"So hungry..."
"It hurts... I want to eat..."
"Master's orders... cannot disobey..."
As Owen walked along the second-floor corridor, he suddenly heard faint, broken whispers. Curious, he stopped and followed the sound until he found... a supposedly abandoned girls' bathroom.
He pushed the door open and walked in. Before he could even start investigating, a figure burst out of a toilet stall. "This is a girls' bathroom! You... you... Oh my! Owen! Did you come to visit me?"
"Myrtle, have you been hearing any strange voices?"
Myrtle paused, then shook her head. "No..."
Owen's expression turned serious. He looked at the ghost. "Myrtle, you can't stay here anymore. I remember this is where you died, right?"
"Yes. Does that mean the danger from fifty years ago is coming back?"
"Hard to say. But you definitely can't stay here. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my promise. I'll help you find your killer."
"Myrtle believes in Owen!"
With that, Myrtle floated through the wall and left. The castle was huge; finding another unused bathroom with an empty toilet wasn't a problem at all.
"Scourgify!"
After a quick cleanup of the grimy bathroom, Owen began a meticulous inspection. At the same time, he let his dense magic fill the room, searching for anomalies. When he finally detected a peculiar flow of magic, he found himself standing in front of a sink.
A careful comparison revealed that one of the copper taps had a tiny snake engraved on the side.
In Hogwarts, anything snake-related usually pointed to one person without needing much thought: Salazar Slytherin. Owen immediately made the connection: The Chamber of Secrets!
Legend had it that the Chamber was once opened, resulting in the death of a student. Based on various investigations and gossip from ghosts and portraits, Myrtle was the only student who died during that incident.
So...
Owen stared at the sink, a strange glint in his eyes. "If Slytherin knew someone built a girls' bathroom right on top of the entrance to his secret chamber, he'd probably be so mad he'd come back to life."
Honestly, anyone would be furious if someone built a toilet over their secret base. That's just disrespectful.
Owen didn't know the specific password to open the mechanism, but since it was a magical lock, he just needed to forge a magical key!
He concentrated his scattered magic, condensing it into a sharp, invisible drill that slammed into the sink. The sink vanished, replaced by a large, dark hole emitting a foul, rotting stench.
How deep is this? How big is it?
Owen wrinkled his nose, thought for a moment, and then removed all his magic suppressors. He pulled out his massive custom wand and pointed it at the hole. "Ventus! Scourgify!"
Under the torrent of his unleashed magic, a cleaning storm surged into the pipe. The entire castle began to tremble violently.
Startled by the intensity, Owen quickly stowed the giant wand and put his suppressors back on. Oops, might have overdone it.
He cast an elongated Bubble-Head Charm to encase his entire body, then jumped into the dark hole. Behind him, the hole slowly closed, transforming back into a sink.
Magic cast with immense power naturally yielded immense results. The rust and grime inside the pipe had been scoured clean. Illuminated by several miniature phoenixes formed from Fiendfyre, the tunnel ahead glowed with a bright blue light.
"That's a huge shed skin. I'll take that."
At the end of the tunnel, Owen found a massive snakeskin shed by the Basilisk. The force of his cleaning spell had plastered it against a large door.
After collecting the skin, he saw the snake carvings on the door. Again, the magic key came into play. One forceful magical drill later, the door swung open. Way better than picking locks—it not only opened the door but also triggered the magical mechanism.
The space inside was vast. Besides the snake statues, there was a giant statue of an old man. The voice Owen had heard earlier was coming from the statue's mouth.
Owen thought for a moment, then shouted, "Are you hungry? What do you want to eat? I have meat here, do you want some?"
"Yes! Want... eat... meat!"
The statue's mouth opened, and a colossal serpent slithered out. Its pale yellow eyes locked onto the young wizard.
Magical Impact!
But Owen wasn't afraid. The magical shockwave radiating from the Basilisk's eyes was strong, but it couldn't penetrate his defenses. After a brief staring contest, the young wizard pulled a large amount of raw meat from his expanded pocket. The Basilisk didn't stand on ceremony; it opened its maw and devoured the food. Only after it was full did it turn its gaze back to the boy.
"Full now?"
Owen was unfazed by the lethal magic in its gaze, but he was fascinated by the giant serpent itself. It looked exactly like the supposedly extinct Basilisk mentioned in books!
However, this Basilisk looked a bit... scruffy from neglect.
"Aguamenti."
His small wand instantly turned into a high-pressure hose, blasting the Basilisk clean. Then...
"Come on, open your mouth. Wider."
Looking at the Basilisk's yellowed fangs, the young wizard frowned in disapproval. "Hold still. Aguamenti!"
After thoroughly cleaning the Basilisk inside and out until its fangs sparkled white, Owen finally stopped. He climbed up and sat on the giant snake's head, chatting casually.
"So Slytherin really left you here? You must have met him then. Did he look like that statue? He did...?" Owen sounded disappointed. "Well, that face isn't exactly handsome. Not what I imagined."
Hiss!!!
"Hahaha, I'm glad you agree!"
After chatting for a while, the topic finally turned to the events of fifty years ago. The Basilisk recounted how a young man had awakened it using Parseltongue, only to send it back less than half a day later. The Basilisk was still salty about it.
Because that guy didn't even feed it!
The Basilisk was a simple magical creature. Once it realized the boy could withstand its death stare, it had no desire to fight him—mainly because it sensed it might lose.
Besides, the boy gave it a feast of fresh meat, bathed it, brushed its teeth, and was now keeping it company. There was really no reason to attack.
"So if someone speaks Parseltongue, you have to obey their orders?"
Hiss!
"I see. How about this: from now on, you listen to me. I'll take care of your meals and make sure you're always full. Deal?"
Hiss hiss!
"Deal. It's settled then. Alright, go back to sleep for now. I'm going to renovate this place a bit to use as a practice room. Also, those eyes of yours... killing anyone who looks at them is a problem. We need to control that. Give me a few days; I'll make you a pair of glasses."
Knowing it wouldn't go hungry anymore, the Basilisk was very calm. The aggression accumulated over a thousand years of slumber seemed to melt away under the boy's care.
Over the next few days, while setting up his secret base, Owen found another entrance: a mound near the Black Lake. From there, he could enter the Chamber directly without going through the castle plumbing.
For the safety of the castle, Owen used magic to permanently seal the tunnel from the second-floor bathroom. The mechanism remained, but even if opened, the passage was blocked.
He now had a secret base...
While Owen was happy with his new setup, Harry and the others were getting impatient. After the holidays ended and Hermione returned, she learned that Harry and Ron had spent the entire break playing instead of researching Nicolas Flamel. The look she gave them...
It made Harry and Ron want to crawl into a hole.
Realizing once again that boys were useless, Hermione decided to take matters into her own hands. So, she went to find Owen.
"Mr. Flamel? Of course I know him. I studied with him for over a year. Wait a second..."
Owen dug through his Chocolate Frog cards, found the one he was looking for, and handed it to Hermione. "Here. The information on this is actually quite comprehensive."
When Hermione slammed the card down in front of Harry and Ron, Harry picked it up and started reading immediately. Ron, however, looked disgruntled. "Why did you go to Owen? We could have found it ourselves."
This time, Hermione didn't even bother rolling her eyes. She picked up her book and walked away. She had finally realized something: Ron Weasley was hopeless.
Incompetent himself, yet unwilling to acknowledge the excellence of others. Staying around people like that too long would only make her stupid.