Tap, tap, tap.
Quick footsteps echoed through the corridor.
The smooth brown hair showed just how carefully its owner took care of it.
And the witch hurrying along with a trace of urgency in her steps and a hint of worry on her face was naturally Hermione Granger, who had just parted from Draco at the corner.
At this moment, she was, of course, going to carry out the arrangements Draco had mentioned...
Withdrawing his gaze, Draco gathered his robes around himself. "Then, next, I should go finish my own business as well."
Only after Hermione had hurriedly disappeared from his sight did Draco lift his feet again and walk in the opposite direction.
And that direction led to the Slytherin common room...
In fact.
Before the plan began to be carried out, there was still one wizard Draco wanted to meet.
To be more precise... the wizard he wanted to meet should actually be called a ghost.
As Draco walked toward Slytherin House, he murmured softly under his breath.
"It's about time I met... that elusive Slytherin ghost."
...
Speaking of ghosts.
Or rather, spirits.
Unlike what muggles imagined, in the wizarding world, these deceased wizards were not frightening beings, much less the main characters of stories told late at night or in front of girls.
Although terrifying ghosts did exist, and there were also ghosts like Peeves who loved playing pranks, most ghosts were approachable and still kept the living habits of ordinary people...
And in Hogwarts, there were several ghosts whose length of existence was no longer very clear.
Among them.
Aside from Professor Bins, who served as the History of Magic professor, and the prank-loving Peeves, the ones best known to young wizards were naturally the representative ghosts of the four great houses.
These four representative ghosts were...
Gryffindor's Nearly Headless Nick, Hufflepuff's Fat Friar, Ravenclaw's Grey Lady, and Slytherin's Bloody Baron.
Nearly Headless Nick.
As the name suggested, his head and body were connected by only a layer of skin.
Although that sounded frightening and disgusting, in reality, it was not scary at all. On the contrary, when he performed, there was an oddly subtle kind of comedy to it.
Especially when paired with his dejected and regretful expression, it shattered muggles' fixed impression of ghosts even more...
As for Hufflepuff's Fat Friar.
He was a typical Hufflepuff.
He was extremely friendly and merciful to others. Even the unpopular Peeves could be accepted by the Fat Friar with the greatest tolerance, and he was also the only one who could see Peeves' hidden merits.
It was worth mentioning that every year when Hogwarts started term, the Fat Friar would try to persuade the other ghosts to let Peeves attend the feast.
Though he had never succeeded even once...
...
And lastly.
When Slytherin's Bloody Baron was mentioned, Ravenclaw's Grey Lady had to be mentioned along with him.
Speaking of the Grey Lady.
Aside from having a very special and unique surname, she was also very closely connected to one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
There was also a story behind it.
Although Draco had not obtained a clear answer from the Grey Lady, or the answer he had wanted to know, after their last meeting, Draco and the others had still learned some of Hogwarts' secrets from her.
Stories about their era, and the love and hatred between her and the Bloody Baron...
It had to be said.
When Draco mentioned the name Bloody Baron in front of the Grey Lady, the way she became agitated and lost her composure had left a very deep impression on Draco and the others.
Because of that, after returning that day, Draco had specially investigated the relationship between the two.
It was only after that investigation that he learned the secret history between them, one long forgotten by time.
The Dark Lord, the vanished Ravenclaw Diadem, Helena Ravenclaw, and... the Bloody Baron!
In any case.
Speaking of this mysterious ghost, one feared by many ghosts and rarely seen in the castle.
Draco had wanted to find a chance to meet him for a long time...
As Draco walked toward the Slytherin common room, he stroked his chin while thinking about the information related to him. "Based on what we know so far, the Bloody Baron does indeed have an unusual relationship with the Grey Lady."
With the Malfoy family behind him, Draco could naturally learn many things that most ordinary wizards did not know.
As for the Bloody Baron, whose movements were mysterious and whose entire existence was full of mystery.
Under the investigation of the Malfoy family's vast intelligence network, the mysterious connection between the two had also been quickly clarified.
It could not be called completely accurate, but at least there was a trace of a clue...
"It's just... I really didn't expect the story between those two to be so..."
Mm...
In truth, Helena Ravenclaw, that beautiful ghost with an intellectual air, was actually the person the Bloody Baron had pursued while he was alive.
In other words.
That terrifying Bloody Baron had been madly in love with Ravenclaw's Grey Lady...
Draco's expression turned a little strange, as if he had thought of something. "Could it be that Slytherin romances are all this rough?"
"Don't tell me they're cursed?"
At that moment, someone in the Headmaster's office suddenly felt his eyelid twitch wildly...
In any case.
Strictly speaking, Draco did not actually care about the love-hate entanglement between the Bloody Baron and Helena Ravenclaw.
After all, he was not that bored, nor would he waste any extra curiosity on something that had nothing to do with him.
But there was no helping it. It was precisely because of this complicated relationship that the tragedy that followed occurred.
Just like the plots in those romance novels.
As expected, something unexpected was about to happen...
Because after Helena Ravenclaw, who went by the alias Grey Lady, was deceived by Voldemort back then, she actually stole the Ravenclaw Diadem out of Hogwarts.
And after learning of this, the Bloody Baron volunteered, for some reason, to chase after her.
But when he caught up to her and the two of them fell into a quarrel where neither would give way, our Bloody Baron, unable to obtain what he wanted in every sense, accidentally killed the Helena he loved.
That melodramatic and theatrical result made Draco suspect that their dear Tom had played an important role in it, and had done something behind the scenes, ultimately leading to that regretful tragedy.
It had to be said that such a possibility did indeed exist...