117: Chapter 117 Fifty Years Ago

"Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets."

When Harry said this out loud, Ron's face looked even worse than the bottom of a cauldron in Potion Class.

Hermione sat at the edge of a table in the abandoned classroom with the black-covered diary spread out in front of her. She didn't touch it, only pinning down the edge of the cover with the end of her quill, as if pinning down a biting beetle.

"You saw it?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded. "The diary took me into a memory. Fifty years ago, Tom Riddle caught Hagrid, and he said the monster Hagrid was raising had killed someone. Dumbledore was only a Professor back then; he didn't seem to fully believe Tom, but Hagrid was expelled."

Ron scratched his hair. "Hagrid raising dangerous things, that part is quite convincing. He's raised a Cerberus, raised a Dragon, and dares to bring back anything from the Forbidden Forest."

Hermione looked up at him. "Ron, Aragog is a spider."

"I know spiders are bad." Ron's face turned pale. "I know that better than you."

"Spiders don't move through pipes. A Basilisk does." Hermione spread out the anonymous fragments and pointed to the word "pipes." "The voice in the walls can only be heard by Harry because it's Parseltongue. The victims being petrified means they didn't look directly at it. Madam Norris saw the reflection in the water, Justin was behind Nick, and Nick himself was already dead. The answer fits."

Harry looked down at the diary. "Then why did Tom show me Hagrid?"

Hermione stared at the diary cover. "Because he wants you to stop looking for the real answer."

Ron swallowed hard. "Maybe he's just a good guy who wants to help?"

Hermione turned to him. "A blank diary pulls Harry into a memory from fifty years ago and just happens to point to Hagrid, and you call this helping?"

Ron shut his mouth.

Outside the abandoned classroom, Allen stood within the Spatial Thin Layer behind a crack in the wall, having finished listening to Hermione's deduction.

The Void drifted within the Portable Space, pressing against the map of the pipes, its tail tip pointing to the two characters for "diary." Peter had his silence lifted for ten seconds; just as he was about to speak, Allen spoke first.

"Only say what's useful."

Peter immediately clung to the cage. "Tom would do that! He's best at leading people into half-truths. Hagrid being expelled is true, and the monster killing people is also true, but the monster wasn't a spider. Tom uses real events as a shell and stuffs false conclusions inside."

"How much does Harry believe?"

"The Potter boy is wavering. He likes Hagrid, but what he sees with his eyes gets stuck in his head." Peter was so anxious that sweat broke out on his forehead. "Granger is the real trouble. She has already separated the spider and the snake; she will go looking for books, she will go ask Myrtle."

Allen sealed his silence again.

Outside, Hermione had already pushed the diary back in front of Harry. "You cannot write in it alone anymore. Tonight we will go find Myrtle and ask her clearly where she died fifty years ago and what she saw before she died."

Ron immediately objected. "Tonight? The Second Floor Girls Lavatory again? I'd rather go to Snape's office to steal slugs."

Harry gripped the diary. "I want to ask Hagrid first."

Hermione paused. "Fine, but don't tell him about the diary. Hagrid will get flustered, and when he gets flustered, he'll let more things slip."

Ron whispered, "Maybe he'll even treat us to tea."

"There might be Rock Cakes in the tea." Hermione gathered her books. "That's more dangerous than an interrogation."

Allen retreated from the Spatial Thin Layer.

Draco was waiting for him at the corner of the corridor, his face wearing the irritation of being forced to keep his distance. "Do they believe Hagrid?"

"Harry is wavering, Hermione is refuting it." Allen walked down the stairs. "Ron is in charge of being afraid of spiders."

Nott came out from behind a suit of armor. "Library borrowing records updated. Granger just reserved 'Mediterranean Serpent Lineage', 'Notes on Dangerous Magical Creatures', and 'Compendium of Medieval Monster Sightings'. She also checked the maturation cycle of Mandrake."

Zabini followed behind. "There's movement from the Board of Governors, too. My mother wrote back saying that Lucius mentioned 'student safety' three times at the dinner party, 'Principal's responsibility' once, and also said that the Board cannot watch the school turn into a testing ground."

Draco's expression was grim. "He knows there's a Basilisk in the school, yet he's still pushing this."

"He knows there's trouble, but he doesn't necessarily know the trouble will eat people." Zabini glanced at Draco. "Nobles often make this mistake when setting up schemes. They think the fire will only burn someone else's curtains."

Draco wanted to refute, but in the end, he only pulled his robe sleeves tighter.

Allen stopped on the stair landing. "Draco, keep acting. The more you seem like you know nothing, the less Lucius will be in a hurry to cut you off."

"My father will treat me like a fool."

"That is safe for you."

Draco's expression soured further. "Sounds like a real honor."

Nott handed a small notebook to Allen. "There's one more thing. Pucey and Flint were talking about fifty years ago in the common room, hinting that Hagrid should have been locked in Azkaban back then. The upper years have started connecting Hagrid and Harry's Parseltongue, wanting to crush Gryffindor."

Allen turned a page. "Let them talk."

Draco looked up sharply. "Let them talk? They'll make a big scene."

"If they make a big scene, the Professors will act." Allen returned the notebook to Nott. "Tom needs panic, and we need patrols. If the panic is too small, students run around; if the panic is big enough, the Professors will seal off the paths."

Zabini nodded. "Borrowing the enemy's drum to beat our own rhythm."

"Don't write that in your family letters," Allen said.

Zabini chuckled. "I value my life."

Evening, Library.

Hermione sat by the window, her hair as messy as if it had just fought with a bookshelf. The pile of books in front of her grew higher and higher, and her quill listed evidence on the parchment one by one: snakes, lifespan, pipes, line of sight, petrification, Myrtle, fifty years ago.

Harry and Ron went to Hagrid's hut, leaving her alone to research.

Allen sat in the shadows in the distance, with the extra essay assigned by Snape spread out in front of him. The title was written neatly, but the content only had three lines.

Incorrect application of snake venom in compound antidotes, first point, misidentification of the source of the toxin.

Second point, incorrect assumption of the contact path.

Third point, incorrect belief in surface symptoms.

He stopped writing and watched as Hermione pulled an index card from "Notes on Dangerous Magical Creatures" and rushed toward the edge of the Restricted Section, only to be stopped by Madam Pince with a feather duster.

"Miss Granger, second-year students are not authorized to borrow dangerous creature materials with red seals."

Hermione clutched the book, speaking very quickly. "But this is for the Chamber of Secrets incident, and the Professors also hope students will improve their safety awareness."

Madam Pince pulled the book back. "The Professors hope students won't tear the Library into ruins."

"Then can I look at the catalog?"

"No."

"What about the index?"

"No."

"The classification number on the spine?"

Madam Pince said with a cold face, "You have already looked for three seconds."

Hermione retreated to her seat and immediately wrote down the classification number.

Allen withdrew his gaze. "One last step to go."

Nott sat down opposite him. "What did you say?"

"She needs one page of information," Allen said. "Something that can tie the Basilisk's line of sight, lifespan, and pipes all together."

Nott looked toward Madam Pince's counter. "The Restricted Section?"

"It's in the non-Restricted Section too. The old edition of 'Addendum to Dangerous Magical Creature Ratings', third row of the Ravenclaw bookshelf, blue cover, the cover is cracked."

Nott didn't ask how Allen knew; he just wrote down the book title. "Do you want me to lead her there?"

"No need." Allen watched Hermione get up again. "She will find it herself."

Sure enough, Hermione walked toward the Ravenclaw bookshelf.

She first pulled out the wrong book, "Record of European Water Monster Calls", flipped through two pages, frowned, and shoved it back. Then she stopped in front of the old blue book, her finger sliding down the classification number on the spine, and pulled out the addendum with the cracked cover.

Allen heard the pages turning in the distance.

One page, two pages, three pages.

Hermione's movements stopped.

She laid the book flat, leaned her whole body toward the table, and her quill wrote rapidly. Halfway through, she looked up toward the window, as if she had finally pieced all the scattered fragments into a complete map.

Ron and Harry rushed in from the door.

"Hagrid wouldn't say clearly." Harry lowered his voice. "He only said Aragog didn't kill anyone and that we shouldn't be asking."

Ron's face was deathly pale. "Aragog has a bunch of children. A whole bunch. Hagrid talked about it like he was introducing refreshments."

Hermione pushed the parchment to them. "The spider is not the answer. The Basilisk is. It can live for hundreds of years, moves through pipes, looking directly at it causes death, and seeing it indirectly causes petrification."

Harry looked at the paper, his finger pressing on the two characters for "Basilisk." "So what I heard was it."

"Yes," Hermione said. "The entrance is very likely where Myrtle died, the Second Floor Girls Lavatory."

Ron closed his eyes. "I knew we'd have to go to the Girls Bathroom again."

Hermione shoved the mirror into her bag. "We'll confirm the information first, then tell the Professors."

Allen closed his essay.

Inside the Portable Space, the Void's tail tip tapped next to Hermione's name. A faint sound came from the golden patterns on the north side, and a massive weight moved slowly deep within the pipes, then stopped.

It was listening.

Allen looked out the window; the sky had already darkened.

"She is only one step away from the truth," Nott said.

"Tom knows it too." Allen stood up. "Starting tonight, keep a close watch on her route back to Gryffindor."

Draco walked out from the other side of the bookshelf. "I'll have Pansy pass a message to the girls' side, saying Filch is checking for night-walkers tonight."

"That's not enough," Allen said. "Filch can only catch people; he can't catch what's in the pipes."

Zabini tucked his mother's letter into his sleeve. "Then who can catch it?"

Allen did not answer.

Beside the ebony box, the blue light of the cracked pocket watch seeped out along the cracks.

Peter huddled in the corner of the cage, covering his eyes with his hands, as if that would let him avoid the snake from fifty years ago.

Allen looked at the second-floor branch line slowly lighting up on the pipe map and said in a low voice, "First, let it expose its time of action."