HP: She married Malfoy after becoming an exchange student.

Harry Potter was intercepted by Lockhart.

This Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, who has repeatedly won the "Most Charming Smile Award," was obsessed with signing autographs for fans with Harry. By the time Harry was finally freed, it was already dark.

I went up to the second floor alone. The noise of Halloween celebrations was filtered into a blurry background sound by the thick stone walls. The corridor was empty, and torches flickered.

Just then, a sound appeared.

It wasn't something you could hear; it felt more like something scraping directly against the inside of your skull: cold, hoarse, and full of malice, with a sticky, lingering tone that penetrated the stone walls and the floor.

"...tear it open...bite it...kill it..."

Harry froze, his back pressed against the cold wall. A chill ran down his spine. He held his breath, but the sound vanished, as if it had been a hallucination. But an invisible pressure lingered in the air, like the rustling of snakes across withered leaves, sending shivers down his spine.

Ron and Hermione caught up from behind, their faces filled with worry. Harry hurriedly whispered his explanation, but before he could finish, the voice came again, clearer and closer, filled with a murderous hunger.

Ron and Hermione didn't hear any strange noises, but seeing Harry's pale face, which didn't seem like he was lying, they also felt a little uneasy.

Harry didn't speak again, driven by an ominous intuition, he followed the sound step by step toward the secluded corridor. The damp, musty smell grew stronger, and the torches seemed to dim even more.

Then they saw:

Mrs. Lorris hung stiffly on the torch stand, her body frozen in an extremely unnatural posture. Her gray hair was clearly visible, and her wide-open glassy eyes reflected the flickering firelight, yet they lacked any luster of life. She had become a rough, eerie stone sculpture.

Look down.

On the damp wall, two lines of writing were smeared. The dark red liquid, not yet completely dry, slowly meandered along the cracks in the stone bricks, dripping onto the ground. The handwriting was chaotic, yet the two lines of large characters were clearly written:

The secret room has been opened.

Be wary of those who oppose your heir.

Dead silence.

Hermione's fingers were icy cold as she gripped Harry's arm tightly. Ron made a soft, hoarse sound in his throat, as if being choked by an invisible hand.

Footsteps and laughter rose from behind—the students, having finished their banquet, had arrived. The next second, all sound froze.

"Merlin..."

"Isn't that Filch's cat...?"

"What's written on the wall?"

Filch pushed through the crowd and burst in: "Lorice!" His hoarse howl cracked, his eyes bulging as he pointed sharply at Harry, "You! You killed it!"

"I just discovered—"

"Found it?!" Filch's face contorted. "It's right here! The words are right here too!"

The crowd buzzed.

"It's Potter again..." someone muttered.

"He's always the first to encounter strange things..."

The Ravenclaw students exchanged quick glances, some muttering, "Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets...legend..."

On Slytherin's side, the atmosphere was subtly quiet. Several upperclassmen exchanged meaningful glances, a faint smile playing on their lips. A seventh-year prefect whispered, "'The Heir'... has already made his move." His voice was low, yet like a pebble thrown into a deep pool.

"It's time for purification," another Slytherin girl chimed in, her gaze sweeping meaningfully over the Muggle-born students.

Draco stood at the front of the crowd, staring at the words on the wall, his gray eyes wide open. Seeing Loris's miserable state, he instinctively took a half-step back, his heel bumping into the toe of the boot behind him.

A pair of hands firmly supported his shoulders.

Elias had somehow appeared behind him, his silver-gray eyes sweeping across the scene, lingering on the line of text for a moment, a hint of understanding flashing in his eyes.

"Stand firm." The voice was very low, only Draco could hear it.

The teachers' footsteps came in quick succession. Professor McGonagall gasped, Snape's face was as dark as the deepest shadow in the cellar, and Lockhart began to boast that he was the best at handling things.

Dumbledore arrived last. His long, silvery-white beard shone like a glimmer in the dimly lit corridor. His blue eyes, behind his half-moon spectacles, swept sharply across the room, pausing on every face—Harry's terrified face, Hermione's tightly pursed lips, Ron's bewilderment, Draco's feigned composure, Elias's calm profile, and countless other faces around him, some filled with fear, some with excitement, and some with suspicion.

Finally, his gaze fell back on the wall, landing on the warning line that seemed to be written in blood. He didn't speak, but the air in the entire corridor seemed to sink with his gaze, making it hard to breathe.

"Everyone," Professor McGonagall's voice rang out, stern and unquestionable, "return to your respective common rooms immediately. The prefects will be responsible for taking attendance, and no one is allowed to leave without permission."

The crowd began to move slowly, but whispers spread like a plague. As Draco turned, a weight settled on his shoulder—Elijas's dark green robe was draped over him, carrying a clean warmth and a faint, distinctly cold aura belonging to him.

"Let's go." Elias walked half a step to his side, his voice steady.

Draco clutched the collar of his oversized robe, not turning around. Behind him, the words on the wall appeared even more chilling in the glow of the professors' raised wands:

The secret room has been opened.

……

Because of the Chamber of Secrets incident, everyone at Hogwarts was on edge, especially the Muggle-born young wizards. Rumors spread like wildfire, all revolving around the "Chamber of Secrets" and the "Heir".

[Transformation Lesson]

The students were trying to turn the owl in front of them into a teacup, and Professor McGonagall was moving around the room, but even so, most people's attention was still wandering outside the classroom.

Just then, Hermione Granger raised her hand, arm straight, without the slightest hesitation.

"Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall stopped and looked at her.

"Professor," Hermione's voice rang out clearly in the quiet classroom, "Could you tell us what exactly happened in the Chamber of Secrets?"

The question was like a pebble thrown into still water. All the scribbling of quills stopped, and every gaze—frightened, curious, bewildered—focused on it.

Professor McGonagall remained silent for a moment, her expression revealing that she would rather answer any difficult question about Transfiguration. But faced with a sea of ​​glowing eyes, Professor McGonagall finally relented:

“The Chamber of Secrets,” she said, “is a legend that circulates throughout the school. It is believed to have been built by Salazar Slytherin. He held the view that magical education should be limited to… what he called ‘pure’ bloodlines. Therefore, the legend says he left behind a secret room that can only be opened when his ‘true heir’ returns to the school, in order to release what is within and complete the ‘purification’ of the school.”

She deliberately used words like "legend," "believed," and "purification" in an attempt to strip away the real-world horror. But the words "heir" and "release" were enough to send chills down everyone's spine.

"However," she quickly emphasized, her gaze turning stern as she swept across the class, "this is just a story. The school is currently conducting a full investigation into the incident involving Mrs. Lorris. What you need to do is remain vigilant and focus on your studies. Now, please continue to observe the morphological changes of your beetles."

-

The bell rang, and students poured out of the classrooms, their whispers exploding in the corridors. Harry, Ron, and Hermione pushed their way against the flow of people to an empty alcove.

"The 'Heir'! The 'Purification'!" Ron spoke first, his voice laced with suppressed anger. "I'm talking about the Malfoys! That's just their family's style! Although..." He frowned, seemingly recalling something, "This semester, that guy hasn't been bragging about being a 'Mudblood' anymore, but look at him, and his father in the Ministry of Magic, it's definitely related to their family!"

Harry didn't speak. He recalled Draco Malfoy's usual haughty demeanor, but at certain moments—especially when Elias, the Slytherin, was around—his sarcasm seemed to lessen considerably. Yet the Malfoy surname itself was inextricably linked to the darkest legends of Slytherin.

“We need evidence,” Hermione said quickly and logically. “We can’t just rely on guesswork. But it’s impossible to get anything out of Malfoy. He and his cronies are a whole unit, and outsiders can’t get in.”

"What should we do?" Harry felt a familiar surge of impulse, a mixture of responsibility and adventure, rising in his chest.

Hermione's eyes lit up—the light of having found a solution to the complex puzzle.

"What if we ourselves became 'inside'?" She lowered her voice considerably. "The book 'The Powerful Potion' mentions a compound potion that can temporarily transform a person into another. We don't need to become strangers to try our luck; we just need to become the two people he's least wary of—Crawb and Goyle. As long as we get a little something from them, we can walk up to Malfoy and hear it for ourselves."

The plan was so audacious it was almost insane, but Harry and his friends had no choice but to agree.