"But then, why does posterity insist that Slytherin loathed those of mud—" Pansy interrupted her own sentence, correcting herself on the fly as she noticed the glares: "Muggle-borns! Don't look at me that way! It's still a deeply rooted habit in my family environment and it slips out unconsciously. You know perfectly well I don't mean it with bad intentions!" she hastily justified herself to the others, who simply smiled or let out short chuckles.
After so many months of coexistence and shared battles, the group's camaraderie was solid enough to discern that Pansy's slip was just the inertia of her upbringing, not real contempt.
"The misrepresentation was the work of later generations," I resumed. "As I mentioned, Salazar feared the environment of those students. If they were orphans or removed from Muggle influence at an early age, he raised no objection whatsoever; but the other founders advocated for an open-door policy without family restrictions. It was the later Gaunt dynasty that, perhaps out of personal grudges, genetic defects, or an unearned delusion of superiority, began to manipulate and rewrite Slytherin's legacy to justify their own political agenda and peddle blood purity. The Basilisk's original directive was to neutralize 'enemies', yes, but that term did not encompass the student body; it referred to anyone who perpetrated an assault against the castle, the lineage of the founders, or the integrity of the magical community. The Basilisk was not a school executioner, but a military defense system left by Salazar himself to safeguard Hogwarts. And it wasn't the only one; each of the founders integrated highly lethal countermeasures to protect the institution and its residents. Remember that Hogwarts was erected during a period of feudal wars; it is, in essence, a militarized fortress. The aberrant part was that his own descendants insulted his memory, redirecting an internal defense weapon against the very wizards it was meant to protect."
Silence took over the group as they assimilated the weight of historical truth. The two-dimensional image of a Salazar Slytherin consumed by folkloric racism crumbled, leaving them in a state of reflective fascination.
"And what about the rift?" Astoria chimed in, her fingers intertwining with Luna's. "The legend of the irreconcilable dispute with the other founders and his self-imposed exile... What part of that is true?"
"It happened, but the staging of the modern era is highly exaggerated," I replied. "Slytherin was a man plagued by paranoia and did not intend to yield to what he considered an intolerable security breach. The others refused to give in and frictions existed... But the schism was not the dramatic cataclysm they sell us in textbooks. Other factors coexisted. Salazar was a scholar of forbidden magic, and prolonged use of those flows alters the psyche. Perhaps he noticed the decline of his faculties due to old age, perhaps he longed to experiment with larger-scale dark rituals off the school's radar... Or perhaps, simply, he decided to embark on one final voyage of exploration."
"You don't know for absolute certain?" Daphne inquired, detecting the slight speculative nuance in my voice.
"My readings of his personal manuscripts have been scarce due to the time factor, and his logs conclude abruptly on the day of his departure, without specifying coordinates or definitive motivations. So the exact reason remains in the shadows, but I assure you it wasn't a mutual, irreversible hatred. Those four individuals forged an unbreakable bond over decades; despite any ideological discrepancy, they would have rushed to each other's rescue without hesitation... Especially Gryffindor. From what I managed to extract from Salazar's notes, Godric and he were inseparable confidants, the kind of friends who express their affection through constant insults and first-blood duels. It's highly probable they counted the same number of violent altercations as they did toasts with mead... Quite an ironic dynamic, don't you think?"
At my revelations, the members of Slytherin and Gryffindor exchanged glances charged with deep strangeness. Their respective houses, historically at enmity, turned out to have been founded by a pair of formidable friends and rivals. None of them could process the historical twist, except for Lavender, whose eyes sparked as she mentally sketched her next manuscript: Gryffindor x Slytherin: Romances and Hostilities of the Past and Present. The rest contemplated both sides with curiosity, then redirected their eyes toward me, waiting with evident expectation for me to break down the confidential secrets of their respective female founders.
"How do you think the existence of the monster of the Chamber of Secrets leaked out?" I inquired with a mocking smile. "Salazar himself warned his peers about this asset before exiling himself, presenting it as one of Hogwarts' defensive bulwarks... However, he reserved the specific details—its nature, how to find it, and command directives—exclusively for his line of succession. He conceived it as a countermeasure in case the descendants of the other founders or external factions became corrupted, aiming to attack his lineage or subvert the Basilisk's original purpose. Like I told you: a brilliant and paranoid old man, whose legacy suffered the irony of being sabotaged and dishonored by his own heirs."
The girls continued to absorb every word in absolute admiration. Multiple historical unknowns found answers in my intervention, prompting them to fire a cascade of questions despite the solemn atmosphere that prevailed.
"If you wish to delve deeper into that era, I know someone capable of offering you plenty of truthful information," I announced with a mischievous smile. "There is a ghost from that very era, closely linked to the Four Founders, who will undoubtedly indulge your curiosity."
The students looked at me intrigued, though the faces of those to whom I had already revealed it lit up as they deduced the identity I was referring to. Exhibiting that implicit pride of possessing privileged knowledge, they began to explain it, though of course without mentioning those secret parts that only that intimate group could know.
Finally, we approached the end of the path. Moaning Myrtle awaited us hidden and joined the group with overflowing glee upon finding us alive, despite our obvious general physical deterioration. Being one of the entities most terrified by the cryptic dweller of the lower levels, her look of happiness was impossible to contain when the girls gave her a summary version of events. Myrtle experienced such an absolute catharsis from her long-awaited revenge that her ectoplasmic silhouette seemed to weaken momentarily out of pure satisfaction—it almost looked like it would lead her to eternal rest, though the manifestation did not actually dissolve.
Shortly after, we crossed the final threshold, emerging back into the girls' lavatory. Behind us, the stone jaws of the Chamber of Secrets sealed with a resounding echo, establishing a sepulchral silence and a comforting emptiness in the young women's chests. It was the definitive closing of a turbulent chapter in their lives.
With the descent completed, it was time to notify the institution of the end of the period of terror, while managing the group's health. I could have eradicated their physical aftereffects through my skills in a heartbeat, but I argued to them that it was better for the faculty to witness their war wounds; the irrefutable evidence of their heroic deed. Of course, I guaranteed them beforehand that I would intervene later to ensure the total absence of marks or aesthetic scars.
To infuse a playful nuance into the transition, or perhaps to strategically capitalize on the scene, I assigned them one final order: disperse through the adjacent corridors to locate the professors and report the outcome of the conflict.
They were exhausted, in pain, and with several of them on the verge of collapsing from lethargy, but with Myrtle's help, the word did not delay in spreading.
The committees of professors were patrolling the corridors not only in search of the Heir, but tracking the contingent of missing female students... It is easy to imagine the absolute stupefaction the teachers suffered when they collided with the wounded group, led by Penelope Clearwater levitating Percy's inert body, while they informed them with total casualness that the Hogwarts crisis had been fully resolved.
The subsequent phase devolved into generalized chaos and deep confusion for the entirety of the student body and faculty. However, the resolution was irreversible: the nightmare had concluded.
Minutes later, Albus Dumbledore arrived at the scene with a hurried step, freezing completely before the reality unfolding before his eyes. During his absence, Riddle had executed his offensive and had been defeated... but under a methodology diametrically opposed to his meticulous projections. The whetstone destined for Harry Potter, the stepping stone designed to catapult the "Boy Who Lived" and forge him as Voldemort's definitive nemesis, had been pulverized by a conclave of witches before he could even arrange the board. All his plans went down the drain...
In the end, the old man could only exhale a long sigh, devoid of immediate laments. Things had changed drastically; his current priorities no longer orbited so strongly around that "problem" since he possessed proof of the existence of that dangerous human-looking being... He had a powerful new reason to live. Nonetheless, by the irony of that very vital motivation, the schemes regarding Riddle returned to the headmaster's mind: he could not afford to leave such a lethal loose end capable of compromising his sister's safety. Consequently, the premise of training Potter became valid in his plans once more, even though this opportunity had been wasted... However, the old man's face adopted an expression of genuine stupefaction upon being informed that young Potter was already in the hospital wing alongside the brand-new Hogwarts Heroines... and not as a visitor, but as one more convalescing patient in the ward.
A similar consternation awaited Professor McGonagall, who would make her formal entrance at dawn.
...
Currently, the hospital wing was packed to its maximum capacity, configuring a scenario that Madam Pomfrey deeply detested: an absolute saturation of actual patients.
On one side, the petrified students awaited the Mandrake treatment. In another section, the Gryffindor boys along with Professor Lockhart presented severe bruises and various degrees of cognitive trauma. On a central cot lay Percy Weasley, exhibiting the clinical picture of an individual drained by a parasitic entity, crowned by the aftereffects of a blatant physical and magical beating. And finally, a group of girls bearing wounds and lacerations capable of alarming the most seasoned Auror, with the indelible imprint of having survived a miniature military campaign. The mediwitch operated without knowing the background variables, but she cataloged the day as one of the most demanding shifts of her professional career.
A short distance away, the faculty coordinated the gathered information, adding Dumbledore's imminent arrival to the council, while the first rumors spurred the most daring students to loiter around the corridors of the hospital wing to unravel the mystery.
The entire outcome constituted a spectacle of monumental proportions, from which I deliberately kept myself hidden. I avoided any public exposure due to my zero interest in claiming credit for the feat; besides, I had other matters to attend to. I limited myself to dispatching precise instructions via [messages], while answering the urgent missives sent by Dumbledore.