The heavy oak door swung shut, sealing the three boys and the Deputy Headmistress inside the Headmaster's office.
The air was dense with the humming and clicking of Dumbledore's silver instruments, though they seemed subdued, as if sensing the gravity of the midnight meeting. Fawkes the Phoenix stirred on his golden perch, his dark eyes fixing instantly on the tension radiating from the students.
Albus Dumbledore sat behind his desk. He was not wearing his flamboyant, starry robes, but a simple, deep plum velvet. He did not offer a grandfatherly smile. His expression was a mask of profound, weary stone.
He surveyed the three boys standing before him. Orion stood perfectly still, his posture relaxed but his gaze sharp, meeting the Headmaster's eyes without flinching. Harry and Ron stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking disheveled, defiant, and terrified in equal measure.
"I am extremely upset by what Professor McGonagall has relayed to me," Dumbledore began, his voice low and vibrating with a quiet, terrible authority that made Ron shrink slightly. "That students are wandering the corridors during a time of crisis is reckless. That they are engaging in aggressive spellcasting against one another is unacceptable."
He looked directly at Harry. "There is a vast difference between bravery and vigilantism, Harry. You allowed your assumptions to dictate your actions. It is a dangerous precedent."
Harry opened his mouth to protest, his face flushing, but Dumbledore raised a hand, silencing him instantly.
"And you, Orion," Dumbledore turned his piercing blue gaze to the Slytherin. "While your resourcefulness is undeniable... your decision to investigate a lethal legend alone, rather than alerting the staff immediately, was an error in judgment that could have cost you your life."
Dumbledore sighed, the harshness fading slightly into a bone-deep exhaustion.
"We can discuss the failures of protocol and the appropriate disciplinary measures at a later juncture. Regardless of how poorly this evening has been handled by all parties... we have far more pressing matters to address."
He laced his long fingers together on the desktop.
"Orion. I would like you to detail exactly what you have uncovered. From the beginning."
Orion nodded respectfully. He had prepared for this interrogation. He didn't need to invent a story; he merely needed to edit the truth to fit his narrative.
"It began with history, Headmaster," Orion said smoothly, his voice clear and analytical. "When the attacks started this year, I recognized the pattern. It mirrored the events of fifty years ago. The last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened."
He paced slightly, falling into the rhythm of a scholar presenting a thesis.
"I knew from public record that Rubeus Hagrid was expelled during that time. But I also knew, from speaking with him last year, that he is fundamentally incapable of malice. He is a collector of dangerous beasts, yes, but not a murderer. Which meant the true culprit—the one who framed him—was still at large, or their legacy had endured."
Orion paused, letting the deduction hang in the air.
"I researched the student who accused him. Tom Riddle. A brilliant, charismatic orphan. A prefect. A Slytherin. The timeline of his tenure perfectly aligned with the attacks and the subsequent framing of Hagrid."
Dumbledore's eyes flickered, a silent acknowledgment of the name that hung unspoken between them.
"The key, however, was the victim," Orion continued, his gaze shifting to Professor McGonagall. "The girl who died fifty years ago was found in a bathroom on the second floor. A bathroom that has been out of order and haunted by her ghost—Moaning Myrtle—ever since."
"It seemed too poetic to be a coincidence. I hypothesized that the entrance to the Chamber was located at the site of the original murder. The killer didn't just stumble upon her; she was the one who stumbled upon the killer opening the door."
"And tonight?" McGonagall pressed, her lips thin.
"Tonight, I went to verify the hypothesis," Orion stated flatly. "I examined the plumbing in that specific bathroom. On the central pillar of sinks, etched into the copper of a non-functional tap, is a small snake."
Harry and Ron exchanged a look of pure shock. They had spent weeks brewing Polyjuice in that very room and had never noticed it.
"It is the entrance, Headmaster," Orion said with absolute certainty. "I attempted to open it using standard verbal commands, assuming it was a rudimentary password lock. 'Open.' 'Reveal.' But it remained sealed."
Orion offered a self-deprecating, dry smile.
"I now understand that Salazar Slytherin would not secure his greatest secret with basic English. The mechanism is likely acoustic. It requires the specific, sibilant frequency of Parseltongue to activate."
He turned his head slowly, his blue eyes locking onto a very pale Harry Potter.
"Luckily, we happen to have a resident Parselmouth who can bypass that particular security measure."
Harry flinched as if struck. "I... I didn't open it! I didn't even know where it was!"
"I am not accusing you of opening it, Potter," Orion sighed, rolling his eyes at the boy's relentless victim complex. "I am stating that you are the key to opening it now. So we can end this."
Dumbledore closed his eyes. The silence in the office was profound.
For a long moment, the greatest wizard of the age looked incredibly old. He pressed his fingers against his eyelids, processing the sheer, devastating simplicity of the deduction that a twelve-year-old had just laid before him.
Fifty years, Dumbledore thought bitterly. Fifty years of searching the dungeons, casting revealing charms on blank walls, interrogating portraits.
He had never simply asked the victim.
He had tried, of course, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. But Myrtle Warren was a volatile, hysterical spirit. The trauma of her sudden death made her inconsolable. Every attempt to question her had resulted in wailing, shrieking, and her diving headfirst down a U-bend, refusing to emerge for weeks. Eventually, out of respect for the dead and a lack of actionable intelligence, he had stopped asking.
How remarkably simple. The answer was right there, weeping in a toilet, all along.
Dumbledore opened his eyes, the heavy realization settling into his bones. He looked at Orion with a mixture of profound gratitude and lingering wariness.
"And the creature, Orion?" Dumbledore asked softly. "You claimed to Professor McGonagall that you have identified the monster within."
"I have, Headmaster," Orion said firmly. "It is a Basilisk."
"A what?" Harry blurted out, his confusion overriding his anger. Ron looked equally blank.
Orion turned to them, adopting the tone of a deeply exasperated tutor.
"A Basilisk, Potter. The King of Serpents. A Class XXXXX magical beast bred from a chicken egg hatched beneath a toad. It possesses a venom so lethal the only known cure is Phoenix tears."
He pointed a finger at the boys.
"But its primary weapon is its gaze. Direct eye contact is instantly fatal. That is why Mrs. Norris, Colin Creevey, and Justin Finch-Fletchley are only petrified, not dead."
He ticked the instances off on his fingers.
"Mrs. Norris saw the reflection of the snake in the flooded water on the floor. Colin Creevey viewed the beast through the lens of his camera; the film absorbed the lethal intent, leaving him paralyzed. Justin... I suspect Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick. A ghost cannot die twice, so it absorbed the killing effect of the gaze, allowing Justin to catch only the secondary, petrifying effect."
Harry stared at him, his mouth slightly open. The logic was terrifyingly sound.
"I had actually pieced the majority of that together myself, Orion," Dumbledore admitted, nodding slowly. "The petrifications pointed toward a Basilisk's indirect gaze. But I confess, the logistics baffled me. How does a serpent of that magnitude—for it must be massive after a thousand years—travel through a populated castle without being seen or heard by anyone?"
"Pipes," Orion said instantly. "It is moving through the ancient plumbing system of the castle. It uses the walls as a highway."
Dumbledore's eyes widened slightly.
"I had pieced the entire puzzle together over the last few weeks," Orion concluded, turning back to the Headmaster, his narrative flawless. "I went to the bathroom tonight to simply verify the physical location of the entrance before coming directly to you with a complete, actionable intelligence report."
He let a note of genuine annoyance creep into his voice, gesturing dismissively toward the Gryffindors.
"Unfortunately, Potter and Weasley chose to ambush me. Potter leveled accusations of dark wizardry at me and, when I attempted to leave to inform you, he attacked me."
"I didn't ambush you!" Harry protested hotly, stepping forward. "I was trying to stop you from opening it!"
"Did you, or did you not, cast the first spell, Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore interrupted, his voice sharp and unyielding.
Harry froze. He looked at Ron, then at McGonagall, who was staring at him with deep disappointment.
"I... I cast Expelliarmus," Harry muttered, his face burning. "To disarm him. But he—"
"Then Orion acted in self-defense," Dumbledore stated with finality, cutting off any further justification. "You initiated a magical duel against a fellow student in a restricted corridor, based entirely on an unproven, and ultimately incorrect, assumption."
Harry shrank back, the injustice of the situation warring with the undeniable truth of Dumbledore's words. He had attacked first. He was in the wrong.
Orion maintained his polite, neutral expression. He had effectively dismantled Harry's credibility, presented the Headmaster with the solution to the year's crisis, and painted himself as the rational, misunderstood victim of Gryffindor prejudice.
It was a perfect checkmate.
Dumbledore let out a long, heavy breath, standing up from his desk. The sheer weight of the information required immediate, decisive action.
"Regardless of the interpersonal conflicts and the severe breaches of protocol tonight," Dumbledore announced, his voice ringing with a sudden, electrifying urgency, "we will deal with the disciplinary actions later. There are far more pressing matters to be handled right now."
He turned to his Deputy.
"Minerva, awaken the Heads of House. Secure the students in their dormitories. A full lockdown."
He looked at the three boys, his blue eyes flashing with the terrible, focused power of the wizard who had defeated Grindelwald.
"The Chamber of Secrets has been found," Dumbledore declared. "And tonight, we close it for good."