The Return to Hogwarts

“There’s always been a ghost in that bathroom. We all call her ‘Myrtle.’ She’s the student who died fifty years ago. We got a clue from her. Harry opened the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, and he and Ron went ahead to rescue Ginny. Phew, Harry sent me to inform you about this!”

Amosta's shrugged shoulders relaxed again, he let out a long sigh, and finally smiled.

“Let’s go, Miss Granger, let’s go and bring that poor little girl back!”

Chapter 82 Entering the Secret Room

"This is it, Professor—"

Hermione ran all the way and led Amosta to the girls' restroom on the third floor.

When Amosta was in school, he heard from female students in the same department that a crazy female ghost lived in the washroom all year round. This ghost regarded the washroom as its territory, and whenever a student entered, it liked to shout at the person who entered and splash water on them.

Over time, no one chose to use the restroom anymore, since nobody wanted to take a cold shower while trying to take care of their personal needs.

Standing at the door of the washroom, watching the trickling water seeping from the floor, Amostella clicked her tongue. She had to admit, Slytherin's thought process was quite peculiar to have built the entrance to the secret chamber in a girls' washroom.

In fact, Amostella's thinking was a misunderstanding of Salazar Slytherin. When he built the entrance to his Chamber of Secrets, this room was just his private bathroom. It was only in the long years that the castle administrators renovated the bathroom for the convenience of the students, turning it into a girls' washroom.

"You're here again. Oh, and there's a professor from the school too!"

As Amosta followed Hermione into the bathroom, Myrtle was sitting on the door of a cubicle, humming a cheerful tune. When she noticed a professor walking in, she immediately frantically floated down from the doorway.

Amostah only had a vague impression of the ghost. He curiously looked at the less-than-ideal-looking ghost a few times, and then his gaze was drawn to the thick pipe in front of the pool.

"Myrtle, are Harry and Ron still down there?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"That's obviously the case,"

In front of a professor, Myrtle dared not be too presumptuous. She secretly sized up the handsome professor with her eyes hidden behind the thick glasses at the bottom of the bottle cap, while remarking with relish…

"Don't worry too much, I think your two friends will be here soon. Oh, I was just picking out toilets for them!"

"I have a question, Miss Myrtle, and I hope you can answer it—"

Amosta patted Hermione on the shoulder, signaling her not to worry too much. His gaze returned to Myrtle, and although he remained polite, his flat tone carried an unyielding air.

"If I'm not mistaken, those three attacks last semester were actually carried out by Miss Ginny Weasley, who was under her control. You've been in this bathroom the whole time, so you must have witnessed her opening the secret room, right?"

“You’ve always known, Myrtle!”

Even though Myrtle was surrounded by a faint silver glow, Hermione could see the ill intent in its eyes. She stared at it in disbelief and screamed furiously.

"Everyone has gone to great lengths to find this secret room and who opened it, Myrtle. For this, we even spent over a month brewing a compound decoction in this damp washroom. You've been watching everyone make a fool of themselves all along!"

"Oh!"

Myrtle floated in front of Amosta, swirling around and smiling shyly.

"You have to understand me. I'm all alone here every day, enduring loneliness and the humiliation from Pipi. I've always longed for someone to keep me company—"

Hermione was practically in tears. Because of Myrtle's selfish scheming, Colin and Justin had been forced to stay in bed for half a semester, Harry had endured so much scorn, and Ginny might even lose her life because of it.

“I’m going to tell Professor McGonagall about this, Myrtle, and you’ll definitely be expelled from school because of it!”

Hermione's words enraged Myrtle, whose chest swelled up like a balloon. She wanted to rush up to Hermione and argue with her, but just as Myrtle was ten feet in front of Amostella, who was standing next to Hermione, a vortex of silver and black magic, the size of a full moon, suddenly appeared in the air, blocking Myrtle's path.

Gazing at the black hole at the center of the magic vortex, emanating an aura of death, Myrtle, who had already died once, actually smelled the scent of death again. Instinct drove it to retreat in fear, and the outline of its silver body became blurred with terror!

Ah! Thump!

After letting out another ear-piercing scream, Myrtle suddenly floated towards the ceiling, then plunged into the toilet and disappeared.

"Professor Blaine, you shouldn't have let it go!"

Kind-hearted Hermione blushed with anger, still unaware of what Professor Blaine's spell meant for a ghost.

“There’s no point in arguing with a ghost right now, Miss Granger.”

Amostah turned and walked to the center of the washroom, standing in front of the dark pipe that spewed out a foul wind. His eyes were filled with admiration. From his magical perspective, he saw the magical node that maintained the existence of this pipe intertwined with the vast magical source of the entire castle.

When magic reaches a certain level of sophistication, it involves rules. If you want to break such magic, you must follow the 'rules of the game' set by the spellcaster. Of course, using brute force to overcome skill is always feasible in any situation, but throughout history, how many people have possessed the power to shake 'nature'?

For example, right now, if Harry's Parseltongue hadn't broken the spell on the Chamber of Secrets entrance, Amosta would have had to uproot the entire Hogwarts Castle to open the passage directly!

"Should we go down? Professor Blaine's basilisk...it might be dangerous down there!"

Hermione said something incredibly foolish, but it wasn't really her fault. Faced with the Chamber of Secrets, a secret set up by Salazar Slytherin, the legendary founder of Slytherin House, to purge the school of 'impure' bloodlines, it was really hard for a Muggle-born second-year witch to remain calm.

"Don't worry, Miss Granger, I'm here."

Amosta withdrew his searching gaze. He had to admit that exploring the ruins left behind by ancient wizards was a very interesting thing. The opening spell that Slytherin had set up at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets had given Amosta a deeper understanding of the 'rules' of spells that connected him to the environment!

The inside of the tube was covered with a slippery, sticky liquid. Sliding directly down it might not be a good option. Amostah pondered for a moment, then turned to look at the little witch beside him, who was fearfully watching the dark cave entrance and swallowing hard.

“Please forgive my rudeness, Miss Granger.”

"What are you saying, Professor?"

Hermione was stunned for a moment, and before she could react, she saw Professor Blaine suddenly extend his right hand with long, slender fingers and fair skin, and gently put his arm around her shoulder.

Hermione bit her lower lip, her face flushed, but Professor Blaine gave her no more time to ask questions. Suddenly, he grabbed his robe, which was hanging down naturally, with his free left hand and rolled it forward!

In an instant, as if enveloped by a layer of icy water, Hermione felt a sudden darkness before her eyes. Then, she was shocked to find that she had lost her original body and human form, and had transformed into a pale black shadow floating in mid-air, almost 'soul-like'!

"What kind of magic is this, Professor Blaine?!"

Although she didn't know why she could still speak in this state, Hermione still managed to produce an ethereal, echoing sound.

"I'll answer your question another time, Miss Granger. We need to hurry."

Amosta, in his ghostly form, transmitted the voice directly into Hermione's mind. Then, he led Hermione into the pipes.

As Amosta rapidly advanced downwards, he saw many other pipes branching off in all directions, but none were as thick as this one.

The pipe twisted and turned, descending steeply, and the humidity in the air rose rapidly while the temperature plummeted. Amosta, existing in a special form, could 'see' that he was carrying Hermione to the bottom of the Black Lake!

Chapter 83 Finally meeting

"Professor, you can fly?!"

Amosta led Hermione through the seemingly endless tube for about two minutes before finally standing in a dark stone tunnel. Hermione had just returned to physical form from her phantom state, and dizziness and nausea were still tormenting her nerves, but she couldn't help but gasp.

In the little witch's mind, even wizards with many magical abilities had to rely on alchemical tools such as flying brooms or flying carpets to fly. The idea of ​​flying with magic was simply unheard of!

"Heh, it's obvious--"

Amosta glanced at the shattered rat skull at his feet, exhaled, and said in a relaxed tone.

Using the glow emanating from the tip of Professor Blaine's staff, Hermione, still reeling from the astonishing fact that wizards could fly, discovered that the floor of the quiet, tomb-like stone tunnel was littered with small animal bones. She desperately tried to suppress a scream, but fear made her tremble and weak, and she could only barely stand by clinging to Professor Blaine's robe.

For Amosta, among the magical ruins he had explored, the pile of stark white bone fragments before him was nothing out of the ordinary. Even if these bones belonged to humans, they were far from enough to make him tremble with fear.

“Let’s go, Miss Granger, we don’t have much time to waste—”

Amostah spoke calmly, letting the little witch tug at his wizard's robe as he walked steadily forward along the tunnel.

The air was thick with the stench of rotting flesh and silt. Over time, the tunnel was no longer perfectly sealed. As Hermione walked through the straight passageway, she was startled several times by the sewage mixed with mud dripping from the ceiling.

In the end, she entrusted almost her entire weight to Professor Blaine, not daring to think about the current situation of Ginny, Harry, and Ron.

“Professor Blaine, that is…”

Just after passing a dark bend in the tunnel, Hermione screamed as a huge silhouette suddenly appeared. But before she could fully express her panic, Amosta, who was half a body in front of her, reacted much faster. His arm, which was raising his wand, almost left an afterimage in the air, and the fluorescent tip of the wand suddenly burst into a violent burst of fire!

Rumble!

Like an aerial bomb being detonated, the spacious tunnel was instantly filled with a thick, spinning golden fire tornado. This fire tornado swept across the space in front of it with the force of a plowshare, and wherever the flames passed, the puddles on the ground, the slumbering corpses in the puddles, and all the physical matter such as silt and moss attached to the tunnel walls were completely evaporated!

Surrounded by darkness, Hermione, with her tousled curls flying wildly, felt as if she were standing in front of a volcano about to erupt, staring in disbelief as a golden sun rose slowly from the rolling lava!

Gulu!

The surging heat forced Hermione to swallow hard to resist the rapidly rising temperature. She stared blankly at Professor Blaine's profile, his gray hair flying wildly and his face flushed red in the firelight, and suddenly she couldn't tell whether the basilisk or Professor Blaine was more dangerous.

Half a minute later, Amosta, who had been silent, lowered his wand to extinguish the demonic fire. He led Hermione through a tunnel filled with smoldering smoke and scalding hot ground, until they arrived before the massive silhouette.

The snake skin in front of me, about thirty feet long, was charred black all over and covered with golden flames. With just a light touch, it crumbled into pieces like a rotten wooden building.

“Professor,” Hermione gasped, offering her assessment, “is this the basilisk’s shed skin?”

"Um--"

Amosta nodded, and after roughly judging the astonishing size of the serpent monster, he walked straight ahead without saying anything more.

Hermione stood there for a few seconds before finally snapping out of it. She jogged to catch up with Professor Blaine, grabbed his fluttering wizard robes again, and followed him step by step.

The two walked through the tunnel, turning bend after bend. Hermione, whose nerves were twitching, finally understood why the maze Professor Blaine had created in the classroom during his Defense Against the Dark Arts practical class looked the way it did.

"Keep your eyes on the ground, don't look up unnecessarily."

About ten minutes later, Amosta, who had already vaguely sensed the magical fluctuations and heard a slight rumbling sound, suddenly stopped at a corner.

He turned to Hermione, who was no longer able to remain calm, and then, amidst the little witch's hesitant reply, raised his wand to protect himself, the vortex in his purple eyes slowly swirling like a millstone.

A minute later, after Amosta and Hermione turned the last corner, a solid wall appeared before them, with two stone snake statues with emerald green eyes clinging to the wall that split to the left and right.

At this moment, a violent tremor shook the earth. In the chilly air, the faint sounds of melodious birdsong and the clashing of rocks could be heard, suggesting that a fierce battle was taking place in a dimly lit room not far away.

"Bring out your wand, Miss Granger, we're almost there."