something. "Hey, where’s Ron?"

"Ron?" Harry was also stunned and looked around. "I remember, he was just next to me."

"That’s terrible." Hermione stood up, and in her sight, Ron happened to appear, stumbling towards them. And behind him, the big lizard with black and red scales was quietly following in a hunting state.

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