"Hate, I hate so much!"
"Hundreds of years – these hundreds of years I've suffered so much!"
"Where did my head go?"
"Woo-howl-woo-la-howl-howl-woo..."
Standing at the room's entrance and listening to the sounds coming from within, black lines appeared over Evans's head.
He finally experienced what literal ghost wails and wolf howls meant.
Shaking his head, he tried to block out those ghost wails and wolf howls as much as possible, pushed open the door, and entered the room.
The entire hall was filled with countless vengeful spirits covered in blood, some even holding their heads in their arms. Their eyes more or less carried some red colouring, confirming their identities.
And what they were currently doing might be the content of their gathering?
Near the door, over ten headless vengeful spirits were playing a ball game. The objective was to see who could throw heads into hoops more times. Further away, several vengeful female spirits extended their claws, apparently competing over whose claws looked better.
There were also those drinking tea, crying out grievances, and confiding their life experiences to companions beside them.
Glancing at the human wizard who had just entered, Baron spoke in his hoarse, emotionless voice:
"This is this group of vengeful spirits' gathering. What, disappointed?"
Hearing Baron's voice, Evans snapped back to attention and shook his head slightly.
Before coming here, he could roughly guess that a vengeful spirits' gathering wouldn't be some peaceful dinner or party. Actually, the current scene was quite beyond his expectations.
He had come here to gather intelligence. He didn't much care about the gathering's content.
However, were all of Hogwarts' vengeful spirits this... unique? Not necessarily. The vengeful spirits in the dungeons should be truly malevolent spirits harbouring resentment. These here should be anomalies among vengeful spirits.
"Oh! Baron! My friend! I didn't expect you'd really be willing to attend this gathering!"
A middle-aged man holding his head in his arms, with very faint red in his eyes, floated before Baron. He wore formal wear soaked in silver-white blood, with a semi-transparent knightly medal on his chest, indicating his status in life.
"As agreed. You help me with something, and I attend your banquet. Very fair."
"Haha, that wasn't anything too difficult. It's just that you ghosts can't leave the castle. Otherwise you could find that thing yourself." Laughing happily twice, the knight said: "That lady should be very happy after receiving it, right?"
"She didn't accept it," Baron said coldly.
"Ah..."
The atmosphere fell into awkward silence. After a moment, the knight wiped semi-transparent cold sweat from his forehead and gently comforted: "That's normal too. She's probably just a bit..."
Seeing Baron's expression growing increasingly grim, the knight wisely shut his mouth and turned his gaze to Evans beside him.
"And this is?"
Evans, who had been eating metaphorical popcorn, felt somewhat disappointed when the vengeful spirit with the knightly medal turned his attention to him.
Stories about Baron circulated very little in the castle. Finally finding some juicy gossip, it hadn't continued. Quite a pity.
However, after his disappointment, he still steadied himself and extended a hand. "Evans Kahn, Hogwarts Care of Magical Creatures professor."
"A Hogwarts professor?" Hearing Evans's description, the knight's eyes brightened as he hurriedly extended his semi-transparent hand toward Evans's palm. "Patrick Podmore. Pleased to meet you!"
Shaking that hand, a cold sensation entered his mind. Vengeful spirits were somewhat different from ghosts. They had physical form and could touch things.
"I wonder, Professor Kahn, is there something you need by attending this gathering?"
"Do you know about the Chamber in the school?" Evans got straight to the point. "There should be a basilisk inside, or possibly another monster."
"Chamber?" The knight was first stunned, then thought for several seconds, his expression becoming somewhat sentimental. "I do know of a room, but I'm not sure if it's the Chamber you mentioned."
"Actually, I had almost forgotten about this before, but when you mentioned a chamber, I remembered!" Knight Podmore shook the head in his hands. "When I was in school, I once saw a very magical room. You just had to walk past it three times, thinking, 'I need a place to hide things,' and you could enter that room!"
"In the seventh year, I once hid a very meaningful notebook in that room, but later, due to some changes, I was imprisoned and had no chance to retrieve that notebook again."
"After I became a vengeful spirit, I could never find where that room was, no matter what. Whether I searched personally or asked ghosts to help, the result was always the same."
Speaking thus, nostalgia appeared on the knight's face.
"If the room you're looking for is that one, could you help me find that notebook? Hundreds of years have passed. I really do miss those times."
"Although I don't quite remember that room's exact location, once you find it, that notebook should be easy to locate! I remember that room was very spacious. Besides my notebook, there were only some tables, chairs, and books in the room. You could see it at a glance."
After recounting his past experiences, Knight Podmore looked at Evans.
"I wonder if this intelligence can help you?"
"A room for hiding things?" Evans rubbed his chin and shook his head slightly.
"That shouldn't be the Chamber I'm looking for."
No matter whether the Chamber's owner was actually Slytherin or not, it shouldn't be some strange room for hiding things.
However, this knight seemed to have quite a high status among the vengeful spirits.
"Could you help me ask other vengeful spirits about this?" Evans looked around. "I don't just mean those present here, but also those in the dungeons."
"Asking about news regarding the Chamber?" Knight Podmore pondered for a moment, then nodded. "No problem, but you have to promise to help me find that notebook!"
"Agreed, as long as I can find it," Evans said.
After completing the deal, seeing that Professor Kahn was about to leave, Knight Podmore tried to persuade him to stay.
"We're about to conduct Headless Hunt team selections next. Don't you want to stay and watch?"
Having a living person appear at their vengeful spirits' gathering was extremely rare. It really wanted this new friend to stay a while longer.
Evans's mouth twitched. "No thanks... I'd better go help you search for that lost notebook instead."
He felt that if he observed that selection, it might not be very friendly to his physical and mental health.
Although he considered his mentality and tolerance quite good, watching a bunch of guys identical to humans play with their own heads as balls was still somewhat unacceptable.
However, regarding the room that knight had asked him to help find, Evans already had a guess.
He remembered that a year after he graduated, Charlie had written to him saying he'd found a very magical room in the castle.
That place was on the seventh or eighth floor...