Chapter 76
After more than ten minutes, Albert's body finally finished absorbing the basilisk's power, and the legendary creature was reduced to nothing but a heap of brittle bones.
He pulled on his dragon-hide gloves and cautiously picked up a fragment of bone. To his surprise, it was far lighter than expected. A gentle squeeze between his fingers reduced it to a puff of gray ash.
Then it hit him. His body felt reborn, thrumming with vigor. There wasn't the slightest trace of exhaustion left in his muscles. Energy coursed through him so fiercely he felt he could run laps around the entire Hogwarts castle without breaking a sweat.
"Unbelievable," Albert murmured to himself. "I never imagined my body could absorb the essence of a magical beast like that. I need to study this… there's something ominous about it, something I don't fully understand."
With the chamber now mostly cleared of debris and carcass, Albert turned his focus to exploring the secret room.
According to legend, the Chamber of Secrets was Salazar Slytherin's private sanctum, where he conducted magical research forbidden—or at least frowned upon—by the other three Founders. If that were true, there had to be more than a snake hidden here.
After all, what use was a room of this size and grandeur just to house a basilisk?
Albert recalled the book A Piece of Hogwarts History, which claimed that Slytherin kept the basilisk as a weapon to purge the school of Muggle-borns—those of "impure blood."
Albert didn't buy that story.
(In the wizarding world, "Muggles" or "Muggle-borns" are people without noble wizarding ancestry. Much like real-world racism, some pure-blood supremacists—most infamously Salazar Slytherin and his distant heir, Voldemort—believed Muggle-borns were unworthy of magic and life itself. Albert, as a member of the noble Black family, is technically pure-blooded himself, but he views such prejudice with deep skepticism. This detail would become critical in later events.)
From Albert's perspective, the basilisk was hardly a practical exterminator.
The serpent had primitive intelligence and acted on instinct. It couldn't precisely distinguish blood purity. And a large-scale attack on the student body would only force the school to close and mobilize its professors. Hogwarts had always boasted formidable staff—any combined effort could eventually destroy a basilisk.
So what was its true purpose?
Albert prowled every inch of the chamber, hunting for clues.
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When his initial search turned up nothing, his gaze drifted to the colossal statue of Salazar Slytherin.
He whispered the Parseltongue phrase he had used to open the chamber before, and the stone mouth yawned wide. With cautious steps, Albert entered the hollow space behind the statue.
The tunnel inside was oppressively dark, just wide enough for an adult to walk upright. The stillness gnawed at his nerves. He advanced about ten meters before glimpsing a faint glow ahead.
A sharp turn brought him into a stone chamber about the size of a classroom. The walls were inlaid with translucent crystals that carried the faint light from the Black Lake above, and a dim golden glow trickled down from the ceiling.
His eyes caught on the source: an oil lamp, flickering quietly.
Albert froze, mind racing.
"An oil lamp? In a sealed chamber? And still burning after centuries?"
Using his grappling hook to lift it, he examined the lamp. It was bronze, etched with the silver crest of Slytherin House, and inside its basin sat a golden wick. The flame burned bright, yet the reservoir was empty of oil.
He recognized it instantly.
"Kopelai's Eternal Flame," he muttered. A mythical enchantment said to burn forever, lit only by the strongest of wizards.
Albert carefully returned the lamp to its sconce. As tempting as the artifact was, it didn't enhance his own abilities and was, technically, school property.
Then he began a systematic search of the room.
If Slytherin had left any true legacy, it had to be here. The basilisk would make sense as a guardian of such a treasure.
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After a meticulous sweep, Albert found nothing but the lamp.
Frustrated but determined, he tried something else. He spoke new Parseltongue phrases, testing commands, until one hissed phrase finally triggered a reaction.
The lamp flared brilliantly, and suddenly text erupted across the stone walls, accompanied by a carved snake that slithered to life along a corner of the chamber.
Albert's pulse quickened.
"Is this… Slytherin's legacy?"
The script was in Latin. Fortunately, he recognized the Roman numerals marking the sequence. He spent half an hour studying the illuminated text.
There were 186 pages of content in total, by his estimate. He couldn't yet read their meaning in full, but he understood their importance.
Finally, he hissed another command:
"Open."
The smooth stone wall in front of him shimmered and transformed into a door, complete with a serpentine bronze handle.
He pulled—too hard.
The door swung open, and Albert lost his balance, tumbling back before catching himself with a dry laugh. Even after a thousand years, the mechanisms here worked perfectly under Slytherin's enchantments.
Beyond the door stretched a spiraling staircase.
He climbed for over ten minutes before encountering another wall. A hiss in Parseltongue opened it, revealing a narrow door, just wide enough for one person.
Peering through, he recognized the castle corridor, dimly lit by flickering torches.
Albert had found a hidden passage from the Chamber of Secrets directly into Hogwarts itself.
To be continued…