Maurise realized something and reached out, knocking firmly on the stone wall twice.
It sounded slightly hollow.
"Tom," he called out.
Tom immediately trotted over. "How may I serve you, Master?"
Maurise took a half-step back, drew his wand, and aimed it squarely at the wall without a second of hesitation. "Confringo!"
A beam of red light shot from the tip of his wand.
BOOM!
Accompanied by a deafening explosion, shattered stone and thick dust flew into the air. A gaping hole now stood prominently in the ancient wall.
"Were you aware of a hidden passage here, Tom?" Maurise asked.
"No," Tom replied instantly, his tone carrying a hint of apology. "There is absolutely no information regarding this in my inherited memories."
Maurise nodded, not entirely surprised by the answer. It made perfect sense that the Chamber of Secrets held even deeper mysteries.
He raised his wand, casting a Lumos to illuminate the dark opening.
The space beyond was not cramped. It resembled a proper corridor. The walls were constructed from neatly laid stone bricks, supporting a remarkably sturdy arched ceiling.
'Exquisite craftsmanship,' Maurise noted approvingly. However, the air was incredibly stale, reeking of profound decay and mildew.
"Let us take a look." Maurise stepped through the breach first, with Tom and Tin following closely behind.
---
The corridor was quite short. They reached the end in a matter of moments.
Waiting for them was a heavy, solid wooden door. It was surprisingly well-preserved, showing no obvious signs of rot or decay.
Maurise paused. "What is your assessment, Tom? Could there be traps?"
Tom shook his skeletal head. "I do not believe so, Master. However, exercising caution is always the wisest choice."
Maurise gently pushed the heavy wooden door open.
The sight before him made him pause in mild surprise.
It was a remarkably spacious, rectangular room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all constructed from smoothly polished stone. Inside sat a solid wooden podium facing five or six student desks with matching chairs. Every surface was blanketed in a thick, undisturbed layer of centuries-old dust.
The lighting in the room was incredibly dim. The only illumination came from a few magical crystals embedded into the walls, though most of them had long since lost their charge and gone completely dark.
Maurise surveyed his surroundings. No matter how he looked at it, this was a perfectly ordinary classroom.
The red light in Tom's eye sockets flickered thoughtfully.
"I believe I understand, Master," Tom suddenly spoke up. "This is highly likely the location where Salazar Slytherin personally instructed his most trusted students centuries ago."
"That is glaringly obvious," Maurise shrugged, strolling over to the podium.
'What a redundant observation.' If a classroom wasn't used for teaching, what else could it possibly be used for? Fulfilling some highly specific, bizarre architectural fetish?
"However, there is one glaring question," Maurise leaned casually against the dusty podium. "Why on earth would Slytherin build a classroom so deep underground?"
He highly doubted anyone would actually enjoy studying in such a gloomy, suffocating, sunless environment. Even Slytherin students couldn't possibly all enjoy living like moles.
"The reason is quite simple," Tom answered smoothly. "Slytherin used this hidden location to teach his students the specific branches of magic that the other three Founders vehemently opposed."
"The Dark Arts?"
"I strongly suspect so," Tom replied calmly. "The Founders of Hogwarts had massive, fundamental disagreements regarding the instruction of Dark Magic. It is highly probable that Slytherin continued to teach that curriculum in absolute secrecy."
The deduction was perfectly logical, and Maurise nodded in agreement.
He gave the empty, dusty room one final, sweeping glance before waving toward Tom and Tin, who was busy sniffing the corners. "Come along. There is nothing of value left in here."
He turned to leave.
"Please wait a moment, Master."
Tom's voice echoed through the silent room. Maurise halted and looked back.
Tom was standing in the far corner, staring intently at a seemingly blank section of the stone wall.
"Hiss... sssss..." (Open.)
In the blink of an eye, the solid stone rippled, and a hidden wooden door slowly materialized in the wall.
Maurise immediately walked over, a bright smile on his face. "Excellent work, Tom."
Tom bowed his head respectfully. "It is my absolute honor to serve you."
'Just look at him. What an incredibly obedient, useful subordinate!'
---
Wasting no more time on praise, Maurise redirected his full attention to the newly revealed door.
He pushed it open. As he had deduced, the room beyond was relatively small. It was undoubtedly Salazar Slytherin's private office.
The furnishing was spartan: a single writing desk, a wooden chair, and several massive, towering wooden bookshelves. Those shelves were absolutely crammed with ancient tomes, thick grimoires, and countless parchment scrolls.
Maurise's eyes instantly lit up like miniature suns.
"Wow." He breathed out a genuine sigh of awe. "It appears we are going to be down here for quite a while."
He practically lunged at the shelves, rapidly flipping through the materials. The vast majority of the texts were highly complex magical manuscripts and meticulous research logs.
Unfortunately, there was a massive language barrier. Every single manuscript and log was written entirely in either Old English or Ancient Runes. Comprehending them perfectly on the first read was going to be an incredibly steep challenge.
Maurise unfurled a brittle parchment scroll and held it in front of the skeletal wolf. "Can you translate this?"
Tom stared at the text for a solid thirty seconds before shaking his head. "My sincerest apologies, Master. To accurately and fully decipher this dialect, I would require several linguistic reference texts."
"It seems I have quite a bit of studying to do," Maurise sighed regretfully.
While not being able to instantly absorb the knowledge was slightly annoying, the silver lining was undeniable. He had all the time in the world.
Nestled among the books and scrolls, Maurise discovered a small, slightly more modern slip of parchment. He could actually read the script on this particular note.
"To whoever follows: Everything within this sanctum was left by Salazar Slytherin himself. As his descendants, it is our sworn duty to safeguard these priceless treasures."
It was undoubtedly a strict warning left behind by one of the Gaunt ancestors or another Heir of Slytherin.
'Safeguard these treasures?'
Well, although Maurise was most certainly not a descendant of Slytherin, he fully intended to follow that advice to the letter.
Therefore, he immediately teleported back to his dormitory, grabbed his magically expanded leather suitcase, and returned to pack up every single item in the office. He didn't even spare the physical wooden bookshelves. He took absolutely everything.
This was, in his professional Ravenclaw opinion, the single most secure method of "safeguarding" the treasure.
It was perfectly logical.
---
Over the next few days, Maurise devoted the vast majority of his free time to deciphering the ancient books and manuscripts.
He checked out towering stacks of Old English and Ancient Runes translation dictionaries from the Hogwarts library, burying himself in his research to the point of skipping meals and sleep.
He quickly discovered that the texts were almost exclusively focused on the Dark Arts. And the ones that weren't strictly Dark Magic were highly dangerous, restricted, and ethically questionable branches of spellcraft.
It made perfect sense. This was exactly what Slytherin had to hide from his colleagues.
Maurise didn't mind in the slightest. When it came to magical knowledge, he was an absolute glutton. He welcomed all of it.
However, sprinkled amidst the highly advanced magical theories, Slytherin's manuscripts also contained a vast amount of random, petty diary entries.
It turned out Salazar Slytherin possessed an incredibly dramatic inner monologue. He frequently used his research logs to vent his personal frustrations.
He complained bitterly about Godric Gryffindor's reckless, brainless impulsivity. He critiqued Rowena Ravenclaw's grand ideals as being laughably impractical. He mocked Helga Hufflepuff for being far too soft-hearted and overly accommodating.
'Wait a minute. Is he just aggressively gossiping behind his co-workers' backs?'
It seemed that even the legendary Founders of Hogwarts were no different from ordinary, petty office workers.
However, buried within these disjointed, gossipy entries, Maurise caught a specific paragraph that instantly commanded his full attention.
"Godric is bragging endlessly about his private training room again, claiming it can only be discovered by the truly brave. Rowena and Helga are clearly scheming and preparing something of their own as well. Hmph. It seems we are all intent on leaving behind our own distinct legacies. I suppose my actions are not so unconventional after all, though my Chamber is undeniably far more practical than whatever nonsense they are building..."
The sheer volume of historical implications in that single paragraph was staggering.
Salazar Slytherin was not the only one. The other three Founders of Hogwarts had highly likely left behind their own hidden "Chambers of Secrets" within the castle.