*Click, clack.*
The sound of dress shoes echoed through the empty Hogwarts corridor in the dead of night.
As a 19th-century British gentleman, it was only common sense to wear well-polished shoes when heading into battle.
Another set of footsteps followed behind me as I strode down the corridor with a confident gait.
*Tap, tap, tap.*
The sound of timid, somehow anxious footsteps.
It was Hermione, trotting to keep up with me.
Watching me march forward, Hermione asked in a slightly trembling voice, "Aisen, where are we going, exactly?"
"Where else? The Chamber of Secrets, of course."
"But how do you know where it is? You just heard about the incident today, didn't you?"
The Chamber of Secrets, the legendary place Slytherin was said to have prepared for his heir.
Though I was well-versed in all of Hogwarts' secrets, I naturally did not know the location of the Chamber.
A direct descendant of Slytherin, one of the Gaunts, had been a friend of mine, so I knew of a similar place, but that was all.
Nevertheless, the reason I was now heading towards the Chamber's location without any hesitation was simple.
I casually held up the crystal ball in my left hand. "Of course I know."
The crystal ball Harry had left behind. It was a type of marker that showed his location. And it wasn't just a tool that showed his current position; it also displayed his whereabouts for the past week.
In other words, it showed the exact path of how Harry had been dragged into the Chamber of Secrets.
After hearing my brief explanation, Hermione replied with a strangely sullen expression. "Oh, right… you know."
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's just… I spent so much time researching and trying to figure out the entrance to the Chamber."
Now that I thought about it, Hermione had been moving as if she already knew the destination, even without me leading the way. Had she deduced the likely location of the Chamber through her own investigation?
I was slightly impressed but didn't let it show. Compared to what we were about to do, an achievement of that level would become nothing.
Before long, we arrived at a girls' bathroom.
To think that the entrance to the legendary Chamber of Secrets, where a weapon meant to weed out the traitors of Hogwarts lay dormant, was in a girls' bathroom. It really… seemed unlikely to be discovered.
At the entrance, Hermione, as if wanting to hide her trembling, threw out a joke. "My, Aisen. Is it okay for you to be staring so intently at a girls' bathroom? You shouldn't do that, you pervert."
I don't know what kind of reaction she was expecting, but for me, a master of all sorts of pranks, that was hardly a provocation.
"Just stare? We're about to go in."
With a smirk, I strode into the bathroom without hesitation, and a playful squeal of surprise erupted from behind me.
Inside, the trace of Harry in the crystal ball led to a single sink. Upon closer inspection, I could see a snake emblem carved in relief on one of the taps.
Just then, a voice filled with a chilly air came from behind us. "Sob, sob. Oh my, who's this? Sniffle, a boy and a girl coming into the girls' bathroom together in the middle of the night!"
I turned to find the source of the voice and saw a whitish head popping up from the bathroom floor. A ghost.
A freckled girl ghost who, to put it kindly, could not be called pretty.
Though I was acquainted with all sorts of ghosts at Hogwarts, this was a face I had never seen before.
A ghost I'd never seen meant a ghost that came into existence after the 19th century. Of course, there was no way I would know her name.
"It's Moaning Myrtle, Aisen."
Hermione, standing next to me, apparently knew the ghost and whispered her name to me.
Seeing this, Myrtle clapped her hands. "Ah! Yes, I remember. You're the top and second-top students of the second years! To think the top two would be having a secret rendezvous in the girls' bathroom at night. Hogwarts will be covered in scandal by tomorrow!"
Hermione's face turned red. "Myrtle, it's not like that. We're here to investigate the Chamber of Secrets…"
But before she could finish her sentence, I pulled the Laughter Bell from my coat and gave it a little shake.
"Heeheehee! Heeheehee! Heeheehee!"
For the record, the Laughter Bell works on ghosts, too. The principle is complicated, but ghosts are, after all, magical beings.
I turned my gaze from Myrtle, who was laughing her head off for the first time since becoming a ghost, to Hermione. She was staring at Myrtle, her mouth agape.
I bestowed upon her a valuable lesson. "Hermione, in times like these, there's no need to deal with every little thing. Wasting mental energy before a battle is foolish."
"Ah, r-right."
She looked at the still-laughing Myrtle with a complicated expression for a moment, then glanced at the trace in the crystal ball and asked, "So Aisen, how do we get in from here?"
The standard method would be to open it with Parseltongue. Most puzzles related to Slytherin are solved with Parseltongue, so that was probably correct.
But unfortunately, neither Hermione nor I are Parselmouths. Does that mean we have no way in? Not at all.
The solution in a situation like this is simple.
"Hermione, break that sink."
Seeing the question mark appear over her head, I explained more kindly. "Most magic can be solved by smashing it with stronger magic."
No matter how strong the lock, if you just break down the door, the entrance opens. It's a very simple fact.
After a moment's hesitation, at my urging, Hermione pointed her wand at the sink and shouted, "Bombarda!"
*Boom.* The sound didn't come.
Despite being hit with a blasting charm, the sink didn't even have a scratch on it.
Hermione, flustered, shouted again, "Bombarda! Confringo! Diffindo!"
A rather diverse array of spells for a second-year student flew out, but the sink remained perfectly intact.
*Indeed, could this be magic cast by Slytherin himself?* The way it remained pristine even after being bombarded with all sorts of explosion spells was quite impressive.
"Aisen, it's not working."
"Do you really think so?"
Of course, as it was a security charm cast by the great Slytherin, it wouldn't be easy to break, but that also meant that an *unusual* magic could break it.
Yes. For example, magic used with the Elder Wand.
I pulled the Elder Wand from the two wands in my coat and gave it a short flick towards the sink.
*Crack! KABOOM!*
With a tremendous roar, the sink exploded as if it were a bomb, sending fragments flying everywhere.
"Hehehehe! Hehehe? Hwhihihi?"
Myrtle, who was still roaring with laughter under the influence of the Laughter Bell, laughed with a dazed look as she watched the scene.
Hermione asked, her jaw dropping, "Aisen, what on earth was that spell?"
I lightly wiped the Elder Wand with a cloth dabbed in essential oil, thought for a moment, and said, "It's a secret."
Telling her that the magic I just used wasn't a spell at all, but just a basic blast of magical power, would probably crush her.
After pouting for a moment at my answer, Hermione spotted a tunnel leading underground amidst the wreckage and let out a gasp of admiration. "Goodness, to think something like this was in Hogwarts."
After a moment of awe, Hermione said with a determined look on her face, "Aisen, I'll take the lead this time."
I didn't sense any particular danger, so I readily nodded. Seeing my approval, Hermione heroically jumped into the tunnel.
"Aaaaaaah—!"
Hermione's scream, as she slid down the tunnel that seemed to stretch on forever, grew fainter and fainter.
After confirming the sound had completely faded, I too jumped towards the tunnel.
Naturally, as a British gentleman, I couldn't slide down in such an undignified manner, so I used flight magic to descend gracefully.
How could I possibly tumble down a path that hadn't been cleaned in hundreds of years? Who knows what would get on my clothes.
After flying down the impossibly deep tunnel for quite some time, I arrived at a floor where water collected from the pipes trickled along.
I was briefly impressed by the unexpectedly grand sight. Spotting Hermione, who had arrived first, I flew over and landed.
It seemed the legendary secret slide didn't agree with her; Hermione's clothes were soaked and her hair was a mess.
She hurriedly tried to fix her disheveled hair upon seeing me. In contrast to her appearance, Hermione's face twisted into an indescribable expression as she watched me land gracefully without a single thread out of place. She then turned her head away in a huff.
"No fair."
"You're the one who said you'd go first."
"Still, it's not fair. I'm the only one who got messed up."
While placating the sulking Hermione, I looked around. Using Lumos to light up the dark space, I saw that we were in a huge tunnel structure.
After following the winding tunnel for a while, the material of the walls changed from stone brick to a natural cave.
It seemed Slytherin had connected a natural cave located at Hogwarts to the school and modified it into the Chamber of Secrets.
I never dreamed that I would find the Chamber of Secrets, which I couldn't find even in the 19th century, a hundred years later. And back then, a descendant of Slytherin was my friend.
The feeling was quite novel.
During my time at Hogwarts, I used to roam caves like this in the Forbidden Forest and the Highlands, hunting monsters and Dark Wizards.
Walking through the dark cave, I felt a refreshing sense of finally being back in my school days.
"Aisen, isn't this a bit creepy?"
The feeling the dark cave gave off seemed to differ from person to person; Hermione, looking pale, spoke to me as if she were scared.
I briefly felt the urge to play a prank on her—like suddenly disappearing and reappearing behind her—but I suppressed the mischievous impulse, thinking she might actually faint.
We walked for quite a while. After walking for nearly ten minutes, we arrived at the end of the passage, where a giant door carved with snakes awaited us.
Hermione looked at me, her eyes sparkling strangely, and asked, "Do we break this one too?"
I looked at my star pupil, who had absorbed the lesson in an instant, with satisfaction, but unfortunately, this time it was the wrong answer.
"We could get in by breaking it, but in a cave like this, the entire Chamber of Secrets would be buried."
"Oh."
Hermione asked with a serious expression, "Then what do we do? If we can't break it, we can't get in, can we?"
*[Open.]*
*Rumble… Thud. Click.*
As if to mock Hermione's worries, the snake carvings on the door began to move as soon as I made a hissing sound.
With a creak, the giant door swung open.
Hermione stared at the sight, looking back and forth between me and the door, then asked, "How did you do that?"
"I opened the door."
"I mean, how? You said you can't speak Parseltongue."
"I said I'm not a *Parselmouth*. I never said I can't *speak* Parseltongue."
A Parselmouth's Parseltongue is special. It goes beyond simply conversing with snakes; it allows them to exert a compelling force.
On the other hand, just speaking Parseltongue to communicate with snakes is something that can be imitated. You just have to follow the pronunciation of a Parselmouth exactly.
With Harry, a Parselmouth, around, it was only natural that I could speak simple phrases in the serpent tongue.
After hearing my explanation, Hermione asked, "…Okay, let's say that's true. Then why did you bother breaking the entrance upstairs?"
"Was there any reason *not* to break that one?"
When infiltrating an enemy's lair, the correct answer is to look for reasons not to destroy something, rather than reasons to destroy it.
Hearing my explanation, Hermione nodded, looking confused. "Somehow, it feels like sophistry, but it also makes sense."
"Right?"
After a brief chat, we entered.
Into the Chamber of Secrets, where Harry and the heir would be waiting.
***