A ruined Hogwarts

The world in the diary is now shown on the top of the astronomy tower of Hogwarts, with a velvet curtain-like night sky dotted with bright stars.

Tom Riddle likes to use a certain part of Hogwarts as the background, which fully reflects his deep obsession with Hogwarts.

Owen made a long series of strange "hissing" sounds from his mouth, which sounded low and hoarse. After saying this, he coughed slightly and touched his uncomfortable throat. Learning Parseltongue is always a test of one's vocal cords. It is difficult for ordinary people to make such a sound.

He looked up at the stars in the sky and gave a slight "tsk". Watching the stars at the top of the astronomy tower is another romantic thing, but why do you still go with Tom? He glanced at Tom, who was sitting on the edge of the tower quietly looking up at the sky. Well, although he was handsome, considering the other person's identity, he still looked strange.

"The snake language you just said is a spell to summon the basilisk in the secret room. As long as you enter the secret room and say these words to the statue of Slytherin there, you can make the basilisk obey you. Order." Tom looked away from the stars and stared at Owen quietly with his black and white eyes. His expression is always sincere and gentle, making people feel valued and trusted.

Owen smiled brightly and nodded, holding his shoulders and lazily raising his head, and asked in a slightly hoarse voice: "Tom, do you like to watch the stars?"

"I quite like them. They always make me feel satisfied." Tom said slowly.

"Yes, the universe is too big. Our planet is like a grain of sand in the desert, pitifully small." Owen raised his right hand and spread his fingers as if to grasp the starry sky above his head, "But the wizard But I have an infinite future, and hope to explore the boundless universe... Whenever I see the starry sky, I feel no interest in the messy things in the wizarding world. "The universe is so big, why are you doing it? How about trying to dominate this one-third of an acre of earth? Isn’t God bad?

Tom tilted his head and looked at him and said calmly: "But the road must be walked step by step. Isn't it very attractive to change a planet according to your own will first?"

"Oh, Tom, you are very ambitious." Owen clapped his hands, "I am more and more curious about why your name is not spread among the wizarding world."

"Maybe I will die after making the Horcrux." Tom casually shook his toes and lowered his eyes as if he was a little disappointed, which made people feel distressed.

"Oh - that's so pitiful." Owen said words of sympathy, but he curled his lips in gloating, "I should go back."

The world around him shattered in an instant, and the world spun before his eyes. Owen was roughly thrown out, and he sat in an armchair and opened his eyes.

"Ah, are you so anxious?" He closed the diary sandwiched in the Transfiguration textbook and sealed it in a specially made box that could isolate the magic power. This was created by Owen after researching a lot of alchemy information some time ago. It was specially prepared for the diary to prevent Tom from peeking into what was happening around him.

"Harry, can I learn Parseltongue from you?" After putting down the diary, Owen turned his head with a smile and said to Harry, who was doing his Potions homework.

"Ah?" Harry raised his head to look at him and blinked in confusion, "It's not impossible, but I can't even say that I'm not very agile..."

"This is a natural talent, you have to make good use of it." Owen raised his eyebrows, "How about I catch you a snake as a pet?"

When he mentioned this, he suddenly thought of Nagini, who had been locked in the dungeon of the manor. The bad-tempered snake showed no sign of surrendering after being imprisoned for so long. It was fed generously by the house elves, but it spent the whole day thinking about how to escape from prison and bite them to death.

Although Owen has now learned Parseltongue, he can only communicate with snakes at best. Perhaps only a natural Parseltongue can tame Nagini - since keeping it is a waste of food, why not give it to Harry?

However, this also has hidden dangers. When two Parseltongue wizards meet together, the snakes will follow the orders of the wizard they are closer to and more like based on their own wishes. Nagini has a good relationship with Voldemort, and there is a possibility of rebellion, unless she makes him swear a loyalty oath... Well, that is not difficult for a born Parseltongue wizard.

"Snake?" Harry showed a repulsive look. He didn't like the long and slippery animals at all, so he shook his head without thinking, "No."

"I can't let it go." Owen said seriously, "I bought a very smart and powerful snake before. It's as smart as a human. It had been living in the forest before being caught by a hunter, and it probably didn't do anything evil. But I couldn't tame it, and it even hated me. That snake is very vengeful. If you don't accept it, I will have to kill it to avoid future troubles..."

What does that have to do with me... Harry opened his mouth, but softened when he heard that the snake was as smart as a human: "Okay, I can try to persuade it not to trouble you..."

"Let's wait until the summer vacation. Hogwarts is not peaceful this year." There are too many Voldemorts in the school, and it would be easy to cause trouble if Nagini is involved.

"You've taken a big advantage, Harry." Owen's eyes raised the corners of his mouth playfully. Nagini was once a beautiful little sister, and she was Voldemort's favorite little snake...

Under Owen's increasingly teasing gaze, Harry couldn't help but move further away. He always felt that this guy was trying to trick him again, and the malice in his eyes almost overflowed.

"Didn't you say you wanted to learn Parseltongue from me?" Harry's back went cold and he changed the topic with a dull face. He closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, imagining that there was a snake in front of him, and then he tried to open his mouth and made a weird "hissing" sound.

Owen heard that it meant "hello". He cleared his throat and made the exact same sound.

Harry's eyes widened and he was stunned for a long time before he said calmly: "You have learned it now?"

"It's not difficult." Owen said with a smile.

But you will make me feel like an idiot... Harry swallowed his sadness and sighed, "This means 'hello'."

In the following time, one taught and the other learned, both of them felt more and more interested.

Owen repeated these everyday words and recorded brief pronunciations in his notes. Well, it was pretty much the same as what Tom taught him. It seemed like the other party didn't mislead him about teaching Parseltongue.

At the end of the lesson, Owen narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth and made a hissing sound. After he finished speaking, he looked at Harry and asked, "What does this mean?"

"Ah?" Harry was stunned, then grinned, "It doesn't mean anything. It's just a mess of snake syllables put together. Are you talking nonsense?"

Owen smiled slightly at him and thanked him sincerely, but his eyes became dark. He glanced at the pocket containing the diary with a half-smile, "Tom, you're not good."

He was right, Tom was playing tricks! The snake language he spoke was the spell Tom had just taught him to summon the basilisk in the secret room, but it shouldn't be a meaningless gibberish. This spell is fake!

Normally, Tom's little trick would not be seen through. After all, it is just a man-made spell, which is equivalent to the password to open the door to summon the Basilisk. It is meaningless and normal, even if Owen speaks Parseltongue very well. will doubt. But Owen has read the original work, and he clearly remembers the words that Tom used to summon the basilisk in the original work: "Talk to me, Slytherin—the greatest of the Big Four at Hogwarts."

He had become suspicious when he was studying in the diary just now, and now it seems that he was right, Tom wanted to trick him!

Owen lowered his eyes to cover the bottomless darkness in his eyes. He understood Tom's desire to get rid of him. After all, Owen told him that he was being targeted by Haierbo, and Tom would definitely not be willing to be tied to him, with his life and death controlled by another person.

But if Tom wants to leave, he can leave secretly without Owen's knowledge after absorbing enough life force to gain the right to act independently - it's not like Owen didn't give him such an opportunity.

It's obvious that Tom didn't want to choose this path, but was playing tricks on the spell given to Owen. According to this line of thinking, after Owen feeds Tom more lives, Tom will tell him the location of the entrance to the secret room. After Owen entered the secret room as he wished, he discovered that this spell didn't work at all and he couldn't control the basilisk.

Would a trick that could be exposed so easily do Tom any good? Of course!

Owen will definitely bring a diary with him when he wants to enter the secret room. Tom, who may have been able to move freely by then, can manifest a body and speak the spell to summon and control the basilisk. At that time, with the basilisk as his helper, Tom will have the initiative and can order the basilisk to protect him and leave, and even threaten Owen's life.

Owen didn't think that Tom wasted so much effort just to escape. Wouldn't it be good to take the opportunity to kill a person who had mastered his biggest secret?

Even if Owen was unexpectedly cautious and did not take the diary to the secret room, Tom could have done the next best thing and left while he was away, hiding in a safe place and planning his conspiracy freely.

Therefore, Tom's move was brilliant, but it's a pity that he didn't know that Owen was the one who had seen the plot.

"In that case, does Tom simply not like to put his safety in the hands of others, or does he want to get rid of someone who holds his own secrets, or has he already sensed the existence of the crown?" Owen speculated on Tom's psychology. It's a pity that this is difficult to speculate. After all, according to Tom's character, just seeing someone unhappy may be the reason for him to kill someone.

"Alas, this plastic friendship that seems to be inseparable will eventually be torn apart." Owen sighed sadly, but his eyes were shining with eager interest.

He turned to look at Harry and asked, "Harry, how do you say 'Hogwarts' in Parseltongue? What are the names of the four houses?"

Harry taught him with gusto, even teaching Owen how to say his name in Parseltongue.

Owen was writing and drawing in his notebook, reorganizing words according to the grammar of Parseltongue, and figured out the spell.

He closed the notebook with a smile on his face, planning to take a walk in the secret room tonight.

When people are looking forward to something, time always passes very slowly.

Owen took the time to finish his Transfiguration and Potions homework, and waited until around 8:30 in the evening before stuffing the books into his bag, getting up and leaving the common room, and slowly left the cold and damp dungeon along the stairs. Melete followed him with leisurely cat steps, helping him avoid the cats and cats that patrolled the castle.

After arriving on the second floor, Owen took out the Marauder's Map borrowed from the Weasley twins and looked at it for a moment. According to George, Owen could keep it for them for a while to prevent them from being controlled and using it. Maps to do bad things.

Owen took out his wand and tapped it on the worn parchment, and said, "I solemnly swear that I will not do bad things."

In an instant, thin black lines spread like a spider web from where the tip of the wand touched, connecting and interlacing with each other, extending to every corner of the parchment. Green squiggles appeared on the top: Moon Face, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. The gentlemen who specially provide help to magic mischief makers grandly introduce: Marauder's Map.

Many small black dots moved across the map, each with a name in tiny font. Most of them were concentrated in the common rooms of the four colleges, crowded together and mixed into a dense mass of ink.

There is no one in the principal's office in the upper left corner, which is normal. Dumbledore is still so busy that he seldom stays in Hogwarts; Harry is in confinement in Peter Pettigrew's office. His confinement will last for a week because the castle has been closed recently. It is not safe here, and the professors impose severe penalties on students traveling at night; most of the professors stay in their offices, and Peeves is sneaking Filch around on the fifth floor of the castle...

Apart from Owen, there were only a few people on the second floor, and no one was walking in the corridor. Owen found the bathroom where Moaning Myrtle was on the map. The crybaby ghost did not stay there, but wandered in the black lake outside the castle.

Owen put Melete on his shoulders, recited the Illusion Charm and other three-piece night tours to himself in a familiar manner, and quickly came to Myrtle's bathroom. He bent down and inspected each copper faucet, and soon found the copper faucet with a small snake engraved on the side.

Without rushing to open the secret room, Owen touched the faucet, and thick black mist suddenly surged out of his body, condensing into the shadow of a top hat and a black cloak around him. He controlled the Black Demon Guard and tried to reach under the pool, but was blocked by invisible resistance.

"Sure enough, it can stop ghosts." Owen was not surprised. Without this ability, this secret room would have been discovered by ghosts who like to sneak around. There are actually many areas in Hogwarts Castle that can block the penetration of ghosts.

He stared at the copper faucet engraved with a small snake with eyes full of black mist, and said to it: "Hiss..." Open it.

The faucet emits a dazzling white light and begins to spin rapidly. Then, the pool started to move and slowly disappeared from sight, revealing a thick water pipe that could accommodate a person.

Owen glanced into the deep water pipe, then silently stepped aside, controlling the Black Demon Guard to fly down the pipe. That diadem was causing trouble everywhere in Hogwarts, there might be unknown dangers in the secret room, and the basilisk might not attack him. Plus, Tom's diary was still on him... Owen didn't plan to go down by himself.

His vision followed the black devil guard as he quickly dived down the twists and turns of the pipe, and finally got out of the end of the pipe and entered the dark stone tunnel. The Black Demon Guard flew along the tunnel and passed by a huge snake skin, but his distorted black and white vision could not distinguish its color.

After turning one corner after another, a stone wall carved with two intertwined snakes blocked the way. Owen hissed in Parseltongue through the Dark Guard: "Open."

The stone wall cracked down the middle, revealing a long, dimly lit room with a giant statue of Slytherin himself at the end. Owen controlled the Black Demon Guard to float among the towering stone pillars coiled with serpents, and hissed the spell.

The mouth of the stone statue opened silently, and a rustling sound slowly approached from the depths of the statue. It was the sound of a giant snake crawling. Owen looked away. He didn't want to try what would happen if he looked into the eyes of the basilisk through the Dark Guard. He might be fine, or he might be petrified or killed.

A heavy landing shook the secret room, followed by a hoarse snake voice: "New heir? No, you are not a human... No matter what you are, you are so hungry, let me hunt..."

"Hello, will you obey my orders?" Owen asked in snake language.

"Of course, although you are not a born Parseltongue wizard, according to the old master's arrangement, I will obey the person who calls me here..." The voice of the Basilisk rumbled and echoed in the huge room. As a magical animal that has survived for hundreds or thousands of years, although it spends most of its time sleeping, its intelligence is definitely not low.

"So is there any legacy left by Slytherin here?" Owen asked with interest.

"There used to be." The basilisk began to crawl slowly in the room, causing Owen to shift his field of vision. "But it was all taken away or destroyed by the previous owner..."

The last owner... was Tom Riddle. Owen, who was outside the secret room, couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth. Tom did such a great job, leaving nothing for his successors. If the contents of Ravenclaw's Chamber of Secrets hadn't been restored automatically, there would probably be nothing left now.

"Please take me to see it." Owen said.

"Follow me." The basilisk didn't ask why, it just slid along the ground meekly. Owen followed its thick snake, got into the gaping mouth of the huge statue, passed through the long dark passage, passed the basilisk's sleeping lair and continued forward, twisting and turning to the end of the passage. There is a stone door as tall as a person, carved with exquisite snake patterns and inlaid with gorgeous gems.

Owen said "open" in Parseltongue again, and the stone wall cracked in front of his eyes. Inside was a wide and towering rectangular room. The walls and ceiling were carved with giant snakes, and at the end was a tower. A slightly smaller statue of Slytherin.

But the room was in a mess, with a thick layer of ashes on the floor and the walls blackened. Apparently there had been a fire that burned everything here. There are some unburnable debris piled randomly in the corner, which are all useless junk, as well as stones that have fallen from the wall...

Owen gritted his teeth in distress, unable to maintain his elegant gentlemanly demeanor, and scolded Tom several times in his mind before taking a deep breath to calm down.

"Is your last master back?" Owen asked in Parseltongue.

The basilisk swung its tail leisurely in the passage and did not answer.

Owen didn't expect the basilisk to tell him whether Voldemort's Horcruxes were hidden here. He controlled the Dark Guard to float around the room, checking every part of the walls and statues, and the garbage in the corners. I rummaged around and picked it up, but as expected I didn't find anything worth paying attention to. He floated out with some regret, and when he passed the basilisk's lair, he flew in and groped around, but found no trace of the crown, but unexpectedly found something that could not be penetrated by the black devil guard's avatar.

Owen looked carefully at the oval-shaped object through the distorted vision of the Dark Demon Guard. It was a palm-sized egg that seemed to be made of stone and looked like a sculpture that had fallen off the wall.

"What is this?" He controlled the corners of his cloak and rolled up the stone egg.

"This..." the basilisk thought hard for a long time before saying, "This is a dead egg brought back by the old master... The old master studied it for a while and then threw it there. I was very hungry once. , swallowed it, couldn't digest it... pulled it out and turned it into a stone, and then put it in my lair..."

The expression on Owen's face collapsed for a moment... He swallowed it and pulled it out...

He closed his eyes, resisted the urge to throw away the stone egg, and controlled the Black Demon Guard to fly back with it. He wanted to study it.

At this time, while staying outside the pipe, he discovered something terrible on the Marauder's Map.