Chapter 107: Riddle's Note

"Who threw something at you?"

Professor McGonagall stepped forward and asked hurriedly, "Do you recognize that person."

"I didn't see." Myrtle sobbed, "Peeves that nasty poltergeist was chasing me, I was so upset I just wanted to hide back in the toilet… but the moment I ran back into the bathroom, someone threw a book at my head and chased me away."

Snape, standing nearby, had the corner of his mouth twitch, and could not help saying, "You're a ghost, why would you be afraid of someone throwing a book at you?"

The next second, Snape knew he had said the wrong thing.

Myrtle's body visibly swelled up, and she shrieked, "Yes, Myrtle isn't afraid of people throwing things, everyone come throw things at her…"

"Muffliato!"

With a flick of Snape's wrist, Myrtle's screaming vanished instantly. She was still talking, and seemingly hadn't noticed anything wrong, but everyone else could only hear a faint buzzing.

Silven only glanced up once and paid it no mind, continuing to stare at the floor. He was looking for the book Myrtle had mentioned.

"Ah, found it." Finally, following Myrtle's hint, Silven saw a black-covered book under the door, near the corner of the wall.

But the next second he froze.

Unlike what he had imagined, the book was big and thick, like a brick on the ground.

Silven stepped forward and picked up the book. It was heavy in his hands, and he turned it to the front.

On the cover, a blond wizard was giving him a standard smile, eight teeth gleaming.

Above it, written in golden cursive — *The Magical Me*

……

Why would Lockhart's book appear here!

Silven, unwilling to give up, flipped through a few more pages.

"Hand it over." Snape, without asking, snatched the book away. "You just stay quiet, don't do anything unnecessary!"

Silven said nothing. He had already confirmed there was nothing hidden inside — it was a perfectly legitimate Lockhart work.

With that, no useful leads could be gotten from Myrtle, and the group could only turn their attention back to the bathroom.

But this place wasn't big to begin with, almost entirely visible at a glance. Even a fifty-inch snake couldn't necessarily hide here, let alone a fifty-foot Basilisk.

"Dumbledore, could there be a mistake?" Professor McGonagall asked, frowning.

She had already gone over it once with a Summoning Charm, a Revealing Charm, and an Aparecium, and found nothing.

Dumbledore's gaze had just moved away from a pipe in the corner when he heard Silven's puzzled voice from not far away, "Headmaster, was this bathroom formerly reserved for Slytherin?"

At this moment, Silven was standing with his back to them beside a sink.

"Not that I know of," said Dumbledore. "The Slytherin common room is in the dungeons. This is the second floor, a public bathroom."

"Then Slytherin people really have no manners, actually scribbling all over the faucet." Silven pointed at a copper faucet. "Although this snake is quite well-drawn."

In an instant, everyone looked over, and then they saw, on the side of the faucet Silven was pointing at, a small snake carved into it.

"This faucet never worked, even when I was alive it was broken."

Myrtle's words made Dumbledore's gaze sharpen. He walked over and examined it thoroughly, inside and out, top to bottom.

He also kept tapping it with his wand, not letting even the water pipe below escape his attention.

At this moment, Snape was observing Silven, who was being shielded behind Professor McGonagall.

"What's that in your hand!" he suddenly asked.

"Parchment, Professor." Silven held out his hand, displaying a crumpled-up ball of parchment for him to see.

"It accidentally fell out of my pocket while I was looking for things just now. It should be the homework I wrote wrong this morning. Would you like to see it?"

Snape glanced at it. It was indeed a dirty piece of parchment, still stained with what couldn't be told whether it was ink or something else.

"Be careful," he said, looking into Silven's eyes again. "If there really is a Basilisk, being too curious can be very dangerous for you."

"Thank you for the reminder, Professor," said Silven, casually putting the parchment back in his pocket.

At the same time, Dumbledore spoke.

"Step back."

Professor McGonagall immediately pushed Silven to the doorway.

And then, Silven saw a sight that left him dumbfounded.

Half the bathroom suddenly split open, as if someone had cut it down the middle, and the cut was right at the faucet with the small snake carved on it.

Then a second cut appeared, a third… the sink and copper faucet were smashed to pieces, and the water pipes behind were all pulled out.

Water gushed from the cracks, then gathered into a ball in front of Dumbledore, floating quietly in midair.

Maybe a minute passed, maybe a second. Silven only felt his vision blur, and those things were whole again.

"Dumbledore…"

"Gryffindor earns one hundred points, for Mr. Ollivander's keen insight."

Dumbledore cut off Professor McGonagall and nodded slightly. "Beyond doubt, Minerva, there is a deeply hidden secret passage here. Without Mr. Ollivander's reminder, I'm afraid it would have taken us a very long time to find this mark."

"Then let's go in quickly." Professor McGonagall said, drawing her wand.

"I can't open the passage entrance," Dumbledore shook his head.

"What?"

"This passage is hidden by an extremely complex magic, and that magic is built upon the entire castle…" Dumbledore paused before continuing, "Unless one knows the specific way to open it, the only way to force an entry would be to destroy the entire castle."

No one spoke.

Destroying the entire Hogwarts castle… that was absolutely impossible, and no one could do it.

But they had found this far — give up just like that?

"Why don't we ask clever Mr. Ollivander?" Snape's mouth curved into a meaningful smile.

"He could run from the second floor back to the eighth during the Basilisk's attack, accurately remember the location of this bathroom, and discover the hidden passage entrance when we were at our wits' end.

"Perhaps he might bring us an even bigger surprise — for instance, the way to enter the passage."

All eyes turned to look once more, and Moaning Myrtle was no exception.

Silven took his hand out of his pocket. "I have a guess."

Snape's smile grew even stranger.

"Why would the mark be a snake?" Silven suddenly looked at Snape. "Does it have something to do with Slytherin? Or maybe it's someone from Slytherin trying to kill me…"

"Nonsense!" Snape said sharply. "Baseless slander, framing a fellow student. Gryffindor loses one hundred points, and detention."

"Then Professor, can you explain why the mark is a snake?" Silven quietly took a step to the left, moving behind Professor McGonagall. "And as Head of Slytherin, surely you can open Slytherin's secret passage?"

Snape was nearly driven mad with rage.

But Silven was still stoking the fire…

"Perhaps, the one trying to kill me isn't a student…"

"Enough!" Snape roared and reached out to grab Silven.

If not a student, then it could only be a professor. At Hogwarts, the only professor actually bearing the Slytherin label was him, the Head of House.

How dare Silven — this was openly slinging mud at him.

But the moment his hand reached out, Professor McGonagall blocked it.

"Snape, do you know what you're doing?"

Of course she didn't believe Snape would let a basilisk loose to kill a student — it was too absurd — but she had to admit that what Silven said made far too much sense.

At Hogwarts, a snake was basically the mark and shorthand for Slytherin.

A snake carved at the entrance to such an important secret passage — to say it had nothing to do with Slytherin, Professor McGonagall certainly didn't buy it.

"Minerva, oh, and Silven…" Dumbledore hurried over to stand between them. "I believe Severus has nothing to do with this, just as I believe the two of you."

"I see. I'm sorry, Professor Snape, I misunderstood you."

Contrary to everyone's expectations, Silven apologized at lightning speed, then stepped aside and pretended he didn't exist.

Of course he knew Snape wasn't the one controlling the basilisk; he just wanted to use the argument with Snape as a way to let certain information slip out.

After all, he couldn't just walk up to Dumbledore and say: this is the Chamber of Secrets, just go to the Gryffindor common room, bring Harry Potter over, and have him open the entrance with Parseltongue.

Of course, at first Silven really had had that thought — he didn't want to keep being targeted by the basilisk, and the best way was to use the professors and Dumbledore to kill it. He'd even come up with an excuse.

The ancient Ollivander family having a few secrets unknown to the world is perfectly normal, isn't it?

But a piece of parchment hidden inside the faucet made him give up on that idea.

Still, the current situation was pretty much the same, wasn't it?

Dumbledore and the professors now knew the basilisk's identity and the entrance to the Chamber; Silven had also hinted to them that the way to open the entrance was connected to Slytherin.

How was that any different from putting the answer right in front of their faces?

Fine, there was still a difference — the difference was that this answer was hidden in a book, and they'd need to flip through it for a while to find it.

With this many professors, plus Dumbledore, surely they could manage to "flip open a book," right?

Honestly, if after tonight the basilisk could still appear in the castle right under Dumbledore's nose, then Silven figured he might as well resign early and take his phoenix on a little trip.

But speaking of phoenixes — could Dumbledore really not open the entrance?

Silven looked up and saw Dumbledore talking with Professor Flitwick; Snape stood nearby, watching him with a dark, hawkish gaze.

What a petty man — two little remarks and he's already sulking. Silven had almost been killed by the basilisk's stare and then questioned relentlessly, and he wasn't even angry.

Professor McGonagall walked over, blocked Snape again, and suggested sending him to the school hospital first.

This time Silven didn't refuse — his arm was still broken. It had been bandaged temporarily, but it still hurt quite a bit.

Professor McGonagall took him to the school hospital, and Madam Pomfrey re-set his broken arm in just one second and re-wrapped the bandages.

An injury like this didn't require a hospital stay, but Professor McGonagall still insisted Silven stay… the recovery from the Petrificus Totalus earlier had been too strange; she wasn't entirely at ease.

There was nothing for it — Silven would have to spend the night at the school hospital.

Late at night, Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey had both left. Silven lay in bed and took out the crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, stained with water and dirt.

It was a blank sheet of letter paper, apparently torn from a notebook, with nothing on it — yet Silven could almost see what it had looked like thirty minutes earlier, and the red writing that had not yet faded.

【You really did know about this place.】

【Will you tell Dumbledore? Tell him you're a seer who can peer into the future?】

【Almost forgot to tell you — Dumbledore's greatest enemy to date is also a seer. Do you think he'll be indifferent to you?】

【Looking forward to our meeting.】

Why would Tom Riddle know him, and call him some kind of seer who peers into the future?

Silven hadn't understood what this meant at first, but he had indeed noticed that Dumbledore's gaze, drifting over from time to time, had been a little different.

Especially after he had found the entrance to the secret passage.

But that alone wasn't enough to prove he was some kind of seer, Silven thought.

Yet Riddle had seemed very certain — and how did he even know about him in the first place?

The questions in Silven's mind kept piling up. He borrowed a quill and ink from Madam Pomfrey and made a stroke on the paper.

The ink stayed on the surface, and where it touched the water stains it slowly spread, but it didn't disappear, and no other words appeared on the paper.

Well, he should have realized it the moment he saw the paper soaked through with water — the thing was completely useless now; he couldn't talk to Riddle through it at all.

Still, he had confirmed one thing.

【Looking forward to our meeting.】

That line felt more like a provocation. It seemed the basilisk really had come for him, and he had no intention of stopping here.

"But what can you still do?" Silven said softly, holding the yellowed paper. "Dumbledore knows about the basilisk, knows the entrance to the Chamber, and has learned from Moaning Myrtle that someone at the school is controlling the basilisk from behind the scenes.

"What can you still do?"

Although he didn't understand why Riddle knew him, or why he had left that one-time note inside the copper faucet in advance, since the other party was so confident, Silven was also looking forward to his next move.

If it was a provocation, he accepted it.

Perfect — the grudge against him for being attacked by the basilisk definitely couldn't be let go so easily, and before Dumbledore opened the Chamber and killed the basilisk, charging it to Riddle's account worked just as well.

But before that…

"Professor! Headmaster Dumbledore!" The next morning at breakfast, Silven ran into the Hall toward the High Table and slapped that dirty piece of paper down on the front desk.

"I only noticed after I got back last night that this thing was stuck to the sole of my shoe. There were still words on it then, but I didn't get a clear look — I only remember the signature was T. M… I'm guessing it's Tom, same name as my cat."

……

(End of chapter)