NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 189: Who?
The castle was asleep.
Beyond the light of the torches, darkness clung to the stone like a second skin. The corridors of Hogwarts were silent, cold, and still. Only the occasional flicker of enchanted fire disturbed the gloom. But in that silence, a single figure moved.
It was cloaked in shadow, neither tall nor short, neither male nor female. Not even the portraits dared to stir as the figure slipped past them, noiseless on the ancient stone steps. In its pale hands, gloved in thin leather, it carried a black leather-bound book—worn, frayed at the corners, and soaked with old secrets.
On the cover, a name glimmered faintly in silver ink:
T. Riddle.
The figure descended the main staircase slowly, crossing the marble floor with ghost-like steps. The sound of trickling water echoed faintly as it turned down the second-floor corridor. At the end of the hall stood the door to a long-forgotten girls' bathroom, dimly lit and often avoided by students.
Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
The door creaked softly as the figure entered.
"Who's there?" Myrtle's wail came from within one of the stalls, but she received no answer. Only the soft click of boots on tile.
The figure crossed the room and knelt in front of one particular sink—ornate and oddly placed. A snake was etched into the copper spout.
It leaned in close and whispered.
"Sssserpentia… Opendra."
The sound wasn't English. It was something older. The stone around the sink groaned and shifted. Pipes uncoiled. The sink slid aside and revealed a dark chute yawning open like a hungry mouth.
Without hesitation, the figure dove in.
⸻
After a long, spiraling descent through the cold stone tunnels of Hogwarts' buried past, the figure landed with a wet thud onto the slimy floor of the Chamber of Secrets.
The air was foul—damp, ancient, and thick with decay.
The figure stood and flicked their wand. "Tergeo." The muck and slime vanished from their cloak in a shimmer of blue light.
The chamber stretched out ahead: long, vast, and lined with stone columns carved into serpents. At the far end, towering over everything, stood the statue—his statue. Salazar Slytherin, with his long beard and severe face carved in unmoving stone, his mouth partially open in silent speech.
The figure stepped forward slowly and hissed again.
"Ssspeak to me, Ssslytherin… greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
The mouth of the statue groaned.
Stone cracked.
From the shadow within the statue's mouth, something vast began to slither forward. Scales scraped against stone. A pair of golden eyes blinked open—pupilless, ancient, and full of hunger.
The Basilisk.
It emerged halfway, its body coiled thick around the base of the statue, like a python wrapping itself around a temple. Its head lowered slowly, hovering above the floor, hissing.
"You return, young master…" it hissed in Parseltongue, the voice low and echoing in Harry's memory, though he was not here now.
The figure replied calmly in the same whispering tongue. "Yes. I have returned. But not to release you yet."
The snake flicked its tongue. "Why keep me… caged? I hunger… I thirst for blood."
The figure raised its wand. "And I have fed you. Do not forget your place."
With a wave of the wand, a large burlap pouch opened beside them. The carcass of a massive Acromantula—a dead giant spider—tumbled onto the stone floor with a sickening crunch.
"Here is your meal," the figure said coldly. "An Acromantula from the Forbidden Forest. And I've silenced the roosters in the school grounds. You are safe… for now."
The Basilisk coiled tighter, its hunger intensifying.
"You made promises… you promised freedom… destruction…" it hissed, louder this time.
"And I will keep my word," the figure snapped. "But not yet. Not while Dumbledore still breathes and walks these halls. Not while his eyes are watching."
The Basilisk lowered its head, the sound of its breath filling the chamber.
"You do not seek a body anymore?" it asked, voice curious and cautious.
The figure's tone darkened. "Not this one. This blood… it is impure. I will not be bound to a body tainted by Muggle filth."
The Basilisk hissed low and slow. "Then what do you seek?"
"Power," the figure replied. "Fear. Chaos. Enough to drive Dumbledore from the castle. When he is gone, the school will be mine. Then you shall be free, and your true work will begin."
The snake lifted its head again and released a slow, rumbling hiss that echoed against the walls.
"I wait… but not for long."
The figure gave a final nod and turned. The cold stone of the chamber swallowed their footsteps. As they approached the sink's exit, they turned back one last time.
"Soon, my servant. Soon, the cleansing will begin."
⸻
Back in the bathroom, the sink reformed with a slow grind of stone. The figure emerged, cloaked again in the silence of the castle. Moaning Myrtle peeked out from her stall, but she caught only a glimpse of a shadow slipping out the door.
Whoever they were—man, woman, student, ghost—they vanished once more into the labyrinth of corridors.