Almost overnight, the mood at school changed completely. All the candidates previously thought to be Slytherin's heir lost their supporters overnight.
Now, the possibility that Harry Potter was Slytherin's heir and the one who had opened the Chamber of Secrets far outstripped that of Draco Malfoy and Dulang Shafiq, who had previously ranked ahead of him.
Everyone who had attended the Duelling Club that day was convinced it had to be Harry. There could be no mistake. And as it happened, almost every student in the school had attended the Duelling Club that evening.
Even Harry, who had not taken the matter particularly seriously before, found this quite a headache.
Many people at school believed Harry must be Salazar Slytherin's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson or something of the sort. And the very unfortunate thing was that neither Harry nor anyone else could prove he was not.
The Wizarding World in the United Kingdom was simply too small. Blood ties between old magical families were inevitable.
And although the Potter Family was now very small in numbers, it happened to have a very long lineage.
In other words, it was entirely possible that, in the distant past, they had been related by blood or marriage to Salazar Slytherin or his descendants.
In fact, even Harry himself had begun to wonder a little whether he really might be Slytherin's heir.
But if I really am Slytherin's heir, why was I sorted into Gryffindor?
As far as he knew, the two Founders of Slytherin and Gryffindor seemed to have held quite different ideals.
Thinking back a little, Harry remembered a detail he had almost forgotten.
When he had taken part in the Sorting Ceremony, the Sorting Hat had briefly shown signs of probing his thoughts, before he had used the Meditation Method to shut it out.