Chapter 168 The True Heir
Harry stood in the arena, surrounded by strange looks.
He didn't understand what he had done wrong; he had clearly saved Justin, but there was no gratitude on Justin's face, only anger and panic.
Before he could react, Ron tugged at his robe from below the platform. "Let's go! I think we need to hurry."
Harry silently stepped down from the platform, and the students parted to either side, as if he were some terrifying beast.
"Parseltongue." Draco said, displeased and indignant, "Harry Potter is actually a Parseltongue."
"Calm down, it's just speaking the language of snakes. It's not like there aren't people like that in the Magical World." Aaron looked thoughtfully at the two leaving the Great Hall, a flicker of excitement in his eyes.
He realized that his search for the Slytherin heir had fallen into a misconception, making a particularly simple mistake.
This person might not be the kind of heir who inherited Salazar Slytherin's will, but rather his blood descendant.
This was very likely the truth: the monster in the Chamber of Secrets was a Basilisk, and Salazar Slytherin's descendant also inherited his Parseltongue ability.
He could communicate with snakes without any hindrance and command them to do things; it was the perfect combination.
"Aaron, you misunderstood me.
Parseltongue is the ability of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders, but now someone from Gryffindor possesses this ability.
Harry Potter doesn't deserve to have this ability at all, and with so many people in the Great Hall, they must be thinking he's the heir of Slytherin. He's probably secretly overjoyed!"
"I don't think so. His expression just now didn't seem fake.
His ability to speak Parseltongue might just be a coincidence. You wouldn't think Harry Potter is the heir of Slytherin, would you?"
Draco pondered for a moment, then said in a deep voice, "I don't think so. At least the heir of Slytherin wouldn't associate with Muggle-born Wizards."
"Well, there you have it. Harry just happens to speak Parseltongue." Aaron was unconcerned. He could speak Dragon Language, and he wasn't proud, was he?
"What are you talking about?" Hermione walked over and asked.
"None of your business, Granger." Draco's lips curled into a sneer. "You'd better be careful. Harry Potter is the heir of Slytherin.
Do you think he'll release that monster and let it..."
"Draco." Aaron gave him a warning look. "She's my good friend, and besides, what you're saying won't affect her."
"I was just scaring her." Draco said grumpily, then called Crabbe and Goyle and walked out of the Great Hall.
Hermione leaned against the edge of the platform, her fingers carefully fumbling for something behind her back.
Harry's spell had still been effective; when Draco fell out, he happened to drop a few strands of hair, which were the last ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion.
"Um... Aaron, there's something I want to ask you." Hermione tried her best to keep her expression calm. "Have you been very busy lately?
I don't mean anything else, it's just that I rarely see you outside of class."
"More or less, but it's not just you; Draco is the same." Aaronsaid helplessly, "There's a complicated problem, and I need to spend some time on it.
But thanks to Harry, I have a new idea, which should save me some effort."
"Do you need my help? If you need an assistant, I can..."
"That's not a good idea." Aaron shook his head with a smile. "Thank you for your kindness, but you can't help me, and I don't want you involved."
With that, he walked towards a side door.
"Wait." Hermione gathered her courage and stood in front of him. "Tell me, what exactly are you doing?"
Aaron looked directly into Hermione's eyes, hesitated for a moment, then said, "Alright, if I have to say, I'm discreetly protecting this school.
You must keep it a secret; currently, only you know."
Hermione's heart sank slightly, and she subconsciously clutched the golden hair in her hand. "Then I won't bother you with such a great undertaking."
Aaron returned to the Slytherin dormitory. He first dispelled the Disillusionment Charm and checked whether the two roosters in the cage were in good condition.
This was something he had to do every day; before finding the hidden enemy, these two talismans absolutely could not be lost.
Then he lifted the green curtain on the wall, revealing his organized clue board.
Compared to the scattered clues before, there were now many more names on it, but more than half of them had a black line drawn through them.
These were the excluded individuals: first, Muggle-born Wizards, who could not possibly be the heir of Slytherin; second, some half-blood and Pure-blood Wizards, who had good social interactions and no abnormal behavior.
Among the remaining people, there must be one who is the heir of Slytherin. Originally, he planned to investigate slowly using the elimination method, but now with an additional clue, he could speed up the progress: a Parseltongue other than Harry Potter.
The heir would certainly not expose himself, but his family background could not be hidden. Anyone related to Slytherin was a possibility; he could be Pure-blood, or half-blood, or even more likely, half-blood.
"Interesting, truly interesting." Aaron smiled and stroked Abey. "Abey, this is a big project!
If conditions allowed, I would really like to conduct a census, which might narrow down the number of suspects to within ten."
Meanwhile, in the Gryffindor common room.
Ron and Hermione told Harry the history of Parseltongue, which made him feel a bit self-doubt.
Because he could hear the sound of the monster in the Chamber of Secrets before it killed, the Sorting Hat had also suggested he go to Slytherin last year, and he was also a one-in-a-million Parseltongue in the Magical World.
These factors combined made him look like the heir of Slytherin.
But he really wasn't. He knew very well that he hadn't commanded the monster in the Chamber of Secrets to do anything; he didn't even know what that monster was.
But the problem was that others didn't think so. Salazar was a figure from over a thousand years ago, and his bloodline had not died out. Even Harry couldn't be sure if he was Salazar's great-great-great-great-great-grandson, because he knew almost nothing about his own Potter family.
The next day, Transfiguration Class classroom.
This semester's Transfiguration Class was over, and Professor McGonagall had nothing left to teach, so she simply let everyone arrange their own time.
But many people weren't reading or writing; they were just staring straight at Harry Potter, whispering occasionally.
Feeling the strange gazes again, even with enough mental preparation, Harry still felt particularly stifled.
In the entire classroom, perhaps only Ron and Hermione, who were opposite him, could understand him, but their comfort was insignificant compared to the doubts of most people.
The suppression in his heart made him close his book directly. "See you back in the common room."
Ron and Hermione could only give him a forced smile. They couldn't persuade him otherwise; they couldn't possibly make Harry stay and endure the strange looks of others!
As soon as he walked out of the classroom, Harry heard that voice again, as if it were coming from inside the wall.
He hurried along in the direction of the sound and found a ghost floating in mid-air at a corner: Nearly Headless Nick.
He opened his eyes wide in terror, his body turned black, and faint green smoke rose from his broken neck, which was only a crack.
Besides him, there was also a person lying on the floor.
Justin Finch-Fletchley, the Hufflepuff student, who was a Muggle-born Wizard.
At this moment, he was in the same state as Nick, motionless, his eyes wide with terror.
Harry couldn't help but swallow, and his breathing became rapid; for a moment, he was at a loss.
"If I were you, I wouldn't stay here."
A familiar voice came from behind him. Aaron, holding Abey, looked at the scene with some regret.
"You, how did you get here?" Harry asked nervously.
Aaron looked at Abey in his arms, a trace of complaint in his eyes.
These days, he hadn't just focused his energy on solving the case; he hadn't neglected his practice of magic circles either.
He could complete basic magic circles within one second without any medium, but to succeed instantly still required continuous practice.
The time it took him to draw intermediate-level magiccircles had also been greatly reduced, from half a minute three months ago to three seconds now, and as his own magical energy accumulated, their power also increased by several points.
But he hadn't made any breakthroughs yet with advanced magic circles; the array diagram, core, and magic input were all much more complex.
Aaron knew that you had to eat one bite at a time, and getting stronger was also a gradual process, so he practiced advanced magic circles according to his previous methods.
Just now, he was drawing a complex advanced magic circle on paper, but at the last stroke, Abey suddenly heard the Basilisk's voice.
It got excited and jumped onto the table, ruining ten minutes of hard work just like that.
But his own Dragon cub, he still had to pamper it. After confirming that the Basilisk had left, he followed it over.
"This is a coincidence, Harry."
Harry's eye twitched slightly, perfectly concealing his suspicion.
"How did you end up here?"
"Uh... that's also a coincidence. I was originally planning to go back to the common room."
"Is that so? So was I.
I suggest we leave here first."
"What about them?" Harry pointed at Nick and Justin. "We can't just leave them!"
"Someone will take care of it; it doesn't have to be us.
Listen to me, let's get out of here quickly, otherwise..."
"Caught red-handed."
A cold voice appeared at the end of the corridor. Filchlooked at the two with a gloomy expression, his gaze lingering on Aaron for a moment before settling on Harry.
"This time, you're definitely expelled, Potter. Mark my words."
"No, Filch, it's not like that." Harry said anxiously, but Filchdidn't stop, decisively leaving the spot.
"Otherwise, something like this would happen." Aaronrubbed his forehead and shook his head helplessly. If he had known, he wouldn't have tried to persuade him; if they had just left, it wouldn't have been so troublesome.