After eating their fill and cleaning up, Tom, Cassandra, and Draco let out satisfied burps.
"What's next? Should we go back the way we came?" Cassandra asked Tom.
"No, we're not going back the way we came," Tom replied to Cassandra, looking at the statue of Slytherin.
Cassandra followed Tom's gaze to the Slytherin statue and asked confusedly, "What about the Slytherin statue?"
Tom organized his thoughts and shared his conjecture with Cassandra and Draco: "The Basilisk crawled out of the statue's mouth, which means there's probably more space behind the statue. Perhaps there's an even more secret room within Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets."
Intrigued by Tom's words, Cassandra and Draco joined him in exploring around the statue.
"Tom, Cassandra, over here, come quickly."
Draco suddenly seemed to have discovered something and shouted to Tom and Cassandra, who were still investigating.
The two approached Draco's direction and saw that on the wall beside the statue, there were two intertwining stone snakes, just like the ones seen at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.
"Open!" Tom tried to command the stone snakes on the wall in Parseltongue.
As Tom spoke, the two stone snakes moved to the sides, and the wall transformed and disappeared, revealing a normal-sized door.
"Sure enough, I knew there was a Chamber of Secrets within the Chamber of Secrets."
Tom said to Cassandra and Draco, then pushed the door open.
Upon entering the door, what greeted them was another long corridor. As if sensing Tom's entry, the sconces on both sides of the corridor automatically lit up with faint, eerie green candlelight, making the corridor appear sinister and terrifying.
Guided by the faint candlelight, the three of them slowly advanced and soon arrived at a four-way intersection.
Cassandra pointed to the wide passage beside them: "The Basilisk must have gone that way."
Tom glanced at the obvious crawling marks on the ground of that passage, grunted, and then turned to the corridor of normal human passage size on the other side, saying to the two, "We'll go this way."
A moment later, at the end of the corridor, a pitch-black stone door appeared.
Draco stepped forward and tried to push it with force, but the stone door didn't budge.
He immediately turned to Tom: "It's no good, it won't budge. Tom, it's still up to you."
Tom nodded at his words, stepped forward, and spoke to the stone door in Parseltongue: "Open!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the stone door's seal seemed to be broken, and it slowly opened automatically.
"Cough, cough..."
As soon as they entered the dark room, the three of them were choked by the thick dust inside and quickly cast a Scouring Charm and Lumos.
"Ah~~~"
As soon as the room was lit up, Cassandra and Draco let out screams of fear.
Tom looked around and immediately understood their reaction.
The room was filled with taxidermied specimens of various magical creatures. Fused creatures, dissected ones, mutated ones, and all sorts of bizarre creature corpses filled the entire room with a terrifying and grotesque atmosphere, enough to make unsuspecting Wizards collapse in fear at first sight.
Tom took out two small bottles of calming draught and handed them to Cassandra and Draco, gently comforting them: "Here, don't be afraid. Drink it, and you'll feel much better."
The two took the potions and drank them, then sat down to rest for a moment before feeling much better.
Cassandra, still with a hint of fear, asked Tom tremulously, "Wh-what are all these?"
"Clearly, this is Slytherin's laboratory. From these specimens, it seems Slytherin delved very deeply into magical Transfiguration. You two continue to rest here for a while; I'll look around the room."
After speaking, Tom got up and went to examine the room.
The room wasn't very large; Tom made a quick circuit and had already largely scanned it.
Aside from the magical creature specimens, there was nothing else in the room. The bookshelves in the corner were empty, clearly having been cleared out. On the desk, there was nothing but a bottle of dried ink and a quill, so any potential documents must have been taken away.
Tom, unwilling to give up, searched the room again, not even missing a single corner.
To his surprise, this time Tom actually found something. Tucked in the crevice between the desk and the wall, a piece of parchment, perhaps accidentally dropped, lay quietly. Clearly, the person at the time was in a hurry to loot Slytherin's remaining legacy and didn't thoroughly search the room, resulting in this one getting away.
Tom picked up the parchment and read it carefully, his expression becoming very solemn.
"Sure enough, this is one of the secrets of that person's disfigurement."
Cassandra, resting by the room's entrance, quietly watched Tom wander around the room, repeatedly investigating. When she saw Tom return with a solemn expression, holding something, she quickly got up and asked, "What's wrong? Did you find anything?"
Tom casually handed the parchment to Cassandra and said, "All the books and documents in the room have been taken. Only this is left."
Cassandra took the parchment and, along with Draco who had come closer, began to read it.
The parchment was covered in dense symbols and annotations that made them dizzy. To Cassandra and Draco, it was like a celestial book; they couldn't understand it at all.
After returning the parchment to Tom, Cassandra asked with a hint of curiosity, "What is this?"
"Part of a Dark Arts Transfiguration ritual," Tom quickly answered.
"Ah~" Cassandra gasped softly, wanting to ask more, but seeing that Tom had no intention of continuing, she remained silent.
Facing the silent two, Draco quietly spoke: "Should we leave now?"
"Yes," Tom agreed with Draco's suggestion.
Just as Cassandra and Draco were about to return the way they came, Tom grabbed both of them: "When I was searching the room just now, I found a secret door over there. It should lead directly out. Follow me."
With that, he led them to a corner on the other side of the room and pushed open a door that blended seamlessly with the wall and was hard to notice.
A few steps forward, what greeted the three was a long, upward-stretching stone staircase that seemed to go on endlessly.
"I'm so tired. Are we not there yet? This is too high."
After climbing for a long time, Draco, who was almost exhausted, couldn't help but start complaining.
Cassandra was too tired to speak.
"Don't talk, we're almost there," Tom responded, panting.
Just as the three were about to run out of energy, they finally reached the platform at the end of the stone staircase.
Tom slumped down onto the platform and took out three bottles of Invigoration Draught. After giving two bottles to Cassandra and Draco, he drank his own in one gulp.
Feeling their strength return and resting for a moment, Tom then led the two to push open the stone door on the other side of the platform.
The three walked out of the stone door and found themselves inside a small cave. The stone door closed again, merging back with the cave wall, and Tom tried various methods but couldn't open it.
"It seems this path is one-way. Let's go, let's leave here first."
When Tom led Cassandra and Draco out of the cave, they suddenly realized they had appeared in an unexpected place.
"This is... the Forbidden Forest!"