The days at Hogwarts

"Why doesn't anyone take care of that monster in the bathroom?"

……

Myrtle kept muttering to herself, ignoring Loren beside her. She subconsciously floated towards the cubicle and curled up in the toilet.

Loren opened her mouth but couldn't say anything. Yes, why, why was fate so cruel to a young girl.

In such a short life, life did not give her any courtesy or preferential treatment.

Chapter 174 Weird Snake Picture

"I should have discovered that the toilet was broken earlier, Myrtle wouldn't have had to live in such a damp place for so long." A gentle and old voice sounded beside him.

Loren glanced at Dumbledore: "Headmaster, when did you come?"

"When you fix the toilet." Dumbledore said with a gentle smile, to Myrtle and Loren.

Dumbledore stroked Loren's hair, as if hoping to remove the little resentment that he himself was not aware of. "Hogwarts will reserve a place for her to stay forever, until a little wizard like you helps her accept death."

"Leave a toilet and a toilet, right?" Loren rolled his eyes and slapped the big hand on his head. "Also, don't give me any weird tasks. I can't do it."

Dumbledore smiled and said, "It's not a task, it's a beautiful vision."

"Let's get down to business. The two of us don't know Parseltongue and we might not even be able to enter the Chamber of Secrets."

Loren was too lazy to argue with him about this matter. If he said too much, he might be set up. He turned around and began to observe the row of copper faucets on the sink.

"Relax, a kind-hearted person helped me to find the way last week." Dumbledore waved his wand, and a small flower snake gradually took shape in the accumulated water, attracting the attention of the two.

It seemed that Voldemort had personally taken Dumbledore to the Chamber of Secrets for a night tour, and that his password had been learned, leaving him with nothing but his underwear. Loren mourned for Voldemort for three seconds in his heart.

The small flower snake twisted its slender body and crawled up from the edge of the pool, wrapping itself around a copper faucet. A snake-shaped pattern was engraved on the side of the copper pipe.

Most of the tail was hanging on the dragon's head, and the little flower snake's head was supported in the air, making a "hiss~hiss!" sound towards the snake pattern.

The faucet emitted a dazzling white light and began to spin rapidly. The small flower snake wrapped around it turned into flowing water and fell into the pool, melting into the water. The entire sink slowly disappeared from sight, revealing a very thick water pipe underneath, with a diameter that was roughly large enough for a person to crawl into.

"It seems that I haven't suffered from Alzheimer's disease yet. Although I don't understand the meaning of snake language, I can still reproduce the same sound..." Dumbledore looked proud.

Loren craned his neck to look at the pipe. The smell of the sewer came from the pipe, which was dirty, dark, and bottomless. With the light from the bathroom, he could see the wet slime near the entrance.

He stepped back a few steps, held out his hand and said, "Principal, you have experience, please go first."

Dumbledore smiled and shook his head, then tapped Loren's clothes with his wand. Loren felt a gentle force lifting him up through his clothes, and he became light and airy, a feeling similar to Professor Flitwick's improved levitation spell.

"Let's begin the adventure!" Dumbledore said childishly, pulling Loren into the pipe.

The two of them slid in the underground pipe, turning left and right like on a roller coaster, with ups and downs. They couldn't tell the distance and had no time reference, and they slid forward along the thick pipe.

Loren could see many thinner pipe branches extending in all directions, but only the main pipe they were in could accommodate a person, so there was no need to worry about sliding down the wrong pipe.

After twists and turns, it was an endless slide.

The two of them slid out of the pipe with a whoosh, floated in the air, and then slowly landed. Loren estimated the direction and distance, and roughly guessed that they were now under the Black Lake.

"Watch your step." Dumbledore flicked open the lights-out device, and three or four balls of light flew out from the top of the lights-out device. The light balls could not find torches or candlesticks to land on in the tunnel, so they could only float in the air.

This is a circular stone tunnel with the ground covered with the skeletons of small animals. Some of the bones have weathered over time and turned into piles of ashes and bone blocks of irregular shapes.

The water flowing out of the pipe seeped into the ashes, forming mounds of bones on the ground. Some of the piles were even taller than a person.

The tunnel was as silent as a cemetery, and these bones were like graves.

Loren didn't say anything. Dumbledore looked around with a serious expression, took Loren's hand and led him forward. The two of them, one old and one young, trampled down piles of bones of different sizes.

After turning a corner, I saw a huge monster lying at the entrance from a distance - a twenty-foot-long snake skin.

I don't know how long this snake skin has been shed. It has not wrinkled or dried up due to the erosion of time. It still has a bright, green glow, and the diamond-shaped scale marks are clearly visible. Just by looking at it, you can feel the smoothness and hard texture of the snake skin.

"Principal, how do you think we should divide it? How about half for each of us?" Loren pressed it with his hand. It was thick and hard. It was more like a snake shell than snake skin. Its defense must be full.

Dumbledore, who was carefully examining the snake skin, trying to calculate the year and size of the basilisk, laughed when he heard this. He felt that Loren always said something unexpected and with confidence.

"Loren—"

"Hmm? Principal, do you want to take 60%? It's not impossible. After all, you are the principal."

"Have you ever thought that this is the great legacy left to Hogwarts by the founder Slytherin?"

Loren frowned and thought for a while: "What you said makes sense, so as the headmaster of Hogwarts, you get 70%, and as a student of Hogwarts, I get 30%. "

He struggled, and it was obvious that this decision was very difficult to make: "It can't be any less, it really can't be any less."

Dumbledore couldn't help but ruffle his hair and pulled him forward: "We can talk about dividing the snake skins later, at least until the end of this school year."

After turning one bend after another in the tunnel, the two walked for an unknown amount of time before finally arriving at the end of the tunnel.

The end of the circular tunnel was blocked by a solid stone wall with a vertical crack in the middle and a door opening to the left and right on the surface.

On the wall, two stone sculptures of snakes with clear scales were lifelike, their lower bodies intertwined, spirally locked together. The necks of the two snakes arched in an arc, and the two pairs of snake eyes stared at each other, with four large emeralds shining dimly.

The emerald light in the snake eyes on the wall flickered and reflected in Loren's blue eyes. In his field of vision, the two snakes coiled on the door suddenly twisted, and their bodies lost the texture and color of the stone carvings and turned into matte scales.

The two snakes' tails swam to untie the entanglement, swayed back, and their necks were slightly arched backwards, still maintaining an attacking posture.

"hiss!"

One of the snakes twisted its body forward, opened its mouth, bit the other snake's head, and was about to swallow it.

A strong light burst out from the emerald, and two snakes formed an image that Loren was very familiar with along the crack of the door - an illustration on the first seven pages of the Book of Abraham.

It was also a snake devouring another snake, the crack in the door corresponded to the cane, the scene in front of me was exactly the same as the illustration!

Chapter 175 I really like what Loren said: Huh?

When Loren came to his senses, he found that the two snake-shaped stone sculptures were still in the same posture, staring at each other, with their tails coiled and entwined. There was no trace of the snake swallowing the snake that he had just seen, as if it were an illusion.

The snake's eye emerald still radiated the green mineral light. Loren carefully examined the snake's head, looking at the stone-carved scales and the rough texture of the surface of the fangs. It was the same as before, but also seemed different.

His mind was full of questions. Why did the images from the Book of Abraham appear in Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets?

Which came first, the time when Slytherin built the Chamber of Secrets or the time when Abraham wrote the book?

Did Slytherin read the Book of Abraham, or did Abraham see the relics of Slytherin?

Or maybe it's neither, but rather two mysterious wizards who witnessed the same scene and left the same record.

No one could answer Loren's doubts. Regarding the contents of the Book of Abraham, he had no way to ask Dumbledore for confirmation, so he could only keep all the questions in his heart.

Dumbledore looked at the door of the Chamber of Secrets with a complicated expression for a while, and sighed inexplicably.

He used the bones on the ground to transform into a snow-white python with transparent scales. It coiled in front of the door, stood upright facing the two snake-shaped stone sculptures, and uttered a burst of snake language from its mouth.

"Hiss~hiss! (Open)"

The two snakes on the stone wall heard the command, their emerald eyes flickered a few times, they loosened their entangled tails, and retreated to one side, using the crack in the middle as a boundary. The stone wall split in the middle, revealing the passage behind.

Stepping in, Loren and Dumbledore looked at everything in the room.

A long corridor led into darkness with no end in sight. On both sides of the corridor stood countless stone pillars with carvings of coiled snakes.

Several balls of light that were floating in the air but couldn't find their landing point entered the room, and suddenly floated towards the tops of the stone pillars on both sides, landing on the candlesticks in the shape of snakes spitting beads. However, compared to the huge room, these lights were just faint stars, and more stone pillars and corridors were still in darkness.

Occasionally, a faint green light with a mysterious shimmering glow would appear on the ceiling, and with the help of the faint light, a glimpse of the secret room could be seen. The main colors of the room were black and gray, and the atmosphere was gloomy. Every corner of the room exuded a mysterious and ancient atmosphere.

"Loren, do you know the story behind the Chamber of Secrets?" Dumbledore asked. His old voice sounded particularly melodious in the enclosed and spacious space.

"I've heard of some."

"Listen to what I, an old man, have to say."

Dumbledore led Loren to the depths of the Chamber of Secrets. "The exact time is unclear, but it was probably more than a thousand years ago. The four greatest wizards of the time: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin, built this castle together to provide a shelter for young wizards and teach them how to protect themselves."

"In the first few years, the four founders worked together in harmony, looking for children with magical talents, taking them in, and teaching them. Everything was moving in the best direction, just as the vision was when the school was built."

"However, differences gradually arose between them. Slytherin believed that magical education should only be provided to children from pure wizard families. He was unwilling to accept little wizards from Muggle families, believing that they were unreliable. Gryffindor and Slytherin, the former best friends, had a fierce quarrel over this issue, and Slytherin subsequently left the school."

The old headmaster paused here, his mood was not at peace. Since his teenage years, the disputes between wizards and Muggles were like a hurricane, destroying his family, or destroying the wonderful life that Albus Dumbledore could have had.

Even so, he did not hate Muggles or all Muggle-born wizards, but not everyone was like him. He had seen people with lofty ideals who ignored life, people who intended to conquer the world with power and fear, and war fanatics...

Dumbledore, who had seen too much, still felt a little sad when he learned that another student from Slytherin House had joined Voldemort.

"Legend has it that Slytherin hid it from the other three founders and built a sealed chamber of secrets in the castle. Only his true heir can open the chamber of secrets, release the horror inside, purify the school, and eliminate all those who are unworthy of learning magic."

Loren thought about the wording for a moment: "It doesn't sound like they are going to kill Muggle wizards. And I think such a large project cannot be hidden from the other founders, at least not from smart people like Ravenclaw. What do you think?"

"Ha, I think so too. But Loren, some smart people just can't see clearly. They always think they are the smartest ones."

Loren suddenly changed the subject: "Who is smarter, Slytherin or Ravenclaw?"

Dumbledore was stunned for a moment, then he smiled easily: "It should be Ms. Ravenclaw."

"why?"

“I don’t know, that’s just my personal opinion.”

"Can you lend me the sapphire? Let me experience the intelligence of Ravenclaw."

"At least not now."

"It's boring."

……

The two walked forward along the corridor, passing one stone pillar after another, quietly, with only the sound of footsteps echoing in the empty room. When they reached the end of the corridor, their attention was attracted by the things behind the last pair of stone pillars.

It was a towering giant stone sculpture, almost as tall as some of the towers outside the castle. The stone sculpture depicted a strange, old and frail old wizard with a monkey-like face, scornful eyes and a haughty demeanor. His sparse long beard almost reached the hem of the wizard's robe carved out of stone.

The statue was pressed against the dark stone wall behind it.

For some reason, when the statue was located there, his name came to mind: Salazar Slytherin.

"Slytherin is a great wizard with a long-term vision and the most mysterious of the Big Four. I don't understand why he insists on pure-blood theory so much."

Dumbledore looked at the founder of Hogwarts with a determined look in his eyes. "I don't believe he left behind the Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk so that someone could use it to kill Hogwarts students hundreds of years later. I won't allow that to happen."

Loren looked at Dumbledore and felt that at this moment he should be hoping and looking forward to facing the real Salazar Slytherin.

Then, ask him questions!

The old wizard waved his wand, and suddenly a light breeze blew up in the space. The light source falling on the stone pillar swayed slightly in the direction of the air flow. The dust accumulated on the ground for thousands of years was blown away, and a transparent giant python condensed from the air in front of the stone statue of Slytherin.

The giant python stuck out its tongue and uttered the longest Parseltongue sentence Loren had ever heard: "Hiss-hiss...hiss~"

"Speak to me, Slytherin - the greatest of the Hogwarts Four."

Loren looked up at the transparent giant python and admired Dumbledore's wonderful Transfiguration from the bottom of his heart.

Although conventional transfiguration involves the transformation of matter and the change of appearance, most of them follow the same rules, such as fluids turning into fluids, solids turning into solids, water turning into fine wine, and beetles turning into buttons. However, Dumbledore transformed the shapeless air into a solid, tangible giant python.

This was the first time he had seen such advanced transfiguration, ignoring rules and characteristics and changing the properties of matter at will.

Loren longed to be able to achieve this himself.

The huge face of the Slytherin stone sculpture gradually opened its mouth, opening wider and wider. His cheeks gradually lengthened, finally forming a huge black hole, revealing two sharp lower teeth.

A majestic, green magical light shines in the huge mouth of the stone statue, as if the statue is holding some magnificent treasure.

"call--"

"call--"

"call--"

A slow but powerful airflow came out of the hole, making a slight sound as it passed through the stone statue.

Dumbledore tapped Loren's shoulder with his wand again, and he felt that light feeling again, as if an invisible hand was holding him up.

The bodies of the two men floated up and drifted into the statue's mouth silently like feathers.

Dumbledore pulled Loren to the place right in front of the snake's head. The tiny gap left by the coiled snake's body was enough for the two of them to fit in.

Although he knew that the basilisk was still sleeping and that Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard of this century, was right next to him, Loren couldn't help but hold his breath when he saw the basilisk that was nearly fifty meters long and thicker than him horizontally.

The thick and long trunk and tail curled up in the outer circle, protecting the lizard-shaped snake head in the middle. The dark green scales reflected the metallic light, especially the thick scales on the tail, which could almost shatter gold and stone.

"call--"

A huge airflow gushed out of the air hole at the tip of the snake's head, and the sound of the wind they just heard was the slow breathing of the basilisk while it was sleeping.

An indescribable stench instantly enveloped the two of them. Loren was slightly dazed and his head felt dizzy.

He pinched his nose and muttered, "Is the basilisk's breath also poisonous? I think I'm poisoned."