At that thought, Gerald focused his attention on the two wooden chests before him.
Some sort of magic seemed to have been cast on the chests, which still looked quite new.
The two chests had clearly been deliberately protected. They sat in a recessed stone niche in the deepest part of the lair, far from the main passage the basilisk used in its daily movements.
With a thought, he contacted the basilisk inside the Beast-Taming Ring.
"Calling you 'basilisk' all the time is too strange. From now on, your name is Hermes. Hermes, what are those two wooden chests in your lair?"
"Yes, Master."
Hermes's voice came through the soul contract, much gentler than the hissing Gerald had heard directly in the Chamber of Secrets.
"My former master, Salazar Slytherin, left them behind. The last time he left the Chamber of Secrets, he put them there himself and told me to guard them. He said that if a descendant of Slytherin ever came here and could open the two chests, their contents would belong to him."
An inheritance left by Salazar Slytherin!
Gerald's eyes brightened slightly.
The belongings of one of the strongest wizards a thousand years ago, preserved in the deepest part of the Chamber of Secrets and guarded by an adult basilisk for over a millennium.
He walked up to the two wooden chests and cast the Unlocking Charm on one of them.
"Alohomora."
The lock on the wooden chest trembled slightly, but nothing else happened.
He tried the other chest, with the same result.
Gerald crouched down and carefully examined the keyhole. He discovered that the lock's construction was exquisitely intricate, with what appeared to be several interlocking layers of magical mechanisms inside. At its very core was an anti-magic coating immune to most known unlocking spells.