harry potter book of crimes

"It must have been him!" Filch screamed, turning to Harry.

"It is impossible for second-year students to do this," Dumbledore said firmly. "It requires extremely advanced dark magic."

But Filch didn't seem to agree. He still insisted that this was a good thing Harry did.

Snape on the side even added fuel to the fire by questioning Harry's whereabouts, trying to get him to quit the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

For a while, the scene was a little chaotic.

"As long as you are not proven guilty, you are innocent, Severus." Dumbledore was obviously still as firm as ever.

Snape looked very angry, and so did Filch.

"My cat is petrified!" he screamed, his eyeballs bulging outward. "I want to see someone get some punishment!"

"We can cure it, Filch," said Dumbledore patiently. "Mrs. Sprout has recently obtained some mandrakes. Once they grow up, I have a potion that will cure Lori.

Madam Si has come back to life."

"I'll make it," Lockhart interjected. "I must have made it a hundred times. I can make the Mandrake Resurrection Potion while I'm dreaming -"

"I think, leaving it to McGlaine is better than -" Snape squinted his eyes, only half of what he said, but anyone with a discerning eye could understand what he meant.

In the end, it was Dumbledore who told Harry and the others to go back first.

Naturally, the three Harrys wished they could leave as soon as possible. They tried to speed up their pace and almost started running.

When they arrived upstairs in Lockhart's office, they entered an empty classroom and closed the door gently. Harry squinted his eyes and looked at the faces of his two friends in the darkness.

"Do you think I should tell them about the sound I heard?" he hesitated.

Hermione was still thinking about what the "Chamber of Secrets" was, while Ron stood aside in a daze. For a moment, no one answered what he meant.

For several days in a row, the students talked about nothing else but the attack on Mrs. Norris - Filch's behavior made it impossible for everyone to forget this incident.

He often walked around the place where Mrs. Norris was killed, as if he thought the attacker would come again. Harry saw that he was scrubbing the writing on the wall with "Mrs. Skoll's Universal Magic Stain Remover", but it seemed that

It was all in vain, those words still flashed so brightly on the stone wall.

And if Filch is not patrolling crime scenes, he is definitely hiding in the corridors with his red eyes, and then suddenly pounces on unsuspecting students, trying every possible means to find excuses to lock them up, such as saying that they "

Reasons like "I'm breathing too loudly", or "I'm smiling".

As for Ginny, she seemed very disturbed by what happened to Mrs. Norris. According to Ron, she had always been very fond of cats.

Ron would comfort his precious sister from time to time, but occasionally he would stare at the air in a daze.

Judging from his friendship with Harry, his current state must have been noticed by Harry. But recently, Harry has been worried about other things!

Apart from anything else, just the fact that someone wanted to run away after seeing him was enough to give him a headache for a while.

One day, Hermione walked out from the bookshelves. She seemed very annoyed, but finally she was willing to talk to them. This was probably because Maka had not been in the library these days.

"Several copies of "Hogwarts: A School History" have been borrowed," she said, sitting down next to Harry and Ron. "The list of people who have registered to borrow has been two weeks away. Alas.

, I wish I had not left mine at home, but there are so many thick volumes by Lockhart in the box that there is no room for it."

"Why do you want to see it?" Harry asked doubtfully.

"The same reason everyone else wants to see it," said Hermione, "to look up the legend about the Chamber of Secrets."

"What is the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked immediately.

"That's the problem, I can't remember it clearly," Hermione bit her lip, glanced at the back corner of the library seemingly unintentionally, and said faintly, "And I can't find this story anywhere else -"

"Hermione, let me see your essay." Ron looked at his watch and said anxiously.

"No!" Hermione suddenly glared at Ron.

Seeing that she seemed to be in a bad mood again, Ron had to frown, but his eyes also glanced at that corner.

That place has almost become Maka's special seat, but since the petrification incident, he has never been seen again.

After a while, the school bell rang.

Ron and Hermione walked in silence towards the History of Magic class. Halfway through, Harry looked at them hesitantly several times - he finally realized something was wrong.

"I said, why don't you ask Maka? It seems like I haven't chatted with him for a while." Harry thought this idea should be a good one, after all, Maka had a very good status in the hearts of the trio.

"no no!"

Harry didn't expect that Hermione and Ron unanimously rejected this bad idea for the first time.

"Um...what's wrong?" Harry couldn't help but look puzzled.

"It's okay." "No, it's nothing..."

Hermione and Ron looked at each other. Although they didn't know what the other was thinking, they undoubtedly had something to do with Maka.

Finally, the three of them arrived at the History of Magic classroom in silence.

The History of Magic lessons were as boring as usual.

As the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Binns crossed the blackboard and came to the podium. He opened his notes and read in a dry, low and monotonous voice. The continuous buzzing was like an old computer.

of vacuum cleaner.

The whole class was drowsy, occasionally regaining consciousness, copying down a name or date, and then fell into a semi-sleep state again.

But after he spoke for half an hour, something happened in class that had never happened before - Hermione raised her hand.

Professor Binns suddenly raised his head, looking very surprised.

"Who are you--"

"I'm Granger, Professor. I wonder if you can tell us what the Chamber of Secrets is about." Hermione said in a clear voice.

The word "secret room" is obviously a hot topic recently, and most students feel a little afraid of it. When Hermione suddenly mentioned this topic in class, it was like pouring a bucket on all the sleepy classmates.

It felt like cold water and everyone sat upright.

Professor Binns blinked when he heard this.

"My subject is the History of Magic," he said in his dry, breathless voice. "I study facts, Miss Granger, not myths and legends."

He cleared his throat, lowered his head again and hummed: "In October of that year, a dedicated group composed of magicians from Siding Island——"

But Hermione raised her hand again.

"I would like to ask, sir, legends are based on certain facts, aren't they?"

In desperation, Professor Binns had no choice but to speak slowly.

"Well...yeah, I guess, you could say that." He looked at Hermione hard, as if he had never looked at a student properly before.

"However, the legend you mentioned is a very sensational, even ridiculous story..."

In fact, Hogwarts was founded about a thousand years ago. The founders were the four greatest wizards and wizards of the time. The four houses were named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Hercules

Elga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin.

In the first few years, several founders worked together harmoniously, looking for young people who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to train them.

However, as time went by, differences gradually developed between them.

The rift between Slytherin and others grew wider. He believed that Hogwarts should be more selective when recruiting students, and that magical education should be limited to purely magical families.

He was unwilling to accept children born to Muggles, believing them to be unreliable.

Some days later, Slytherin and Gryffindor had a fierce quarrel over this issue, and Slytherin left the school.

"This is what reliable historical data tells us," Professor Binns pursed his lips, looking like a wrinkled old turtle - still translucent.

"...But these pure facts have been obscured by the bizarre legend about the Chamber of Secrets." He said, "That story said that Slytherin built a secret room in the castle that the other founders knew nothing about.

.”

"According to this legend, Slytherin sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that no one could open it until his true heir came to the school. Only that heir could open the Chamber and release the horrors within, allowing it to purify the school.

, get rid of all those who are not worthy of learning magic."

The story ends here. The whole class is silent, everyone is staring at Professor Binns, hoping that he can continue to tell.

But as a magic historian who is obsessed with "facts", such myths and legends are obviously meaningless to him.

No matter how much the students urged, he just didn't want to continue telling these stories that even he himself didn't believe.

Soon, get out of class is over.

The three people were pushed aside by the crowd. At this time, Harry's admirer, Colin Creevey, walked past them and greeted Harry excitedly.

"Hello, Colin." Harry replied casually.

"Harry...Harry, a boy in our class has been saying that you are -" However, Colin was too small and could not stop the flow of people pushing him towards the auditorium.

They only heard him scream "Goodbye, Harry!" before they were completely swept away by the crowd.

"What did the boy in his class say about you?" Hermione asked in confusion. "I think, probably, I am the heir of Slytherin." Harry said, his heart sinking a little more.

, because he suddenly remembered the way Justin Finch-Fletchley had scurried away from him at lunch.

Ron looked at Harry with a hesitant expression.