Chapter 463 - 14: The Kitty’s Been Taken

Chapter 463: Chapter 14: The Kitty’s Been Taken

"The Chamber of Secrets? Ah~ Of course, we all know it seems to be nothing more than a legend, don’t we? Severus, if you mean for me to find out which student has been spreading the rumor..."

"That is actually an excellent suggestion." Lucius caught Snape’s meaning—or rather, he thought he had, considering that both of them had once followed the Dark Lord.

Lucius naturally knew that the Chamber of Secrets really existed.

When Voldemort gave Lucius the diary, he obviously did not tell him it was a Horcrux. He merely told Lucius that it was something capable of opening the Chamber of Secrets and that he should take good care of it.

Voldemort believed that because he had personally entrusted the object to Lucius, Lucius would never dare mishandle it. But as far as the public was concerned now, Voldemort was probably already dead. Lucius only wanted to rid himself of evidence that could implicate him, while using it to cause trouble for people he disliked.

He had already been wondering why there seemed to be no commotion at the school, only rumors among a few students. At last, something connected to the matter was being discussed... And wasn’t Lockhart, who had made his son’s condition so much worse, someone he disliked too?

Dumbledore simply watched Lucius in silence. "It seems there is no need to explain some of the school’s rumors to you, Lucius."

Lucius merely glanced at him. There was no need to explain himself. Couldn’t his son simply have told him about it in a letter?

"I would think that if something potentially dangerous at the school needs to be investigated, the first choice should be the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, shouldn’t it, Headmaster?" Snape did not care whether the Chamber of Secrets was real or not. Dumbledore had not told him anything about it yet; Snape simply wanted to make life difficult for Lockhart.

Snape was exceptionally accomplished at Potions, but what he truly wanted to teach was Defence Against the Dark Arts. Yet this year the position had gone to an incompetent fool, and that fool had even managed to make the bones of a top student Snape paid particular attention to disappear.

"Meow~"

Yimi, sprawled on the windowsill and secretly observing them—though Dumbledore had noticed her the whole time—pursed her little lips in delight. If this happened, Lockhart would have no excuse to put off finding the snake anymore.

Before she could keep listening, however, an obnoxious voice echoed through the entire corridor. "Someone’s eavesdropping! There’s a nasty little sneak eavesdropping! Nasty little sneak!"

"Meow!"

Yimi angrily twisted around and saw Hogwarts’s most annoying ghost—or rather, poltergeist—Peeves pointing at her and shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Stupefy!" Yimi aimed her wand at him and cast a spell, but Peeves nimbly dodged aside.

"Ha-ha! Missed me, you stupid cat-brain!" He deliberately hovered beside the window and hurled a piece of moldy bread at Yimi, as though trying to bait her into breaking the glass with a spell.

"THE WORLD!"

Outside, Dumbledore glanced toward the window. "I imagine Minerva will have another headache today."

...

"Hey! You humorless cat-brain—"

"Muda muda muda!" Yimi supplied the sound effects for her Stand in her crisp little-girl voice.

Peeves fled with his arms over his head. "Oh no! I’ve learned my lesson! Keep him away from me! I’ll never bother you again!"

Yimi cornered Peeves in the girls’ bathroom and had The World pin him to the floor and beat him. The scene was so brutal that a first-year who had been about to use the toilet listened outside for more than ten seconds, then turned around and ran away despite desperately needing to go.

Yimi did not let the poltergeist go until she had somehow beaten him black and blue.

The little kitty even left him with a threat. "Don’t let me see you again!"

Peeves stared in terror at the huge platinum figure, then turned and fled. The last ghost to frighten him this badly had been the Bloody Baron of Slytherin.

"You’re all the same. Pretty girls always like bullying people." A rather resentful voice came from behind Yimi.

It belonged to a fourteen-year-old girl with glasses and straight hair. She looked at Yimi with the same resentment in her eyes, as though the other girl had committed some unforgivable crime, even though Peeves himself had been throwing things at her only a few days ago.

Most importantly, the fourteen-year-old girl was a ghost.

"He went into the girls’ toilet." The clever little kitty immediately found a universally recognized crime to pin on Peeves.

Strictly speaking, Peeves wasn’t actually a ghost, but he looked male, and that was enough.

Myrtle pouted. "Oh, please. I saw you chase him in here. Though that part really isn’t your fault. Why does everyone keep forgetting that men are forbidden from entering the girls’ toilet?"

"Other people come into, the girls’ toilet too?" Yimi asked curiously.

Kitties did not need toilets, but ever since Yimi first turned human, the System had given her the most basic privacy knowledge a girl needed. Boys were not allowed to use girls’ toilets. That was one of the rules.

"It was horrible. I remember it perfectly." Myrtle pointed toward the stall behind her. "I died in that stall. Olive Hornby made fun of my glasses and called me a four-eyed mutt, so I hid in there and cried. Then I heard someone come in and speak in a funny voice. It was a boy’s voice. It was so infuriating."

She puffed out her chest as if what came next were something impressive. "So I opened the door to tell him to get back to the boys’ toilet, and then—I died."

"Meow?" Yimi could not understand what she was talking about at all. She pointed at Myrtle. "But you’re, perfectly fine."

"I should’ve known a child as little as you wouldn’t even know what a ghost is." Myrtle grumbled, then tried to scare Yimi. "I saw a pair of huge, terrifying yellow eyes, and then I died. It must still be here."

"Yellow eyes?" Yimi did not connect that with anything. In the memories she had obtained, she had only seen the giant danger noodle, and the owner of those memories had never looked into its eyes.

The little kitty lowered her head and unhappily looked at the moldy bread crumbs on her clothes.

She walked over to the sinks, rose onto her tiptoes, and twisted the brass faucet.

"That tap never works," Myrtle said. The next moment, the platinum ghost that had just beaten Peeves senseless punched the faucet.

Yimi’s intention had merely been to make water come out. Instead, the faucet released a dazzling white light and began spinning rapidly. The sink vanished with it, revealing a pipe large enough for a person to crawl into.

"Meow?"

This was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

...

Class had ended.

"Professor Lockhart never came back. We should go and see what happened." Hermione looked extremely anxious because Lockhart’s last class had been theirs.

Ron looked ready to roll his eyes. "I can’t believe you’re still defending him. He made all of Malfoy’s bones disappear. Besides, have we learned anything from him this term other than how to clean up after his ’occasional’ mistakes?"

"He also taught me how to seize a chance to show off, and how to answer his fan mail," Harry added. He would rather serve detention than be summoned to Lockhart’s office.

Hermione stamped her foot. "He was only trying to give us more practical opportunities! We have to check on him. What if he’s really going to be fired?"

Seeing the urgency on her face, Ron at least kept the thought That’s the best news I’ve heard all year to himself.

Although they were extremely reluctant, Hermione’s insistence eventually dragged the boys to Lockhart’s office with her. They still relied on copying Hermione’s homework, after all, so offending her now would not be a particularly good idea.

Ron lightly knocked on Lockhart’s office door with his rebar wand. The disrespectful gesture earned him another glare from Hermione.

"Come in."

Lockhart had already returned. He did not look particularly happy, but he was still answering letters from fans.

When he saw the four students who had arrived, years of experience as a fraud let him rearrange his expression instantly. "Forgive me for using an entire lesson to deal with certain unpleasant matters. I imagine you must be overflowing with questions about the lesson we had to interrupt. Let me guess: you’re wondering how I escaped from that werewolf, aren’t you?"

Ever since his previous classroom accident, most of Lockhart’s lessons consisted of him telling stories and then having students act out the roles—or more accurately, act out the nonhuman roles.

Hermione spoke worriedly. "Professor, we heard some rumors..."

"Ah~ Rumors, yes. I assume you’ve heard them too. That girl who was eavesdropping seems rather close to you." Lockhart had clearly misunderstood. He shrugged easily. "Don’t worry. I’m accustomed to people questioning me. They always fall silent in the end."

"You’re not going to be fired?" Hermione visibly relaxed.

"Granger, I already have some clues regarding the Chamber of Secrets, but I’m afraid I can’t share them with anyone yet." Lockhart raised an index finger to his lips and winked at Hermione.

"The Chamber of Secrets? You’re investigating the Chamber?" Harry looked at him in surprise.

"Shh!" Lockhart made an exaggerated noise and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. "Harry, I know you’d love to investigate the truth alongside me, but you can’t yet, understand? I know exactly what you’re thinking, but constantly chasing fame only makes people dislike you. The time hasn’t come..."

Harry tuned out the long stream of words that followed in disgust.

Just as he had thought before, he would rather serve detention polishing trophies for Filch than visit Lockhart’s office.

Harry could barely remember how they got out of Lockhart’s office. All he remembered was the overwhelming sense of relief.

"Professor Lockhart is going to investigate the Chamber of Secrets. Does a place like that really exist in this school? I think Snape is just trying to force him out," Hermione complained.

"I think the Chamber sounds pretty believable," Ron said. "Remember? The cat-girl said—"

"All right! Think about how old she is. When I was that age, I said whatever came into my head without caring whether it was true. Has anyone seen a single clue about the Chamber apart from what she said? And then there was that snake..." Hermione suddenly paused.

"What is it?" Harry asked with concern.

"I’m going to the library." Hermione broke into a run.

Ron glanced at Harry. "You know, I hate it when she does that. Can’t she just tell us what clue she remembered?"

"Let’s follow her," Harry said.

They followed Hermione to the library, but she ignored them and searched everywhere for a book she vaguely remembered reading. Unfortunately, Hermione had read far too many books.

At last, with mealtime approaching, she found what she wanted.

"Basilisk." Hermione spread the book open and had the two boys sit on either side of her. "Its gaze can kill, and it is also the natural enemy of spiders."

"For Merlin’s underpants, you searched all that time just to dig up this? We already know it’s a snake!" Ron had expected some earth-shattering clue.

Hermione explained, "What I mean is, if this is what Professor Lockhart is investigating, he could be in danger if he doesn’t know about it."

"You were just saying it might all be fake." Harry felt much the same as Ron.

"But..."

"Irma." Someone outside the library called Madam Pince by her first name.

"What is it, Professor McGonagall?" Madam Pince stepped outside.

"Have you seen Yimi-chan? She’s missing. Normally she would never wander off when it’s time to eat." Professor McGonagall looked somewhat anxious.

Madam Pince shook her head. "I swear, Professor McGonagall, I haven’t seen her all day..."

Professor McGonagall hurried away.

Harry and the others did not think much of it. They often saw Yimi running around all sorts of places, except the Gryffindor common room because she did not know the password. Presumably the same was true of the other common rooms.

It was only after dinner that they saw Professor McGonagall, who had searched all of Hogwarts—including the Room of Requirement, which would not open again while someone was already using it—speaking with Dumbledore. When McGonagall anxiously covered her face, they finally realized how serious the situation was.

"Where else could she have gone? There’s a river outside Hogwarts," Ron said in confusion.

Harry guessed, "Maybe the Slytherin common room. Malfoy’s ended up in the hospital twice because of us, so he’s definitely going to investigate where all our stuff came from. Maybe he kidnapped the cat-girl and took her there."

He had barely finished speaking and had not even looked at the other two to see what they thought of his theory when he heard a faint, fragmented voice.

"Did you hear something?" Harry asked. Both of them only looked confused.

Harry could do nothing but listen carefully.

’Kill them all... come here... let me tear you apart... cat... damn it...’

The viciousness in the voice made Harry agitated. "You really can’t hear that? There’s a voice..."

Hermione only reached out worriedly and touched his forehead.

"Who are you?!" Harry shouted toward the voice, only to see his two companions stare at him in shock.

"What? You heard it too, didn’t you?" Harry asked.

Ron shook his head hard, then gripped Harry’s shoulder with some alarm. "Harry, you were hissing just now. Are you a Parselmouth?"

"A Parselmouth? What does that mean? What are you talking about?" Harry did not particularly want to hear his friend suddenly throw out a word he did not understand right now.

"It means someone who can talk to snakes. Why didn’t you ever tell me?" Ron looked at Hermione, who seemed equally bewildered.

Naturally, it was unsettling. Voldemort had been a Parselmouth too, and why had Harry suddenly started speaking that way?

Harry rubbed his ear. "I don’t know. I talked to a snake once at the zoo. I mean... you really didn’t hear that voice just now? Was I hearing a snake talk?"

Then realization struck him a moment late. "That voice said cat! The giant snake took the cat-girl!"