Archaeologists at Hogwarts

Chapter 175 The Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk

There is no doubt that the Chamber of Secrets is behind this wall, and the two intertwined snakes carved on it are the symbol of Salazar Slytherin.

Especially the emeralds inlaid in the eyes are more in line with the symbol of Slytherin House.

Al sat on the flying carpet and floated in front of the wall. He fiddled with the pattern engraved on it for a while, but this simple method alone could not open the door of the secret room.

"Yeah." It looked back at Toby with a questioning look.

But Toby was looking into the tunnel behind him.

"Wait for a while." He said, "There is still a road there, let's go and have a look first, anyway, the secret room cannot escape here."

Of course Al would not object to Toby's opinion, they carried the cage and walked towards another dark tunnel.

But Al still didn't understand why Toby did this.

"Because it's too simple." Toby said in a heavy voice: "The legend of the secret room has been passed down for so many years, but we have easily found it. Of course, it may also be because those people only focused on the castle itself and gave up the black room. The clue of the lake is still too simple."

"Don't forget, Al, being cautious is the reason why we can survive exploring so many ancient ruins."

They turned the bend into a long tunnel, and stopped together, seeing something in the darkness.

Al took out the magic ball, and Toby was ready to make the rooster crow, while raising his wand and saying aloud, "Lumos."

A cluster of light gathered at the tip of the staff, and the light shone on a pair of huge snake skin, which was green and very bright, at first glance it looked like the skin of a poisonous snake, coiled and lying on the ground of the tunnel, the inside was empty.Apparently the animal that had shed its skin was at least twenty feet long.

Al's eyes widened, "Yeah."

"Yeah." Toby walked up to the snake skin and looked it over carefully: "This should be the shedding skin of the snake monster in the secret room. It looks really scary. But at least it will let us know what we are going to face later. let's go."

He turned and walked back, Al looked reluctant.

"Don't worry." Toby comforted: "Sooner or later, this will become our collection. It is very suitable as a material for ritual magic, so that it can be used for sacrifices, um. This will be treated as a course for the next semester, and it can also be given to us. Headmaster Dumbledore has a surprise."

Al nodded excitedly, it couldn't wait.

But when he walked back to the wall again, Toby couldn't help but looked at another tunnel in doubt, which was also the passage they entered through the Black Lake.

"Will Slytherin leave two passages, as a backup escape route? Who else can he guard against?"

"...I'm afraid it's just the other three founders. I wish that wasn't the case."

Forcibly breaking through the wall is a stupid decision. Toby would never do such a method in the ancient ruins in the first place. It would be too reckless and would damage the few ancient magic items, or valuable knowledge.

Al took out a lot of various instruments from his pocket familiarly, including silverware with complicated shapes, and some ancient items like rag dolls and bones.

"let's start."

Waiting for the door to be successfully opened, Toby said.
-
Compared with last year's Christmas, the atmosphere of this year's dinner party is really not that good.

Headmaster Dumbledore still didn't come back, which wasn't very common, and according to Hagrid, the headmaster never missed the Christmas dinner every year.

During dinner, Harry even began to appreciate that thanks to Lockhart's presence, he was able to liven up the atmosphere no matter what the occasion-of course, it wasn't always all cheerful, and many times it was annoying.

Harry and Ron had just finished their third Christmas pudding when Hermione led them out of the Great Hall to carry out their plans for the evening.

"We still need some things for the people we're going to be," Hermione said casually, as if she were sending them off to the supermarket to buy washing powder, "Needless to say, if you can get Crabbe and Goyle or something stuff, that's the best thing; they're Malfoy's best friends, and he'll tell them everything. We also need to make sure that when we interrogate Malfoy, the real Crabbe and Goofy don't Er broke in."

"I've got it all planned out," she continued, ignoring the stunned expressions on Harry's and Ron's faces.She held up two chocolate cakes. "I've put ordinary sleeping pills in here. You just have to make sure Crabbe and Goyle find them. You know how hungry their mouths are, and they'll eat them. As soon as they're both asleep, Just pull out a few hairs of both of them, and hide them both in the broom cupboard."

Harry and Ron looked at each other in disbelief.

"Hermione, I don't think—"

"That could be a big mistake—"

But Hermione's eyes shone with a strong light like iron, which was quite similar to Professor McGonagall's eyes sometimes.

"Without Crabbe and Goyle's hair, the potion wouldn't work," she said firmly. "You're trying to censor Malfoy, aren't you?"

"Oh, well, well," said Harry, "but what do you do? Whose hair are you going to pull?"

"I've got mine!" said Hermione happily, taking a vial out of her pocket and showing them a hair in it, "Remember when Millicent wrestled with me in the Dueling Club? She left this on my dress while trying to choke my neck! She's home for Christmas - I just have to tell the Slytherins I've decided to come back."

Hermione hurried off to check on the Polyjuice Potion again, and Ron turned to Harry with a doomed expression on his face.

"Have you ever heard of a plan where so many things could go wrong?"

However, to Harry and Ron's great surprise, the first phase of the operation, as Hermione said, went smoothly.They had sneaked into the deserted hall after Christmas tea to wait for Crabbe and Goyle, left alone at the Slytherin table, wolfing down their fourth muffin.Harry had placed the chocolate cake by the railing.Harry and Ron hid behind a suit of armor by the main entrance when they saw Crabbe and Goyle coming out of the Great Hall.

"How stupid you are!" said Ron ecstatically.He saw Crabbe happily pointing to the cake, showing it to Goyle, and grabbing it in his hand.They grinned silly and stuffed the cake whole into their big mouths.For a moment, the two chewed greedily, their faces looking triumphant.Then, without seeing the slightest change in their expressions, they rolled back and fell to the floor.

The hardest thing to do is to hide them in the locker across the hall.After a while, however, they were finally safe and secure between the mop and the bucket.Harry hastily plucked the two bristly short hairs from Goyle's forehead, while Ron pulled out a few of Crabbe's hairs.They also stole Crabbe and Goyle's shoes, because their own shoes would not fit Crabbe and Goyle's big feet.Then they sprint to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, still reeling from what they've just done.

Hermione was still stirring the cauldron in the cubicle, and puffs of thick black smoke rose from the cauldron, making it almost impossible for them to see anything.Harry and Ron pulled their robes up over their faces and knocked softly on the door.

"Hermione?"

They heard the door lock snap and Hermione appeared, her face glowing and anxious.Behind her, they heard the bubbling, gurgling, bubbling of the syrupy soup.Three tumblers were already on the toilet seat.

"Got it?" Hermione asked, breathlessly.

Harry showed her Goyle's hair.

"Fine. I stole these changes from the laundry room," said Hermione, holding up a small cloth bag. "When you become Crabbe and Goyle, you need to wear oversized clothes."

Three people stared into the cauldron.Up close, the decoction looked like a dark, viscous slurry, bubbling lazily.

"I'm sure everything I've arranged is all right," said Hermione, nervously reading the stained page of "Powerful Potions." "It looks exactly as it says... we After drinking it, it can take a full hour to change back to ourselves."

"What now?" Ron asked quietly.

"We'll divide it into three cups, and then add our hair." Hermione said as she picked up a long-handled spoon, intending to pour out the Polyjuice Potion, but at this moment, she saw Harry's expression was a little bit abnormal?

"What's the matter, Harry?" she asked. "Any questions?"

"Shh!" Harry suddenly made a silent gesture, and Ron and Hermione saw him walk out of the cubicle and pace near the sink.

Now that the two of them didn't care about the Polyjuice Potion, they hurried after Harry.

"What's the matter?" Ron's tone was a little horrified, he was frightened by Harry's inexplicable behavior.

Hermione asked as if remembering something: "Is it a basilisk?"

Harry nodded slightly, then continued to listen carefully to the sudden cold voice.

"Don't want to kill. Stay away from me. No."

The two saw that Harry immediately became agitated, and he spoke in Parseltongue again, making a hissing sound: "What's wrong with you? Where are you?"

But the cold voice didn't have time to answer him at all, and the next words surprised Harry.

"You will not succeed Toby Highmore help open!"

Amidst the low, hoarse hissing sound, a faucet in the pool suddenly emitted a dazzling white light and began to spin rapidly.Then, the pool moved.They watched the pool slowly disappear from view, revealing a pipe so thick that a person could slip through it.

Ron gasped, and Hermione watched the scene dumbfounded.

Shocked, Harry said, "It's Professor Highmore who's really trying to control the basilisk."

"What—no!"

Before Ron could finish his sentence, he saw Harry suddenly covered his forehead and fell into the water pipe.

He and Hermione quickly reached out to pull Harry back, but they were thrown into it together.

It felt like rushing down a dark, sticky, endless chute.They could see that there were many other pipes branching out in all directions, but none were as thick as this one.Their pipe twists and turns, twists and turns, and the slope is very steep all the way down.Harry knew he had slipped deep, deep under the school floor, even deeper than the dungeons.He could hear Ron and Hermione following him, clinking lightly around the bend.

Then, just as he was starting to worry about what was coming, he dropped to the ground suddenly.The pipe became horizontal, and he emerged from the spout, plopping to the wet ground.It was a dark stone tunnel, big enough for a man to stand in.Not far from him, Hermione was getting up from the ground.Harry stood aside, rubbing his brow, and Ron burst out of the tube with a whoosh.

"Where are we?" Hermione said, "What happened to you just now?"

"I don't know." Harry was still clutching his forehead: "Maybe the basilisk is asking me for help, after all I am the heir."

"How is this possible?" Ron asked in surprise.

"Listen!" Harry suddenly pointed to the other end of the tunnel, "Did you hear that?"

Both Hermione and Ron heard loud noises coming from nowhere, like explosives exploding, or something huge was rolling around.

"Maybe it's the Chamber of Secrets." Hermione observed the surrounding environment and said, "We must be several miles below the school, and the Chamber of Secrets may be hidden inside."

"We have to stop Professor Highmore!" Harry raised his wand and said, "Go, before it's too late. At least... at least we can't turn all the Slytherin guys into Snapes."

He looked very excited, and ran deeper into the tunnel holding up the light ball on the wand in his hand.

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look, then hurried after him too.

Now they have no way out, they can't go back to the castle, they can only move on.

Ron said to himself in a pleading tone: "Merlin, please don't make Professor Highmore an enemy."

On the other side, in front of the wall of the secret room, all of Al's methods failed, and Toby could only make it back, cast the explosive spell, and blast the wall away.

This is the last method, and it is impossible for Toby to continue to delay the time.

Accompanied by the violent explosion, the wall turned into stones and flew down one after another, and the emeralds in the carved eyes turned into countless fragments. Al immediately poked the rooster with his claws, making it crow loudly.

The door of the secret room was forced open.

At a glance, Toby saw the half-dead basilisk lying in the center of the hall, rolling feebly, obviously affected by the crowing of the rooster, which was the fatal weakness of the basilisk.

Al took the time to stretch out his paw and point to the front and shouted, "Ah!"

Toby also saw it. In the deepest part of the hall, there was a statue of the same height. Looking up, on that huge face was an old, monkey-like face with a sparse long beard. Trailing almost to the hem of the wizard's robes carved in stone, two large gray feet stood on the smooth floor of the room.

Weak Basilisk.

With a statue of Slytherin himself.

Toby walked up to the basilisk and took out the black feather from the pocket of the witch robe.

"It's time to find out," he said.

Al watched this scene curiously—the black feathers floated to the basilisk's head, turning into a black mist and covering it, forming two transparent, blurred figures.

Then the figure gradually became clearer.

Al controlled the rooster to continue crowing, and it suddenly looked at Toby with shocked eyes.

Despite being covered by a hood, Toby's figure still became serious and serious.

Of the two figures, one of them was Salazar Slytherin himself, identical to the statue in the Chamber of Secrets.

On the other hand, Toby and Al have also seen each other's statues.

The fifth founder of Hogwarts disappeared - House of the Centaur.

(End of this chapter)