"Why is there a coffin here?" Dudley's gaze sharpened. Although the light inside this room was dim, making it hard to see what that dark shape actually was, his instinct told him it was a coffin.
Could it be Slytherin's coffin?
Legend didn't seem to mention Salazar Slytherin's final outcome. Only that after a big argument with Gryffindor, he left Hogwarts, and afterward, there wasn't much news about him. Where he was buried after his death remained a mystery to this day. Many people interested in Hogwarts history had searched for traces of Slytherin, but all returned empty-handed.
At this moment, seeing the coffin here, Dudley's first thought was that it was Slytherin's own coffin.
Standing at the decayed doorway, Dudley stared at the coffin inside. That strange cold feeling became even more intense, making Dudley sense a hint of a dangerous aura.
Whatever's inside seems very dangerous.
After a moment's hesitation, Dudley didn't rashly push the door open and enter.
After a long while, Dudley walked toward the next room.
This room's door was sealed shut. Unlike the previous doors, this was an iron door. Dudley stood at the entrance observing briefly but didn't discover any abnormal phenomena. However, this iron door still aroused Dudley's doubts. He pressed his head against it, wanting to examine the patterns on the iron door more closely. He discovered the lines on the door didn't seem to be randomly engraved decorations but rather some kind of mysterious formation.
Dudley held his breath and leaned in closer to look.
Suddenly, he felt there seemed to be some movement inside the door.
"Someone there?" Dudley's expression changed dramatically.
This was a Chamber that had been sealed for a thousand years. How could there still be something alive inside?
The sound was very faint. If you were slightly farther away, you couldn't hear it.
After a moment's thought, Dudley pressed his ear against it, wanting to listen to what sound was actually inside.
One second, two seconds...
As time passed, Dudley soon captured a faint sound: huff, huff...
Like someone lying against the iron door, slightly panting.
Dudley's expression turned ugly, a moment of hair-raising terror washing over him. He hadn't felt this frightened in a long time. It was like returning to that strange world, surrounded by unknown, bizarre things, where one wrong move could mean death without a burial place.
"What exactly did Slytherin put here?" Dudley looked at the iron door with an ugly expression.
The first two rooms were still acceptable, but these last few seemed increasingly outrageous.
He fell silent for a moment and looked toward the last room.
There shouldn't also be some strange thing there...
Dudley walked step by step toward the final room.
Everything here was somewhat beyond his expectations.
Soon, Dudley reached the entrance of the last room. Different from before, this room actually had no door. What met Dudley's eyes was an extremely spacious cave, pitch-black inside.
Having learned from previous experiences, Dudley didn't dare to step inside. He had the light orb floating beside him fly in first.
Light fell, illuminating the entire cave. Only then did Dudley discover this was a natural giant karst cave. On the cave's ceiling were large stalactites, constantly dripping water that made soft, steady sounds. A faint mist hung in the air, making the entire cave hazy and obscuring what lay deep within.
"Is that a tree?" Dudley looked at the cave's depths, vaguely seeing a huge black shadow standing there, with many branch-like things hanging down.
Under spirit vision, what Dudley saw was also a tree's outline.
"I don't sense any magical aura. The curse seems to have disappeared here too," Dudley muttered softly whilst standing at the cave entrance.
At this moment, he really didn't want to enter anymore. He felt this place was full of strangeness. A wizard of Slytherin's level, even dead for a thousand years, Dudley didn't dare act too presumptuously on his territory now.
But since I'm already here...
Thinking this, Dudley felt it would be somewhat regrettable to just leave like this. This place could only be entered and examined with the help of the Trunsoest Brass Book. If he just left like this, who knew when he'd be able to come back next time?
After a moment's thought, Dudley ultimately decided to go in and look. At least to see whether that huge shadow was actually a tree or not.
I hope it's not what I'm thinking...
When Dudley thought of trees, an unpleasant feeling arose in his mind. He believed this was his spiritual intuition giving him hints, but he still couldn't recall anything. Obviously, that thing wasn't something the current Dudley could understand. It was best not to recall anything.
To know was to be polluted. And anything that could pollute Dudley was definitely not something simple.
After slowly entering the cave, a cool feeling hit him. It didn't make Dudley feel uncomfortable. Rather, his whole body felt refreshed.
"There are carvings." Dudley looked around, seeing traces of human carving on some stalactites. However, after a thousand years, the stalactites had grown back, erasing many traces of human activity and returning everything to a natural state. Only by looking carefully could one barely discover some.
"No traces of magic." What Dudley didn't expect was that this cave seemed extremely clean, without any traces of magic. If he didn't know where this place was, Dudley would probably think he'd arrived at some tourist attraction.
Continuing forward, Dudley soon reached the front of the huge shadow. It was indeed a tree. A large tree growing on stalactites. It had already grown together with the surrounding stalactites, as if fused with this place. Unclear whether who fused with whom, who devoured whom.
Below the large tree was a platform built from stalactites, with what seemed to be a human figure on it.
Dudley continued walking forward. The orb floating in the air also drifted ahead, soon revealing the situation below the large tree.
It was a well-preserved corpse wearing black wizard robes, lying flat on the stalactite platform. What surprised Dudley was that the corpse was face down.
How could there be a corpse here? Could it be Slytherin himself? Then who's inside that coffin from before?
As Dudley walked forward, he thought to himself.
Soon, Dudley reached the side of the stone platform, looking at the face-down corpse, wanting to find clues that could identify its identity.
Suddenly, a voice strangely appeared in Dudley's ear.
"Turn me over and look."