Maybe They Were Only Scapegoats?

As the two Armored Skeleton Giant scattered, Wizet gently patted the scales on the Basilisk's head. "Close your eyes, and then let me down!"

"Okay..." The Basilisk twisted its body and quickly coiled up into a ball.

It then lowered its head, allowing Wizet to land smoothly on the ground.

Once it was certain that Wizet was no longer above its head, it retracted its head back into the center of the serpent coil. "I... I remember... Salazar... Slytherin..."

"Of course." Wizet nodded and replied in Parseltongue.

Pansy hissed angrily, "What are you doing? He's lying to you! Kill him now!"

The Basilisk seemed unresponsive, and even coiled its body even tighter.

Faced with the Basilisk's indifference, Pansy became even more frantic, waving her notebook as if she wanted to smash open the skeletal cage.

"Perhaps we should let Professor Snape handle it?" Professor McGonagall suggested. "After all, he is the Head of Slytherin."

"It would be best if Severus handled it," Dumbledore said, changing the subject. "However, he has some things to attend to and has just left the school. The most important thing right now is to stop her self-harm."

"Leaving the school at this time?" Professor McGonagall adjusted her glasses. "That's quite unusual... He usually only leaves Hogwarts at the end of the school year."

Dumbledore said with a smile, "There are always exceptions. After all, it's the weekend... everyone can be a little more free."

Pansy gripped the notebook tightly and frantically pounded on the skeleton cage. The web between her thumb and forefinger was split open, and bright red blood flowed out.

Wizet noticed that the blood seemed to have been absorbed by the notebook, without dripping onto the ground or staining the notebook's cover and pages.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, that notebook... it must be a magical artifact, perhaps it's the key to the Chamber of Secrets of Secrets... Heir?"

Dumbledore looked at Wizet and blinked twice. "You could try some... new methods to see if you can get your hands on the notebook."

"A new method?" Wizet took a few steps forward and stood in front of Pansy.

Pansy glared fiercely at Wizet. "You Obscurial! I really don't know why Draco would associate with you... You're not even as good as Mudblood..."

"Are you talking about yourself?" Wizet raised an eyebrow, her voice short and cold. "How pathetic... a wizard who can only smash a cage with a book?"

"If I may ask... did you get a 'T' in all the subjects that require the use of a wand? After all, your movements really do look too much like... a troll swinging a wooden Troll..."

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall exchanged a glance, their lips pressed tightly together, but they couldn't hide the slight chuckle that escaped from the corners of their mouths.

The two men detected a similar tone in Wizet's words to Snape's.

"How dare you call me Troll!" Pansy's eyes widened in fury, and she immediately pulled out her wand from her pocket.

Almost simultaneously, Professor McGonagall also drew her wand. "Wizet, step back!"

Just as Pansy aimed at Wizet, her body suddenly stiffened, and a grayish-white color spread from her hand holding the wand all the way to her entire body.

Looking at Pansy, who had become like a statue, Professor McGonagall put away her wand, adjusted her glasses, and asked, "What... is going on?"

"If it were just a simple spell, perhaps nothing would have happened..." Wizet said, taking the notebook from Pansy's hand. "Unfortunately, her malice was too overwhelming..."

Dumbledore stroked his beard. "Minerva, it's just some little magic unique to him. Don't worry about it too much."

"Water from the Fountain!" Wizet opened the notebook, cast the Water from the Fountain to summon a stream of ink, and poured it onto the notebook.

Similar to the previous situation, the notebook was not stained black by the ink; instead, it absorbed it completely, revealing two lines of text.

[Possess the notebook, and it will guide you to become the Heir of Slytherin the great Salazar Slytherin.]

[Offer your blood, and the notebook will guide you to the Chamber of Secrets to continue the great work Salazar Slytherin left unfinished.]

Wizet continued turning the pages and found that the next pages were continuous rough maps, showing routes from the Slytherin Common Room to the abandoned washroom.

As he turned to the page about the abandoned washroom, a new string of words appeared where the diagram of the washbasin was.

[Look for the snake-shaped symbol at the sink, pick up the notebook, and say to the snake-shaped symbol: Open.]

The same inscription is also found in the Chamber of Secrets of Secrets: "Hold the notebook, close your eyes, and speak to the statue of the great Salazar Slytherin with the utmost respect: Speak to me, Slytherin! The greatest of the Four Founders of Hogwarts!"

Wizet used her Magic Eye, combined with her knowledge of Alchemy and magical item crafting, to test and examine the notebook, determining its specific purpose.

After a while, he handed the notebook to Dumbledore. "Headmaster Dumbledore, it contains Unplottable magic...that's why we haven't been able to find Pansy Parkinson."

"In addition, the notebook uses a unique magical technique to imprison a Runespoor inside... I think Pansy Parkinson's Parseltongue is related to this."

"Perhaps that's why the Basilisk doesn't completely obey Pansy Parkinson's orders... But it's too much of a coincidence, why does it have to be Runespoor?"

"Headmaster Dumbledore, could this notebook and Pansy Parkinson's ... just be a scapegoat? Of course, this is just speculation... after all, I don't have sufficient evidence."

Dumbledore took the notebook and, while listening to Wizet speak, waved his wand to examine it.

As Wizet finished speaking, Dumbledore also put down his wand. "That's all I can come up with in such a short time."

"The notes and Miss Parkinson's are just scapegoats? That's an interesting guess... but these are things we should consider."

He looked up at the statue of Salazar Slytherin. "Want to go inside the statue? See if there's anything else there besides the Basilisk?"

Wizet said to the Basilisk, "We'll go inside and take a look, then we'll take you to Slytherin Headmaster."

"Okay... hurry up..."

Wizet turned to the statue of Salazar Slytherin. "Speak to me, Slytherin! The greatest of the Four Founders of Hogwarts!"

Salazar Slytherin's statue came to life, its mouth opening wider and wider until it became a dark cave.

Dumbledore waved his wand, gathering the bones together to form a wide bone ladder that spanned the dark cave.

Professor McGonagall moved swiftly, having already transformed into her Tabby Cat form, and leaped down the bone ladder into the cave first...