Felix spread out the map, placed his hand on it, and quietly muttered, "Albus Dumbledore."
There was no feedback from the map as if there was no such person.
Felix pursed his lips, had already guessed this possibility. He put on his coat and Valen wrapped her scarf around herself, and the two of them walked out of the office without making a sound. After thinking for a moment, Felix walked towards classroom seven.
Slightly ahead of time by a few minutes.
In the abandoned girls' lavatory on the second floor, four people were waiting anxiously. The Moaning Myrtle sat on the flush tank and looked glumly at Harry as he walked around in annoyance, "You guys made another appointment?" The ghost asked.
No one paid her any attention.
After another circle, Harry asked Ron, who was standing in the doorway, "Did you hear any noise?"
"Nope." Ron said, bending over and looking out through the gap in the keyhole as he replied.
"Luna wouldn't have lost track of time, would she?" Harry turned his head to stare at Ginny.
"I think ..."
"Ouch!" Ron suddenly yelped in pain, covering his head and backing away. The door was pushed open with a crack and after a few seconds, the four people and a ghost saw Luna poke her head in, peering cautiously inside, her messy, blonde hair trailing down like a waterfall, and when she saw a grimacing Ron and the others, she raised an eyebrow and grinned.
"Oh - you're all here - how wonderful!" Luna said cheerfully, "I've been looking forward to this secret party for a long time, can we set off the fireworks now?"
"Yuck." Ron said as he rubbed his forehead.
Luna stared at the reddened patch of skin on his head, "What's wrong with you?"
"Well, forget about that for now, Luna." Hermione said, "You're late, and although I don't really want to hear some excuse like oversleeping, it is better than having an accident - one more question, you didn't get caught out, did you?"
"I bumped into Mrs. Norris," said Luna, and the hearts of several people immediately jumped up, "but I transfigured a bunch of rats and fish with my Transfiguration, and she ran off to chase after the rats." With that, she showed the crowd her empty left wrist.
There was supposed to be a string of colourful stone bracelets there.
According to Ginny, they had advertised in the Wall of Mystery tabloid for pretty stones, and after only two days, Luna had received half a box of oddly shaped, colourful little stones, but of course don't expect to find a resurrection stone in it. Luna picked out some of them and made them into a full set of Jewellery for her and Ginny. After many refusals, Ginny eventually ended up receiving a necklace.
Of course, she never wore it outside.
The rest of the stones were also used up without any waste, as the two of them spent their afternoon free time adding a half-stone pathway to a hammock in the clubroom of the 'Crumple-Horned Snorkacks Certainly Exist' club.
"Why did you think it would be a good idea to transfigure up some fishes?" Myrtle asked, with a pair of lowered eyebrows; she was rather interested, judging by the tone of her voice.
"Cat loves to eat fish." Luna said with certainty.
"But live fish don't just appear out of thin air on the floor - live fish, I assume?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, but the cat wouldn't care." Luna said.
Seeing that the conversation was getting more and more skewed, Harry cleared his throat hurriedly, and when the others turned their attention to him, he mustered up the captain's demeanour that he would use at Quidditch practice and said with a serious face, "We need to hurry up, there are three people here who need to get up early for Quidditch team practice tomorrow."
"It's earlier than our usual class time, that's mean, isn't it? I wonder who sets the time." Ron quipped.
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Are you guys going to be arguing here all night? Come on, Harry." Hermione urged.
So Harry positioned his face directly in front of one of the sink's taps, the one with a small snake carved on its side of the tap. "I have a bad feeling," Ron said, trying to splash the cold water, "we should have gone back to the dormitory right away from the moment we came across that statue that appeared out of nowhere--"
"Oh, you just shut up." Ginny said angrily.
"Is there anything wrong with what I said?" Ron yelled in a lowered voice, "You all also saw that statue that appeared out of nowhere - hell, none of us had any impression of it before!"
"It's possible that it was moved over recently." Ginny calmly said.
Ron squinted at her, with a look on his face that suggested that she couldn't be reasoned with. Harry ignored the bickering, even though a shadow was cast over his mind too, what the hell was going on with that statue? He mulled it over for a few seconds and shouted, "Open." A strange hissing sound emanated from his mouth, a blinding white light flared from the tap, and then the sink began to move, slowly sinking to reveal a very wide and deep pipe.
"Thank goodness the entrance wasn't blocked by the professors." Harry said with mixed emotions.
If he had failed, they could have ended their adventure for the night.
Both Ginny and Luna were seeing the chamber of secrets for the first time, and they cautiously put their heads together and looked down carefully. It was pitch black and bottomless. They put various protection spells on themselves, dust preventing barrier, a levitation charm, a supersensory charm, a bubble head charm, and so on, and then held hands together in order to jump down.
"Will there be a little basilisk or something in there?" Myrtle asked with expectation.
"Not likely." Harry said sullenly and disappeared into the entrance to the chamber.
On the other side, Grindelwald walked slowly in the dark corridor, thinking about what he had just overheard. The Chamber of Secrets, the Resurrection Stone ... Is this an adventure among students, or is there a chance that there is indeed some truth in it?
Also, those little guys have some good potential, their senses are pretty sharp.
He grinned, and the tall boy with the red hair and freckled face came to his mind. He had seemed to have glossed over him in the past and not paid much attention to him, but after he had knocked twice hard at his disguised statue self, Grindelwald had decided to focus more on that student named 'Ron Weasley' in the future.
He stopped in front of a door to a room.
Is this the legendary classroom seven? The room where the professors' young memory beings are housed? He was very curious about this and decided to find out. The wand slid over the wooden door like a rapier, leaving a long trail on it.
This was not Grindelwald's own magic, but rather magic that was stored in the gem in his exclusive wand.
It had started out as the magic power that belonged to a young girl from Future World, and then when he arrived at Hogwarts, he began to draw on the magic that had leaked out of the ancient wizarding school that could not be detected or manipulated by normal people. But either way, it is something that is much inferior to what he had once possessed on his own.
When he had finished that, Grindelwald stopped and looked closely at the wooden door.
A light glow rippled over the door, then the traces left on it began to fade, and Grindelwald watched the process silently, catching the sequence of how the traces were fading. He was looking for a way to structure the magic that could bypass the security, and when the traces had completely disappeared, he made another diagonal line with magic power. He kept repeating this action over and over, and after a long while he stopped and fell into contemplation.
After an unknown amount of time, he muttered some words under his breath and pointed his wand at the wooden door. At once, dense lines appeared in the upper left corner of the wooden door, along together in the surrounding wall, they were arranged in an orderly fashion, like a part of an enormous maze. The lines flickered a few times and then disappeared.
Grindelwald kept his eyes half-closed and pulled a half-fragmented image out of his head. Then he did the same process a few times. After a long moment, he opened his eyes and muttered to himself in a low voice, "Ancient Runes?"
At that moment, the sound of footsteps was heard in the distance.
Grindelwald narrowed his eyes and suddenly pointed his wand towards the frosty window, then left the other side without looking back. After ten seconds or so, Felix made his way up slowly.
Valen is sitting on his shoulder, with two small arms embracing his neck, and looking around.
"Kee! (Where's the fun?)"
"Hold on." Felix moved closer, his eyes lingering briefly on the wooden door of classroom seven before he began to look around, and it wasn't long before he was staring at the enchanted window, thoughtfully. The moon outside the window was bright, close to full, and Felix reckoned that the next few days would not be too pleasant for Remus.
The moonlight shone through the thick layer of frost, but there seemed to be something else hidden there.
"Mirror." Felix whispered.
Valen looked at the window curiously, there was clearly nothing there, yet Valen saw the Great Demon King making a few faces at the window. Then Felix went quiet and stood still as if waiting for someone.
Valen didn't realize who it is until Dumbledore showed up in his pyjamas, with his long, shiny silver beard trailing off.
The Great Demon King was staying up at night because of this!
But where were Harry and the others that she had seen on the map? Valen sniffed lightly as she jumped down and looked at Felix.
"Go on, don't let them break my lab equipment." Felix muttered in a quiet voice.
Valen gave him a 'no problem' gesture and darted away, it was quite clear that Dumbledore holds very little appeal in her mind.
The two who remained did not speak for a while.
Dumbledore similarly fixed his gaze on the window. He looked at it with total concentration for a moment, then reached out his palm and pressed it down towards the window - the window dented as if it was made of rubber, and when he pulled his hand back, the glass bounced back on its own.
Dumbledore stared deeply at the glass and seemed to see the shadow of some other person through the window. Finally, the magic on it disappeared.
The two men made their way out along the corridor, whispering to each other.
"About Harry-"
"I know all about it."
There was a moment of silence. This time it was Dumbledore who spoke first.
"What is Tom's current situation?"
"Coincidentally, he too has only just discovered the Chamber of Secrets, but because of my attention, no one died this time, he received a detention, and I punished him by making him polish the trophies in the Trophy Room, and copy the school rules."
"You see how closely he keeps an eye on it."
"There's always a difference. The resistance from Voldemort's subconscious is getting stronger and stronger, and I reckon that there is only a month or two left before the final phase, at which point it would be essential to begin ... any suggestions?"
"If you want to stop him from falling into the darkness, you must not allow him to kill." Dumbledore paused and said in a quiet tone, "Once something goes wrong there is no turning back. I hope he will experience what it feels like to love and be loved, even if it is an illusion."
"... Albus, what do you think, about me being the villain?"
Dumbledore stopped in his tracks, his eyes staring at Felix under the half-moon lenses.
"You know, to take the path of Voldemort." Felix shrugged, "Maybe it could even confuse the subconscious of the original self, since a Dark Lord is meant to appear in any case, it'd be good for me to do it instead, let Tom stop me - or compete with me."
"A very dangerous attempt," Dumbledore shook his head, "Voldemort has no love in his heart. You will only hasten his plunge into darkness."
"Nah, he'll pretend and act for a while." Felix said, in a tone that filled with eagerness to try this fun, "And in the meantime, I will find a bunch of 'helpers' for him, that is a mess he can't shake off lightly."
Dumbledore suddenly looked at him with an odd expression on his face.
"... You seem to be planning something, what is it?" Felix looked on guard.
Dumbledore smiled, "Just thought you had a point ... about the mess you can't shake off lightly, yes, that's it. But you have to be very careful." He murmured at the end.
In the abandoned girls' lavatory, Moaning Myrtle floated around in mid-air.
"A Niffler? A Niffler?" She asked with great interest, "You're the one that Professor Hap has? I've seen you from a distance." She began to circle around Valen and said in a cheerful tone that didn't match her sad face, " But I'm afraid to go near ... I'm a bit afraid of him, and I have seen how he taught the Peeves a lesson."
Valen looked at the Moaning Myrtle suspiciously, and after thinking for a moment, she pulled a small jar out of her pocket containing a serving of ghost food. She screwed open the lid and Myrtle leaned in closer and asked incredulously, "For me?" After receiving an affirmative nod, she reached straight out with a chubby, transparent hand, and it passed through Valen's small hand and the jar, dragging out a bright silvery cloud of light.
Valen shivered, her hand felt like it was submerged in ice water.
"I didn't think there would be a midnight snack." Myrtle said swooningly, the transparent acne on her face glowing slightly as she took small bites of her food, all the while speaking away with relish, "Seriously, I have not felt much joy since I barged in on Olive Hornby's brother's wedding and was ordered by the Ministry of Magic to return to school... ...I'm the youngest one and have nothing to talk about with the other ghosts ... Sometimes I have thought about killing myself, but then I realize I'm already dead ... It's the ghost food that makes me feel alive, but this is just a matter of handshakes for Professor Hap I guess he doesn't care, does he? Except for Bloody Baron and Ms. Gray, I have not seen him interact much with other ghosts, a cold and indifferent person ..."
Valen pulled out a bottle of super bubble blowing liquid, puffed out her cheeks, and blew a huge bubble that wrapped around herself, then she turned and waved her hand at Myrtle. She floated and swooped into the Chamber of Secrets. Myrtle jumped in shock and plunged her head back into the flush tank.
Myrtle floated out of the toilet and looked down at the chamber of secrets through the entrance, only to see a glowing light purple bubble getting smaller and smaller in her vision.
Inside the Chamber of Secrets.
Harry felt like he was wasting his time. They had been searching through the chamber for half an hour, as Ron was telling the time every ten minutes, so he remembered perfectly well. And Luna thought Ron was helping, so every time he opened his mouth Luna thanked him.
Now that some more time had passed without him chiming in, Harry wondered if Ron had become too embarrassed to take on this task again.
Apart from not finding the Resurrection Stone, everything was going well.
They went through the long tunnel and revisited this ancient chamber again. Harry introduced them to the place where the Basilisk had molted, "We were nearly scared to death!" Ron said excitedly, "But not anymore."
"Oh, that thing was blown to bits by Professors Hap and Snape." Hermione said.
Ron muttered something and stopped talking.
Then they went through another door to the actual Chamber of Secrets. Harry could still recall from the ruins of broken stones and giant snake-coiled stone pillars how they had fought off the Basilisk, and Ron and Hermione looked up at each other with a silent smile.
For that reason alone, Harry felt that this trip down here is worth it.
But they also saw quite a few new things, such as the rows of black stone targets erected in the clearing in front of the huge statue of Salazar Slytherin, which seemed to have been created out of the ground. The targets had suffered terrible abuse - at least a third of them had been molten at once, Harry thought - and the ground was scattered with teardrop-like small, solidified pebbles, as shiny as crystal.
"Well, there are enough stones around here." Ron said, half-jokingly, and half enthusiastically.
Hermione stretched out her hand and used illumination, sending balls of milky light up to the high ceiling and the chamber instantly became as bright as day. After that, they began a long, futile search for the Resurrection Stone, but with those gem-like stones on the ground, they wouldn't exactly leave empty-handed.
When Harry picked up a fiery red stone without any hint of impurities in the size of a pine nut, he even felt a little regret. He thought to himself that it would have been better if Ginny hadn't come. Then he could have secretly made a necklace for her, but right now Ginny was crouching happily on the ground with Luna looking for jewellery materials.
"Snap pop!"
There was an echoing sound from the distance, followed by the sound of a "da-da-da-da" approaching them at a rapid pace. Harry held his wand up, looking the way they had come, while Ron gulped nervously.
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