Eda pushed down the first Weasley dummy, and then, just for good measure, pushed down the second one as well. Only then did she feel truly satisfied. She picked up another piece of cake and began eating happily.
Often, you can endure hunger — but the moment you take the first bite of food, you somehow feel even hungrier. That was exactly Eda's situation now. She was eating the cake like it was chewing gum, unable to stop herself, though it was a bit dry.
The twins casually grabbed a couple of cushions and sat down together. Fred, the bigger dummy, asked, "You've been hiding here — you should've cooled off by now. So why are you still sulking? What's gotten you upset this time?"
Eda didn't speak. She simply pointed at The Origins of the Gaunts lying on the floor, motioning for them to look at it themselves.
George, the second dummy, picked up the book. He and Fred flipped through it, glancing left and right, but neither of them could figure out why Eda would be angry at a book.
"Gaunt… Is there anyone at school with that surname?" Fred asked. "Why does it sound so familiar? Ah — right, you mentioned before that they were Slytherin's descendants!"
Eda swallowed the bite of cake in her mouth, patted her chest a couple of times, and then said, "Yes. This book has a lot of useful information. I found some clues about the Chamber of Secrets in it. But I'll need more time to pinpoint its exact location."
Hearing this exciting news, the twins showed no signs of excitement — instead, their faces were full of concern. George asked, "Eda, you're not seriously planning to keep investigating this, are you? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is for you?"
Ever since the first attack, Fred and George had kept smiling on the surface, but inside, they'd been worried sick. They were afraid Eda would keep digging into it, afraid her curiosity would get her hurt — afraid she might become the next victim.
Unless Eda's long-lost biological parents suddenly appeared and claimed she was pure-blood, the twins would never truly be at ease.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," Eda said. "I'm not going to keep digging blindly. I'll tell Dumbledore everything I've found and let him go play with the basilisk. I'm not about to risk my life for that thing!"
Hearing that, the twins finally relaxed a little. Now that their hearts weren't clenched so tightly, they were curious about how far Eda's investigation had gotten.
Fred rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "A basilisk that's probably fifty feet long—how on earth does it wander around the castle without being noticed? And how does it choose its targets? Does the Heir of Slytherin point them out, or can it somehow tell on its own?"
George didn't have an answer either. Both of them turned to Eda, who was now full and satisfied, hoping she might have some insight.
"It must be through the pipes," Eda said. "The castle's plumbing connects everywhere — it's enough for the basilisk to move freely. That's also why Harry can hear it but never see it — because it's inside the walls."
As for how the basilisk chose its victims, Eda wasn't sure. By all logic, she should've been the first target — she was loud, troublesome, and constantly butting heads with Slytherins.
Yet, after more than three months, Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletchley had been petrified one after another, and Eda remained completely fine. Not only that, she was still alive and kicking — and getting closer and closer to the truth.
If the Heir of Slytherin was really choosing the victims, then his selection criteria were seriously confusing. Or maybe… the so-called Heir wasn't as terrifying as everyone thought. Maybe he was just a bully who picked on the weak first.
At that moment, Eda was still feeling pleased for getting closer to the truth — completely unaware that there was someone else at Hogwarts even closer than her. But just like the year before, that person was once again being thoroughly misled.
Yes, that's right — that person was Harry Potter.
He had picked up a diary — one that belonged to Tom Marvolo Riddle.
People say "once bitten, twice shy," but that old saying clearly didn't apply to Harry.
After being deceived by Quirrell, he was fooled yet again.
He trusted the sixteen-year-old memory of a stranger and actually believed that Hagrid was the one behind the attacks.
It was understandable that Harry didn't know Tom Riddle was Voldemort — hardly anyone knew who Voldemort used to be.
But what wasn't excusable was that he forgot he himself was a Parselmouth, and that the voice of the monster could be heard only by him.
Even worse — not just Harry, but Hermione and Ron had all completely forgotten that fact too.
Voldemort, after all, was a master manipulator — someone who could raise an entire following on his own.
Tricking an unsuspecting Harry was nothing more than child's play for him.
And poor Harry fell right into his trap again.
So… Hagrid, the Heir of Slytherin?
His pet, the Acromantula, was supposedly the killer of students?
Hagrid and his hairy friend Aragog hiding in the Chamber of Secrets, plotting which Muggle-born to attack next — the image itself was laughable.
Aragog, who had once escaped Voldemort's basilisk and lived to tell the tale, could never have imagined that fifty years later, he'd be blamed for it again.
If Eda knew about this, she would definitely raise a soul-piercing question:
"An Acromantula? Are you kidding me? That thing killing people so suttly? Isn't it basically a walking Galleon?"
Poor Aragog truly had it rough — fifty years ago, he took the fall for Voldemort's basilisk and was labeled the killer of students; fifty years later, he was nearly burned to death by Eda, and now Harry Potter was pinning the same crime on him once more.
Honestly… if you know how big an Acromantula is, you can only imagine the psychological trauma poor Aragog must have suffered.
The utterly bamboozled Harry believed every word of Voldemort's "live broadcast."
However, he also thought that Hagrid hadn't meant to harm anyone — so, in order to protect him, Harry decided to keep the whole thing a secret.
Aside from Ron and Hermione, he didn't tell anyone.
Unless another attack took place, this matter would be buried deep in the hearts of the three forever.
If Harry hadn't chosen to hide it — if he had told Eda about Tom Riddle's diary, or even just described what he'd seen in that "broadcast" — then Dumbledore would probably already be beating up that little monster by now.
Of course, Eda wasn't entirely blameless in this either.
During the Christmas holidays, in order to find out what exactly Harry and Ron had done after taking Polyjuice Potion, Eda had proposed an exchange of information.
As her part of the deal, Eda shared some of her own discoveries with Harry — she told him about the legend of the Chamber of Secrets and the Gaunt family, the descendants of Slytherin.
However, she didn't mention her suspicions about Tom Riddle or his true identity.
Those were merely Eda's own conjectures — she wasn't confident about them herself, and she didn't want to risk misleading Harry's judgment.
After all, the way Harry had acted last year was still fresh in her memory.
His hatred for Snape had blinded him to all of Quirrell's strange behavior — if he learned this might have something to do with Voldemort, wouldn't he turn the entire castle upside down trying to find proof?
Besides, Eda wasn't named Trelawney — how on earth could she have predicted that Harry would just happen to pick up Voldemort's diary?
There were so many students in the whole school, and yet that diary just so happened to land in Harry's hands? What kind of cosmic joke was that?
Unlike Harry, who chose to conceal the truth, the frail and ever-so-proper Eda decided to report everything honestly.
She told Professor McGonagall all of her findings — that the monster in the Chamber of Secrets was a basilisk, and that the incident was most likely connected to the Gaunt family.
Professor McGonagall was utterly stunned by the news Eda brought her — but at the same time, she felt a deep sense of relief.
Her once reckless little cub had finally grown up.
The clues Eda had uncovered were crucial for locating the Chamber of Secrets.
If they'd had this information earlier, the Chamber might have been found long ago.
And instead of rushing off to fight the Heir of Slytherin and the basilisk head-on, Eda had chosen to tell Professor McGonagall — meaning Gryffindor's number-one reckless hero persona had once again crumbled.
Or maybe, truthfully, that image had never been very stable in the first place.
This was, without question, Eda's best-behaved year yet.
Not only had she not caused any trouble, she'd even found leads about the Chamber itself.
Professor McGonagall couldn't have been more satisfied with her performance.
Then, by the end of February, everyone suddenly noticed that countless mirrors had appeared all over the castle overnight — there was at least one mirror at every corner.
The school clearly went to great lengths to prevent any unfortunate "corner encounters" with the creature.
No one knew how they'd managed to get so many mirrors in just one night.
However, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall didn't reveal anything about the basilisk publicly — they wanted to avoid spreading panic among the students.
Meanwhile, the investigation of the washrooms was carried out in secret, full steam ahead.
It seemed that finding the Chamber of Secrets was now only a matter of time.
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