Chapter 158: Digging a Tunnel (Patreon)

Slytherin Dormitory.

Weide lay quietly in bed.

Before long, he heard Crabbe and Goyle snoring, along with Draco’s steady breathing.

After confirming that all three of his roommates were asleep, he opened his eyes and sat up.

Weide waved his wand repeatedly, setting up a soundproofing barrier around the entire dormitory as well as around Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle’s beds. He then opened a small vial of Sleeping Potion and let it diffuse slowly into the air.

“That should keep you asleep until morning. Sweet dreams.”

Weide touched his wand to his nose and mouth, filtering out the air mixed with the Sleeping Potion.

He then walked over to his desk, tore off a piece of parchment, and wrote a divination statement on it:

The Slytherin dormitory is connected by a passage to Salazar Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets.

He removed the crystal pendant from around his neck and held it in his left hand, suspending it vertically above the parchment while silently repeating the divination statement in his mind.

After a moment, the crystal swung clockwise, its movement surprisingly strong.

Perfect.

Weide breathed a sigh of relief.

This meant he could open a route from the dormitory to Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets.

He had plenty of things to accomplish during the new school year, but some of them needed to remain strictly confidential.

For example, creating humanoid alchemical puppets.

He needed a secret base, and there was no better place than Salazar Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets.

Hardly anyone knew about it in the first place. Moreover, Hogwarts had already sealed it off, meaning no one would go there anymore.

Its security was more than sufficient.

Weide carefully examined the floor of the dormitory, searching for a suitable place to create an entrance.

Eventually, his eyes settled on his own bed.

With a wave of his wand, the four-poster bed gently moved aside, revealing the solid stone floor beneath it.

“Diffindo!”

The spell sliced through the rock beneath the bed, dividing it into neat blocks.

The stone pieces automatically floated out and stacked themselves on either side, revealing a pit slightly smaller than the bed above it.

“Diffindo!”

“Diffindo!”

Before casting the spell each time, Weide used divination to determine the direction he should dig, making sure he didn't accidentally break through into the Black Lake.

Apart from the uppermost layer, all the stone and rubble he excavated was stored inside a bag enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm.

As time passed, he dug deeper and deeper, while the amount of rubble inside the bag continued to grow.

Bang!

Finally, accompanied by a dull thud distinctly different from the sound of cutting stone, he broke through a pipe buried deep underground.

Whoosh!

Weide took a deep breath and cast a lighting spell into the pipe.

The light drove away the darkness, revealing an interior more than two meters in diameter, covered in gray-green moss and scattered with the bones of small animals.

“I’ll stop here for today. Finding the pipe means I’ve already succeeded halfway.”

Weide murmured softly.

The network of passages running throughout the castle would provide a shortcut to the Chamber of Secrets.

Using his Hovering Cloak, Weide flew upward dozens of meters before returning to the dormitory.

He quickly replaced the stones on both sides of the entrance, then moved the four-poster bed back into its original position.

After cleaning away every trace of his work, he climbed into bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The dormitory looked as though nothing had happened.

No one knew that, in just a few short hours, a secret passage had appeared beneath his bed.

The next morning.

When Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle woke up, they were full of energy.

Weide, meanwhile, took a potion from his drawer and drank it, only then managing to recover some of his strength.

“Why do you look so exhausted?” Draco asked suspiciously. “Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

“Yeah.”

Weide nodded listlessly, quickly coming up with a reasonably convincing excuse.

“A Dementor entered our compartment on the Hogwarts Express, too.

“I drove it away, but you have to understand... facing one of those things at such close range for the first time was absolutely horrible.”

“Oh!”

Draco suddenly understood.

“That was you? I thought it was Lupin!”

“At least you didn’t faint,” Crabbe said.

“I remember that only the Patronus Charm can deal with Dementors. When did you learn it?”

“I haven’t learned it yet.”

Weide put on a dejected expression.

“I’ve been practicing for ages, but I still can’t summon a complete Patronus. Otherwise, driving away that Dementor wouldn’t have been so exhausting.”

“That’s normal. Even adult wizards can’t necessarily summon a Patronus.”

The group left the dormitory and headed to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Along the way, Draco spared no effort in spreading the story about Harry Potter fainting from fear of the Dementor, adding a little artistic embellishment that drew plenty of laughter from the other students.

“I really don’t understand why Draco always enjoys making Harry Potter miserable.”

Daphne sighed helplessly, seemingly already accustomed to it.

“Do you remember what I said during our first flying lesson?

“The great Boy Who Lived was finally showing his talent, while young Master Malfoy had also found his greatest rival for the next seven years at Hogwarts.”

“Not many people probably took you seriously back then.”

Daphne laughed helplessly.

“But... heh. The next five years are going to be interesting!”

Gemma Farley distributed the third-year timetables.

Weide looked at the considerably more crowded schedule compared with last year, and his expression became rather complicated.

I need to finish creating that humanoid alchemical puppet as soon as possible.

There was no way he could waste a huge amount of precious time reviewing old material.

“We have two additional subjects this year: Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures.”

Daphne looked troubled.

“It feels like our schedule is completely packed.”

“It only feels that way. Hermione’s schedule is probably genuinely packed. She chose every elective.”

“She chose all five?”

Daphne looked incredulous.

“The schedules for two, sometimes even three, subjects overlap. She’s so smart—surely she didn’t overlook something that obvious?”

“Who knows? Once she realizes she can’t keep up with everything, she’ll probably ask Professor McGonagall to let her drop some of the classes.”

Daphne nodded in agreement.

“I think that means we’ll have much less time to go to that room.”

“What room?”

Astoria sat down beside her with a tray of food.

Daphne hesitated and glanced at Weide.

She didn't say a word, but the meaning in her eyes was obvious.

Weide wearily nodded, reluctantly giving his approval.

Besides, he had already decided to turn Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets into his own private secret base.

The Room of Requirement on the eighth floor wasn't nearly as important anymore.

“You’re really good to your little sister!”

“I only have one little sister.”

Daphne smiled happily before leaning toward Astoria and whispering something mysterious into her ear.

After hearing it, Astoria’s eyes widened.

“Hogwarts has a place that amazing?”

“The secrets of this school are so numerous that even Dumbledore may not know all of them.

“If it weren’t for those attacks last school year, who would have known that Salazar Slytherin had even built a Chamber of Secrets inside Hogwarts?”