A week passed.
The news revealed during the meeting with the headmaster never made its way to the students or staff.
November's chill settled over the castle, the kind that bit through robes and whispered through the cracks of old stone.
Most students grumbled about the cold; I on the other hand welcomed it.
The sting reminded me I was still alive.
I was only an 12 year old boy right now, but with the power of magic i had been growing stronger week to week.
And since the day of that discusson, I'd thrown myself into even deeper bouts of discipline.
Every dawn saw me in the Draconis training hall, muscles screaming under enchantment-weighted dumbbells.
Physical conditioning, Lady Draconis had called it — tempering the vessel.
I trained not just to increase my physical strength but also my resistances.
the training room temperature was raised to the point of being a burning inferno, raising my body temperature and rate at which i lost fluids to an even greater degree.
After this physical training came on to resistance training, as the training dummies began to bombard me with magic, all manner of spells would strike my person, the goal being to build up a resistance to hexes and curses.
Once i was done with the physical i would carry on with the daily studies and classes returning at night for another bout of training, culminating in a private study session within my own room as i worked on my language skills.
Parseltongue — that sinuous, treacherous gift — had become my obsession.
Every night I summoned serpents, practicing tone, pitch, and intention.
Commands grew sharper; inflections, cleaner.
By the end of the week, I could make a snake dance, bow, or strike at the air — not through cruelty, but precision.
Parseltongue wasn't about words; it was about dominance wrapped in melody of hisses.
And with each success, one question pressed harder against my thoughts:
If I could command a conjured serpent, what of the ancient one that slept beneath the castle?
The Chamber had remained sealed for decades now.
No one, not even Voldemort, had truly claimed mastery over its guardian — not until now.
When the moon rose high on the twenty-ninth of November, I decided.
It was time.
The third-floor corridor was deserted, echoing faintly with the rattle of distant pipes.
My boots barely whispered against the cold stone as I turned into the girls' lavatory — that infamous haunt of the dead and forgotten.
Myrtle, thankfully, was elsewhere.
The cracked mirrors reflected my face in jagged pieces, pale and deliberate.
My wandlight glowed soft and steady, painting silver along the wet tiles.
I approached the sink — the one with the small snake engraving.
My pulse quickened, not with fear, but anticipation.
"Open," I hissed.
The word rolled from my tongue like smoke.
Metal groaned.
The sinks split apart with a grinding hiss, porcelain folding into stone as the floor sank away, revealing the gaping throat of the castle.
A dark, wet tunnel.
It smelled faintly of damp air.
A grin tugged at my lips.
"Well," I murmured, "let's see how deep this serpent truly sleeps."
I pulled my broom — the Aeriusbolt, polished obsidian wood with silver runes engraved along its spine — from my satchel bag.
Swinging a leg over, I angled downward and kicked off.
The air swallowed me whole.
Where Harry and his friend once slid screaming through the grime, I cut through the darkness like a spear, the broom humming beneath me.
The tunnel curved and spiraled, mud and stone blurring past.
Every twist tested my reflexes when moving at speed.
A more than adequate flying training course.
the slide finally opened wide, releasing me into a vast underground hall.
I dismounted, landing lightly on damp rock.
The undercroft stretched ahead — enormous, silent.
But unlike the tales spun by the author, there were no piles of bones, no shed serpent skin curling like ancient parchment.
Just stillness.
And echoes as every sound resounded off the surrounding rock.
The air was heavy, almost stale as the air down here had limited means with which to circulate up to the surface.
I drew my wand and whispered, "Lumos Maxima."
White light flared, rippling across the underground crag, a large open space that served as the undercroft to the school above.
Thanfully the path was not long as i delved deeper into the underground
Finally, I reached it.
The true door.
Iron forged into a massive gate, the centerpiece shaped as seven snakes — each one distinct, fanged and poised to strike.
Their bodies coiled together like the mythical Hydra, forming the seal itself.
The craftsmanship was exquisite.
I inhaled slowly, centering the intent within my chest.
Then, in a low hiss that reverberated off the iron, I spoke:
"Open."
The effect was immediate.
A single snake began to slither its way around the ancient iron, each time it passed by one of the seven snake heads they would retract, with a clunk.
Like a lock being undone in slow motion, until the wandering snake had completed a full rotation, the doorway thudded open and began to groan as it unsealed a chamber not unlocked in almost fifty years now.
A rush of air, old and cold as a tomb, poured out.
Beyond lay the true chamber, a cult-like location meant for Salazar and his disciples to gather in secret.
A row of Snake heads flanking the path down, leading to a great stone face at the end, a face of an old man with hair like serpents.
Almost as if Salazar saw himself as a Maeda *Male Medusa*.
But undeterred i stepped through.
Formally entering the chamber of secrets.
Descending down the ladder at the entrance before walking the pathways adorned with serpent heads until i reached the reflection pool at the end standing before the statuesque visage that is my ancestor.
All around me my magical senses were running wild, not only could i feel the great beast feared by all just beyond the stone face before me, but also there was more, two... no three more sources of magic filled this chamber beyond the basilisk itself, a location used by a founder and not simply the keeping place for a pet.