Chapter 134: Harry's Discovery

At dawn, when the first ray of sunlight fell on the castle walls, Silven sat up on his bed precisely on time.

Facing the sunlight outside the window, he pulled out his wand—whose core was Professor McGonagall's hair—and pointed it at his heart.

"Amardo, Animo, Animato, Animagus."

His heartbeat seemed amplified, pounding relentlessly in his ears. When Silven lowered the wand, everything returned to normal.

Silven washed up quickly and arrived at the common room just as Harry and Ron were sitting there chatting.

Wait, who did he see?

Silven couldn't help glancing at the time.

Correct—it was exactly six o'clock, and it was morning six, not evening six… why was he seeing Harry and Ron in the common room at this hour?

"Didn't you sleep all night?" he asked as he walked over.

"Didn't sleep at all," Ron muttered, slumped in his chair, rubbing his arms. "I scrubbed the floors all night—from the first floor to the eighth—and I couldn't use magic… I feel like my arms and back are about to break."

"Why were you scrubbing floors?" Silven frowned at him. "Even if you want to steal Filch's job, consider the house-elves—they can clean the whole castle in half an hour, far more efficient than you."

"I don't want to steal Filch's job."

Ron groaned and slumped back into the armchair. "Snape gave me detention—he made Filch supervise me cleaning every corridor in the castle. I worked the whole night!"

"Detention?" Silven was even more confused. "Did you break school rules recently?"

"After the Quidditch match," Harry said. "Ron started a fight with the Slytherins."

"But that was settled long ago," Silven thought. "I remember Hermione saying Snape deducted twenty points from Gryffindor—she never mentioned detention. Did I misremember?"

"There wasn't any then," Harry said, slumping. "But later, on our way to class, we complained a bit—said some… not very nice things—and Snape overheard us."

This…

Silven didn't know what to say anymore.

To openly curse a professor in the castle corridors and get caught red-handed? Their detention was completely deserved—purely self-inflicted.

"So both of you are cleaning the castle?" Silven glanced at Harry.

"No, I have to help Lockhart answer letters," Harry said, his eyes dull and lifeless.

He didn't know what Harry had been through, but he even envied Ron for a moment—just as he caught Ron's identical, hollow gaze.

It seemed both felt they were worse off than the other.

"You couldn't have spent all night replying to letters," Silven said. "Even if detention started at ten and you both wrote for eight hours, that's absurd—does Lockhart really have that many fans?"

"Seven hours, started at eleven," Harry said. "And it wasn't both of us—mostly it was just me replying."

"Then where's Lockhart?"

"He's in another room—but he only took one letter." Harry said.

"Only one letter?" Silven sat up straight.

Something was wrong. Lockhart's favorite daily activity was replying to his admirers' letters—he always called it the most relaxing, pleasant part of his day.

Even if he was overwhelmed and needed Harry's help, he'd never hand the entire job over to him.

"Do you know who wrote the letter he took?"

"No," Harry shook his head. "I only know Lockhart seemed thrilled—he kept muttering to himself things like, 'Good idea… why didn't I think of that… what a genius, we'll be on the front page.'"

It sounded unremarkable—someone had given Lockhart a tip to make him shine publicly.

Then Harry suddenly asked: "By the way, Silven, do you really think Hogwarts has a Chamber of Secrets?"

"Why ask that?"

"No reason," Harry said. "I just think Lockhart might be looking up information about the Chamber. When I went in, he was reading *Hogwarts: A History*—and he snapped it shut the moment he saw me."

"And when I finished replying to the letters and was about to leave, he asked me a lot of questions."

"Oh, he mentioned you," Harry told Silven. "He asked if you really destroyed the Chamber. I told him I didn't know."

"That's normal," Ron yawned before Silven could speak. "After Lockhart was attacked, the attacker wrote those words on him—if it were me, I'd want to know what the Chamber was too."

Harry nodded hesitantly. He still felt something was off, though he couldn't say exactly what—it was just a feeling.

He wanted to say more, but Ron had already slumped onto the armrest, mumbling incoherently—sound asleep, talking in his dreams.

He turned back to Silven.

"Of course not—the Chamber is perfectly intact," Silven answered his earlier question.

"Then the newspapers…"

"That was Fred and George's prank," Silven said, looking at Harry, a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.

He couldn't understand how Harry had learned about the Chamber… he'd known nothing before, yet one detention had made him curious about it.

And it was Snape's detention—why didn't Snape make Harry keep dealing with the Flobberworms in the dungeon?

To gossip about or, more bluntly, insult a professor in the corridors? Snape could've made Harry clean two full buckets of Flobberworms—and McGonagall couldn't object; at most, she'd charm him a pair of gloves to make it less unpleasant.

But Snape didn't do that—he gave Harry a mild punishment: helping Lockhart reply to letters.

Honestly, compared to Ron's task of cleaning the entire castle, this was far lighter. Would Snape really be that kind?

Thoughts flashed rapidly through Silven's mind—in one instant, he seemed to see Fluffy again, guarding the trapdoor.

Silven blinked, then continued: "Actually, we already found the Chamber's entrance—but we can't open it. We can only wait outside."

This time, Harry was stunned. "Even Headmaster Dumbledore can't open it? He's the headmaster!"

"Yes, even Dumbledore can't get in," Silven said, glancing again at drowsy Ron.

"Dumbledore may be headmaster, but Salazar Slytherin was too—and the first headmaster. His Chamber isn't something just anyone can enter. In fact, there's only one way to open its entrance."

"What way?" Harry asked instinctively.

"Only the true heir of Slytherin knows," Silven whispered. "The professors think it might be tied to Salazar Slytherin himself—perhaps his extraordinary alchemical abilities, or his unique Parseltongue."

"Hmm… why are you still talking?" Ron opened his eyes, rubbing his forehead. "Go to sleep. I'm so tired."

He stood up and staggered upstairs.

Harry hadn't decided on anything yet, but after hearing him say that, his eyelids began to grow heavy too, and he went back to the dormitory together with them.

"I'm going to sleep the whole day." Ron's voice disappeared at the top of the stairs.

……

(End of this chapter)