The next day, after class, Harry was about to go find Hagrid and warn him that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened again and the basilisk had started attacking people—so Hagrid could prepare as early as possible.
After all, decades ago he'd already been accused of keeping a dangerous magical creature that attacked Myrtle. Even if Harry believed Hagrid had been framed, the Ministry of Magic wouldn't see it that way.
If what happened to Colin Creevey got out, the Ministry would most likely arrest Hagrid on the spot and throw him into Azkaban.
But on the way, Harry suddenly noticed Nearly Headless Nick drift out of a classroom.
When Nick blocked his path, Harry asked curiously, "What is it, Nick?"
Nick's behavior was unusually strange. Normally loud and carefree, he was actually a bit bashful now, floating in place and swaying awkwardly in midair.
But he couldn't hold back his excitement for long. His face lit up as he blurted,
"Harry! This Halloween will be my five-hundredth Deathday, and I'm throwing a party in a nice, spacious dungeon classroom. I really hope you'll come.
I mean, you're the biggest celebrity in the wizarding world right now. If you show up, my ghost friends will be insanely jealous!"
For ghosts—already dead, with almost no earthly desires left—being envied by other ghosts mattered more than anything.
Nick was Harry's friend. And when a friend made a reasonable request, Harry wasn't about to refuse.
Besides, this was attending a friend's birthday… Deathday.
Yeah, it sounded weird—but Harry still planned to go.
So he smiled and nodded. "Of course. I'll be there on time."
Nick practically vibrated with joy. "Oh, my dear boy! Harry Potter—coming to my Deathday party! Wonderful!
Also… could you tell Sir Patrick that you think I'm especially frightening? Like I really leave a deep impression on people?"
Ghost rivalries always surprised Harry. Competing over who was scarier was certainly a choice.
Still, he agreed. "Uh… s-sure."
After Nick floated off, Hermione asked with bright curiosity, "A Deathday party… I bet hardly any living people have ever been to one. It has to be fascinating!"
Ron looked baffled. "Why would they celebrate the day they died? That sounds kind of… cursed."
Harry spread his hands. He had no idea either.
If he ever died and ended up a spirit like the Ancient One, he'd definitely celebrate his actual birthday.
Right after that, he went to find Hagrid and told him about what happened to Colin.
The moment Hagrid heard it, his whole body jolted. A flicker of fear flashed across his face, and he looked at Harry with overwhelming gratitude, voice thick and unsteady.
"Thank you, Harry. If you hadn't told me, I'd probably get dragged off by the Ministry again. They don't care whether I'm innocent—they just want to wrap things up and go home.
Looks like I'll need to hide out in the Forbidden Forest for a while."
…
Time flew. Before Harry knew it, Halloween had arrived.
During that stretch, whenever Harry had free time, he wandered all over Hogwarts Castle, but he never found any trace of the basilisk again.
Then, right on schedule, he went to Nick's Deathday party—with Ron and Hermione tagging along, of course.
He had to admit: a banquet thrown by the dead was genuinely novel. Their decorating style went all-in on pure darkness.
Compared to the Great Hall upstairs—beautifully decorated and brimming with Halloween cheer—this dungeon classroom felt like another world entirely, steeped in eerie, chilling horror.
The candles were black, burning with blue flames, and even the music sounded like thousands of fingernails scraping against each other.
Hundreds of milky-white, half-transparent figures were already gathered inside. Some hovered in the air, some floated just above the floor, clustered in small groups and murmuring to one another. These were Nick's ghostly friends.
With Harry beside them, both Hermione and Ron felt inexplicably safe. The instant the strange, uncanny scene came into view, the two of them spoke in perfect sync:
"Awesome!"
Then the three of them started wandering around the ghost-filled dungeon classroom.
Every so often, they'd accidentally walk right through a ghost's body without warning, and an icy cold would rush through them in an instant—but aside from that, nothing really went wrong.
Suddenly, Hermione stopped, spun around sharply, and warned them,
"Oh no—Moaning Myrtle's up ahead. Turn around, turn around. I do not want to talk to Moaning Myrtle."
"Why?" Ron asked.
"She's always hanging around inside a toilet in the second-floor girls' bathroom. Even if ghosts can't actually smell, I still feel like she stinks."
Harry: "…"
Ron: "…"
After that, both boys instinctively took a step back.
But then Harry remembered that Myrtle was a victim from decades ago. She might know something about the Chamber of Secrets. So he forced himself to ignore his own discomfort and walked up to her anyway.
Myrtle had died at fourteen, so she still carried that childish immaturity—small, with the build of a young teenage girl.
If becoming a ghost didn't come with such unpredictable rules in the wizarding world, Harry suspected plenty of people obsessed with immortality would be willing to become one, no matter how awful the side effects were.
Harry stepped up beside Myrtle, let magic cling to his fingertip, and gently touched her sleeve. When she turned around, he greeted her with a smile.
"Hi, Myrtle. I'm Harry Potter."
When Myrtle saw it was Harry, her eyes lit up—especially when she realized he could actually touch her. She stared at him with intense focus and burst out excitedly,
"Hi, Harry! I'm Myrtle, and I'm your fan! I really, really like you!"
"Thanks," Harry said with a bright smile. "There's something I want to ask you. Um… can you tell me what you saw right at the end of your life?"
Myrtle's eyes gleamed. She didn't refuse—she even looked shy as she said,
"Sure… but I have one condition."
"What condition?"
"If you kiss me once, I'll tell you everything!"
Remembering what Hermione had just said—and looking at Myrtle right in front of him—Harry had never hated his own charm more.
Still, he nodded stiffly and forced a smile.
"Of course. But we should leave this place and go to another classroom. I'm a little shy doing it here."
Myrtle didn't suspect a thing. She nodded excitedly, licked her lips, and stared at Harry's mouth with blatant anticipation.
"Hurry, hurry! I can't wait!"
Once they reached a more secluded dungeon classroom, Harry obviously didn't kiss Myrtle.
Instead, he used illusion magic to weave a hallucination directly into her mind—simulating the scene of Harry kissing her.
After that, Harry finally got the information he wanted from her.
In her last moments, she saw a pair of bright, enormous eyes filled with malice—and then she lost consciousness completely.
That alone was enough to conclude that what killed Myrtle definitely wasn't one of Hagrid's creatures. It had been the basilisk.
Because even if an acromantula grew into a massive monster as an adult, when it was young it would've been only about a meter across.
That didn't qualify as "enormous eyes."
Afterward, at Nick's enthusiastic urging, Harry greeted the other ghosts and helped Nick gain a truly enviable amount of bragging rights.
…
Time continued to pass. After Christmas, Harry still searched for signs of the basilisk—yet found nothing.
But aside from the basilisk still hiding somewhere, Harry had made major progress on the group chat.
After asking Dumbledore, he learned that Dumbledore hadn't destroyed the Philosopher's Stone.
According to Dumbledore:
"Once I learned that creatures like dimension demons exist, I had a feeling a masterpiece like the Philosopher's Stone would be useful at some point. And look—here we are."
Thinking of how Dumbledore had winked at him playfully afterward, Harry shook his head with a laugh. Did powerful people like the Ancient One and Dumbledore all have a streak of childlike mischief now and then?
Still, it was a good thing the Stone was still around. Only then could Harry build the rough prototype of the group chat.
On the eighth floor, inside the Room of Requirement, Harry stared at the strange magical device in front of him.
It was basically a perfect cube. The outer layer was fashioned from the Potter family's Invisibility Cloak, while the core was the Philosopher's Stone.
Harry took a deep breath and activated the cube.
Dense runes flared across its surface, linking up with Hedwig.
Then a projected screen popped up in front of Harry—displaying a standard group chat interface.
With a flicker of thought, Harry typed a single character.
Harry: 1
A moment later, Audrey replied first.
Audrey: Wow, Harry, is this the group chat you were talking about? This is incredible!
And then Nami saw the chat panel appear in front of her too and immediately tried typing.
Nami: Yeah, it's seriously unbelievable! Hi, Audrey—Harry told me about you. I'm Nami. I'm the person whose body Harry borrowed in another world!
Audrey: Hi, Nami. I'm Audrey. I'm from the Potion world. What about you?
Nami: I'm from the pirate world!
…
Harry watched his two cash cows chat with an amused smile for quite a while before he lifted a hand and tapped lightly, closing the group chat.
Right now, the chat couldn't run without a stable energy source. It relied on him continuously feeding magic into it just to keep it functioning.
Harry guessed that ancient magic might be able to supply power in his place.
After all, ancient magic was a higher-quality force than ordinary wizarding magic.
After a long stretch of work, Harry successfully completed the first experiment of powering the group chat with ancient magic.
Satisfied, he left the Room of Requirement and headed back to the Gryffindor common room.
But just as he reached the seventh floor, he heard that familiar hissing again!
Only this time was different.
Now that he had fully analyzed Parseltongue, he could understand every word of the snake-speech.
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