The blue light faded, and a black Suitcase slammed onto the Stone Platform.
Clang.
The whole Suitcase bounced to one side, its lid opening a crack.
Gavin caught the lid in time, keeping its contents from spilling out.
Little had changed in the mountainside laboratory—
Twelve broken silver rails still pointed toward the darkness at the center. The stone cabinets remained tightly shut, and water flowed quietly through the channels along the walls.
After seventeen days away, a thin layer of dust had settled over the sealed underground cavern. The air was stifling, with a faint scorched sulfur smell seeping from the crack in the Suitcase.
Gavin frowned. The place could use some air.
He picked up the Suitcase and walked to the laboratory's sealed door.
With a light tap of his Wand in the air, Gavin casually cast a Sound Charm.
"Let clear sound reach the ear."
A passage of Parseltongue, low and resonant beneath its hissing friction, rang clearly around the door.
Click.
The heavy mechanism sprang open. The stone doors slid slowly apart, and cool air poured through the gap.
Cordelia watched the whole smooth operation in silence, then finally turned to stare at him.
"Between you and me... which one of us is the Slytherin?"
"It's just a matter of matching sound-wave frequencies." Gavin put away his Wand. "Slytherin's voice recognition was primitive. It didn't even check voiceprints."
And if they were being precise, Gryffindor had two Heirs of Slytherin like Gavin next door.
Cordelia blinked. She did not quite understand frequency matching, so she skipped over the strange technical terms as usual.
But the moment the stone doors opened fully—
The vivid presence that had gathered inside the Chamber of Secrets, the emotions of two young living beings, surged out with the moving air.
The