Chapter 139: Plan Approved
After briefly answering Draco's question, he felt something growing warm in his pocket. He excused himself and headed back to the dormitory.
"Ten-thirty: meet in the Room of Requirement." The message on his Communication Card was scrawled in messy handwriting. He couldn't tell if Fred or George had sent it.
*Later,* he thought. The common room was packed. Not a good time to slip out. Ethan pulled out his wand and wrote back, "Then eleven."
A reply came moments later.
"Okay."
After that, silence.
He still had time to kill. The noise from the common room continued unabated.
Ethan lay on his bed, pretending to sleep while waiting for the right moment to leave.
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed through the room.
Ethan pulled back the curtains and saw a phoenix.
"Fawkes? What are you doing here?"
Fawkes held out his leg, a note tied to it.
Ethan untied it. The note contained only one line: "Come to the Headmaster's office. The password is Iced Lemon Juice."
Below that was Dumbledore's signature.
Ethan glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already ten past ten. Clearly, Dumbledore had heard about tonight's events and was summoning him urgently.
He climbed out of bed and told Fawkes, "Go on ahead. I'll be right there."
With another bang, Fawkes vanished from the dormitory.
Ethan quickly got dressed, pocketed the note, and headed out.
"It's past curfew. What are you doing?"
Draco, his roommate, looked perplexed. He knew Ethan sometimes wandered at night, but never this openly. Such brazen behavior took Draco aback.
"The Headmaster wants to see me. I'll be out for a bit." Ethan waved the note in his hand as he left the dormitory, openly ignoring curfew for the first time.
"That's odd. When did Dumbledore give him the note?" Draco muttered. Still, considering Dumbledore was not only the Headmaster but also the greatest wizard of his time, he probably had his own magical methods of communication.
As Ethan passed through the common room, he noticed everyone wore expressions of both excitement and panic. They chattered incessantly about the Heir of Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets.
Once outside, Ethan paused for a moment to think. He scribbled on the Communication Card, "Headmaster wants to see me. I'm running late."
*Okay.*
Ethan swaggered down the empty corridor, feeling rather cool. His only regret was that he hadn't run into Filch.
It would have been incredibly thrilling to wave the note right in the caretaker's face before getting caught wandering the halls at night.
After giving the password, Ethan arrived at the Headmaster's office on the third floor.
Perhaps because Dumbledore had been waiting for him, the door opened before he could even knock.
Judging by his attire, Dumbledore obviously hadn't slept. He was neatly dressed, with a pointed wizard hat perched on his head.
With a snap of his fingers, a cup of black tea appeared on the coffee table.
"Please change that to a glass of milk for me. I won't be able to sleep later if I drink tea."
"Sure." Dumbledore smiled, though he seemed surprised. With another snap of his fingers, the black tea disappeared, replaced by a glass of milk in the same spot.
It had been a long time since he'd had hot milk. The first sip tasted strange.
"You're also a Parselmouth, aren't you?"
Ethan choked on his milk, coughing violently.
The old man walked over and patted his back, helping him catch his breath, then made the spilled milk disappear.
Ethan finally cleared his throat, wiping the milk from the corner of his mouth, and looked up at Dumbledore. "Did you have to ask so bluntly?"
"I overheard you and Harry talking earlier. I suspected it after hearing those strange voices, but I couldn't be sure. Now that Harry has been confirmed as a Parselmouth, it's only logical that you are one too, having heard the same voice."
The old man sat beside him, looking rather distressed. "To think three Parselmouths have appeared at once."
*That should be four, including that unfortunate soul possessed by Voldemort's diary,* Ethan thought.
He didn't know what the old man wanted from him, so he held his glass of milk and sipped slowly.
After a moment, Dumbledore said, "Ethan, I need your help. I've confirmed the facts. The entrance to the Chamber is in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. The basilisk emerged from there."
"So, you want me to help you open the Chamber? Aren't you going to catch the culprit?"
"You do know the monster attacking people is a basilisk." The old man studied his reaction, as if he expected it.
"I'm not stupid. There's information in the library, too. It was easy to figure out."
"This dangerous creature kills any living being that looks directly at it. That is how Myrtle died."
"But indirect eye contact isn't fatal. Of course, putting the clues together, I figured out it was a basilisk."
The explanation Ethan had been preparing since Mrs. Norris was attacked came in handy.
"Why not ask Harry for help? Isn't he a Parselmouth too? Nancy would work too. Why does it have to be me?"
"Because you're the strongest. Those two are too weak, and they'd get hurt too easily."
"Hmm?"
"I'll definitely protect you. I won't let you get hurt. You have my word." Seeing that Ethan looked somewhat unhappy, the old man quickly reassured him.
"Is that all? I'm risking my life. Does a promise of protection really cover it?" Ethan felt it would be a waste not to take this chance to extract some knowledge from the old man.
"What else do you want? I already gave you my old Transfiguration notes. Do you want me to put together some more Transfiguration notes for you?" the old man asked tentatively.
Ethan had to admit he was tempted. Dumbledore's Transfiguration skills were exceptional, and he had benefited greatly from them. Although the magic he'd devised to turn beans into soldiers still had problems and only produced palm-sized figures, it was already far beyond what his peers could manage.
The old man saw that he was tempted and pressed his advantage. "Also, some of my alchemy notes. I know those Wizarding Cards you made recently aren't perfect. The enchantments are flawed. Did the Weasley twins make them?"
"I can provide solutions to fix those issues."
Ethan couldn't resist. He gritted his teeth. "Deal. But we need to agree beforehand: I won't face the Basilisk directly."
The old man stroked his beard. "Of course. That's a matter for Fawkes and me. You just need to help open the Chamber."
Hearing this, Ethan realized he could still squeeze more out of the deal. Remembering that the Basilisk wouldn't appear unless summoned, he readily agreed.
"Fine. When do we act?"
"In two days. I'll try again if I catch them." Dumbledore's eyes behind his spectacles held unfathomable depths.
"Hmm, just find me then." Ethan finished his milk and asked the old man for another note so he wouldn't get caught by Filch on the way back.
Before leaving, he glanced at the wall clock. It wasn't even ten forty yet. He wrote, "I can be earlier. I'm setting off now."
With that, Ethan made his way to the Room of Requirement, where someone was already inside. Most likely, the twins had been waiting there for quite some time.
Ethan stood before the wall and wrote on the Communication Card: "Open the door."
A door materialized on the smooth wall. Ethan walked inside.
Today, the Room of Requirement didn't look like the alchemy studio they were used to. Instead, it looked like a common room, specifically the Ravenclaw common room. Ravenclaw banners hung everywhere.
George sat on the sofa. Fred stayed silent after opening the door. Once they settled by the fireplace, a heavy silence fell over the group.
Ethan broke the silence first. "You want to ask about Ron this time? Did you already ask Harry?"
"Yeah. When Harry got back to the common room, we asked if he knew why Ron had gone out in the middle of the night. He said he didn't know anything." Fred's voice was flat, missing his usual cheer, and George's was drained of all energy.
"We'd barely gotten a few sentences out before he started shouting. He said that if we had evidence, we should report it." George's voice was equally flat.
Deep down, they knew Harry would never do such a thing. But hearing Harry speak Parseltongue made them wonder if he was the heir. Had he released the monster from the Chamber of Secrets to attack Ron?
They shared their concerns about Harry with Ethan, but knowing he wouldn't have answers either, the brothers began asking about Ron instead. "When you found Ron, did you notice anything else?"
That morning, Ethan had informed the twins via Communication Card that Ron had been attacked. They immediately visited their brother in the Hospital Wing and sent a letter to their parents.
By noon, Ethan had recounted the details of finding Ron, clarifying that he hadn't found any other signs of trouble.
However, their communication at noon had been brief, allowing only a few sentences. Moreover, with the sudden news that night that two Parselmouths were at the school, they wanted to see if there were any specific details Ethan might have missed.
"When I found Ron, he was wearing an Invisibility Cloak. It belonged to Harry. You've seen it, too..." Ethan paused for a moment before explaining the situation in detail. He told them everything except for the Basilisk's voice.
The twins asked a barrage of follow-up questions, but in the end, they reluctantly admitted there was nothing else suspicious.
"Is there really nothing we can do?" Fred buried his face in his hands and slumped into the chair.
"Trust Dumbledore. He'll handle it." Although Ethan didn't agree with the old man's recent plan to catch the mastermind behind the attacks, he had faith that Dumbledore would deal with the Basilisk quickly to put everyone at ease.
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4.Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black = CHAPTER 137
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