Chapter 193: Destroying the Second Horcrux

Ivan took half a step back. Before the pair of tweezers could prick his skin, he grabbed it with his other hand and threw it down hard.

The instrument stayed still, as if it had never moved.

Staring at the tweezers on the floor, Ivan no longer dared to be careless. He gasped for a while, took out his wand, held it with one hand and returned to the cabinet with the other hand, slowly and carefully approaching the locket, ready to defend himself from any possible danger.

This time, however, he encountered no obstacle, and gently held the locket in his hand.

Just as his left hand touched the locket, Ivan's eyes widened.

He couldn't believe that he would get his hands on one of Voldemort's Horcruxes so easily. Thinking back to Tom Riddle's diary he met last year, compared to him, the whole process of the Slytherin locket was so easy that he began to think it was just a dream.

He encountered no obstacles except for a spider pincer that had very weak attack power.

Ivan suspected that the multi-legged pincers were also a protective magical item of Kreacher's, as it was like the style of the house itself.

He looked up again and peered into the entrance hall. Although there were thick walls blocking it off, Mrs. Black's mad screams still came from time to time.

It looked like Kreacher wasn't going to be back here for a while.

The three, Sirius, Harry and Hermione who disappeared down the dark path seemed to be gone without a trace. They seemed to have fallen so far underground that they couldn't even be heard.

Ivan took a deep breath. He still had time.

He gently rubbed the dust from the surface of the pendant with his hand and looked carefully at the Horcrux.

Then he took the basilisk fang he was carrying with him and, to avoid incident, prepared to destroy it there and then.

Ivan had been in contact with Tom Riddle's diary last year. He knew that the Horcrux itself was magical, capable of influencing the minds of the people around it, and drawing vitality from those who touched it, to gradually live and work magic. It was not so different from the real Voldemort.

In this case, it was too dangerous for Ivan to carry this thing in his body and then be accidentally controlled by it or have other problems.

He didn't know the exact age at which Voldemort made this Horcrux.

But one thing was certain. At that point, he was definitely more dangerous than the sixteen year old Tom Riddle who made the diary. He was more evil on the inside and had more dark magic.

Ivan didn't want to come into contact with Voldemort again, so destroying this Horcrux immediately was the wisest choice.

He narrowed his eyes, looking carefully at the Locket in his hand.

Needless to say, the most striking thing about the pendant was the capital letter S in bright green stone inlay on the front, which was marked by Slytherin.

Anyone who knew a little about the history of magic or the crests of pureblood wizarding families would know the true meaning of this mark. Salazar Slytherin was so famous that besides being the co-founder of Hogwarts with the other three founders, he had done many great deeds.

Around the capital letter, there was a very obvious circle.

Beyond that, around the circle were many misty, yellow and black lines of strange and complex patterns, like an ancient text conveying a message.

Ivan did not know these words. To be more precise, he wasn't even sure if they were words or not; maybe they were just arranged together.

These fanciful patterns seemed to be full of magic, and every now and then a dark golden light would shine on them, gathering from the eight corners of the pendant to the emerald in the center.

Ivan looked at the locket for a while and found nothing but these words.

Then he stopped hesitating!

He decided to place the locket on the dusty table in front of him, with the basilisk fang in his right hand.

In the darkness, his posture was unusually strange.

He seemed to sense what Ivan was going to do, and there seemed to be something in the locket at that moment, like cockroaches in a box.

"One....dos..." Ivan breathed heavily, and counted silently, trying to overcome the growing unease in his mind.

"One... two... three... open!"

Ivan counted the last number, and the wand moved smoothly upward. As it moved, the golden doors of the locket opened wide with a small click.

Like a music box, an ominous voice sounded, and Ivan found himself beginning to become inexplicably weak and drowsy.

Inside the locket was a glass door with something inside.

He looked carefully. Behind the two glass windows within, flickered a vivid, dark, handsome eye, as Tom Riddle's eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupil.

As the music progressed, the two eyes began to change, and gradually turned red, and the pupils began to turn into lines, becoming Voldemort's eyes.

Over the music, there was a voice whistling from the Horcrux and it was speaking to Ivan.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine." Voldemort whispered, "I have seen your dreams, son, and I have seen your fears. Everything you wish for is possible, but everything you fear is also possible..."

"Is it?" Ivan whispered, his right hand holding the Basilisk's fang trembled.

"Yes, I can help you, help you succeed, I can give you anything you want, strength, power, glory, I can..." The temptation in the voice was getting stronger and stronger. Ivan's head was a mess. He knew he couldn't wait any longer. Voldemort was trying to control him. He had to.

From the Horcrux, Voldemort's whispers continued.

But Ivan took the basilisk's fang and his right hand no longer trembled. He took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on the locket, and his right hand was stabbed up and down.

There was an explosion, the sound of glass shattering.

When the rustling sound stopped, Voldemort's soul saved in the Horcrux sent out a shrill scream, as if to penetrate the human soul. Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly.

Ivan's body trembled, and he knew he had succeeded.

He gasped heavily, and his face was pale, his legs trembled steadily, and he held the table in front of him forcibly so that he would not fall.

He bent down and picked up the broken Horcrux.

It had pierced the panes of both windows and there was nothing left. There was no trace of Voldemort's soul, as if it had never existed there.

Like the glass window, the silk lining at the bottom of the pendant was also punctured by Ivan, but the whole thing was undamaged.

"Huh!" Suddenly, Ivan realized that the bottom of the pendant seemed to be the same as the outer shell. There were many strange and complicated lines inside the silk lining.

He hurriedly tore off all the silk, and was surprised to discover that the inside of the pendant was exactly the same as the yellow and black text, subtle and quirky.

He couldn't be sure that these were definitely not the lines the pendant originally brought, but were engraved on purpose, like a magical set.

Slytherin's locket wasn't just a Horcrux.