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"You said before that the Chamber was opened once, fifty years ago… and that a student actually died because of it?" Sargeras asked solemnly. This was the first time he'd heard such a thing.
"Yes," Dumbledore replied, and a faint glint flashed across the crescent-shaped lenses of his spectacles. "Her name was Elizabeth Warren. After her death, she remained at Hogwarts in the form of a ghost."
"Wait a second…" Sargeras' eyes narrowed as a thought suddenly struck him. "You mean… that ghost who's always sobbing in the girls' bathroom? Moaning Myrtle?"
"That's her…" Professor McGonagall cut in quietly, pressing her lips together before adding, "That was a nickname the students gave her…"
Sargeras' expression shifted. His face grew complex, and his brows furrowed so tightly they nearly met in the middle.
"Fifty years… You're telling me you let someone who actually witnessed the last Chamber of Secrets incident float around in a bathroom for half a century, and not a single person thought to ask her what she saw back then?" His voice brimmed with disbelief, each word dropping heavy with astonishment.
No one responded. The infirmary sank into a stifling, awkward silence.
Sargeras narrowed his eyes, then gave a small nod.
"All right. In that case, I think it's time Potter stopped keeping things to himself. I need every scrap of information related to this… no more secrets."
His voice turned calm and measured, but the weight behind it left no room for argument. "Wouldn't you agree… Mr. Potter?"
The curtain beside the adjacent bed gave a faint tremble before being pulled open by an invisible force, revealing Harry Potter, who had been eavesdropping behind it the entire time.
"Sorry, Professor… I didn't mean to listen in…" Harry sat up, looking awkward and flustered. The effects of the Skele-Gro had already worn off enough for him to wake some time ago, and though he'd heard every word of the conversation about tonight's attack, in this moment, he truly wished he were still unconscious.
"It's all right, Potter," Sargeras said, raising a hand to stop any further explanation. "I think everyone here can agree you won't be blamed for listening—so long as you tell us what really happened during the first attack. What exactly did you two see?"
"No, Professor… we didn't see anything…" Harry said, clearly flustered. His words came in a rush, tinged with panic. "We didn't find anything at all."
Sargeras frowned deeply. He couldn't say for certain what the boy was hiding, but it was plain he was holding something back — and that was unacceptable. This was no trivial matter. It could very well be the key to uncovering both the monster and the one who had opened the Chamber.
"Harry…" Dumbledore's voice softened. He reached out and gently patted the boy's head, his expression warm and full of quiet reassurance. "There's no need to be afraid. We're only asking."
"I'm afraid we're doing more than just asking!"
Sargeras cut in sharply, his tone hard and impatient. He had no interest in playing along with their gentle line of questioning. What he needed now were not guesses or comforting words. He needed answers.
Because the truth was, no one could say for sure that wearing glasses would keep the students safe. The basilisk didn't only kill with its gaze — its venom was just as lethal.
"Tell me the truth, Potter…" Sargeras' face was stone-cold, and his voice even colder. "You may have the right to remain silent. But I also have the means to make you speak."
Professor McGonagall immediately stepped forward, placing herself between the bed and Sargeras. "Sargeras , you can't just pressure or threaten a student like this…"
"Oh, but I can, Professor McGonagall," he replied calmly, without raising his voice. Yet his words carried a firm and unshakable weight. "In this matter, I understand far better than any of you what needs to be done."
Dumbledore, standing nearby, placed a gentle hand on McGonagall's shoulder in a quiet attempt to defuse the rising tension. He turned to Sargeras, his voice steady and composed. "Sargeras… if Harry truly knows something, I believe he will tell us of his own accord."
"And what if he doesn't? Headmaster?" Sargeras' gaze swept slowly over each shocked face in the room. His eyes were steady, his tone eerily calm… so calm, it made the silence all the more suffocating. "A student has already died at Hogwarts. How many more bodies do you want to see before you're willing to act?"
"What are you saying, Sargeras? No one wants to see any more students get hurt…"
"Then why are you all still shielding Mr. Potter," Sargeras asked, his voice blunt, "when it's clear he knows something important? How many more lives will it take before you finally understand how serious this is? Or is it that as long as the dead aren't your own students, the ones under your care, you're content to let obvious clues sit there, right in front of your eyes, and still do nothing?"
Sometimes, he truly couldn't understand how these people thought. It was one thing for children to be naive and immature, but why did the adults seem just as blind?
His gaze swept over the group, all of them standing there in stunned silence. When he spoke again, his voice carried a sharp, biting edge of sarcasm. "If someone dies again this time… if another life is taken by the basilisk… then the blame won't rest solely on the one who opened the Chamber, or on the monster itself."
Lockhart opened his mouth, clearly wanting to speak, but the moment Sargeras shot him a look, he froze and shut it again. He straightened his robes and tried to act as though nothing had happened, forcing a calm facade, but the silence he returned to was more out of fear than indifference.
"Mr. Potter," Sargeras turned back, his tone no longer cold, but composed, steady. "Can you tell me now what you know? I'm not forcing you — I'm simply asking. You have every right to refuse…"
Though of course, in his heart, he quietly added another sentence; But I also have ways to make sure you don't refuse!
"I… I'll speak," Harry muttered, swallowing hard as his throat tightened. His voice trembled a little. "But I swear, I'm not the one who opened the Chamber…"
"No one is accusing you of that," Sargeras said firmly, cutting off any suspicion before it could take root.
Harry finally let out a breath, visibly relieved.
"When the first attack happened… I did hear something strange," Harry said hesitantly, the words coming out in pieces, like he was still trying to make sense of them himself. "There was a voice. It said it was hungry. That it wanted to tear apart… to kill something. And the weirdest part is… only I could hear it. Ron and Hermione were right there too, but they said they didn't hear anything!"
Everyone immediately fell into thought upon hearing this.
"Hungry… kill… tear apart… and no one else could hear it…" Sargeras murmured, his brow furrowed in thought. "Sounds like the one speaking might've been the basilisk itself. But if that's really the case… then that would mean… you're a… par-sel-mouth."
He suddenly turned his gaze sharply onto Harry.
"Mr. Potter… are you?"
"Wha—what's a Parselmouth?" Harry blinked, utterly confused. His eyes darted around the room, only to find that the professors' expressions had all turned unusually serious in the blink of an eye.
Behind his crescent-shaped glasses, Dumbledore's piercing blue eyes had taken on a sharp, cutting intensity.
"It means you can understand snakes," he said slowly. "You can speak to them, hold conversations with them, and in some cases, even command them."
"Oh!" Harry suddenly brightened, as if something had clicked into place. "Then I guess I can. I talked to a python once… at the Muggle zoo…"
His voice trailed off at the end, shrinking almost to a whisper, because as he looked around again, he noticed that Professor McGonagall had gone completely pale. Snape was watching him with a thin, dangerous smile curling at the edge of his lips. And even kind, cheerful Professor Flitwick had drawn in a sharp, startled breath.
"This… this isn't that weird, is it? I mean… there are loads of wizards at Hogwarts, right? Surely there must be plenty of people who can do this?"
"No, Harry," Dumbledore said gently, his voice quieter now, but carrying a subtle weight. "Being a Parselmouth is extremely rare. And…" he paused for a breath, his eyes never leaving Harry's, "Salazar Slytherin was one of the most famous Parselmouth in history. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."
"But I'm not the Heir of Slytherin…!" Harry straightened up suddenly, blurting the words in a rush. Panic flickered in his eyes, and his voice rose slightly as he continued. "I didn't open the Chamber — I swear I didn't! I haven't been controlling anything! I've never ordered a basilisk to attack anyone!"
"Calm down, Potter." Sargeras cut him off—not harshly, but with a steady, grounding tone. There was a glint of thoughtfulness in his eyes as he went on, "No one said you were the Heir. But what you've just told us makes me wonder… maybe the reason we haven't been able to find any trace of the Chamber… is because only a Parselmouth can open it."
At those words, the mood in the room shifted. A heavy silence fell, and the air seemed to grow thick with tension, as if a current of static had passed silently from one person to the next.
"That's a very reasonable theory!" Professor Flitwick suddenly exclaimed, breaking the silence, his tiny frame nearly trembling with excitement. "Slytherin could speak Parseltongue, so naturally his Heir would have inherited the same gift! And if Slytherin could control snakes, then it would make perfect sense for his Chamber to be guarded by a snake as well—a basilisk, serving his will even beyond death!"
"So what that means is…" someone said slowly, piecing the thought together aloud, "if Harry isn't the one who opened the Chamber… then there must be someone else in the school who can speak Parseltongue too. Someone else who has the same ability… and that person must be the one who opened it."
"Which brings us…" Sargeras said quietly, his voice dropping into a near-whisper, "to the most important question of all."
He turned to Dumbledore and held his gaze — those deep blue eyes that so rarely revealed anything. But this time, Sargeras spoke with careful deliberation, as if each word were being weighed before it left his lips.
"Voldemort… was he a Parselmouth?"
The entire hospital wing fell utterly silent.
Not a breath stirred. The stillness was so complete, it was as though time itself had paused, stretching out into an eternity suspended in air.
Finally, after what felt like a century, Dumbledore slowly gave a single, solemn nod.
"Yes," he said quietly. "He was."
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[Chapter End's]
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