Chapter 146: Solving The Riddle
Weekend morning.
The cold wind howled outside the window.
Melvin pushed open half the window, and cold fresh air surged into the room, waking him up completely.
In the deep winter season, which happened to be hibernation time for snakes, the basilisk was determined to stay in its statue nest and refused to come out. He didn’t know Parseltongue, so to lure the basilisk out for a spin near Gryffindor Tower, he had to spend a lot of effort and catch a batch of spiders for barbecue, placing them in the pipes as bait.
Almost collided with Moaning Myrtle, who was ghosting back to the bathroom.
He had finished working last night at dawn, and since it was the sleeping season, even though his mind was awake, his body was still a bit lazy.
Fine snowflakes carried by the wind fell on him, cool and refreshing. The grounds were a vast white expanse, the Black Lake was frozen, the Forbidden Forest was draped in silver, and the more distant Hogsmeade was completely obscured.
Melvin’s exhaled breath turned into a puff of white mist, quietly dissipating. He closed the window, turned, and walked into the bathroom to wash up, brush his teeth, and change out of his pajamas.
By his calculations, Hermione and the others should soon pinpoint the basilisk, and the exact location of the Chamber of Secrets wouldn’t be far behind…
A good play was about to begin.
Another good play was still in rehearsal.
Since last month, the Muggle Studies Great Classroom on weekends had become the Drama Club’s activity room, where they discussed scripts, read lines around the table, and rehearsed. Even without serious business, the Drama Club students liked to huddle here chatting.
When Melvin arrived in the classroom after breakfast, the Drama Club had already assembled. Neville and Marietta stood at the front of the lectern, while the other club members sat below, summarizing the experience from the last rehearsal together and discussing places in the script that could be changed and optimized.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”
The Drama Club students turned their heads, looking at the professor with surprise.
Neville and Marietta were still a bit reserved, giving him a shy smile: “Good morning, Professor Levent.”
“How’s the rehearsal going?”
“A few lines need revising. Neville finished them last night and is now soliciting opinions from the others.”
“Rehearse it once with the revised script, let me see.”
“Ah?”
“What are you standing around for?” Melvin urged with a smile. “I’m in a hurry. There’s another good play I need to watch. Move quickly.”
“Oh, oh…”
The club members bustled about in a flurry. The actors hurried to put on their homemade crude costumes, while the others set up the stage and placed decorations, making it look quite proper.
Melvin saw many familiar faces.
The actor playing Sir Cadogan was Hufflepuff’s Cedric, already a handsome young man. Dressed in silver-white armor from who-knows-which floor, he gained a touch of heroic bearing, holding a lance in one hand and a wand in the other, looking even more striking and outstanding.
He looked much better than Sir Cadogan in the portrait.
Slytherin’s Marcus, somehow selected, teamed up with Ravenclaw’s Roger to play the two pure-blood wizards who mocked the knight midway, perfectly capturing the annoying villain vibe.
In charge of stage management was Weasley’s Percy. Perhaps due to his prefect experience, he directed things in an orderly manner, though the actress playing the female lead was his girlfriend Penelope, which made his expression a bit sour.
Prop-making mainly relied on the handicrafts of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff club members. Cho Chang and Luna contributed a lot. The most important two-legged dragon in the story was Luna’s idea: hang a few tree branches with curtains, then use Transfiguration to adorn and decorate it. At first glance, it looked remarkably lifelike.
Compared to these outstanding older upper-year students, Neville and Marietta seemed less prominent.
But Melvin knew the specifics. These people had all been selected and appointed after their discussions. Many controversial points were decided by the two of them. When debates were intense and hard to resolve, they would even invoke him, their professor.
After months of training, the two might not yet match Percy and Cedric, but they had shown clear growth.
With cooperation from all sides, the stage was soon set up almost completely.
“No matter how ferocious the dragon, someone must stand up!”
“Mount my steed and charge!”
“…”
The play put together by students without relevant experience was not as good as Nic’s ghost theater, and with Melvin watching, many actors and stage crew were nervous, leading to inevitable mistakes.
A few girls’ voices trembled when reciting lines, and Cedric spoke too quickly. The performance effect was only average.
Melvin sat in the audience, not interrupting once during the entire performance. When the curtain finally fell, the club members gathered, anxiously and expectantly awaiting the professor’s judgment.
“To be honest, there are many shortcomings…”
Melvin briefly pointed out some flaws, then raised his voice slightly as he saw the disappointed expressions: “But it’s much better than I expected. It probably won’t make Christmas, but I’ll apply to Professor McGonagall to reserve a stage in the Great Hall for the Easter banquet.”
Many little wizards lifted their heads, showing joyful expressions. Some had a glint in their eyes.
“What about the projection mirror screening?” Hufflepuff’s Justin asked.
Melvin gave a gentle smile: “That depends on your performance.”
……
“Bang!”
A thick book was slammed on the table, making a dull thud.
“I told you I remembered reading it somewhere! It was this book—”
In the library corner by the window, Hermione sat on a stool, pointing it out to Harry and Ron across from her: “The natural enemy of the Acromantula has bright yellow eyes. Combined with what Harry said about it being a snake-like creature, it can only be that!”
“Basilisk?”
Harry looked at the crude illustration in the book and read its name.
“Yes!”
Hermione nodded emphatically: “Magical Creatures expert Mr. Newt Scamander said that in Britain, there haven’t been sightings of a basilisk for at least four hundred years. That sentence threw off my judgment. When you told me this morning that the Chamber of Secrets monster is a snake, it clicked right away.”
“The basilisk’s eyes can instantly kill any person or animal whose gaze meets theirs.
“Spiders fear the basilisk because it has 360-degree vision and cannot close its eyes, making it easy for them to meet the basilisk’s gaze…
Ron quietly read this passage aloud, a bit uneasy. He looked up at the two: “I still don’t get it. Why was Harry so sure last night, just from hearing Parseltongue, that the Chamber of Secrets monster is some kind of snake?”
“It’s not just the sound I heard last night, but also Professor Levent’s hint. He once had me demonstrate a bit of Parseltongue.”
Harry explained, then scratched his head: “Now that I think about it, during duelling practice, the professor gave me an eye signal too, but I didn’t catch that meaning.”
“That doesn’t matter. Anyway, we’ve found the real culprit now! I should have noticed earlier. The basilisk is a monster bred by the infamous dark wizard Herpo. Salazar Slytherin spoke Parseltongue and was skilled in Dark Magic, so breeding a basilisk is perfectly normal…”
Hermione muttered to herself for a bit, then quickly frowned again: “But where exactly is the basilisk hiding?”
Harry saw Madam Pince casting a predatory glare their way, realizing they’d caught the librarian’s attention, so he lowered his voice:
“Let’s ask Moaning Myrtle again. She’s the only one who’s seen the monster. She didn’t know it was a basilisk before, but now that she knows the monster’s true identity, she might remember some other clue.”
“Good reasoning!”
The three left the library and soon arrived at Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.
Moaning Myrtle had a reputation for being temperamental, so few girls wanted to use this second-floor toilet, but inside the bathroom, it wasn’t as bad as imagined. Due to long disuse, there was no sewage on the floor and no bad smells.
Harry and Ron tiptoed, looking very uncomfortable, glancing back now and then, always worried someone would notice them entering the girls’ toilet.
They pushed open the third compartment. The toilet and tank sat quietly there.
“The floor is dry,” Hermione said with a frown. “Moaning Myrtle hasn’t been here in days. Lavender hasn’t mentioned anyone getting splashed with toilet water by her recently either…”
“Maybe she’s not here anymore?” Harry asked.
Ron scratched his head: “Could she be like Nic, her mind messed up by Professor Levent’s philosophy?”
“…”
The three fell silent.
Just as the investigation stalled again, a translucent figure poked her head out from the wall. A plump round face, half obscured by bangs and thick-framed glasses. The ghost girl stared straight at Harry, her tone resentful:
“So it’s you lot…”
“Moaning Myrtle! Great!” Harry breathed a sigh of relief. “We thought you’d moved out.”
Last time they investigated the Hagrid suspicion, they’d questioned this victim. She was at the Deathday party too, listening to Professor Levent talk philosophy with them. Probably because she died relatively late, she was still young among ghosts and hadn’t been driven to self-doubt by the philosophy.
Moaning Myrtle gave them a deep look: “It’s not like you don’t sneak in at midnight making weird noises, scaring me so I didn’t dare come back.”
Harry was stunned: “Who sneaks in at midnight?”
“Wasn’t it you?”
Moaning Myrtle was also stunned: “Lately someone’s been coming to the bathroom at midnight, always making weird mist and strange hissing sounds. I thought it was some dark wizard or monster. I was too scared to come back. When I did, I hid in the next stall. I heard you talking just now and thought you were the midnight visitors…”
Harry gave a thoughtful look.
“Of course not us. Who night-prowls in the girls’ toilet?” Ron retorted logically.
No one paid attention to his rebuttal. Hermione looked at the ghost hovering in midair: “Moaning Myrtle, we’ve figured out the monster that killed you. It wasn’t an Acromantula, it was a basilisk. We came to ask if you have… any clues.”
“Basilisk… so it was a basilisk…”
Upon hearing the monster was a basilisk, Moaning Myrtle’s eyes turned melancholic and sad. Tears gradually filled her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
The short plump ghost girl gazed at the tiles on the wall, lost in a daze.
She remembered that year, after being bullied and insulted, hiding in the toilet to cry secretly, just to vent her grievances and anger. She heard a boy’s voice and thought it was someone with a similar experience. When she turned, she met a pair of bright yellow eyes, and her life stopped forever at age twelve.
The Ministry of Magic couldn’t uncover the truth, and Mr. Dumbledore was powerless too. In the end, they only identified an Acromantula and expelled a Gryffindor student.
Not knowing the real culprit, she blamed it on those who had insulted her back then. If not for them, she wouldn’t have hidden in the toilet crying, and if not in the toilet, she wouldn’t have died mysteriously.
In the early years as a ghost, she had taken revenge full of hatred on those who insulted her. She still remembered the name: Olive Hornby.
He had clung to her during school, intimidating her in corners, disturbing her sleep. Even after graduation, he wouldn’t let go, even causing a scene at her wedding, until Hornby left Britain.
After Olive Hornby left, Moaning Myrtle Warren fell into complete confusion. Her Muggle parents couldn’t see ghosts, so she could only wander Hogwarts forever, occupying this bathroom and being an annoying female ghost.
“Moaning Myrtle, Moaning Myrtle?”
Hermione called a few times, but Moaning Myrtle was lost in past memories, her expression dazed, as if she hadn’t heard.
The little witch pursed her lips, hesitated briefly, but didn’t continue calling this poor victim. She turned and gave Harry and Ron a look, signaling to end it here for today.
Harry and Ron nodded silently.
As they turned to leave the bathroom, Harry stopped, suddenly remembering something. He began scanning the entire room: broken tiles, old wooden door, sink covered in stains.
“What are you looking for?” Hermione asked quietly.
Harry stepped closer to examine things in the bathroom, explaining as he searched: “Remember when Professor Levent had me demonstrate Parseltongue? Myrtle just said someone comes here at midnight making strange sounds. I suspect it’s Parseltongue, the Parseltongue command to open the Chamber of Secrets.”
“You mean… the Chamber of Secrets is hidden here!”
As Hermione spoke, she connected many things, murmuring her deduction: “No one else in school has seen the basilisk because the Chamber of Secrets is hidden in the bathroom. The basilisk had just left the Chamber when it encountered Myrtle.
“Killing her was an accident the true Heir didn’t expect, so he made the basilisk retreat back into the Chamber.
“The murder alarmed the Ministry of Magic, the matter became too big, and the Heir feared exposure of his identity, so he never opened the Chamber again.”
The three were excited. Now, all clues connected, unveiling the truth of the Chamber of Secrets case from fifty years ago.
They searched the bathroom intently, trying to find the mechanism to open the Chamber. There weren’t many things in the room, so checking them one by one, they soon discovered a snake engraving on the side of the copper faucet.
Harry steadied his rapid breathing, recalling Professor Levent’s hint. He leaned close and hissed softly in Parseltongue: “Open.”
As the words fell, the faucet emitted a burst of white light and began spinning rapidly, along with the sink. Under the three’s gaze, the white light faded, revealing a wide pipe mouth.
It was pitch black inside.
The three stared in shock at the changes before them. Harry was about to speak when a translucent figure floated by, flashing past and vanishing into the thick pipe.
“Moaning Myrtle!”
